Salvador Allende

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Allende" redirects here. For other uses, see Allende (disambiguation).

In this Chilean name, the first or paternal surname is Allende and the second or maternal family name is Gossens.

Salvador Allende

Official portrait, 1970

28th President of Chile

In office

3 November 1970 – 11 September 1973

Preceded by

Eduardo Frei Montalva

Succeeded by

Augusto Pinochet

56th President of the Senate of Chile

In office

27 December 1966 – 15 May 1969

Preceded by

Tomás Reyes Vicuña

Succeeded by

Tomás Pablo Elorza

Member of the Senate

In office

15 May 1969 – 3 November 1970

Preceded by

Constituency created

Succeeded by

Adonis Sepúlveda Acuña

Constituency

Chiloé, Aysén and Magallanes

In office

15 May 1961 – 15 May 1969

Preceded by

Carlos Alberto Martínez

Succeeded by

Hugo Ballesteros Reyes

Constituency

Aconcagua and Valparaíso

In office

15 May 1953 – 15 May 1961

Preceded by

Elías Lafertte Gaviño

Succeeded by

Raúl Ampuero Díaz

Constituency

Tarapacá and Antofagasta

In office

15 May 1945 – 15 May 1953

Preceded by

Luis Ambrosio Concha

Succeeded by

Aniceto Rodríguez Arenas

Constituency

Valdivia, Osorno, Llanquihue, Chiloé, Aysén and Magallanes

Secretary of the Socialist Party of Chile

In office

January 1943 – July 1944

Preceded by

Marmaduke Grove

Succeeded by

Bernardo Ibáñez

Minister of Health and Social Welfare

In office

28 September 1939 – 2 April 1942

President

Pedro Aguirre Cerda

Preceded by

Miguel Etchebarne Riol

Succeeded by

Eduardo Escudero Forrastal

Member of the Chamber of Deputies

In office

15 May 1937 – 28 September 1939

Preceded by

Humberto Casali Monreal

Succeeded by

Vasco Valdebenito García

Constituency

Quillota and Valparaíso

Personal details

Born

Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens

26 June 1908

Santiago, Chile

Died

11 September 1973 (aged 65)

Santiago, Chile

Cause of death

Suicide by gunshot

Resting place

Cementerio General de Santiago

Political party

Chilean Socialist

Other political

affiliations

Popular Unity Coalition

Spouse

Hortensia Bussi

( 1940)

Children

Beatriz Allende (1942–1977)

Carmen Paz Allende (born 1944)

Isabel Allende (born 1945)

Relatives

Allende family

Alma mater

University of Chile

Profession

Medical doctor

Civil servant

Signature

Website

Salvador Allende Foundation

Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (US: /ɑːˈjɛndeɪ, -di/,[1][2] UK: /æˈ-, aɪˈɛn-/,[3] American Spanish: [salβaˈðoɾ ɣiˈʝeɾmo aˈʝende ˈɣosens]; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician,[4][5] who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973.[6] As a democratic socialist committed to democracy,[7][8] he has been described as the first Marxist to be elected president in a liberal democracy in Latin America.[9][10][11]

Allende's involvement in Chilean politics spanned a period of nearly forty years, during which he held various positions including senator, deputy, and cabinet minister. As a life-long committed member of the Socialist Party of Chile, whose foundation he had actively contributed to, he unsuccessfully ran for the national presidency in the 1952, 1958, and 1964 elections. In 1970, he won the presidency as the candidate of the Popular Unity coalition in a close three-way race. He was elected in a run-off by Congress, as no candidate had gained a majority. In office, Allende pursued a policy he called "The Chilean Way to Socialism". The coalition government was far from unanimous. Allende said that he was committed to democracy and represented the more moderate faction of the Socialist Party of Chile, while the radical wing sought a more radical anti-capitalist course. Instead, the Communist Party of Chile favored a gradual and cautious approach that sought cooperation with Christian democrats,[7] which proved influential for the Italian Communist Party and the Historic Compromise.[12]

As president, Allende sought to nationalize major industries, expand education, and improve the living standards of the working class. He clashed with the right-wing parties that controlled Congress of Chile and with the judiciary. On 11 September 1973, the military moved to oust Allende in a coup d'état supported by the CIA, which initially denied the allegations.[13][14] In 2000, the CIA admitted its role in the 1970 kidnapping of a top general who had refused to use the army to stop Allende's inauguration.[15][16] 2023 declassified documents showed that Richard Nixon and the United States government, which had branded Allende as a dangerous communist,[8] were aware of the 1973 Chilean coup d'état and its plans to overthrow Allende's democratically-elected government.[17]

As troops surrounded La Moneda Palace, Allende gave his last speech vowing not to resign.[18] Later that day, Allende died by suicide in his office;[19][20][21] the exact circumstances of his death are still disputed.[22][A] Following Allende's death, General Augusto Pinochet refused to return authority to a civilian government, and Chile was later ruled by the Government Junta of Chile, ending more than four decades of uninterrupted democratic governance, a period known as the Presidential Republic (1925–1973); the military dictatorship of Pinochet only ended after the successfully international-backed 1989 Chilean constitutional referendum led to the peaceful Chilean transition to democracy. The military junta that took over dissolved the Congress of Chile, suspended the Chilean Constitution of 1925, and initiated a program of persecuting alleged dissidents, in which at least 3,095 civilians disappeared or were killed.[24]

Early life[edit]

Salvador Allende Castro and Laura Gossens Uribe, the parents of Salvador Allende

Allende was born on 26 June 1908[25] in Santiago.[26][27] He was the son of Salvador Allende Castro and Laura Gossens Uribe. Allende's family belonged to the Chilean upper middle class and had a long tradition of political involvement in progressive and liberal causes. His grandfather was a prominent physician and a social reformist who founded one of the first secular schools in Chile.[28] Salvador Allende was of Basque[29] and Belgian descent.[30][31][32] In 1909 he moved with his family to the city of Tacna (then under Chilean administration), living there until 1916, since in that year he would move back to his country in the city of Iquique. In 1918 he studied at the National Institute of Santiago, and in 1919 to 1921 he studied at the Liceo de Valdivia. In 1922 he entered the Eduardo de la Barra school at the age of 16, studying there until 1924.[33]

As a teenager, his main intellectual and political influence came from the shoe-maker Juan De Marchi, an Italian-born anarchist,[28] in 1925 he attended the military service in the Cuirassier Regiment of Tacna.[33] Allende was a talented athlete in his youth, being a member of the Everton de Viña del Mar sports club (named after the more famous English football club of the same name).[34] In 1926 at the age of 18 he studied medicine at the University of Chile in Santiago and in 1927 was elected President of the Student Center. In 1928 he entered the Grand Lodge of Chile and in 1929 he was elected vice president of the Federation of Students of the University of Chile, (FECH). In 1930, he became the representative of the students of the School of Medicine.[33]

During his time at medical school Allende was influenced by Professor Max Westenhofer, a German pathologist who emphasized the social determinants of disease and social medicine.[35][36] In 1931 he was relegated to the North and expelled from the university. However, in that same year, he retook his sixth year of medical school and graduated at 23 years of age. In 1932 he began to practice his profession as an anatomo-pathologist in the Morgue of the Van Buren Hospital. He became the union leader of the Valparaíso doctors, becoming 1st Regional Secretary in Valparaíso. In 1935, at the age of 27, he was relegated to the city of Caldera for the second time, and in 1936 he was imprisoned in the Popular Front in Valparaíso. In 1937 he was elected Deputy of Valparaíso and Aconcagua and in 1938 he served as Undersecretary General of the Socialist Party of Chile.[33]

In 1933 Allende co-founded with Marmaduque Grove and others a section of the Socialist Party of Chile in Valparaíso[28] and became its chairman. He married Hortensia Bussi with whom he had three daughters. He was a Freemason, a member of the Lodge Progreso No. 4 in Valparaíso.[37] In 1933, he published his doctoral thesis Higiene Mental y Delincuencia (Crime and Mental Hygiene) in which he criticized Cesare Lombroso's proposals.[38]

Political involvement up to 1970[edit]

In 1938, Allende was in charge of the electoral campaign of the Popular Front headed by Pedro Aguirre Cerda.[28] The Popular Front's slogan was "Bread, a Roof and Work!"[28] After its electoral victory, he became Minister of Health in the Reformist Popular Front government which was dominated by the Radicals.[28] While serving in that position, Allende was responsible for the passage of a wide range of progressive social reforms, including safety laws protecting workers in the factories, higher pensions for widows, maternity care, and free lunch programmes for schoolchildren.[39]

Upon entering the government, Allende relinquished his congressional seat for Valparaíso, which he had won in 1937. Around that time, he wrote La Realidad Médico Social de Chile (The social and medical reality of Chile). After the Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany, Allende was one of 76 members of the Congress who sent a telegram to Adolf Hitler denouncing the persecution of Jews.[40] Following President Aguirre Cerda's death in 1941, he was again elected deputy while the Popular Front was renamed Democratic Alliance.

In 1945, Allende became senator for the Valdivia, Llanquihue, Chiloé, Aisén and Magallanes provinces; then for Tarapacá and Antofagasta in 1953; for Aconcagua and Valparaíso in 1961; and once more for Chiloé, Aisén and Magallanes in 1969. He became president of the Chilean Senate in 1966. During the 50's Allende introduced legislation that established the Chilean national health service, the first program in the Americas to guarantee universal health care.[41]

His three unsuccessful bids for the presidency (in the 1952, 1958 and 1964 elections) prompted Allende to joke that his epitaph would be "Here lies the next President of Chile." In 1952, as candidate for the Frente de Acción Popular (Popular Action Front, FRAP), he obtained only 5.4% of the votes, partly due to a division within socialist ranks over support for Carlos Ibáñez. In 1958, again as the FRAP candidate, Allende obtained 28.5% of the vote. This time, his defeat was attributed to votes lost to the populist Antonio Zamorano.[42] This explanation has been questioned by modern research that suggest Zamorano's votes came from across the political spectrum.[42]

Electoral system[edit]

Declassified documents show that from 1962 through 1964, the CIA spent a total of $2.6 million to finance the campaign of Eduardo Frei and $3 million in anti-Allende propaganda "to scare voters away from Allende's FRAP coalition". The CIA considered its role in the victory of Frei a great success.[43][44]

They argued that "the financial and organizational assistance given to Frei, the effort to keep Durán in the race, the propaganda campaign to denigrate Allende—were 'indispensable ingredients of Frei's success'", and they thought that his chances of winning and the good progress of his campaign would have been doubtful without the covert support of the Government of the United States.[45] Thus, in 1964 Allende lost once more as the FRAP candidate, polling 38.6% of the votes against 55.6% for Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei. As it became clear that the election would be a race between Allende and Frei, the political right – which initially had backed Radical Julio Durán– settled for Frei as "the lesser evil".

1970 election[edit]

Main article: 1970 Chilean presidential election

Allende was considered part of the moderate wing of the Socialists, with support from the Communists who favored taking power via parliamentary democracy; in contrast, the left-wing of the Socialists (led by Carlos Altamirano) and several other far-left parties called for violent insurrection. Some argue, however, that this was reversed at the end of his period in office.[46][B]

Allende won the 1970 Chilean presidential election as leader of the Unidad Popular ("Popular Unity") coalition. On 4 September 1970, he obtained a narrow plurality of 36.2% to 34.9% over Jorge Alessandri, a former president, with 27.8% going to a third candidate (Radomiro Tomic) of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC). According to the Chilean Constitution of the time, if no presidential candidate obtained a majority of the popular vote, Congress would choose one of the two candidates with the highest number of votes as the winner. Tradition was for Congress to vote for the candidate with the highest popular vote, regardless of margin. Indeed, former president Jorge Alessandri had been elected in 1958 with only 31.6% of the popular vote, defeating Allende.[48]

One month after the election, on 20 October, while the Senate had still to reach a decision and negotiations were actively in place between the Christian Democrats and the Popular Unity, General René Schneider, Commander in Chief of the Chilean Army, was shot resisting a kidnap attempt by a group led by General Roberto Viaux. Hospitalized, he died of his wounds three days later, on 23 October.[49] Schneider was a defender of the "constitutionalist" doctrine that the army's role is exclusively professional, its mission being to protect the country's sovereignty and not to interfere in politics.[50]

General Schneider's death was widely disapproved of and, for the time, ended military opposition to Allende,[51] whom the Congress finally chose on 24 October. On 26 October, President Eduardo Frei named General Carlos Prats as commander in chief of the army to replace René Schneider.[52] Allende assumed the Presidency on 3 November 1970 after signing a Statute of Constitutional Guarantees proposed by the Christian Democrats in return for their support in Congress. In an extensive interview with Régis Debray in 1972, Allende explained his reasons for agreeing to the guarantees.[53] Some critics have interpreted Allende's responses as an admission that signing the Statute was only a tactical move.[54]

Presidency[edit]

Main article: Presidency of Salvador Allende

"The Chilean Way to Socialism"[edit]

Upon assuming the presidency, Allende began to carry out his platform of implementing a socialist programme called La vía chilena al socialismo ("the Chilean Path to Socialism"). That included nationalization of large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking), and government administration of the health-care system, educational system (with the help of a United States educator, Jane A. Hobson-Gonzalez from Kokomo, Indiana), a programme of free milk for children in the schools and in the shanty towns of Chile, and an expansion of the land seizure and redistribution already begun under his predecessor Eduardo Frei Montalva,[55] who had nationalized between one-fifth and one-quarter of all the properties listed for takeover.[56] Allende also intended to improve the socio-economic welfare of Chile's poorest citizens;[57] a key element was to provide employment, either in the new nationalized enterprises or on public-work projects.[57]

In November 1970, 3,000 scholarships were allocated to Mapuche children in an effort to integrate the indigenous minority into the educational system, payment of pensions and grants was resumed, an emergency plan providing for the construction of 120,000 residential buildings was launched, all part-time workers were granted rights to social security, a proposed electricity price-increase was withdrawn, diplomatic relations were restored with Cuba, and political prisoners were granted an amnesty. In December 1970, bread prices were fixed, 55,000 volunteers were sent to the south of the country to teach writing and reading skills and to provide medical attention to a sector of the population that had previously been ignored, a central commission was established to oversee a tri-partite payment plan in which equal place was given to government, employees and employers, and a protocol agreement was signed with the United Centre of Workers which granted workers representational rights on the funding board of the Social Planning Ministry.[58]

An obligatory minimum wage for workers of all ages (including apprentices) was established,[59] free milk was introduced for expectant and nursing mothers and for children between the ages of 7 and 14,[60] free school-meals were established,[61] rent reductions were carried out, and the construction of the Santiago subway was rescheduled so as to serve working-class neighbourhoods first. Workers benefited from increases in social-security payments, an expanded public-works program, and a modification of the wage and salary adjustment mechanism (which had originally been introduced in the 1940s to cope with the country's chronic inflation), while middle-class Chileans benefited from the elimination of taxes on modest incomes and property.[62] In addition, state-sponsored programs distributed free food to the country's neediest citizens,[63] and in the countryside, peasant councils were established to mobilise agrarian workers and small proprietors. In the government's first budget (presented to the Chilean congress in November 1970), the minimum taxable income-level was raised, removing from the tax pool 35% of those who had paid taxes on earnings in the previous year. In addition, the exemption from general taxation was raised to a level equivalent to twice the minimum wage. Exemptions from capital taxes were also extended, which benefitted 330,000 small proprietors. The extra increases that Frei had promised to the armed forces were also fully paid. According to one estimate, purchasing power went up by 28% between October 1970 and July 1971.[64]

