The reason the CIA got involved in overthrowing Allende had nothing to do with falsely making Allende out to be an extreme socialist leader

Except we know it had everything to do with that, because, again, the Church Committee helpfully declassified a lot of the internal goings-on. We know that they libeled Allende as plotting a coup, and we know that he wasn't - or at least US intelligence had no evidence or even indication that he was.

Similarly with Trump today, the allegations are not that he has a sensible Russia policy (which he pretended to have, although of course that evaporated as soon as he left the campaign trail). The allegations are that he is a Russian agent, and that the Russian state is actively colluding with him to illegitimately intervene in US elections.

What we do know from all that has been publicly acknowledged so far is that the Russians helped put Trump in the White House,

That is an exaggeration bordering on libel. Russia sponsors some English-language outlets for dissidents, most of whom are pretty crackpot. When the US does that to other people, it's called promoting democracy and a pluralist media landscape (and lord knows the US could use both, though I'm not convinced that the Kremlin is the best place to go learn about them). Everything beyond that is conjecture and claims of the same apparent veracity as the blood libels against Allende.

Trump, of course, is no Allende, so it's not laughably idiotic the way the smears against Allende were. But US intelligence has enough of a history of smearing Russia that merely passing the giggle test just isn't enough. Boy who cries wolf and all that.

This means, getting back to the argument of Luis's post, that we cannot use historical interpretations of national interests to explain what the US is doing anymore. We must include Russian interests in that analysis,

Except, of course, that Trump did a 180 on all of his sensible Russia and Syria policy as soon as he no longer needed to beat the Democrats over the head with the utter, blithering idiocy that was Candidate Clinton's Syria and Russia policies. He's gone right back to a very, very conventional American position on these matters since the coronation. The most parsimonious explanation that fits all the facts is that his campaign did a little polling and figured out that the rysskräck wasn't playing well with their target demographics, and that's really all there is to it. Now, maybe there's an elaborate conspiracy involved that only the brave patriots at the CIA have been able to penetrate, and which they can't prove because it would compromise their highly placed sources in the GRU. Maybe.

Or maybe the mirrorshade brigade is as full of shit as they usually are, and using the excuse of state secrets to avoid having to cop to not having done their homework. As usually turns out to be the case on those occasions where the public gets to read long courtesy of a subpoena or a whistleblower.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

Family friends happened to escape the coup because the wife had an exhibition in Venezuela. They subsequently emigrated to the USA and became citizens. My wife went and stood with them as they took the oath. There were a few things they didn't quite understand about the USA. When they were registering to vote they asked where the Communist Party was. She had to explain that there was no sizeable Communist Party. I suppose they might have registered in the Peace and Freedom Party. It may have still been around back then, ('80s), but she suggested registering for the Democratic Party. Later I described the McCarthy era and the Hollywood Black List.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Whether Trump knew this and coordinated with Russia on this or not is immaterial, as is whether Russia could extort him to control like a low-level agent or not.

I can't parse this. You say it doesn't matter if the US president's policies are in the interest of another country ( and every change in policy creates winners and losers so that is true of all presidents all the time ) or if the president is outright remote controlled by another government. Is that your position?
So what about Reagan who won the presidency partly because Iran delayed the resolution of the hostage crisis? Does the same apply here? Can US behavior no longer be understood without including Iranian interests? What about Nixon and South Vietnam?

But context is important here. One of the problems with Allende, IMO, is that 'Communist', in the US vernacular of the time and really to this day, to some extent, meant 'Leninist' - people who did not believe in 'the will of the people' and who, once in power, never considered not using force to remain. Once they are in they have to be overthrown. Very few US citizens had much idea of what French or Italian Communists Parties were about, but they certainly were not seizing power and never relinquishing it. And in the USA being a Communist meant being blacklisted, etc. Perhaps one could get a job for Harry Bridges - if they were good at their job.

As best as I can tell, Allende never intended and was never in the position to usurp constitutional power by force and maintain his grip on power for life - though that was how he was portrayed and perceived by most US citizens. Chile had the oldest functioning representative democracy in South America and Allende won his election by getting the most votes. Chile's military, on the other hand, held attitudes that would have been quite appropriate in Franco's Spain. More than anything, Allende was naive, and that is what led to his death and the death of much of Chile's intellectual elite, of whom my friends had been two.  

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

From the 'epic' link above:

According to John Loftus, the former Justice Department Nazi hunter, the two men first came in contact in late 1945, when young naval officer Richard Nixon was shuttling up and down the East Coast, wrapping up war-related business for the Navy. While sifting through the military paperwork, Nixon came across eye-opening Nazi documents that had been shipped to an old torpedo factory on the Virginia side of the Potomac. Some of these documents revealed how the Dulles brothers had helped launder Nazi funds during the war. Loftus, citing confidential intelligence sources, alleged that Dulles and Nixon proceeded to cut a deal. "Allen Dulles," reported Loftus, "told him to keep quiet about what he had seen and, in return, [Dulles] arranged to finance the young man's first congressional campaign against Jerry Voorhis."

A juicy confirming tidbit.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."