Edward Korry

Edward Korry   (diplomat)
Korry and JFK
Born	January 7, 1922
Died	January 29, 2003 (Age 81)
Nationality	US
Alma mater	Townsend Harris, Washington and Lee
Member of	Council on Foreign Relations/Historical Members
"Not a nut or bolt shall reach Chile under Allende. Once Allende comes to power we shall do all within our power to condemn Chile and all Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty"  United States Ambassador to Chile In office 16 October 1967 - 12 October 1971  United States Ambassador to Ethiopia In office 9 March 1963 - 22 September 1967

Edward Malcolm Korry was an American diplomat during the administrations of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. He was part of the campaign to destabilize Chile after President Salvador Allende was elected, although he later vehemently denied any knowledge of coup plans.

Career

Korry began his career as a journalist in 1947 serving as chief United Press correspondent at the United Nations, Bureau Chief for the Balkans, Germany and France and as Chief European Correspondent. He was the only American correspondent to cover the trial of Cardinal Mindszenty, Primate of Hungary in 1949. From 1954 to 1960 Korry served as the European Editor for Look Magazine.

In 1966, President Johnson requested that Korry author a new Africa Aid Policy for the United States. The report known as the "Korry Report" was implemented by the United States and the World Bank over the next quarter century.

He was U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia (1963-1967) and to Chile (1967–1971). Upon hearing the news that Salvador Allende had been elected president of Chile, he proclaimed that

“not a nut or bolt shall reach Chile under Allende. Once Allende comes to power we shall do all within our power to condemn Chile and all Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty".”
Edward Korry (1970) 

During the Allende administration, the U.S. under Nixon did implement an economic warfare policy toward Chile, taking many of the measures implied by Korry in this quote, including decreased economic aid, preventing access to loans, manipulating the copper market,counterfeiting the currency, and paying the opposition to sabotage the economy. The US plan culminated in the September 11th, 1973 coup that overthrew Allende, and resulted in the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

In 1972 and 1973, he was president of the Association of American Publishers, and later, he was president of the United Nations Association of the United States of America. Korry was also a founding director of the Committee for East-West Relations and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Denying coup participation

Korry was greatly embittered by widespread press reports, many of them by journalists who had been his friends during his reportorial career, to the effect that he had played an instrumental role in the military coup to depose and kill Allende, despite Korry's repeated public claims that he had known nothing of the CIA's plans, nor had he played any role in it.

When Senator Frank Church began investigating the U.S. and CIA role in plots to overthrow Allende, reports and documents from the Intelligence Committee depicted Korry as the "sponsor of a covert campaign against Allende,". Korry said the documents were taken out of context and mixed with half-truths and outright lies to create a "false view of history."

In 1981, The New York Times, in what Time magazine called a "2,300-word correction," wrote that although the CIA had attempted to orchestrate a military takeover in Chile, "none of this, it is now evident, was known to Ambassador Korry". This "correction" occurred while Korry was teaching a course on International Relations at Connecticut College in New London, CT.

Korry died from cancer on January 29, 2003 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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References

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