Minimum real wages and inflation[edit]

The rate of inflation fell from 36.1% in 1970 to 22.1% in 1971, while average real wages rose by 22.3% during 1971.[C][65] Minimum real wages for blue-collar workers were increased by 56% during the first quarter of 1971, while in the same period real minimum wages for white-collar workers were increased by 23%, a development that decreased the differential ratio between blue- and white-collar workers' minimum wage from 49% (1970) to 35% (1971). Central government expenditures went up by 36% in real terms, raising the share of fiscal spending in GDP from 21% (1970) to 27% (1971), and as part of this expansion, the public sector engaged in a huge housing program, starting to build 76,000 houses in 1971, compared to 24,000 for 1970.[65] During a 1971 emergency program, over 89,000 houses were built, and during Allende's three years as president an average of 52,000 houses were constructed annually.[66] Although the acceleration of inflation in 1972 and 1973 eroded part of the initial increase in wages, they still rose (on average) in real terms during the 1971–73 period.[67] Additionally, Allende government had reduced inflaction to 14% in the first nine months of 1971.[68]

Allende's first step in early 1971 was to raise minimum wages (in real terms) for blue-collar workers by 37%–41% and by 8%–10% for white-collar workers. Education, food, and housing assistance expanded significantly, with public housing starts going up twelvefold and eligibility for free milk extended from age 6 to age 15. A year later, blue-collar wages were raised by 27% in real terms and white-collar wages became fully indexed.[69] Price controls were also set up, while the Allende Government introduced a system of distribution networks through various agencies (including local committees on supply and prices) to ensure that shopkeepers adhered to the new rules.[70]

Agrarian and literacy reforms[edit]

The new Minister of Agriculture, Jacques Chonchol, promised to expropriate all estates which were larger than eighty "basic" hectares (about 200 acres). That promise was kept, with no farm in Chile exceeding that limit by the end of 1972.[71] Within eighteen months the Latifundia (extensive agricultural estates) had been abolished. The agrarian reform had involved the expropriation of 3,479 properties which, added to the 1,408 properties incorporated under the Frei government, made up some 40% of the total agricultural land area in the country.[64]

Particularly in rural areas, the Allende government launched a campaign against illiteracy, while adult education programs expanded, together with educational opportunities for workers. From 1971 to 1973, enrolments in kindergarten, primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools all increased. The Allende government encouraged more doctors to begin practising in rural and low-income urban areas, and built additional hospitals, maternity clinics, and especially neighborhood health-centers that remained open for longer hours to serve the poor. Improved sanitation and housing facilities for low-income neighborhoods also equalized health-care benefits, while hospital councils and local health councils were established in neighborhood health-centers as a means of democratizing the administration of health policies. The councils gave central-government civil-servants, local-government officials, health-service employees, and community workers the right to review budgetary decisions.[72]

The Allende government sought to bring the arts to the mass of the Chilean population by funding a number of cultural endeavours. With eighteen-year-olds and illiterates now granted the right to vote, mass participation in decision-making was encouraged by the Allende government, with traditional hierarchical structures now challenged by socialist egalitarianism. The Allende Government was able to draw upon the idealism of its supporters, with teams of "Allendistas" travelling into the countryside and shanty towns to perform volunteer work.[71] The Allende government also worked to transform Chilean popular culture through formal changes to school curriculum and through broader cultural education initiatives, such as state-sponsored music festivals and tours of Chilean folklorists and nueva canción musicians.[73] In 1971, the purchase of a private publishing house by the state gave rise to Editorial Quimantu, which became the center of the Allende Government's cultural activities. In the space of two years, 12 million copies of books, magazines, and documents (8 million of which were books) specializing in social analysis, were published. Cheap editions of great literary works were produced on a weekly basis, and in most cases were sold out within a day. Culture came into the reach of the masses for the first time, who responded enthusiastically. "Editorial Quimantu" encouraged the establishment of libraries in community organizations and trade unions. Through the supply of cheap textbooks, it enabled the Left to progress through the ideological content of the literature made available to workers.[64]

To improve social and economic conditions for women, the Women's Secretariat was established in 1971, which took on issues such as public laundry facilities, public food programs, day-care centers, and women's health care (especially prenatal care).[74] The duration of maternity leave was extended from 6 to 12 weeks,[75] while the Allende Government steered the educational system towards poorer Chileans by expanding enrollments through government subsidies.[76] A "democratisation" of university education was carried out, making the system tuition-free, which led to an 89% rise in university enrollments between 1970 and 1973. The Allende Government also increased enrollment in secondary education from 38% in 1970 to 51% in 1974.[77] Enrollment in education reached record levels, including 3.6 million young people, and 8 million school textbooks were distributed among 2.6 million pupils in primary education. An unprecedented 130,000 students were enrolled by the universities, which became accessible to peasants and workers. The illiteracy rate was reduced from 12% in 1970 to 10.8% in 1972, while the growth in primary school enrollment increased from an annual average of 3.4% in the period 1966–70 to 6.5% in 1971–1972. Secondary education grew at a rate of 18.2% in 1971–1972, and the average school enrollment of children between the ages of 6 and 14 rose from 91% (1966–70) to 99%.[64]

Social welfare and programs[edit]

Social spending was dramatically increased, particularly for housing, education, and health, and a major effort was made to redistribute wealth to poorer Chileans. As a result of new initiatives in nutrition and health, together with higher wages, many poorer Chileans were able to feed and clothe themselves better than ever before. Public access to the social security system was increased, and state benefits such as family allowances were raised significantly.[71] The redistribution of income enabled wage and salary earners to increase their share of national income from 51.6% (the annual average between 1965 and 1970) to 65% while family consumption increased by 12.9% in the first year of the Allende Government. In addition, while the average annual increase in personal spending had been 4.8% in the period 1965–70, it reached 11.9% in 1971.[64] During the first two years of Allende's presidency, state expenditure on health rose from around 2% to nearly 3.5% of GDP. According to Jennifer E. Pribble, the new spending "was reflected not only in public health campaigns, but also in the construction of health infrastructure".[78] Small programs targeted at women were also experimented with, such as cooperative laundries and communal food preparation, together with an expansion of child-care facilities.[79]

The National Supplementary Food Program was extended to all primary school pupils and to all pregnant women, regardless of their employment or income condition. Complementary nutritional schemes were applied to malnourished children, while antenatal care was emphasized.[80] Under Allende, the proportion of children under the age of 6 with some form of malnutrition fell by 17%.[60] Apart from the existing Supply and Prices councils (community-based bodies which controlled the distribution of essential groups in working-class districts, and were a popular, not government, initiative),[81] community-based distribution centers and shops were developed, which sold directly in working-class neighborhoods. The Allende government felt obliged to increase its intervention in marketing activities, and state involvement in grocery distribution reached 33%.[64] The CUT (central labor confederation) was accorded legal recognition,[82] and its membership grew from 700,000 to almost 1 million. In enterprises in the Area of Social Ownership, an assembly of the workers elected half of the members of the management council for each company. Those bodies replaced the former board of directors.[64]

Minimum pensions were increased by amounts equal to two or three times the inflation rate, and between 1970 and 1972, such pensions increased by a total of 550%. The incomes of 300,000 retirement pensioners were increased by the government from one-third of the minimum salary to the full amount. Labor insurance cover was extended to 200,000 market traders, 130,000 small shop proprietors, 30,000 small industrialists, small owners, transport workers, clergy, professional sportsmen, and artisans. The public health service was improved, with the establishment of a system of clinics in working-class neighborhoods on the peripheries of the major cities, providing a health center for every 40,000 inhabitants. Statistics for construction in general, and housebuilding in particular, reached some of the highest levels in the history of Chile. Four million square metres were completed in 1971–72, compared to an annual average of 2

+

1⁄2 million between 1965 and 1970. Workers were able to acquire goods which had previously been beyond their reach, such as heaters, refrigerators, and television sets. As further noted by Ricardo Israel Zipper, "By now meat was no longer a luxury, and the children of working people were adequately supplied with shoes and clothing. The popular living standards were improved in terms of the employment situation, social services, consumption levels, and income distribution."[64]

Economic policy[edit]

[83]

Chilean presidents were allowed a maximum term of six years, which may explain Allende's haste to restructure the economy. Not only was a major restructuring program organized (the Vuskovic plan), he also had to make it a success if a left-wing successor to Allende was going to be elected. In the first year of Allende's term, the short-term economic results of the economy minister Pedro Vuskovic's expansive monetary policy were highly favorable: 12% industrial growth and an 8.6% increase in GDP, accompanied by major declines in inflation (down from 34.9% to 22.1%) and unemployment (down to 3.8%). By 1972, the Chilean escudo had an inflation rate of 140%. The average real GDP contracted between 1971 and 1973 at an annual rate of a 5.6% negative growth, and the government's fiscal deficit soared while foreign reserves declined.[84]

The combination of inflation and price controls, together with the disappearance of basic commodities from supermarket shelves, led to the rise of black markets in rice, beans, sugar, and flour.[85] The Chilean economic situation was also somewhat exacerbated due to a US-backed campaign to fund worker strikes in certain sectors of the economy.[86] The Allende government announced it would default on debts owed to international creditors and foreign governments. Allende also froze all prices while raising salaries. His implementation of the policies was strongly opposed by landowners, employers, businessmen and transporters associations, and some civil servants and professional unions. The rightist opposition was led by the National Party, the Roman Catholic Church (which in 1973 was displeased with the direction of educational policy),[87] and eventually the Christian Democrats. There were growing tensions with foreign multinational corporations and the government of the United States.

Allende undertook the pioneeristic Project Cybersyn, a distributed decision support system for decentralized economic planning, developed by British cybernetics expert Stafford Beer. Based on the experimental viable system model and the neural network approach to organizational design, the Project consisted of four modules: a network of telex machines (Cybernet) in all state-run enterprises that would transmit and receive information with the government in Santiago. Information from the field would be fed into statistical modeling software (Cyberstride) that would monitor production indicators, such as raw material supplies or high rates of worker absenteeism, in "almost" real time, alerting the workers in the first case and, in abnormal situations, if those parameters fell outside acceptable ranges by a very large degree, also the central government. The information would also be input into an economic simulation software (CHECO, for CHilean ECOnomic simulator) which featured a Bayesian filtering and control setting that the government could use to forecast the possible outcome of economic decisions. Finally, a sophisticated operations room (Opsroom) would provide a space where managers could see relevant economic data, formulate feasible responses to emergencies, and transmit advice and directives to enterprises and factories in alarm situations by using the telex network.[88] In conjunction with the system, the Cybersyn development team also planned the Cyberfolk device system, a closed television circuit connected to an interactive apparatus that would enable the citizenry to actively participate in economic and political decision-making.

Allende raised wages on a number of occasions throughout 1970 and 1971, but the wage hikes were negated by ongoing inflation of Chile's fiat currency. Although price rises had been high even under Frei (27% a year between 1967 and 1970), a basic basket of consumer goods rose by 120% from 190 to 421 escudos in one month alone, August 1972. From 1970 to 1972, while Allende was in government, exports fell 24% and imports rose 26%, with imports of food rising an estimated 149%.[89] Export income fell due to a hard-hit copper industry; the price of copper on international markets fell by almost a third, and post-nationalization copper production fell as well. Copper is Chile's single most important export, as more than half of Chile's export receipts were from that sole commodity.[90] The price of copper fell from a peak of $66 per ton in 1970 to only $48–49 in 1971 and 1972.[91] Chile was already dependent on food imports, and the decline in export earnings coincided with declines in domestic food production following Allende's agrarian reforms.[92]

Foreign policy[edit]

In 1971, Chile re-established diplomatic relations with Cuba, joining Mexico and Canada in rejecting a previously established Organization of American States convention prohibiting governments in the Western Hemisphere from establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba. Shortly afterward, Cuban president Fidel Castro made a month-long visit to Chile. Originally, the visit was supposed to be one week; however, Castro enjoyed Chile and one week led to another. Despite his attitude of socialist solidarity, Castro was reportedly critical of Allende's policies. Castro was quoted as saying that "Marxism is a revolution of production", whereas "Allende's was a revolution of consumption."[93]

Socioeconomic and political tensions[edit]

In October 1972, the first of what were to be a wave of strikes was led first by truckers, and later by small businessmen, some (mostly professional) unions and some student groups. Other than the inevitable damage to the economy, the chief effect of the 24-day strike was to induce Allende to bring the head of the army, general Carlos Prats, into the government as Interior Minister.[85] Allende also instructed the government to commandeer trucks to keep the nation from coming to a halt. Government supporters also helped to mobilize trucks and buses, but violence served as a deterrent to full mobilization, even with police protection for the strike-breakers. Allende's actions were eventually declared unlawful by the Chilean appeals court and the government was ordered to return trucks to their owners.[94] Throughout his presidency, racial tensions between the poor descendants of indigenous people, who supported Allende's reforms, and the white elite increased.[95]

Throughout his presidency, Allende remained at odds with the Chilean Congress, which was dominated by the Christian Democratic Party. In 1964, Eduardo Frei had promised a "Revolution in Liberty", a middle-class revolution that was funded by the United States government's Alliance for Progress.[96] Frei carried out a series of progressive reforms, including land reform, an issue that had not been touched since Chile's independence in the early 19th century. According to historian Marian Schlotterbeck, this was "[John F.] Kennedy's vision — stave off the threat of communist revolution by improving standards of living across the continent". [97] The Christian Democrats had campaigned on a socialist platform in the 1970 elections but drifted away from those positions during Allende's presidency, and accused Allende of leading Chile toward a Cuban-style dictatorship and sought to overturn many of his more radical policies. They eventually forming a coalition with the National Party.[98]

Allende and his opponents in Congress repeatedly accused each other of undermining the Chilean Constitution and acting undemocratically. Allende's increasingly bold socialist policies (partly in response to pressure from some of the more radical members within his coalition), combined with his close contacts with Cuba, heightened fears in Washington. The Nixon administration continued exerting economic pressure on Chile via multilateral organizations and continued to back Allende's opponents in the Chilean Congress. Almost immediately after his election, Nixon directed CIA and U.S. State Department officials to "put pressure" on the Allende government.[99] His economic policies were used by economists Rudi Dornbusch and Sebastián Edwards to coin the term macroeconomic populism.[100] In 1972, Chile's inflation stood at 150%.[101]

Foreign relations during Allende's presidency[edit]

Salvador Allende took office in a difficult international context. Chile was aligned with the United States in 1970. Elsewhere in Latin America, Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia were ruled by conservative military dictatorships (soon to be joined by Uruguay). Colombia and Venezuela also had conservative, but democratically elected, governments. Only Cuba, Peru and Mexico viewed the Chilean socialist experiment with sympathy. Under Allende's presidency, Chile joined the Non-Aligned Movement, a position that was then almost unique in Latin America.[102]

Chile, which until then had been fussy about ideological boundaries, diversified its diplomatic and trade relations, regardless of the internal political regime of each country. The government established diplomatic relations with two Latin American countries (Cuba and Guyana), seven African countries (Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zaire), three European countries (Albania, East Germany and Hungary) and seven Asian countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, North Korea, China, Mongolia, South Vietnam and North Vietnam).[103]

