Salvador Allende

Salvador Allende Gossens
President of Chile From: November 3, 1970 – September 11, 1973
Predecessor	Eduardo Frei Montalva
Successor	Augusto Pinochet Ugarte
President of the Senate of Chile From: December 27, 1966 – May 15, 1969
Predecessor	Tomás Reyes Vicuña
Successor	Tomás Pablo Elorza
Senator of the Republic of Chile From: May 15, 1945 – November 3, 1970
Predecessor	Luis Ambrosio Concha
Successor	Adonis Sepúlveda Acuña
Minister of Health, Welfare and Social Assistance of Chile From: August 28, 1939 – April 2, 1942
Predecessor	Miguel Etchebarne Riol
Successor	Eduardo Escudero Forrastal
Deputy of the Republic of Chile From: May 15, 1937 – August 28, 1939
Predecessor	Humberto Casali Monreal
Successor	Vasco Valdebenito García
Information
Party	Socialist Party of Chile
Religion	Agnostic

Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (b. Valparaíso July 26, 1908–d. Santiago, on September 11, 1973) was a Chilean medic, physician and politician, member of the Socialist Party of Chile who worked as an agent for the KGB since 1952.^[1] He ruled as the President of Chile from 1970 to 1973. A self-proclaimed "militant socialist", "marxist-leninist" and demagogue, his overthrow and death are very controversial.

Political History[edit]

Background[edit]

Allende ran for President in 1952, 1958 and 1964, loosing on all of the occasions.

In November 1967, Salvador Allende and the Socialist Party unanimously approved, at their Congress in Chillán, a true "Declaration of War on Chilean Democracy".

In that declaration it was affirmed: "Revolutionary violence is legitimate (...) it is the only way to take power (...) only by destroying the democratic-military apparatus of the State can the socialist revolution be consolidated (...) peaceful or legal forms of struggle do not lead to power (...) the political process leads us to armed struggle".

International support, KGB Agent and Cuba's help[edit]

US intelligence reports implicated Allende in the assassination of several opponents,^[2] while KGB files smuggled out of Russia by Vasily Mitrokhin indicate that Allende received funds and support from the Soviet Union. The book "The World was Going our Way"^[3] by Vasili Mitrokilin (former KGB agent) and Christopher Anurew reveal:

In the book by Vasili Mitrokihn, former Soviet agent cited above, it is stated:"Payment of US$100 000 from the reserved fund of the Council of Ministers (of the USSR) for 'special measures' in Chile was approved by the Politburo on February 7, 1973. An additional 'monetary reward' of US$400 was given to Allende for unspecified 'valuable information' which he had provided".^[4]

In the infamous "Cuban Packages Scandal" that precipitated his eventual ouster, large quantities of weapons were sent from Fidel Castro's Cuba to arm pro-Allende terrorists in Chile.^[5] Kissinger privately told Nixon that Allende might declare martial law.^[2] By 1973, as a result of covert US aid to Chilean dissidents and financing of pro-democracy protestors, US intelligence indicated Allende would likely lose the next Chilean election if it was held.^[6] Volodia Teitelboim, the chief ideologue of the Communist Party in Chile, declared that if civil war came, "it probably would signify immense loss of human lives, between half a million and one million."^[7] Allende's sister, Laura Allende, spoke at the Peoples Temple in San Francisco to make the case for Chilean socialism.^[8]

Salvador was a friend of Ernesto Che Guevara who met in 1959 during the early times of the Communist Revolution in Cuba. Guevara dedicated his book "The guerilla war" to the Chilean marxist: "To Salvador Allende, who by other means tries to obtain the same. Affectionately, Che"

1970 Presidential Election[edit]

Allende, representing a coalition of Marxist parties, won the September 1970 election narrowly beating his closest opponent with 36.2% of the vote against the right-wing candidate, Jorge Alessandri, who obtained 34.9%.^[9] In November, the Congress, which could choose between the two (there was no second round), elected him President. Allende was outspoken in his intent to dramatically "transform" Chile according to socialist principles, which concerned moderate voters and politicians. The Chilean Congress voted to give Allende the presidency, in accordance with run-off rules in place at the time, but required Allende to sign a special statement promising that his reforms would always respect the constitution.

The Christian Democracy supported in the National Congress the election of Salvador Allende as President of Chile, after he committed himself to a Statute of Constitutional Guarantees elaborated by the centrist party.^[10]

Allende was the first democratically elected socialist president in history. The 36.2% in 1970 was less than he had gotten in 1964 when he got 38.93%, in that election the right-wing decided to not have a candidate and instead support Frei.

Government[edit]

During his government, Allende instituted a plan called the "Chilean way to socialism" (La vía chilena al socialismo) or "socialism within pluralism" in attempt to address the unequal distribution of wealth in the Chilean economy, but which led to widespread disruption and social polarization. Upon assuming power Allende expropriated private sector business, middle class and bourgeois property and began to implement an agrarian reforms and a program to nationalize vital industry. Allende posted some of his supporters to oversee these expropriations and nationalization, including David Silberman ^[11] (disappeared) who was assigned to oversee the "nationalization" of Chile's largest copper industry: Chuquicamata. The media wrote extensively of Allende's failures. Strikes and shutdowns caused massive inflation and unrest, and the conservative-controlled Chilean Congress sought to reject Allende's proposals whenever possible, causing considerable political gridlock.

