Hot on Chile

Even for Jesse Helms, the words were extreme. On a visit to Chile, the North Carolina Republican Senator accused U.S. Ambassador Harry Barnes of "planting the American flag in the midst of Communist activity." If President Reagan knew of the situation, Helms claimed, "he would send the Ambassador home." After returning to Washington last week, Helms charged that the State Department and Barnes were "trying to appease a bunch of leftists and Communists" by pushing for democratic reforms from the four-man military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet. Chile under Pinochet, said Helms, was moving toward "a stable, productive democracy."

The Senator's tirade was prompted by Barnes' presence at a funeral procession for Rodrigo Rojas de Negri, 19, a Chilean-born resident of Rockville, Md., who had been killed during a general strike against the Pinochet regime on July 2. While visiting a shantytown near Santiago, witnesses said, de Negri and a Chilean student were doused with gasoline and set on fire by uniformed men with grease-blackened faces. Riot police later tear- gassed the funeral march. The U.S. had urged Chile to investigate the murder, and last week the army announced that it had arrested 25 soldiers in the case.

This is not the first time that the State Department has bristled at foreign policy meddling by Helms, whose rhetorical bark outweighs his political bite. In 1984, when the Administration was successfully backing Moderate Jose Napoleon Duarte for the presidency of El Salvador, Helms loudly supported Far Right Candidate Roberto d'Aubuisson, who was reputedly linked to the country's death squads. More recently, Helms has assailed Mexican officials as being corrupt and dealing in drugs when State was trying to cool the cross-border feuding.

This time, however, the Reagan Administration decided that Helms had gone too far. Undercutting U.S. policy while visiting a foreign country is "indefensible," said Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American affairs. After Pinochet announced his intention to remain as President of Chile until 1997, Abrams argued that Helms might be "playing into the hands of the Communists" by supporting "an indefinite extension of military rule rather than a transition to democracy." Abrams said that he had approved Barnes' attendance at the funeral. State Department Spokesman Bernard Kalb pointedly described Barnes as "one of the most experienced and ablest of U.S. ambassadors."

To dispel Helms' notion that Reagan and the State Department might view the recent events in Chile differently, White House Spokesman Edward Djerejian declared, "Ambassador Barnes is carrying out the President's policy toward Chile."