It tried to promote Latin American integration. At the 1971 Latin American Economic and Social Council, the Chilean representative Gonzalo Martner García formulated four major proposals, summarized by the historian Jorge Magasich: "1) to ask the United States for a moratorium on external debt for a decade in order to allocate these sums to development policies; 2) to create a Latin American central bank to "invest Latin America's reserves, 70% of which are in the United States", to receive "the region's deposits and assets" and to coordinate the operations of the central banks in order to protect the region from financial turbulence; 3) Promote the creation of a global technology fund for development, fed by compulsory contributions of licenses, industrial processes and other funds for research, so as to limit the abuses associated with technological property; 4) Create a Latin American organisation for the development of science and technology appropriate to the region."[104]

He began negotiations with Bolivia over the historical dispute between the two countries (the latter having lost access to the sea since the War of the Pacific between 1879 and 1884) and welcomed Bolivia's maritime request. Nevertheless, relations became tense again following a coup d'état by Bolivian General Hugo Banzer in August 1971. At the same time, Chile granted asylum to thousands of political exiles from Latin American countries.[105]

Salvador Allende openly rejected the influence of the Organization of American States (OAS), a body close to the United States government, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which favored the interests of more developed countries. On the other hand, he was a fervent defender of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which he considered to be more representative since it allowed economic and trade issues to be negotiated on an equal legal footing. In a speech to UNCTAD, he also warned of the policy of the United States, Japan and the European Economic Community to progressively eliminate obstacles to free trade. He said that "freeing up trade ... erases at a stroke the benefits that the Generalised System of Preferences brings to developing countries".[106]

Allende's Popular Unity government tried to maintain normal relations with the United States. When Chile nationalized its copper industry, the United States government cut off support and increased its support to opposition. Forced to seek alternative sources of trade and finance, Chile gained commitments from the Soviet Union to invest some $400 million in Chile in the next six years. The United States Departement of State put it at $115 million from Eastern Europe and $65 million from China, while Soviet and Chilean Popular Unity sources put it at total of $620 million from socialist countries. Much of the credit was never utilized, and the Soviet were not willing to subsidize Chile the same way they did for Cuba.[107]

Allende's government was disappointed that it received far less economic assistance from the Soviets than it hoped for. Trade between the two countries did not significantly increase and the credits were mainly linked to the purchase of Soviet equipment. Moreover, credits from the Soviet Union were much less than those provided to the People's Republic of China and countries of the Eastern Bloc. When Allende visited the Soviet Union in late 1972 in search of more aid and additional lines of credit after three years, he was turned down.[108]

United States involvement[edit]

Main article: United States intervention in Chile

The United States opposition to Allende started several years before he was elected President of Chile. Declassified documents show that from 1962 to 1964, the CIA spent $3 million on anti-Allende propaganda "to scare voters away from Allende's FRAP coalition" and spent a total of $2.6 million to finance the presidential campaign of Eduardo Frei.[43][44]

The possibility of Allende winning Chile's 1970 election was deemed a disaster by the Nixon administration that wanted to protect American geopolitical interests by preventing the spread of Communism during the Cold War.[109] In September 1970, then United States president Richard Nixon informed the CIA that an Allende government in Chile would not be acceptable and authorized $10 million to stop Allende from coming to power or unseat him.[110] A CIA document declared, "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup."[111] Henry Kissinger's 40 Committee and the CIA planned to impede Allende's investiture as President of Chile with covert efforts known as "Track I" and "Track II"; Track I sought to prevent Allende from assuming power via so-called "parliamentary trickery", while under the Track II initiative, the CIA tried to convince key Chilean military officers to carry out a coup.[110]

Some point to the involvement of the Defense Intelligence Agency agents that allegedly secured the missiles used to bombard La Moneda Palace.[112] In fact, open US military aid to Chile continued during the Allende administration, and the national government was very much aware of that although there is no record that Allende himself believed that such assistance was anything but beneficial to Chile. During Richard Nixon's presidency, United States officials attempted to prevent Allende's election by financing political parties aligned with opposition candidate Jorge Alessandri and supporting strikes in the mining and transportation sectors.[113] After the 1970 election, the Track I operation attempted to incite Chile's outgoing president, Eduardo Frei Montalva, to persuade his party (PDC) to vote in Congress for Alessandri.[114]

Under the plan, Alessandri would resign his office immediately after assuming it and call new elections. Eduardo Frei would then be constitutionally able to run again (since the Chilean Constitution did not allow a president to hold two consecutive terms, but allowed multiple non-consecutive ones), and presumably easily defeat Allende. The Chilean Congress instead chose Allende as president, on the condition that he would sign a "Statute of Constitutional Guarantees" affirming that he would respect and obey the Chilean Constitution and that his reforms would not undermine any of its elements. Track II was aborted, as parallel initiatives already underway within the Chilean military rendered it moot.[115] During the second term of office of Democratic President Bill Clinton, the CIA acknowledged having played a role in Chilean politics before the coup, but its degree of involvement is debated. The CIA was notified by its Chilean contacts of the impending coup two days in advance but contends it "played no direct role in" the coup.[116]

Much of the internal opposition to Allende's policies came from the business sector, and recently released United States government documents confirm that the United States indirectly[86] funded the truck drivers' strike,[117] which exacerbated the already chaotic economic situation before the coup. The most prominent United States corporations in Chile before Allende's presidency were the Anaconda and Kennecott copper companies and ITT Corporation, International Telephone and Telegraph. Both copper corporations aimed to expand privatized copper production in the city of Sewell in the Chilean Andes, where the world's largest underground copper mine "El Teniente", was located.[118]

At the end of 1968, according to United States Department of Commerce data, United States corporate holdings in Chile amounted to $964 million. Anaconda and Kennecott accounted for 28% of United States holdings, but ITT had by far the largest holding of any single corporation, with an investment of $200 million in Chile.[118] In 1970, before Allende was elected, ITT owned 70% of Chitelco, the Chilean Telephone Company and funded El Mercurio, a Chilean right-wing newspaper. Documents released in 2000 by the CIA confirmed that before the elections of 1970, ITT gave $700,000 to Allende's conservative opponent, Jorge Alessandri, with help from the CIA on how to channel the money safely. ITT president Harold Geneen also offered $1 million to the CIA to help defeat Allende in the elections.[119]

After General Augusto Pinochet assumed power, United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told President Nixon that the United States "didn't do it" (referring to the coup) but "we helped them... created the conditions as great as possible".[120] Recent documents declassified under the Clinton administration's Chile Declassification Project show that the United States government and the CIA sought to overthrow Allende in 1970 immediately before he took office ("Project FUBELT"). Many documents regarding the United States intervention in Chile remain classified. Those who have been declassified showed that Nixon, Kissinger, and the United States government were aware of the coup and the plans to overthrow Allende's democratically elected government.[121][122]

Relations with the Soviet Union[edit]

Political and moral support came mostly through the Communist Party and unions of the Soviet Union. For instance, Allende received the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union in 1972. At the same time, there were some fundamental differences between Allende and Soviet political analysts, who believed that some violence or measures that those analysts "theoretically considered to be just", should have been used.[123] Declarations from KGB General Nikolai Leonov, former Deputy Chief of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, confirmed that the Soviet Union supported Allende's government economically, politically and militarily.[123] Leonov stated in an interview at the Chilean Center of Public Studies (CEP) that the Soviet economic support included over $100 million in credit, three fishing ships (that distributed 17,000 tons of frozen fish to the population), factories (as help after the 1971 earthquake), 3,100 tractors, 74,000 tons of wheat and more than a million tins of condensed milk.[123] In mid-1973, the Soviets approved the delivery of weapons (artillery and tanks) to the Chilean Army. When news of an attempt from the Army to depose Allende through a coup d'état reached Soviet officials, the shipment was redirected to another country.[123]

Allende is mentioned in a book written by the official historian of the British Intelligence MI5, Christopher Andrew.[124] According to SIS and Andrew, the book is based on the handwritten notes of KGB archivist defector Vasili Mitrokhin.[125] Andrew alleged that the KGB said that Allende "was made to understand the necessity of reorganizing Chile's army and intelligence services, and of setting up a relationship between Chile's and the USSR's intelligence services."[126] The Soviets observed closely whether the alternative form of socialism could work, and they did not interfere with the Chileans' decisions. Nikolai Leonov affirmed that whenever he tried to give advice to Latin American leaders, he was usually turned down by them, and he was told that they had their own understanding on how to conduct political business in their countries. Leonov added that the relationships of KGB agents with Latin American leaders did not involve intelligence because their intelligence target was the United States. Since many North Americans were living in the region, the Soviets were focusing in recruiting agents from the United States. Latin America was also a better region for KGB agents to get in touch with their informants from the CIA or other contacts from the United States than inside that country.[123]

Crisis[edit]

On 29 June 1973, Colonel Roberto Souper surrounded the presidential palace, La Moneda, with his tank regiment but failed to depose the government.[127] That failed coup d'état – known as the Tanquetazo ("tank putsch") – organised by the nationalist Patria y Libertad paramilitary group, was followed by a general strike at the end of July that included the copper miners of El Teniente.[citation needed]

In August 1973, a constitutional crisis occurred, and the Supreme Court of Chile publicly complained about the inability of the Allende government to enforce the law of the land. On 22 August, the Chamber of Deputies (with the Christian Democrats uniting with the National Party) accused the government of unconstitutional acts through Allende's refusal to promulgate constitutional amendments, already approved by the Chamber, which would have prevented his government from continuing his massive nationalization plan[128] and called upon the military to enforce constitutional order.[129]

For months, Allende had feared calling upon the Carabineros ("Carabineers", the national police force), suspecting them of disloyalty to his government. On 9 August, President Allende appointed General Carlos Prats as Minister of Defence. On 24 August 1973, General Prats was forced to resign both as defense minister and as the commander-in-chief of the army, embarrassed by both the Alejandrina Cox incident and a public protest in front of his house by the wives of his generals. General Augusto Pinochet replaced him as Army commander-in-chief the same day.[129]

Resolution by the Chamber of Deputies[edit]

On 22 August 1973, the Christian Democrats and the National Party members of the Chamber of Deputies joined to vote 81 to 47 in favor of a resolution that made accusation of disregard by the government of the separation of powers and arrogating legislative and judicial prerogatives to the executive branch of government, among other alleged constitutional violations.[130] The resolution asked the authorities to "put an immediate end" to "breach[es of] the Constitution ... with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of law and ensuring the Constitutional order of our Nation, and the essential underpinnings of democratic co-existence among Chileans."[131] The resolution declared that Allende's government sought "to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state ... [with] the goal of establishing ... a totalitarian system" and claimed that the government had made "violations of the Constitution ... a permanent system of conduct".[131]

Specifically, the government of Allende was accused of ruling by decree and thwarting the normal legislative system, refusing to enforce judicial decisions against its partisans; not carrying out sentences and judicial resolutions that contravened its objectives, ignoring the decrees of the independent General Comptroller's Office, sundry media offenses and usurping control of the National Television Network and applying economic pressure against those media organizations that are not unconditional supporters of the government, allowing its supporters to assemble with arms, and preventing the same by its right-wing opponents, supporting more than 1,500 illegal takeovers of farms, illegal repression of the El Teniente miners' strike, and illegally limiting emigration.[131] Finally, the resolution condemned the creation and development of government-protected socialist armed groups, which were said to be "headed towards a confrontation with the armed forces". President Allende's efforts to re-organize the military and the police forces were characterized as "notorious attempts to use the armed and police forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks".[131]

Allende's response[edit]

The resolution was later used by Pinochet a way to justify the coup, which occurred two weeks later.[132] On 24 August 1973, two days after the resolution, Allende responded. He accused the opposition of trying to incite a military coup by encouraging the armed forces to disobey civilian authorities.[133] He described the Congress's declaration as "destined to damage the country's prestige abroad and create internal confusion", and predicted: "It will facilitate the seditious intention of certain sectors." He observed that the declaration (passed 81–47 in the Chamber of Deputies) had not obtained the two-thirds Senate majority "constitutionally required" to convict the president of abuse of power, thus the Congress was "invoking the intervention of the armed forces and of Order against a democratically-elected government" and "subordinat[ing] political representation of national sovereignty to the armed institutions, which neither can nor ought to assume either political functions or the representation of the popular will."[134]

Allende argued that he had obeyed constitutional means for including military men to the cabinet at the service of civic peace and national security, defending republican institutions against insurrection and terrorism. In contrast, he said that Congress was promoting a coup d’état or a civil war with a declaration full of affirmations that had already been refuted beforehand and which in substance and process (directly handing it to the ministers rather than directly handing it to the president) violated a dozen articles of the then-current constitution. He further argued that the legislature was usurping the government's executive function.[134]

Allende wrote: "Chilean democracy is a conquest by all of the people. It is neither the work nor the gift of the exploiting classes, and it will be defended by those who, with sacrifices accumulated over generations, have imposed it ... With a tranquil conscience ... I sustain that never before has Chile had a more democratic government than that over which I have the honor to preside ... I solemnly reiterate my decision to develop democracy and a state of law to their ultimate consequences...Congress has made itself a bastion against the transformations ... and has done everything it can to perturb the functioning of the finances and of the institutions, sterilizing all creative initiatives." Adding that economic and political means would be needed to relieve the country's current crisis, and that the Congress was obstructing said means; having already paralyzed the state, they sought to destroy it. He concluded by calling upon the workers and all democrats and patriots to join him in defending the Chilean constitution and the revolutionary process.[134]

Coup[edit]

Main article: 1973 Chilean coup d'état

In early September 1973, Allende floated the idea of resolving the constitutional crisis with a plebiscite.[D] His speech outlining such a solution was scheduled for 11 September but was never able to deliver it. On that same day, the Chilean military under Pinochet, aided by the United States and its CIA, staged a coup against Allende,[136] who was at the head of the first democratically elected Marxist government in Latin America.[137] Historian Peter Winn described the 1973 coup as one of the most violent events in Chilean history.[138] It led to a series of human rights abuses in Chile under Pinochet, who initiated a brutal and long-lasting campaign of political suppression through torture, murder, and exile, which significantly weakened leftist opposition to the military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990).[139][140] Due to the coup's occurrence on the same date as the 11 September attacks in the United States, it has sometimes been referred to as "the other 9/11".[141][142][143]

Death[edit]

Main article: Death of Salvador Allende

"Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Keep in mind that, much sooner than later, the great avenues will again be opened through which will pass free men to construct a better society. Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!"

