HispanicBusiness

In 1971 President Richard Nixon and a Brazilian dictator contemplated supporting a military coup to overthrow Fidel Castro's Communist regime in Cuba, according to recently declassified "top secret" White House documents.

As part of those discussions, Nixon and Gen. Emilio Garrastazú Medici also considered lending support to another coup seeking to overthrow Chile's left-wing president, Salvador Allende, according to the Miami Herald.

The memo is then-National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger's account of a meeting between Nixon and Medici in December of 1971.

The document was declassified in September of 2008, but wasn't made public until July. On Sunday, it was posted on the Web site of the National Security Archive, a private research institute in Washington.

Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive, said although some of the details about Nixon's support for the Chile operation were already known, the documents reveal the extent of the "collusion and conspiracy" involved.

The memo said Medici brought up the topic of a group of men in Cuba who claimed they could overthrow Castro, and Nixon felt the United States should provide assistance.

Nixon "pondered this question and said he felt we should, as long as we did not push them into doing something that we could not support, and as long as our hand did not appear," the memo says.

As for the Chilean uprising, Kissinger's memo states, "If the Brazilians felt there was something we could do to be helpful in this area, he would like (Medici) to let him know. If money were required or other discreet aid, we might be able to make it available."

He added: "This should be held in the greatest confidence. But we must try and prevent new Allendes and Castros and try where possible to reverse these trends."