—President Allende's farewell speech, 11 September 1973.[18]

Just before the capture of La Moneda (the Presidential Palace), with gunfire and explosions clearly audible in the background, Allende gave his farewell speech to Chileans on live radio, speaking of himself in the past tense, of his love for Chile and of his deep faith in its future. He stated that his commitment to Chile did not allow him to take an easy way out, and he would not be used as a propaganda tool by those he called "traitors" (he refused an offer of safe passage), clearly implying he intended to fight to the end.[144] Juan Seoane, Chief of President Allende's Bodyguard at the time of the events –and who was with Allende until moments previous to his death– declared in a interview reported by the University of Chile: [145]

"Allende began to say goodbye to us one by one, he gave us a hug and told us ‘Thank you for everything, comrade, thank you for everything'”, and then he said that he was going to leave last. He walked to the end of the line with his AK, turned around behind a wall, and then he shouted, 'Allende doesn't surrender…!'. The shot was heard as fifteen meters from where we were". (Reports in El Tiempo and other Latin-American media confirmed Allende´s last words). [146]

Shortly afterwards, the coup plotters announced that Allende had been killed by them.[citation needed] An official announcement declared that the weapon he had used was an automatic rifle. Before his death he had been photographed several times holding an AK-47, a gift from Fidel Castro.[147] He was found dead with that gun, according to contemporaneous statements made by officials in the Pinochet regime. In an interview with David Frost, Allende's first cousin, Isabel Allende, said that, at a family lunch nine days before his death, Allende had said that he would either stay till the end of this term of presidency or he would be taken out feet first.[148] Lingering doubts regarding the manner of Allende's death persisted throughout the period of the Pinochet regime. Many Chileans and independent observers refused to accept on faith the government's version of events amid speculation that Allende had been murdered by government agents. Pinochet had long left power and died when in 2011 a Chilean court opened a criminal investigation into the circumstances of Allende's death.[149][150]

Palacio de la Moneda. A portion of the statue's drapery, shown worn as a cape, is the national flag of Chile.

The ongoing criminal investigation led to a May 2011 court order that Allende's remains be exhumed and autopsied by an international team of experts.[151] Results of the autopsy were officially released in mid-July 2011. The team of experts concluded that the former president had shot himself with an AK-47 assault rifle.[152] In December 2011 the judge in charge of the investigation affirmed the experts' findings and ruled Allende's death a suicide.[153] On 11 September 2012, the 39th anniversary of Allende's death, a Chilean appeals court unanimously upheld the trial court's ruling, officially closing the case.[154] The Guardian reported that a scientific autopsy of the remains had confirmed that "Salvador Allende committed suicide during the 1973 coup that toppled his socialist government."[151] It went on to say:

British ballistics expert David Prayer said Allende died of two shots fired from an assault rifle that was held between his legs and under his chin and was set to fire automatically. The bullets blew out the top of his head and killed him instantly. The forensics team's conclusion was unanimous. Spanish expert Francisco Etxeberria said: "We have absolutely no doubt" that Allende committed suicide.[151]

According to Isabel Allende Bussi, the daughter of Allende and a member of the Senate of Chile, the Allende family has long accepted that the former president shot himself, telling the BBC that: "The report conclusions are consistent with what we already believed. When faced with extreme circumstances, he made the decision of taking his own life, instead of being humiliated."[155][156] The definitive and unanimous results produced by the 2011 Chilean judicial investigation appear to have laid to rest decades of nagging suspicions that Allende might have been assassinated by the Chilean Armed Forces. Public acceptance of the suicide theory had already been growing for much of the previous decade. In a post-junta Chile where restrictions on free speech were steadily eroding, independent and seemingly reliable witnesses at last began to tell their stories to the news media and to human rights researchers. The cumulative weight of the facts reported by those witnesses provided factual support for many previously unconfirmed details relating to Allende's death.[157]

Family[edit]

Main article: Allende family

Well-known relatives of Salvador Allende include his daughter Isabel Allende Bussi (a politician) and his cousin Isabel Allende Llona (a writer).

Memorials[edit]

On the 30th anniversary of his death, an Allende Museum opened in Chile, and an Allende foundation has since managed his estate.[158]

South America[edit]

Chilean National History Museum

Memorials to Allende include a statue in front of the Palacio de la Moneda. The placement of the statue was controversial; it was placed facing the eastern edge of the Plaza de la Ciudadanía, a plaza which contains memorials to a number of Chilean statesmen. However, the statue is not located in the plaza, but rather on a surrounding sidewalk facing an entrance to the plaza. His tomb is a major tourist attraction. Allende is buried in the general cemetery of Santiago.[159]

There is a square in São Paulo, Brazil, named after Allende. In Nicaragua, the tourist port of Managua is named after him. The Salvador Allende Port is located near downtown Managua. The broken glasses of Allende were given to the Chilean National History Museum in 1996 by a woman who had found them in La Moneda in 1973.[160]

Europe[edit]

In 1984, a memorial stone dedicated to him was erected in the Gajnice neighbourhood of Zagreb.[161] There is a bronze bust of him accompanied by a memorial stone in the Donaupark in Vienna.[162][163] In Istanbul, a statue of Allende can be found side by side with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Ataşehir.[164]

European landmarks named after Allende include one of the major streets in the Karaburma neighborhood of Belgrade, an avenue linking the parishes of Caxias and Paço de Arcos in Oeiras, Portugal, a park in La Spezia, Italy, and a street in Sokol District, Moscow, which named after Allende soon after his death. A memorial plaque is also installed there. Further tributes include Salvador Allende Square [fr] in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, near the Chilean embassy, the Plaza de Salvador Allende square in Viladecans, near Barcelona, and the Salvador-Allende-Straße [de] avenue and a nearby bridge [de] in Berlin,[165] Streets in several other German cities, especially in former East Germany but also in the West, are named after Allenge, as is a street in Szekszárd, Hungary, and Allende Park in Budapest.[166] Allende Avenue (5th Avenue) in Harlow, Essex, was renamed to Zelenskyy Avenue in May 2023 in recognition of the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[167][168]

North America[edit]

In 2009, the Salvador Allende Monument, Montreal, was installed in Parc Jean-Drapeau. A residential street in Toronto has also been named after him.[169]

Africa[edit]

There is a street named after Allende in the capital city of Maputo, Mozambique.

Public perception[edit]

Main article: Public perception of Salvador Allende

Allende is seen as a significant historical figure in Chile. The former social-democratic president Ricardo Lagos honored Allende as a humanist and a statesman.[158]

Notes[edit]

1. ^ The precise matter of Allende's death is a subject of controversy. After decades of suspicions that Allende might have been assassinated by the Chilean Armed Forces, a Chilean court in 2011 authorized the exhumation and autopsy of Allende's remains. A team of international experts examined the remains and concluded that Allende had shot himself with an AK-47 assault rifle.[23]

2. ^ The Communist Party belonged to the moderate wing of the Unidad Popular coalition, while Allende's Socialist Party was split between two factions; the moderate vía pacífica and the radical vía insurreccional.[47]

3. ^ Quote from p. 195 – "Looking at the traditional macroeconomic variables, the first year of the UP Government achieved relatively spectacular results for the Chilean economy (see tables 7.7 and 7.8)".

4. ^ Allende's personal adviser, Juan Garcés, escaped the siege on the Moneda Palace and fled to Europe, where he published testimonies about the last days of the administration: "On September 10, Allende had assembled his ministers in an extraordinary council to finalize the call announcing the plebiscite."[135]

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Salvador Allende

Presidency of Salvador Allende

3 November 1970 – 11 September 1973

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Salvador Allende

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Popular Unity

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La Moneda Palace, Santiago

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Salvador Allende was the president of Chile from 1970 until his suicide in 1973, and head of the Popular Unity government; he was a Socialist and Marxist elected to the national presidency of a liberal democracy in Latin America.[1][2] In August 1973 the Chilean Senate declared the Allende administration to be "unlawful," Allende's presidency was ended by a military coup before the end of his term. During Allende's three years, Chile gradually transitioned into a socialist state.

During his tenure, Chilean politics reached a state of civil unrest amid political polarization, hyperinflation, lockouts, economic sanctions, CIA-sponsored interventionism and a failed coup in June 1973. Allende's coalition, Unidad Popular, faced the problem of being a minority in the congress and it was plagued by factionalism.[3]

On 11 September 1973, a successful coup led by General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the government of Allende. During the bombing of the presidential palace by the Chilean Air Force, President Allende, after mounting a brief armed resistance against the military, eventually died by suicide.[4] In Chilean historiography, Allende's presidency is the last one of the period known as the "Presidential Republic" (1925–1973).

Election[edit]

Main article: 1970 Chilean presidential election

In the 1970 election, Allende ran with the Unidad Popular (UP or Popular Unity) coalition. Succeeding the FRAP left-wing coalition, Unidad Popular comprised most of the Chilean Left: the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Radical Party, the Party of the Radical Left (until 1972), the Social Democratic Party, MAPU (Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitario) (in 1972, a splinter group – MAPU Obrero Campesino – emerged) and since 1971 the Christian Left.

Allende received a plurality with 36.2% of the vote. Christian Democrat Radomiro Tomic won 27.8% with a very similar platform to Allende's. Both Allende and Tomic promised to further nationalize the mineral industry and redistribute land and income among other new policies. Conservative former president Jorge Alessandri, standing for the National Party, received slightly under 34.9% of the vote.[5]

According to the constitution, Congress had to decide between the two candidates who had received the most votes. The precedent set on the three previous occasions this situation had arisen since 1932 was for Congress simply to choose the candidate with the largest number of votes; indeed, former president Alessandri had been elected in 1958 with 31.6% of the popular vote.

In this case, however, there was an active campaign against Allende's confirmation by Congress, including clandestine efforts to prevent him taking office, and his presidency was ratified only after he signed a "Statute of Constitutional Guarantees". This statute was suggested as a means to convince the majority of Christian Democrat senators that favoured Allessandri, as they doubted Allende's allegiance to democracy, or at least the UP's. After signing the statute, members of the Christian Democrat party in the Senate gave their vote in favor of Allende. It has been argued that given that less than the majority of the voters voted for him, Allende did not have a clear "mandate" to embark in the policies put forward on his program; however, it is also true that in the post-World War II period three out of the four previous presidents of Chile had, like Allende, also been elected with less than 50% of the vote, due in part to Chile's multi-party system. Specifically, the winners of the four presidential elections prior to Allende's 1970 election had won with: 56.1% (the 1964 election of Frei), 31.6% (the 1958 election of Alessandri), 46.8% (the 1952 election of Ibáñez) and 40.2% (the 1946 election of Gonzalez Videla). The legality of the 1970 election itself is not in dispute.[citation needed]

"The Chilean Way to Socialism"[edit]

See also: Chilean nationalization of copper, Chilean land reform, and Chilean university reform

In office, Allende pursued a policy he called "La vía chilena al socialismo" ("The Chilean Way to Socialism"). This included nationalization of certain large-scale industries (notably copper), of the healthcare system, continuation of his predecessor Eduardo Frei Montalva's policies regarding the educational system, a program of free milk for children, and land redistribution. The previous government of Eduardo Frei had already partly nationalised the copper industry by acquiring a 51 percent share in foreign owned mines. The primary U.S. business in Chile at this time was copper mining. The Chilean government sought to fully nationalize U.S. mining operations and the Chilean constitution required "just compensation" to be made according to "minimum international standards." However, the Allende government chose to hold mining companies liable for damages they caused to the state. Subsequently, Chile made significant deductions in computing the amount of compensation due to the North American industries. Such deductions included charges for "loans invested poorly" and "excessive profits" among other reasoning. "Excessive profits" were assessed dating back to the 1950s. Ultimately, deductions for "social and financial malfeasance" when combined with other deductions resulted in the total deductions greatly exceeding the base book values of the mining enterprises. In effect, compensation to three of the five nationalized mines was wholly eliminated by subjective deductions determined by Allende's government.[6] Allende also nationalized coal mining in 1971, a move that was welcomed by the miners of Lota.[7]

Chilean presidents were allowed a maximum of six years in office, which may explain Allende's haste to restructure the economy. He had a significant restructuring program organized.

At the beginning, there was broad support in Congress to expand the government's already large part of the economy, as the Popular Unity and Christian Democrats together had a clear majority. But the government's efforts to pursue these policies led to strong opposition by landowners, some middle-class sectors, the rightist National Party, financiers, and the Roman Catholic Church (which in 1973 was displeased with the direction of the educational policy[1][8]). Eventually the Christian Democrats united with the National Party in Congress.

The Popular Unity coalition itself was far from unanimous. Allende himself said he was committed to democracy and represented a more moderate faction of his Socialist Party. He was supported by the Communist Party, that—despite being ultimately less committed to representative democracy—favoured a cautious, gradual approach. For example, the Communists urged to find a compromise with the Christian Democrats and supported the application of reforms through Congress. In contrast, the radical leftist wing of the Socialist Party wanted to smash the capitalist system at once, even if that meant violent actions.[9] If one includes smaller parties, Allende's moderate left-wing line was supported by moderate Socialists, Communists, Radicals (Social Democrats merged with that party in June 1972) and part of the MAPU (later: MAPU/OC), whereas the left-wing Socialists (led by Altamirano), the extremist elements of the MAPU, of the Christian Left and the MIR (not belonging to the Unidad Popular) represented the far-left.

Allende believed in peaceful change, noting in 1972 that

My Government maintains that there is another path for the revolutionary process that is not the violent destruction of the current institutional and constitutional regime.

The entities of the State administration act today, not at the service of the ruling class, but at the service of the workers and the continuity of the revolutionary process; therefore, one cannot try to destroy what is now an instrument to act, change, and create for the benefit of Chile and its labor masses.

The power of the big bourgeoisie is not based on the Institutional regime, but on its economic resources and on the complex web of social relations linked to the capitalist property system.

We do not see the path of the Chilean revolution in the violent bankruptcy of the state apparatus. What our people have built over several generations of struggle allows them to take advantage of the conditions created by our history to replace the capitalist foundation of the current institutional regime with another that is adapted to the new social reality.

The popular political parties and movements have always affirmed, and this is contained in the Government Program, that ending the capitalist system requires transforming the class content of the State and of the Fundamental Charter itself. But we have also solemnly affirmed our will to carry it out in accordance with the mechanisms that the Political Constitution has expressly established to be modified.

The great question that the revolutionary process has raised, and that will decide the fate of Chile, is whether the current institutional framework can open the way for the transition to socialism. The answer depends on the degree to which it remains open to change and on the social forces that give it its content. Only if the state apparatus can be crossed by the popular social forces, will the institutionality have enough flexibility to tolerate and promote structural transformations without disintegrating.

Such a transcendental problem was posed crudely from September 4, 1970. The anti-capitalist social forces came to the Government through the regular functioning of the institutional regime. If it had been closed, at that moment the institutionality would have broken down and Chile would have been a victim of the violence unleashed.[10]

During its first year in office, the Allende Government achieved economic growth, reductions in inflation and unemployment, a redistribution of income, and an increase in consumption[citation needed]. The government also significantly increased salaries and wages, reduced taxes, and introduced free distribution of some items of prime necessity[citation needed]. Groups which had previously been excluded from the state labor insurance scheme (mainly the self-employed and small businessmen) were included for the first time, while pensions were increased for widows, invalids, orphans, and the elderly[citation needed]. The National Milk Plan affected 50% of Chilean children in 1970, providing 3,470,000 with half a litre of milk daily, free of charge.[11][12][text–source integrity?]

The land-redistribution that Allende highlighted as one of the central policies of his government had already begun under his predecessor Eduardo Frei Montalva, who had expropriated between one-fifth and one-quarter of all properties liable to takeover.[13] The Allende government's intention was to appropriate all holdings of more than eighty basic irrigated hectares.[14] Allende also intended to improve the socio-economic welfare of Chile's poorest citizens; a key element was to provide employment, either in the new nationalized enterprises or on public works projects.

Towards the end of 1971, Fidel Castro toured Chile extensively during a four-week visit.[15] This gave credence to the belief of those on the right that "The Chilean Way to Socialism" was an effort to put Chile on the same path as Cuba.

Economics[edit]

Chile real wages between 1967 and 1977. Orange lines mark the beginning and end of Allende's presidency.

The short-term economic results of Minister of Economics Pedro Vuskovic's expansive monetary policy were unambiguously favorable: 12% industrial growth and an 8.6% increase in GDP, accompanied by major declines in Chile’s long-endemic chronic inflation (down from 34.9% to 22.1%) and unemployment (down to 3.8%). In 1972 the Chilean escudo changed 140%. The average Real GDP contracted between 1971 and 1973 at an annual rate of 5.6% ("negative growth"), and the government's fiscal deficit soared while foreign reserves declined.[16][17] During this time, a shortage in basic commodities led to the rise of black markets which ended in late 1973 after Allende was ousted.[18]

In addition to the earlier-discussed provision of employment, Allende also raised wages on a number of occasions throughout 1970 and 1971. These rises in wages were negated by continuing increases in prices for food. Although price rises had also been high under Frei (27% a year between 1967 and 1970), a basic basket of consumer goods rose by 120% from 190 to 421 escudos in one month alone, August 1972. In the period 1970-72, while Allende was in government, exports fell 24% and imports rose 26%, with imports of food rising an estimated 149%.[19] Although nominal wages were rising, there was not a commensurate increase in the standard of living for the Chilean population.

The falls in exports were mostly due to a fall in the price of copper. Chile was at the mercy of international fluctuations in the value of its single most important export. As with almost half of developing countries, more than 50 percent of Chile's export receipts were from a single primary commodity.[20] Adverse fluctuation in the international price of copper negatively affected the Chilean economy throughout 1971-72. The price of copper fell from a peak of $66 per ton in 1970 to only $48–49 in 1971 and 1972.[21] In addition to the hyperinflation, the fall in the value of copper and lack of economic aid would further depress the economy.

Initially, the governing coalition expected the unearned wage increases and the consequent increase in government spending to be corrected once the 'structural changes' like nationalisation and agrarian reforms were completed. However, by June 1972, Allende was beginning to see the economic hazards. The minister of economy was changed and some austerity measures introduced, but to little avail.[22]

Amidst declining economic indicators, Allende's Popular Unity coalition actually increased its vote to 43 percent in the parliamentary elections early in 1973. However, by this point what had started as an informal alliance with the Christian Democrats[23] was anything but that. The Christian Democrats now leagued with the right-wing National Party and other three minor parties to oppose Allende's government, the five parties calling themselves the Confederation of Democracy (CODE). The conflict between the executive and legislature paralyzed initiatives from either side.[24] His economic policies were used by economists Rudi Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards to coin the term macroeconomic populism.[25]

Foreign interference and relations[edit]

See also: Fidel Castro's state visit to Chile

Argentina[edit]

Allende received the 1973 election of Héctor Cámpora, who had previously lived in exile in Chile, as good news. Allende sent in Aniceto Rodríguez to Buenos Aires to work on an alliance between the Socialist Party of Chile and the Justicialism. Later Allende assisted to the presidential inauguration of Campora. All of this was seen with good eyes by Juan Perón who came to refer to Allende as "compañero". However Perón also used Allende as a warning example for the most radical of his followers. In September just a few days before the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat he addressed the Tendencia Revolucionaria:

If you want to do as Allende, then look how it goes for Allende. One has to be calm.[26]

— Juan Perón

Perón condemned the 1973 coup as a "fatality for the continent" stating that the coup leader Augusto Pinochet represented interests "well known" to him. He praised Allende for his "valiant attitude" of committing suicide. He took note of the role of the United States in instigating the coup by recalling his familiarity with coup-making processes.[26]

Soviet Union[edit]

Salvador Allende's predecessor, President Frei, improved relations with the USSR. In February 1970, President Frei's government signed Chile's first cultural and scientific agreement with the Soviet Union.

Allende's Popular Unity government tried to maintain normal relations with the United States, but when Chile nationalized its copper industry, Washington cut off U.S. credits and increased its support to opposition. Forced to seek alternative sources of trade and finance, Chile gained commitments from the USSR to invest some $400 million in Chile in the next six years.

Allende's government was disappointed that it received far less economic assistance from the Soviet Union than it hoped for. Trade between the two countries did not significantly increase and the credits were mainly linked to the purchase of Soviet equipment. Moreover, credits from Soviet Union were much less than those provided by China and countries of Eastern Europe. When Allende visited Soviet Union in late 1972 in search of more aid and additional lines of credit, he was turned down.[27]

Allegations have been made in a book by Christopher Andrew, based on the handwritten notes of alleged KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, that Allende was connected to the KGB.[28] However, the belief that Allende was a KGB agent is not universal.

Declarations from KGB General Nikolai Leonov, former Deputy Chief of the First Chief Directorate of the State Security Committee of the KGB, state that the Soviet Union supported Allende's government economically, politically and militarily.[29] Leonov stated in an interview at the Chilean Center of Public Studies (CEP) that the Soviet economic support included over $100 million in credit, three fishing ships (that distributed 17,000 tons of frozen fish to the population), factories (as help after the 1971 earthquake), 3,100 tractors, 74,000 tons of wheat, and more than a million tins of condensed milk.[29]

In mid-1973, the USSR had approved the delivery of weapons (artillery, tanks) to the Chilean Army. However, when news of an attempt from the Army to depose Allende through a coup d'état reached Soviet officials, the shipment was redirected to another country.[29]

United States opposition to Allende[edit]

Main article: U.S. intervention in Chile

The United States opposition to Allende started several years before he was elected President of Chile. Declassified documents show that from 1962 through 1964, the CIA spent $3 million in anti-Allende propaganda "to scare voters away from Allende's FRAP coalition", and spent a total of $2.6 million to finance the presidential campaign of Eduardo Frei.[30][31]

U.S. President Richard Nixon, then embroiled in the Vietnam War and Cold War with the Soviet Union, was openly hostile to the possibility of a second socialist regime (after Cuba) in the Western Hemisphere. There was clandestine support by the U.S. government to prevent Allende from taking office after election: On 16 October 1970, a formal instruction was issued to the CIA base in Chile, saying in part, "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October, but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end, utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden".[32]

Regarding the botched attempted-kidnapping and manslaughter of Chilean Army Commander René Schneider on 22 October 1970 (Schneider was a constitutionalist opposed to the idea of a coup preventing Allende from taking office or removing him after the fact), the Church Committee observed: "The CIA attempted, directly, to foment a military coup in Chile. It passed three weapons to a group of Chilean officers who plotted a coup. Beginning with the kidnapping of Chilean Army Commander-in-Chief Rene Schneider. However, those guns were returned. The group which staged the abortive kidnap of Schneider, which resulted in his death, apparently was not the same as the group which received CIA weapons."[33] However, the group which killed Schneider had previously been in contact with the CIA. The agency later paid that group $35,000, according to the Hinchey report, "in an effort to keep the prior contact secret, maintain the good will of the group, and for humanitarian reasons".[34] CIA documents indicate that while the CIA had sought his kidnapping, his killing was never intended.[35] Public outrage over the killing of Schneider cooled sentiments for a coup,[1][35] and neither the U.S. nor Chilean military attempted other removal actions in the early years of the Allende administration. On 26 October, President Eduardo Frei Montalva (Salvador Allende was inaugurated 3 November) named General Carlos Prats as commander in chief of the army in replacement of René Schneider. Carlos Prats was also a constitutionalist.[36]

With Allende in office, the United States reduced economic aid to the Chilean government.

In 1973, the CIA was notified by contacts of the impending Pinochet coup two days in advance, but contends it "played no direct role" in the coup. After Pinochet assumed power, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told Nixon that the United States "didn't do it" (referring to the coup itself) but had "created the conditions as great [sic] as possible".[37]

Crisis[edit]

In October 1972, Chile saw the first of what were to be a wave of confrontational strikes led by some of the historically well-off sectors of Chilean society; these received the open support of United States President Richard Nixon. A strike by trucking company owners, which the CIA supported by funding them with US$2 million within the frame of the "September Plan", began on 9 October 1972.[33][38][failed verification] The strike was declared by the Confederación Nacional del Transporte, then presided by León Vilarín, one of the leaders of the far-right paramilitary group Patria y Libertad.[38] The Confederation, which brought together 165 trucking company business associations, employing 40,000 drivers and 56,000 vehicles, decreed an indefinite strike, paralyzing the country.

It was soon joined by the small businessmen, some (mostly professional) unions, and some student groups. Its leaders (Vilarín, Jaime Guzmán, Rafael Cumsille, Guillermo Elton and Eduardo Arriagada) expected to topple the government through the strike. Other than the inevitable damage to the economy, the chief effect of the 24-day strike was to bring the head of the army, general Carlos Prats, into the government as Interior Minister, as a sign of appeasement.[39] Carlos Prats had succeeded General René Schneider after his assassination on 24 October 1970, by two groups, General Roberto Viaux and General Camilo Valenzuela, who had benefitted from logistical and financial support from the CIA. Prats was a supporter of the legalist Schneider doctrine and refused to involve the military in a coup against Allende.

In March and July 1972, Allende and the Christian Democrats tried to forge a compromise. The moderate Party of the Radical Left, representing the UP coalition in March, held talks with the Christian Democratic Party over regulations of nationalized firms, but ultimately failed, as the minister of economy Pedro Vuskovic boycotted the negotiations and carried out legally dubious expropriations. As a result, the Radical Left also left the UP coalition,[9] hence the coalition lost 5 senators and 7 deputies.[13] In July, the resumed talks were almost going to succeed, until the more conservative elements within the Christian Democrat party managed to break off the negotiations. From that point on, the political life of the country was highly polarized between two opposing camps: the governing left-wing Unidad Popular and the right-wing opposition of Christian Democrats who were allied with the National Party, a vehemently right-wing opposition party.

Tanquetazo[edit]

Main article: Tanquetazo

Congressional resolutions[edit]

On 22 August 1973, the Christian Democrats and the National Party members of the Chamber of Deputies voted 81 to 47, a resolution that asked the authorities, in reference to "The President of the Republic, Ministers of State, and members of the Armed and Police Forces", to "put an immediate end" to "breach[es of] the Constitution...with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the Constitutional order of our Nation, and the essential underpinnings of democratic co-existence among Chileans". The resolution declared that the Allende Government sought "to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state ... [with] the goal of establishing a totalitarian system", claiming it had made "violations of the Constitution...a permanent system of conduct". Finally, the resolution condemned the "creation and development of government-protected [socialist] armed groups, which ... are headed towards a confrontation with the armed forces". President Allende's efforts to re-organize the military and the police forces were characterised as "notorious attempts to use the armed and police forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks".[40]

Most of the accusations were about the Socialist Government disregarding the separation of powers, and arrogating legislative and judicial prerogatives to the executive branch of government.[41] The resolution was later used by Pinochet a way to justify the coup, which occurred two weeks later.[42] On 24 August 1973, Allende responded point-by point to the accusations. He accused the opposition of trying to incite a military coup by encouraging the armed forces to disobey civilian authorities.[43] He said that Congress was "facilitat[ing] the seditious intention of certain sectors" and promoting a coup or a civil war by "invoking the intervention of the Armed Forces and of Order against a democratically elected government". He observed that the declaration had failed to obtain the required two-thirds majority constitutionally required to bring an accusation against the president and argued that the legislature was trying to usurp the executive role. He wrote that "Chilean democracy is a conquest by all of the people. It is neither the work nor the gift of the exploiting classes, and it will be defended by those who, with sacrifices accumulated over generations, have imposed it...With a tranquil conscience ... I sustain that never before has Chile had a more democratic government than that over which I have the honor to preside". He concluded by calling upon "the workers, all democrats and patriots" to join him in defense of the constitution and of the "revolutionary process".[44]

Final coup[edit]

Main article: 1973 Chilean coup d'état

In early September 1973, Allende floated the idea of resolving the crisis with a referendum. However, the Chilean military seized the initiative of the Chamber of Deputies' 22 August Resolution (which had implored Allende's military removal) to oust Allende on 11 September 1973. As the Presidential Palace was surrounded and bombed, Allende died by suicide.

See also[edit]

- Vuskovic plan - UP's economic policy

- Chilean nationalization of copper

- Death of Salvador Allende - controversy regarding his death

- Project Cybersyn

- Allendism - ideologies based on Allende's government

Contents

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- Death

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Witnesses

- Controversy

- Notes

- References

- External links

Death of Salvador Allende

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the controversy surrounding President Allende's death. For the coup that brought Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet to power, see 1973 Chilean coup d'état.

AKMS, similar to Allende's suicide weapon

On September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende, President of Chile, died from gunshot wounds during a coup d'état led by General Augusto Pinochet, commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army. After decades of suspicions that Allende might have been assassinated by the Chilean Armed Forces, a Chilean court authorized the exhumation and autopsy of Allende's remains in 2011. A team of international experts examined the remains and concluded that Allende had shot himself with an AK-47 assault rifle.[1] In December 2011, the judge in charge of the investigation affirmed the experts' findings and ruled Allende's death a suicide.[2] On September 11, 2012, the 39th anniversary of Allende's death, a Chilean appeals court unanimously upheld the trial court's ruling, officially closing the case.[3]

Isabel Allende Bussi, the daughter of Salvador Allende and a former member of the Senate of Chile, stated that the Allende family had long accepted that the former president shot himself. She told the BBC, "The report conclusions are consistent with what we already believed. When faced with extreme circumstances, he made the decision of taking his own life, instead of being humiliated."[4]

Carlos Altamirano, who was close to Allende, recalls that prior to the coup, Allende would have dismissed his suggestion to seek refuge in a loyalist regiment and fight back from there.[5] In Altamirano's words Allende also rejected the option "to do as so many dictators and presidents of Latin America, that is to grab a briefcase full of money and take a plane out the country."[5] Allende was an admirer of José Manuel Balmaceda, a Chilean president who died by suicide in face of his defeat in the Chilean Civil War of 1891. According to Altamirano, Allende was "obsessed with the attitude of Balmaceda."[5]

In an interview with David Frost in 2013, Isabel Allende said that at a family lunch nine days before his death, Salvador Allende had said that he would either stay until the end of this term of presidency or he would be taken out feet first.

Death[edit]

On September 11, 1973, just prior to the capture of Palacio de La Moneda (the presidential palace) by military units loyal to Pinochet, President Salvador Allende made his famous farewell speech to Chileans on live radio (Radio Magallanes). The president spoke of his love for Chile and of his deep faith in its future. He also stated that, as he was committed to Chile, he would not take an easy way out or be used as a propaganda tool by those he called "traitors" (accepting an offer of safe passage, like Carlos Altamirano). The radio address was made while gunfire and explosions were clearly audible in the background.[6]

Shortly afterwards, an official announcement declared that he had gone to war with an AK-47 rifle.[7] Allende's corpse was carried out of La Moneda Palace wrapped in a Bolivian poncho by soldiers and fire fighters.[8]

His body was sent to Hospital Militar arriving about 17:30. Among those present during the autopsy was one of Allende's former classmates in university.[9] The autopsy also recorded his death as a suicide.[10]

Allende's weapon had been given to him as a gift by Fidel Castro. It bore a golden plate engraved: "To my friend and comrade-in-arms, Fidel Castro."[11]

Official version[edit]

At approximately 1:50 PM local time, President Allende ordered the defenders of the La Moneda Palace to surrender. The defenders then formed a line from the second floor, down the stairs and onto the Morande street door. The president went along this queue, from the ground floor up the stairs, shaking hands and thanking everyone personally for their support in that difficult moment. At the end of the queue, Allende turned toward the Independence salon, located in the north-east side of the Palace's second floor.

At the same time, Dr. Patricio Guijón (a member of La Moneda's infirmary staff) himself decided to return upstairs to recover his gas-mask as a souvenir. He heard a noise, and opened the door of the Independence salon in time to see the president shoot himself with his AK-47.[12] From the other side of the salon and through an open door, Dr. José Quiroga,[13] Arsenio Poupin, a member of the cabinet, Enrique Huerta, a palace functionary, two detectives from the Presidential security detail, and some GAPs (Presidential Security) were able to see the moment of death, or arrive a few seconds afterwards, attracted by the noise.

"Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Keep in mind that, much sooner than later, the great avenues will again be opened through which will pass free men to construct a better society. Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!"

President Salvador Allende's farewell speech,

September 11, 1973.[14]

Witnesses[edit]

All sources seem to agree that at least the following witnesses were present:

- Dr. Patricio Guijón – member of the Presidential Medical Staff – Survived

- Dr. José Quiroga – member of the Presidential Medical Staff – Survived

- Arsenio Poupin Oissel – Presidential Advisor and member of the cabinet – Executed a few days later

- Enrique Huerta Corvalán – Palace Intendant (governor) – Executed a few days later

- David Garrido – Detective (Presidential Security Detail) – Survived

- Ricardo Pincheira – Detective (Presidential Security Detail) – Survived

- Pablo Manuel Zepeda Camillieri – GAP (Presidential Security) – Survived

Of these witnesses, only Guijón spoke about the events immediately after they happened, and was roundly vilified for doing so. Some sources misattribute Guijón's declarations to "Allende's personal doctor", Enrique Paris Roa, who was at La Moneda not in his professional role but as a member of Allende's cabinet. He does not appear to have made any such statement as he was executed shortly afterwards.[15] The other witnesses kept silent until after the restoration of democracy in Chile, as they believed (according to their own statements) that to corroborate the version of a suicide would in some measure downgrade Allende's sacrifice and lend support to the military regime.

Of the two doctors from the Moneda Palace infirmary who witnessed the suicide, Patricio Guijón made a statement at the time. However, Dr. José Quiroga only confirmed the details in 1999.[10][16]

Controversy[edit]

During the subsequent years of the Pinochet regime, there existed a legitimate controversy about whether plotters of the coup d'état had assassinated Allende. The definitive finding of suicide by international experts and the Chilean courts in 2011 seems to have put the controversy to rest. Almost all claims of an ongoing "controversy" regarding Allende's death seem to predate the 2011 investigations and the factual record left in its wake.

Fidel Castro, who had given President Allende the AK-47 used as the suicide weapon, provides an example of the speculation and political posturing that grew out of Allende's death and the Pinochet coup d'état. On 28 September 1973 (only two weeks after Allende's death), Castro told a Cuban crowd in Havana's Plaza de la Revolución that Allende had died in La Moneda wrapped in a Chilean flag, firing at Pinochet troops with Fidel's rifle. Over the coming decades, the Cuban leader would continue to make public addresses using this version of events. Castro's public statements formed the basis of Robinson Rojas' 1975 book The murder of Allende and the end of the Chilean way to socialism. Rojas asserted that the Chilean president had been killed by Pinochet's military forces while defending the palace.[17]

With the peaceful transition to democracy in Chile in 1990, the view that Allende died by suicide began to gain popular acceptance as different testimonies confirming the details of the suicide have become available in press and in documentary interviews.[10] Likewise, members of Allende's immediate family including his wife and his daughter, have never disputed that it was a suicide.[18] A further example of pre-2011 controversializing is found in Chilean doctor Luis Ravanal's 2008 article published in the magazine El Periodista stating that Allende's wounds were "not compatible" with suicide. Asked to comment on Dr. Ravanal's hypothesis, the Chilean congresswoman Isabel Allende, the President's daughter, said that the suicide version is the correct one.[19]

In late January 2011, a Chilean judge opened an investigation into the death of Salvador Allende together with hundreds of other possible human rights abuses committed during the 1973 coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power.[20][21][22] In May, Allende's remains were exhumed by order of a Chilean court in furtherance of a "criminal investigation into the death of Allende."[23] On May 31, 2011, before the court-ordered autopsy had been completed, Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN) reported that a top-secret military account of Allende's death had been discovered in the home of a former military justice official. The 300-page document was only found when the house was destroyed in the 2010 Chilean earthquake. After reviewing the report, two forensic experts told TVN "that they are inclined to conclude that Allende was assassinated."[24]

Results of the autopsy were officially released in mid-July 2011. The team of Chilean medical experts conducting and reviewing the autopsy results confirmed that Salvador Allende had died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.[25] The autopsy results indicated that Allende had died after shooting himself with an AK-47 received as a gift from Fidel Castro. The shots tore off the top of Allende's head, killing him instantly, because the rifle had been set to automatic fire.[23] The Guardian, a leading UK newspaper, reported that the "scientific autopsy" had confirmed that "Salvador Allende committed suicide during the 1973 coup that toppled his socialist government." According to The Guardian:[23]

British ballistics expert David Prayer said Allende died of two shots fired from an assault rifle that was held between his legs and under his chin and was set to fire automatically. The bullets blew out the top of his head and killed him instantly. The forensics team's conclusion was unanimous. Spanish expert Francisco Etxeberria said: "We have absolutely no doubt" that Allende committed suicide.

1973 Chilean coup d'état

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"11 de Septiembre" redirects here. For the date, see September 11.

1973 Chilean coup d'état

Part of the Cold War in South America

From top to bottom: the bombing of La Moneda on September 11, 1973, by the Chilean Armed Forces; a journalist and soldiers during the coup; and detainees and torture victims being detained at the National Stadium

Date

September 11, 1973

Location

Chile

Action

Armed forces put the country under military control. Little and unorganized civil resistance.

Result

Coup successful

- Popular Unity government overthrown

- Death of Salvador Allende

- Military Junta Government led by General Augusto Pinochet assumed power

Belligerents

Chile Chilean Government

- Popular Unity

- GAP

Revolutionary Left Movement

Other working-class militants[1]

Chilean Armed Forces

- Chilean Army

- Chilean Navy

- Chilean Air Force

- Carabineros de Chile

Supported by:

United States United States[2][3]

Commanders and leaders

Salvador Allende †

Max Marambio

Miguel Enríquez

Augusto Pinochet

José Merino

Gustavo Leigh

César Mendoza

Political support

Socialists

Communists

MAPU

Cuba

Nationals

Christian Democrats (parts)

Radical Democrats

Brazil Brazil[4]

Australia Australia[5]

United Kingdom United Kingdom[6]

Casualties and losses

46 GAP

60 in total during the coup

Operation Condor

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Events

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The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military overthrow of the Popular Unity government in Chile led by the democratic socialist Salvador Allende as president of Chile.[7][8] Allende, who has been described as the first Marxist to be democratically elected president in a Latin American liberal democracy,[9][10] faced significant social unrest, political tension with the opposition-controlled National Congress of Chile, and economic warfare ordered by United States president Richard Nixon.[11] On September 11, 1973, a group of military officers, led by General Augusto Pinochet, seized power in a coup, ending civilian rule. In 2000, the CIA admitted its role in the 1970 kidnapping of a top general who had refused to use the army to stop Allende's inauguration.[12][13] 2023 declassified documents showed that Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the United States government, which had branded Allende as a dangerous communist,[8] were aware of the coup and its plans to overthrow Allende's democratically-elected government.[14][15][16]

Following the coup, a military junta was established, and suspended all political activities in Chile and suppressed left-wing movements, particularly communist and socialist parties, such as the Communist Party of Chile and the Socialist Party of Chile, as well as the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). Pinochet swiftly consolidated power and was officially declared president of Chile in late 1974.[17] The Nixon administration, which had played a role in creating favorable conditions for the coup,[18][19][20] promptly recognized the junta government and supported its efforts to consolidate power.[21] During the air raids and ground attacks preceding the coup, Allende delivered his final speech, expressing his determination to remain at Palacio del La Moneda and rejecting offers of safe passage for exile.[22] Although he died in the palace,[23] the exact circumstances of Allende's death are still disputed.[24]

Chile had previously been regarded as a symbol of democracy and political stability in South America, while other countries in the region suffered under military juntas and caudillismo; the Chilean period prior to the coup is known as the Presidential Republic (1925–1973) era. At the time, Chile was a middle-class country,[25] with about 30% or 9 million Chileans being middle class.[26] The collapse of Chilean democracy marked the end of a series of democratic governments that had held elections since 1932.[27] Historian Peter Winn described the 1973 coup as one of the most violent events in Chilean history.[28] It led to a series of human rights abuses in Chile under Pinochet, who initiated a brutal and long-lasting campaign of political suppression through torture, murder, and exile, which significantly weakened leftist opposition to the military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990).[29][30] The internationally-supported 1989 Chilean constitutional referendum held under the military junta led to the peaceful Chilean transition to democracy. Due to the coup's occurrence on the same date as the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, it has sometimes been referred to as "the other 9/11".[31][32][33]

Political background[edit]

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Main article: Presidency of Salvador Allende

Allende contested the 1970 Chilean presidential election with Jorge Alessandri Rodriguez of the National Party and Radomiro Tomic of the Christian Democratic Party. Allende received 36.6% of the vote, while Alessandri was a very close second with 35.3%, and Tomic third with 28.1%,[34] in what was a close three-way election.[35] Although Allende received the highest number of votes, according to the Chilean constitution and since none of the candidates won by an absolute majority, the National Congress had to decide among the candidates.[36]

The Chilean Constitution of 1925 did not allow a person to be president for consecutive terms. The incumbent president, Eduardo Frei Montalva, was therefore ineligible as a candidate. The CIA's "Track I" operation was a plan to influence the Congress to choose Alessandri, who would resign after a short time in office, forcing a second election. Frei would then be eligible to run.[37] Alessandri announced on 9 September that if Congress chose him, he would resign. Allende signed a Statute of Constitutional Guarantees, which stated that he would follow the constitution during his presidency trying to shore up support for his candidacy. Congress then decided on Allende.[38] The U.S. feared the example of a "well-functioning socialist experiment" in the region and exerted diplomatic, economic, and covert pressure upon Chile's elected socialist government.[39][40][41] At the end of 1971, the Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro made a four-week state visit to Chile, alarming American observers worried about the "Chilean Way to Socialism".[42]

In 1972, Economics Minister Pedro Vuskovic adopted monetary policies that increased the amount of circulating currency and devalued the escudo, which increased inflation to 140 percent in 1972 and engendered a black market economy.[43] In October 1972, Chile suffered the first of many strikes. Among the participants were small-scale businessmen, some professional unions, and student groups. Its leaders – Vilarín, Jaime Guzmán, Rafael Cumsille, Guillermo Elton, Eduardo Arriagada – expected to depose the elected government. Other than damaging the national economy, the principal effect of the 24-day strike was drawing Army head, General Carlos Prats, into the government as Interior Minister, an appeasement to the right wing.[43] replacing General René Schneider, who had been assassinated (Schneider had been shot on 22 October 1970 by a group led by General Roberto Viaux, whom the Central Intelligence Agency had not attempted to discourage, and died three days later.) General Prats supported the legalist Schneider Doctrine and refused military involvement in a coup d'état against President Allende.[44]

Despite the declining economy, President Allende's Popular Unity coalition increased its vote to 43.2% in the March 1973 parliamentary elections; but, by then, the informal alliance between Popular Unity and the Christian Democrats ended.[45] The Christian Democrats allied with the right-wing National Party, who were opposed to Allende's government; the two right-wing parties formed the Confederation of Democracy (CODE). The internecine parliamentary conflict between the legislature and the executive branch paralyzed the activities of government.[46]

Allende began to fear his opponents, convinced they were plotting his assassination. Using his daughter[which?] as a messenger, he explained the situation to Fidel Castro. Castro gave four pieces of advice: convince technicians to stay in Chile, sell only copper for US dollars, do not engage in extreme revolutionary acts which would give opponents an excuse to wreck or seize control of the economy, and maintain a proper relationship with the Chilean military until local militias could be established and consolidated. Allende attempted to follow Castro's advice, but the latter two recommendations proved difficult.[47]

Chilean military prior to the coup[edit]

Prior to the coup, the Chilean military had undergone a process of de-politicization since the 1920s, when military officers had held cabinet positions. Subsequently, most military officers remained under-funded, having only subsistence salaries. Because of the low salaries, the military spent much time in military leisure-time facilities (e.g., country clubs) where they met other officers and their families. The military remained apart from society and was to some degree an endogamous group as officers frequently married the sisters of their comrades or the daughters of high-ranked older officers. Many officers also had relatives in the military.[48] In 1969 elements of the military made their first act of rebellion in 40 years when they participated in the Tacnazo insurrection. The Tacnazo was not a proper coup, but a protest against under-funding.[49] In retrospect General Carlos Prats considered that Christian Democrats who were in power in 1969 committed the error of not taking the military's grievances seriously.[50]

Throughout the 1960s, the governments of Brazil (1964), Argentina (1966), Peru (1968), and Bolivia (1969) were overthrown in US-backed coups and replaced by military governments.[51] In June 1973 Uruguay joined the coup d'état wave that swept through the region.[52] The poor conditions of the Chilean military contrasted with the change of fortune the military of neighboring countries experienced as they came to power in coups.[51]

During the decades prior to the coup, the military became influenced by the United States' anti-communist ideology in the context of various cooperation programs, including the U.S. Army School of the Americas.[48]

Crisis[edit]

See also: Tanquetazo

On 29 June 1973, Colonel Roberto Souper surrounded La Moneda presidential palace with his tank regiment and failed to depose the Allende Government.[53] That failed coup d'état – known as the Tanquetazo tank putsch – had been organized by the nationalist "Fatherland and Liberty" paramilitary group.

In August 1973, a constitutional crisis occurred; the Supreme Court publicly complained about the government's inability to enforce the law of the land. On 22 August, the Chamber of Deputies (with the Christian Democrats united with the National Party) accused the government of unconstitutional acts and called upon the military to enforce constitutional order.[54][46]

For months, the government had feared calling upon the Carabineros national police, suspecting them of disloyalty. On 9 August, Allende appointed General Carlos Prats as Minister of Defense. He was forced to resign both as defense minister and as the Army commander-in-chief on 24 August 1973, embarrassed by the Alejandrina Cox incident and a public protest of the wives of his generals at his house. General Augusto Pinochet replaced him as Army commander-in-chief the same day.[46] In late August 1973, 100,000[disputed – discuss] Chilean women congregated at Plaza de la Constitución to protest against the government for the rising cost and increasing shortages of food and fuels, but they were dispersed with tear gas.[55]

Resolution bv the Chamber of Deputies[edit]

On 23 August 1973, with the support of the Christian Democrats and National Party members, the Chamber of Deputies passed 81–47 a resolution that asked "the President of the Republic, Ministers of State, and members of the Armed and Police Forces" to "put an immediate end" to "breach[es of] the Constitution . . . with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the Constitutional order of our Nation, and the essential underpinnings of democratic co-existence among Chileans".[56]

The resolution declared that the Allende government sought "to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state ... [with] the goal of establishing a totalitarian system", claiming it had made "violations of the Constitution ... a permanent system of conduct". Essentially, most of the accusations were about the government disregarding the separation of powers, and arrogating legislative and judicial prerogatives to the executive branch of government. Finally, the resolution condemned the "creation and development of government-protected armed groups, which ... are headed towards a confrontation with the armed forces". President Allende's efforts to re-organize the military and the police forces were characterised as "notorious attempts to use the armed and police forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks".[56]

It can be argued that the resolution called upon the armed forces to overthrow the government if it did not comply,[57] as follows: "To present the President of the Republic, Ministers of State, and members of the Armed and Police Forces with the grave breakdown of the legal and constitutional order ... it is their duty to put an immediate end to all situations herein referred to that breach the Constitution and the laws of the land with the aim of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law".[58] The resolution was later used by Pinochet a way to justify the coup, which occurred two weeks later.[59]

Salvador Allende's response[edit]

On 24 August 1973, two days after the resolution, Allende responded. He accused the opposition of trying to incite a military coup by encouraging the armed forces to disobey civilian authorities.[60] He described the Congress's declaration as "destined to damage the country's prestige abroad and create internal confusion", and predicted: "It will facilitate the seditious intention of certain sectors." He observed that the declaration (passed 81–47 in the Chamber of Deputies) had not obtained the two-thirds Senate majority "constitutionally required" to convict the president of abuse of power, thus the Congress was "invoking the intervention of the armed forces and of Order against a democratically-elected government" and "subordinat[ing] political representation of national sovereignty to the armed institutions, which neither can nor ought to assume either political functions or the representation of the popular will."[61]

Allende argued that he had obeyed constitutional means for including military men to the cabinet at the service of civic peace and national security, defending republican institutions against insurrection and terrorism. In contrast, he said that Congress was promoting a coup d’état or a civil war with a declaration full of affirmations that had already been refuted beforehand and which in substance and process (directly handing it to the ministers rather than directly handing it to the president) violated a dozen articles of the then-current constitution. He further argued that the legislature was usurping the government's executive function.[61]

Allende wrote: "Chilean democracy is a conquest by all of the people. It is neither the work nor the gift of the exploiting classes, and it will be defended by those who, with sacrifices accumulated over generations, have imposed it ... With a tranquil conscience ... I sustain that never before has Chile had a more democratic government than that over which I have the honor to preside ... I solemnly reiterate my decision to develop democracy and a state of law to their ultimate consequences...Congress has made itself a bastion against the transformations ... and has done everything it can to perturb the functioning of the finances and of the institutions, sterilizing all creative initiatives." Adding that economic and political means would be needed to relieve the country's current crisis, and that the Congress was obstructing said means; having already paralyzed the state, they sought to destroy it. He concluded by calling upon the workers and all democrats and patriots to join him in defending the Chilean constitution and the revolutionary process.[61]

Preparations[edit]

In mid-July, a month before the resolution of the Chamber of Deputies, there was general agreement in the heart of the Army's high command on the desirability of terminating the Unidad Popular "experiment." How to do it was still nebulous. The constitutional generals, gathered around Army Commander-in-Chief General Carlos Prats, were facing pressure from an increasingly hardline anti-Allende faction within the Army. Prats had coined the idea of an Allende–Armed Forces government, including a "political peace treaty" with the Christian Democrats and restricted participation of the Chilean Communist party and a group of Socialists. Prats argued that "only thus will we prevent the extremist workers from rebelling." This idea had the support of Generals Joaquin Lagos Osorio, Herman Brady Roche, Washington Carrasco Fernandez, Hector Bravo Munoz, Mario Sepulveda Squella, Guillermo Pickering, and Orlando Urbina Herrera, but with variations. While Lagos Osorio and Urbina Herrera did not object to the Prats plan, the other five generals thought the Allende–Armed Forces government ought to be "transitional" and of "short duration," to prepare conditions for a "purely military government including the military police." The hardline faction, consisting of Generals Oscar Bonilla, Sergio Arellano Stark, and Javier Palacios formed another group, joined by Augusto Pinochet, which posited that the Allende–Armed Forces phase was not necessary.[62]

After Prats' resignation on 24 August caused by the Alejandrina Cox incident, the hardline anti-Allende, anti-constitutional faction that disregarded the Schneider Doctrine and opted for a full-fledged military coup, gained the upper hand in the Army leadership. The original members of the faction, Arellano (who later headed the infamous Caravan of Death) and Palacios (who on September 11 led the tank regiment that besieged La Moneda), were joined by Pinochet, Generals Mendoza, Leigh, Benavides and Admirals Merino and Carvajal. Constitutionalist General Urbina also joined the coup faction. Orlando Letelier, Allende's last Defense Minister, later wrote: "Urbina also joined Pinochet's double game and acted in terms of a great traitor. He had a reputation as an Allendista military man, but he had been Pinochet's classmate and even his confidant during the Unidad Popular government."[63]

At noon on Sunday, September 9, Pinochet, together with General Orlando Urbina, met with President Allende. The president requested that they draw up an emergency plan in the event of a coup riot. Pinochet promised to have it by the next day."[63]

On the day of the coup, the only high-ranking military officers to remain loyal to Chile's Constitution were Admiral Montero of the Navy and General Sepúlveda of the Carabineros.

Foreign involvement[edit]

United States[edit]

See also: U.S. intervention in Chile § 1973 coup

"Like Caesar peering into the colonies from distant Rome, Nixon said the choice of government by the Chileans was unacceptable to the president of the United States. The attitude in the White House seemed to be, "If in the wake of Vietnam I can no longer send in the Marines, then I will send in the CIA."—Senator Frank Church, 1976[64][65]

Many people in different parts of the world immediately suspected the U.S. of foul play. In early newspaper reports, the U.S. denied any involvement or previous knowledge of the coup.[66][67] Prompted by an incriminating New York Times article, the U.S. Senate opened an investigation into U.S. interference in Chile.[67] A report prepared by the United States Intelligence Community in 2000, at the direction of the National Intelligence Council, that echoed the Church committee, states that:

Although CIA did not instigate the coup that ended Allende's government on 11 September 1973, it was aware of coup-plotting by the military, had ongoing intelligence collection relationships with some plotters, and—because CIA did not discourage the takeover and had sought to instigate a coup in 1970—probably appeared to condone it.

The report stated that the CIA "actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende but did not assist Pinochet to assume the Presidency."[68] After a review of recordings of telephone conversations between Nixon and Henry Kissinger, Robert Dallek concluded that both of them used the CIA to actively destabilize the Allende government. In one particular conversation about the news of Allende's overthrow, Kissinger complained about the lack of recognition of the American role in the overthrow of a "communist" government, upon which Nixon remarked, "Well, we didn't – as you know – our hand doesn't show on this one."[69] A later CIA report contended that US agents maintained close ties with the Chilean military to collect intelligence but no effort was made to assist them and "under no circumstances attempted to influence them."[70]

Historian Peter Winn found "extensive evidence" of United States complicity in the coup. He states that its covert support was crucial to engineering the coup, as well as for the consolidation of power by the Pinochet regime following the takeover. Winn documents an extensive CIA operation to fabricate reports of a coup against Allende, as justification for the imposition of military rule.[18] Peter Kornbluh asserts that the CIA destabilized Chile and helped create the conditions for the coup, citing documents declassified by the Clinton administration.[71] Other authors point to the involvement of the Defense Intelligence Agency, agents of which allegedly secured the missiles used to bombard the La Moneda Palace.[72]

The U.S. Government's hostility to the election of Allende in 1970 in Chile was substantiated in documents declassified during the Clinton administration, which show that CIA covert operatives were inserted in Chile in order to prevent a Marxist government from arising and for the purpose of spreading anti-Allende propaganda.[73] As described in the Church Committee report, the CIA was involved in multiple plots designed to remove Allende and then let the Chileans vote in a new election where he would not be a candidate. The first, non-military, approach involved attempting a constitutional coup. This was known as the Track I approach, in which the CIA, with the approval of the 40 Committee, attempted to bribe the Chilean legislature, tried to influence public opinion against Allende, and provided funding to strikes designed to coerce him into resigning. It also attempted to get congress to confirm Jorge Alessandri as the winner of the presidential election. Alessandri, who was an accessory to the conspiracy, was ready to then resign and call for fresh elections. This approach completely failed in 1970 and was not attempted again.

The other approach of the CIA in 1970 (but not later), also known as the Track II approach, was an attempt to encourage a military coup by creating a climate of crisis across the country. A CIA telegram sent to the Chile station on October 16, 1970, stated:

It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden."[74]

False flag operatives contacted senior Chilean military officers and informed them that the U.S. would actively support a coup, but would revoke all military aid if such a coup did not happen.[71] In addition, the CIA gave extensive support for black propaganda against Allende, channeled mostly through El Mercurio. Financial assistance was also given to Allende's political opponents, and for organizing strikes and unrest to destabilize the government. By 1970, the U.S. manufacturing company ITT Corporation owned 70% of Chitelco (the Chilean Telephone Company), and also funded El Mercurio. The CIA used ITT as a means of disguising the source of the illegitimate funding Allende's opponents received.[75][76][77] On 28 September 1973, the Weather Underground bombed ITT's headquarters in New York City in retaliation.[78][79]

According to an article written by lifelong CIA operative Jack Devine, although it was widely reported that the CIA was directly involved in orchestrating and carrying out the coup, subsequently released sources suggest a much reduced role of the US government.[80]

United Kingdom[edit]

In September 2020, Declassified UK revealed that the UK government had interfered in Chile's democracy as well:

Under the Labour government of Harold Wilson (1964–1970), a secret Foreign Office unit initiated a propaganda offensive in Chile aiming to prevent Allende, Chile's leading socialist figure, winning power in two presidential elections, in 1964 and 1970.

The unit – the Information Research Department (IRD) – gathered information designed to damage Allende and lend legitimacy to his political opponents, and distributed material to influential figures within Chilean society.

The IRD also shared intelligence about left-wing activity in the country with the US government. British officials in Santiago assisted a CIA-funded media organisation which was part of extensive US covert action to overthrow Allende, culminating in the 1973 coup.[6]

Australia[edit]

An Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) station was established in Chile at the Australian embassy in July 1971 at the request of the CIA and authorised by then Liberal Party Foreign Minister William McMahon. Newly elected Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was informed of the operation in February 1973 and signed a document ordering the closure of the operation several weeks later. It appears, however, the last ASIS agent did not leave Chile until October 1973, one month after the coup d'état had brought down the Allende Government. There were also two officers of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Australia's internal security service, who were based in Santiago working as migration officers during this period.[81][82] The failure of timely closure of Australia's covert operations was one of the reasons for the sacking of the Director of ASIS on 21 October 1975. This took effect on 7 November, just four days before Prime Minister's Whitlam's own dismissal in the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis with allegations of CIA political interference.[83]

In June 2021, Clinton Fernandes, a former intelligence analyst, announced that he was trying to confirm the rumours of Australia's involvement in the coup by fighting for the declassification of key documents.[84] On 10 September 2021, the day before the 48th anniversary of the coup, declassified documents confirmed that McMahon did indeed approve the CIA's request to conduct covert operations in Chile. According to the files, ASIS set up a surveillance unit in Santiago as part of the wider CIA campaign to discredit the Allende government. [5]

Military action[edit]

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By 7:00 am on 11 September 1973, a date chosen to match a historical 1924 coup, the Navy captured Valparaíso, strategically stationing ships and marine infantry in the central coast and closed radio and television networks. The Province Prefect informed President Allende of the Navy's actions; immediately, the president went to the presidential palace with his bodyguards, the "Group of Personal Friends" (GAP). By 8:00 am, the Army had closed most radio and television stations in Santiago city; the Air Force bombed the remaining active stations; the President received incomplete information and was convinced that only a sector of the Navy conspired against him and his government.

President Allende and Defense Minister Orlando Letelier were unable to communicate with military leaders. Admiral Montero, the Navy's commander and an Allende loyalist, was rendered incommunicado; his telephone service was cut, and his cars were sabotaged before the coup d'état, to ensure he could not thwart the opposition. Leadership of the Navy was transferred to José Toribio Merino, planner of the coup d'état and executive officer to Adm. Montero. Augusto Pinochet, General of the Army, and Gustavo Leigh, General of the Air Force, did not answer Allende's telephone calls to them. The General Director of the Carabineros (uniformed police), José María Sepúlveda, and the head of the Investigations Police (plain clothes detectives), Alfredo Joignant answered Allende's calls and immediately went to the La Moneda presidential palace. When Defense Minister Letelier arrived at the Ministry of Defense, controlled by Adm. Patricio Carvajal, he was arrested as the first prisoner of the coup d'état.

Despite evidence that all branches of the Chilean armed forces were involved in the coup, Allende hoped that some units remained loyal to the government. Allende was convinced of Pinochet's loyalty, telling a reporter that the coup d'état leaders must have imprisoned the general. Only at 8:30 am, when the armed forces declared their control of Chile and that Allende was deposed, did the president grasp the magnitude of the military's rebellion. Despite the lack of any military support, Allende refused to resign his office.

At approx. 9:00 the carabineros of the La Moneda left the building.[85] By 9:00 am, the armed forces controlled Chile, except for the city centre of the capital, Santiago. Allende refused to surrender, despite the military's declaring they would bomb the La Moneda presidential palace if he resisted being deposed. The Socialist Party along with his Cuban advisors proposed to Allende that he escape to the San Joaquín industrial zone in southern Santiago, to later re-group and lead a counter-coup d'état; the president rejected the proposition. According to Tanya Harmer, Allende's refusal to lead an insurgency against the coup is evidence of his unrelenting desire to bring about change through non-violent methods.[86] The military attempted negotiations with Allende, but the President refused to resign, citing his constitutional duty to remain in office. Finally, Allende gave a farewell speech, telling the nation of the coup d'état and his refusal to resign his elected office under threat.

Leigh ordered the presidential palace bombed but was told the Air Force's Hawker Hunter jet aircraft would take forty minutes to arrive. Pinochet ordered an armoured and infantry force under General Sergio Arellano to advance upon the La Moneda presidential palace. When the troops moved forward, they were forced to retreat after coming under fire from GAP snipers perched on rooftops. General Arellano called for helicopter gunship support from the commander of the Chilean Army Puma helicopter squadron and the troops were able to advance again.[87] Chilean Air Force aircraft soon arrived to provide close air support for the assault (by bombing the Palace), but the defenders did not surrender until nearly 2:30 pm.[88] First reports said the 65-year-old president had died fighting troops, but later police sources reported he had committed suicide.

Casualties[edit]

Main article: Forced disappearance § Chile

National Stadium were used as a detention and torture center after the coup.

In the first months after the coup d'état, the military killed thousands of Chilean leftists, both real and suspected, or forced their "disappearance". The military imprisoned 40,000 political enemies in the National Stadium of Chile; among the tortured and killed desaparecidos (disappeared) were the U.S. citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi.[29] In October 1973, the Chilean songwriter Víctor Jara was murdered, along with 70 other people in a series of killings perpetrated by the death squad Caravan of Death (Caravana de la Muerte).

The government arrested some 130,000 people in a three-year period;[30][89] the dead and disappeared numbered thousands in the first months of the military government.

Those include the British physician Sheila Cassidy, who survived to publicize in the UK the human rights violations in Chile.[90] Among those detained was Alberto Bachelet (father of future Chilean President Michelle Bachelet), an Air Force official; he was tortured and died on 12 March 1974,[91][92][93] the right-wing newspaper, El Mercurio,[94] reported that Mr Bachelet died after a basketball game, citing his poor cardiac health. Michelle Bachelet and her mother were imprisoned and tortured in the Villa Grimaldi detention and torture centre on 10 January 1975.[95][96][97][98]

After Gen. Pinochet lost the election in the 1988 plebiscite, the Rettig Commission, a multi-partisan truth commission, in 1991 reported the location of torture and detention centers, among others, Colonia Dignidad, the tall ship Esmeralda and Víctor Jara Stadium. Later, in November 2004, the Valech Report confirmed the number as fewer than 3,000 killed and reduced the number of cases of forced disappearance; but some 28,000 people were arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. Sixty individuals died as a direct result of fighting on 11 September, although the MIR and GAP continued to fight the following day. It has been put forward that, in all, 46 of Allende's guard (the GAP, Grupo de Amigos Personales) were killed, some of them in combat with the soldiers that took the Moneda.[99] However, a report of 1999 published by an organization of ex-GAP which survived the events around the coup d'état, says that no one among the GAP members were killed in La Moneda combat. The source affirms that there were only 50 members of the GAP at that time, totally. [100] The same information about the number of GAP members was later confirmed in an academic publication. [101]

Allende's Cuban-trained guard would have had about 300 elite commando-trained GAP fighters at the time of the coup, according to a book of 2005 by Jonathan Haslam, [102] but the use of brute military force, especially the use of Hawker Hunters, may have handicapped many GAP fighters from further action. Which was the case of some GAP members during the Hawker Hunters attack against Allende's residence in Tomás Moro. [103]

According to official reports prepared after the return of democracy, at La Moneda only two people died: President Allende and the journalist Augusto Olivares (both by suicide). Two more were injured, Antonio Aguirre and Osvaldo Ramos, both members of President Allende's entourage; they would later be allegedly kidnapped from the hospital and disappeared. In November 2006, the Associated Press noted that more than 15 bodyguards and aides were taken from the palace during the coup and are still unaccounted for; in 2006 Augusto Pinochet was indicted for two of their deaths.[104][105]

On the military side, there were 34 deaths: two army sergeants, three army corporals, four army privates, 2 navy lieutenants, 1 navy corporal, 4 naval cadets, 3 navy conscripts and 15 carabineros.[106] In mid-September, the Chilean military junta claimed its troops suffered another 16 dead and 100 injured by gunfire in mopping-up operations against Allende supporters, and Pinochet said: "sadly there are still some armed groups who insist on attacking, which means that the military rules of wartime apply to them."[107] A press photographer also died in the crossfire while attempting to cover the event. On 23 October 1973, 23-year-old army corporal Benjamín Alfredo Jaramillo Ruz, who was serving with the Cazadores, became the first fatal casualty of the counterinsurgency operations in the mountainous area of Alquihue in Valdivia after being shot by a sniper.[108] The Chilean Army suffered 12 killed in various clashes with MIR guerrillas and GAP fighters in October 1973.[109]

While fatalities in the battle during the coup might have been relatively small, the Chilean security forces sustained 162 dead in the three following months as a result of continued resistance,[110] and tens of thousands of people were arrested during the coup and held in the National Stadium.[111] An estimated 40,000 Chileans were tortured under the Pinochet regime in the years following the coup.[112]

Allende's death[edit]

Main article: Death of Salvador Allende

President Allende died in La Moneda during the coup. The junta officially declared that he committed suicide with a rifle given to him by Fidel Castro, two doctors from the infirmary of La Moneda stated that they witnessed the suicide,[113] and an autopsy labelled Allende's death a suicide. Vice Admiral Patricio Carvajal, one of the primary instigators of the coup, claimed that "Allende committed suicide and is dead now".[This quote needs a citation] Patricio Guijon, one of the president's doctors, had testified to witnessing Allende shoot himself under the chin with the rifle while seated on a sofa.[114]

At the time, few of Allende's supporters believed the explanation that Allende had killed himself.[115] Allende's body was exhumed in May 2011. The exhumation was requested by members of the Allende family, including his daughter Isabel who viewed the question of her father's death as "an insult to scientific intelligence". A scientific autopsy was performed, and the autopsy team delivered a unanimous finding on 19 July 2011 that Allende committed suicide using an AK-47 rifle.[116] The team was composed of international forensic experts to assure an independent evaluation.

However, on 31 May 2011, Chile's state television station reported that a top-secret military account of Allende's death had been discovered in the home of a former military justice official. The 300-page document was found only when the house was destroyed in the 2010 Chilean earthquake. After reviewing the report, two forensic experts told Televisión Nacional de Chile "that they are inclined to conclude that Allende was assassinated".[117] Two forensics experts said they believed he was shot with a small-calibre weapon prior to the AK-47. One expert, Luis Ravanal, noted the lack of blood on his collar, sweater and throat suggested someone else fired the AK-47 when he was already dead.[118]

Allende's widow and family escaped the military government and were accepted for exile in Mexico, where they remained for 17 years.[119][120]

Aftermath[edit]

Installing a new regime[edit]

Main article: Government Junta of Chile (1973)

Government Junta of Chile (1973)

On 13 September, the Junta dissolved Congress,[121] outlawed the parties that had been part of the Popular Unity coalition, and all political activity was declared "in recess".[122] The military government took control of all media, including the radio broadcasting that Allende attempted to use to give his final speech to the nation. It is not known how many Chileans actually heard the last words of Allende as he spoke them, but a transcript and audio of the speech survived the military government.[123][124] Chilean scholar Lidia M. Baltra details how the military took control of the media platforms and turned them into their own "propaganda machine".[124] The only two newspapers that were allowed to continue publishing after the military takeover were El Mercurio and La Tercera de la Hora, both of which were anti-Allende under his leadership.[124] The dictatorship's silencing of the leftist point of view extended past the media and into "every discourse that expressed any resistance to the regime".[125] An example of this is the torturing and death of folk singer Victor Jara. The military government detained Jara in the days following the coup. He, along with many other leftists, was held in Estadio Nacional, or the National Stadium of Chile in the capital of Santiago. Initially, the Junta tried to silence him by crushing his hands, but ultimately, he was murdered.[126] Immediately after the coup the military sought television host Don Francisco to have him report on the events. Don Francisco declined the offer, encouraging the captain that had approached him to take the role of reporter himself.[127]

Initially, there were four leaders of the junta: In addition to General Augusto Pinochet, from the Army, there were General Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, of the Air Force; Admiral José Toribio Merino Castro, of the Navy (who replaced Constitutionalist Admiral Raúl Montero); and General Director César Mendoza Durán, of the National Police (Carabineros de Chile) (who replaced Constitutionalist General Director José María Sepúlveda). Coup leaders soon decided against a rotating presidency and named General Pinochet permanent head of the junta.[128]

In the months that followed the coup, the junta, with authoring work by historian Gonzalo Vial and Admiral Patricio Carvajal, published a book titled El Libro Blanco del cambio de gobierno en Chile (commonly known as El Libro Blanco, "The White Book of the Change of Government in Chile"), where they attempted to justify the coup by claiming that they were in fact anticipating a self-coup (the alleged Plan Zeta, or Plan Z) that Allende's government or its associates were purportedly preparing. Historian Peter Winn states that the Central Intelligence Agency had an extensive part to play in fabricating the conspiracy and in selling it to the press, both in Chile and internationally.[18] Although later discredited and officially recognized as the product of political propaganda,[129] Gonzalo Vial has pointed to the similarities between the alleged Plan Z and other existing paramilitary plans of the Popular Unity parties in support of its legitimacy.[130]

A document from September 13 shows that Jaime Guzmán was by then already tasked to study the creation of a new constitution.[131] One of the first measures of the dictatorship was to set up a Secretaría Nacional de la Juventud (SNJ, National Youth Office). This was done on 28 October 1973, even before the Declaration of Principles of the junta made in March 1974. This was a way of mobilizing sympathetic elements of the civil society in support for the dictatorship.[132]

Continued violence[edit]

See also: Armed resistance in Chile (1973–90)

The newspaper La Tercera published on its front page a photograph showing prisoners at the Quiriquina Island Camp who had been captured during the fighting in Concepción. The photograph's caption stated that some of the detained were local leaders of the "Unidad Popular" while others were "extremists who had attacked the armed forces with firearms". The photo was reproduced in The Indicter. [133]

La Tercera 6 Oct 1973: "Prisoners in Quiriquina". In photo caption: "Extremists, for have attacked the Armed Forces with firearms". Upper right in the photo Prof. Marcello Ferrada de Noli (marked with an arrow). Fernando Álvarez, President Allende's delegate as Head of Concepción Region (circle marked). He was executed.

This is consistent with reports in newspapers and broadcasts in Concepción about the activities of the Armed Forces, which mentioned clashes with "extremists" on several occasions from 11 to 14 September. Nocturnal skirmishes took place around the Hotel Alonso de Ercilla in Colo Colo and San Martín Street, one block away from the Army and military police administrative headquarters. A recently published testimony about the clashes in Concepción offers several plausible explanations for the reticence of witnesses to these actions. [134] [135]

Besides political leaders and participants, the coup also affected many everyday Chilean citizens. Thousands were killed, went missing, and were injured. Because of the political instability in their country, many relocated elsewhere. Canada, among other countries, became a main point of refuge for many Chilean citizens. Through an operation known as "Special Movement Chile", more than 7,000 Chileans were relocated to Canada in the months following 11 September 1973.[136] These refugees are now known as Chilean Canadian people and have a population of over 38,000.[137]

The U.S. view of the coup continues to spark controversy. Beginning in late 2014 in response to a request by then Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin, United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS), located at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., has been under investigation by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General. Insider national security whistleblower complaints included that the Center knowingly protected a CHDS professor from Chile who was a former top advisor to Pinochet after belonging to the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional / DINA state terrorist organization (whose attack against a former Chilean foreign minister in 1976 in Washington, D.C. resulted in two deaths, including that of an American). "Reports that NDU hired foreign military officers with histories of involvement in human rights abuses, including torture and extrajudicial killings of civilians, are stunning, and they are repulsive", said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the author of the "Leahy Law" prohibiting U.S. assistance to military units and members of foreign security forces that violate human rights.[138][139][140][141]

Roberto Thieme, the military leader of Fatherland and Liberty, who was imprisoned on 11 September was shocked to hear about the degree of violence the coup was carried out with. Despite being an arduous opponent of Unidad Popular he had expected a cleaner coup.[142]

International reaction[edit]

President of Argentina Juan Domingo Perón condemned the coup calling it a "fatality for the continent". Before the coup Perón had warned the more radical of his followers to stay calm and "not do as Allende".[143] Argentine students protested the coup at the Chilean embassy in Buenos Aires, where part of them chanted that they were "ready to cross the Andes" (dispuestos a cruzar la cordillera).[144]

Legal impact[edit]

A number of cargo shipments involving trade with Cuba were affected by government policy decisions, and subsequently performance of the trade contracts underlying the shipping deliveries was made illegal under Cuban law.[145][146] The Chilean company Iansa had purchased sugar from the Cuban business entity, Cubazukar, and several shipments were at different stages of the shipping and delivery process. The ships involved included:

- Playa Larga (delivery in Chile was underway but was not completed before the ship left)

- The Marble Island (the ship was en route for Chile but was diverted elsewhere)

- Aegis Fame (hire was cancelled before the cargo had been loaded).

The shipping contracts used c.i.f. trade terms. Iansa sued Cubazukar for non-delivery. The High Court (in England) ruled that IANSA was entitled to damages in respect of the undelivered balance of the Playa Larga cargo and to restitution of the price paid for the Marble Island cargo. Subsequent appeals by both parties were dismissed.[147] In regard to the Aegis Fame shipping, the contract was frustrated and therefore Cubazukar were not in breach.[146]

Commemoration[edit]

The commemoration of the coup is associated to competing narratives on its cause and effects.[148] The coup has been commemorated by detractors and supporters in various ways.

On 11 September 1975 Pinochet lit the Llama de la Libertad (lit. Flame of Liberty) to commemorate the coup. This flame was extinguished in 2004.[149][150] Avenida Nueva Providencia in Providencia, Santiago, was renamed Avenida 11 de Septiembre in 1980.[151] In the 30th anniversary of the coup President Ricardo Lagos inaugurated the Morandé 80 entrance to La Moneda. This entrance to the presidential palace had been erased during the repairs the dictatorship did to the building after the bombing.[152]

40th anniversary[edit]

The 40th anniversary of the coup in 2013 was particularly intense.[148] That year the name of Avenida 11 de Septiembre was reversed to the original Avenida Nueva Providencia.[151] The Association of Chilean Magistrates issued a public statement in early September 2013 recognizing the past unwillingness of judges to protect those persecuted by dictatorship.[148] On 11 September 2013 hundreds of Chileans posed as dead in the streets of Santiago in remembrance of the ones "disappeared" by the dictatorship.[153]

The centre-left opposition refused to attend the commemoration event organized by Sebastián Piñera's right-wing government organizing instead a separate event.[153] Osvaldo Andrade of the Socialist Party explained that attendance was not viable as Piñera's government was "packed with passive accomplices" of the dictatorship.[154] Some right-wing politicians also declined the invitation.[155] Presidential candidate Michelle Bachelet planned to spend the day visiting Museum of Memory and Human Rights.[155] President Piñera held an unusual speech in which he denounced "passive accomplices" like news reporters who deliberately changed or omitted the truth and judges who rejected recursos de amparos that could have saved lives. People who knew things or could have known things but decided to stay quiet were also criticized as passive accomplices in Piñera's speech.[148]

A number of new films, theatre plays, and photography expositions were held to cast light on the abuses and censorship of the dictatorship.[153] The number of new books published on the subject in 2013 was such that it constituted an editorial boom.[148][153] The Museum of Memory and Human Rights also displayed a collection of declassified CIA, FBI, Defense Department, and White House records illustrating the U.S. role in the dictatorship and the coup.[156] Conferences and seminaries on the subject of coup were also held. Various series and interviews with politicians on the subject of the coup and the dictatorship were aired on Chilean TV in 2013.[148]

50th anniversary[edit]

Ahead of the 50th anniversay of the coup in 2023, Chilean President Gabriel Boric, along with all four living former presidents—Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, Ricardo Lagos, Michelle Bachelet, and Sebastian Piñera—signed an declaration titled "Compromise with Democracy", stating that it should "confront the challenges of democracy with more democracy" and it should defend and promote human rights.[157][158] The right-wing opposition called it "biased" and refused to sign it.[159]

See also[edit]

- 1970 Chilean presidential election

- Allende en su laberinto

- Cuban packages – arms smuggling from Cuba

- Operation Condor

- Operation TOUCAN (KGB) – secret KGB operations in Chile

- Patio 29

- Project FUBELT – secret CIA operations to unseat Allende.

- René Schneider

- Rettig Report

- United States intervention in Chile

- Valech Report

- United States involvement in regime change in Latin America

Films and documentaries[edit]

- Bear Story

- Bestia

- Chicago Boys

- Colonia

- Ecos del Desierto

- Invisible Heroes

- Machuca

- Missing (1982 film)

- ¡Nae pasaran!

- No

- ReMastered: Massacre at the Stadium

- The Battle of Chile

- The Black Pimpernel

- The House of the Spirits