Economic crisis and food shortages[edit]

Salvador Allende froze the prices of all goods and services and raised the wages by 10% within a few months of these economic policies happening the hyperinflation of the Escudo which was the the currency at the time. The Escudo started to lose value rapidly, it started to disintegrate as a currency, the only thing propping it up were the foreign currency reserves of Chile because in 1970 Chile was a fairly prosperous country and all of the successive governments had been very careful to maintain the positive balance of trade and to never ever run any kind of fiscal deficit so Chile had a very large supply of hard foreign currencies: Dollars, Pounds. Financially Chile was in very good shape when this new agenda came in with his policies that started costing all kinds of money.^[12]

The entrepreneurs couldn't raise the prices with the frozen prices and now they had to pay more to employees starting to lose money and closing they businesses and factories causing mass unemployment and shortages. The response of the government was to seize the companies and accuse them of conspiring and being financial speculators.

Chileans started to make huge lines to get basic goods such as toilet paper, toothpaste and food. The black market flourished which only accepted U.S. Dollars. People started selling everything that they had in order to get dollars to buy the basics. The Government created the Committees for Popular Supply (Juntas de Abastecimiento Popular, JAP) rationing a country that had been previously prosperous.

A ration card was implemented, and it was only with the ration card that the people could get the basics like rice, potatoes and cooking oil, the ration card was needed to feed your family. The JAPs were in every neighborhood where the ration card was stamped by the head of the JAP who was a member of the Popular Unity leftist parties. This was used to excluse political opponents and the government accussed those people of being "an oligarch" or "an enemy of the people". Food became politicized the situation in Chile was just just deteriorating on daily basis.^[12]

The left says that the fault of this is from Richard Nixon who had a meeting with Henry Kissinger after the whole agenda debacle and said that he wanted the Chilean economy "to scream", however, in 1970 the world economies were not completely integrated as in the XXI Century, Chile's largest training partner was not the United States but Argentina and Peru because of the proximity. Even if the Nixon Administration wanted to squeeze the Chilean economy, they couldn't success, especially not after all the American companies were expropriated by the Allende regime. The Popular Unity Government has all the fault of the food shortages and economic crisis, this is now denied for political reasons.^[12]

The rumors began in May 1971: shortages, shortages, rationing of food and other essential items. The cards for this purpose were being printed in the Santiago penitentiary. The Undersecretary of Economy, Oscar Garretón, categorically denied: "This is an irresponsible campaign, aimed at creating social tension". But Allende himself speaks already, ominously, of "stocks to be exhausted" in fifteen days or two more months. The Government granting "good money": important salary readjustments -44%-, and applying a brake on the rise in prices, has meant that Chileans have more money than in 1970 and are spending more on all kinds of things. Rumors of crisis and shortages precipitate people to build up their own stocks, and thus produce precisely the crisis and rationing: "Hence the irritation of the Government with the wave of rumors on the matter". In order to undermine this systematic campaign, the Minister of Economy, Mr. Vuskovic, addresses the country on national TV. He explains that the greater purchasing power of the population has been reflected in a higher volume of sales than in any previous period. The dollar reserves are still very respectable, and shortages of any product, especially foodstuffs, can be supplied by importing them. However, at the end of May, the Government put obstacles - deposits of one hundred times their value - to import a thousand products, considered "not strictly indispensable". In the case of "durable and expendable" items -cars, televisions, refrigerators, etc.- customers are placed in a "queue", which automatically produces either a black market or an overprice for those who do not want to or cannot wait.

However, the number of products that are difficult to find continues to increase. The board of directors of the Santiago Bus Union reports that hundreds of buses are paralyzed due to "a growing shortage of spare parts". The newspaper "Tribuna" denounces the lack of medicines, "both because of the official policy regarding the dollar, as well as the delay in resolving the prices". However, the shortage of basic food products is the most worrisome and the long "queues" are an increasingly frequent spectacle. Allende recognizes this, speaking to the students of Antofagasta: "Vast sectors of Chile are beginning to feel - and I say this with regret, but I am telling the truth - difficulties in supply. Vuskovic himself admitted a few days later, at the end of a meeting of the Supply Committee, chaired by the Head of State himself. Undersecretary Garretón will continue, however, to insist that the problem is due to a "psychosis created by the media".

Several facts show the reality of the situation: Bolivian meat was imported in the north, and in Santiago, when DIRINCO inspectors tried to seize meat that a southern cooperative was selling directly to the public, they had to leave amidst a hail of carterazos (scuffles) by the owners of the house. SOCOAGRO, the CORFO subsidiary that channels the state supply of meat, has the butchers going crazy, sleeping in the offices of the firm to get some piece of animal.

Opposition and government agreed that the issue is not a sympathetic one. "The former blame the government's mistakes: increase of the purchasing power, discouragement of production, errors in the exchange policy". "The government parties say it is a fabrication of the opposition". As far as construction materials are concerned, the problem was generalized. Cement, nails, wire, wood and hardware products are in short supply. As for clothing, the cotton and cashmere line is out of stock. When Undersecretary Garretón was asked about the possible outcome of all this, he said that the problems arise from the State's failure to intervene sufficiently. "There are distribution problems; we cannot rule out boycotts and there has been an increase in demand. This leads us to conclude that we have to participate in distribution"^[13].

The climate of confrontation in the country reaches its boiling point on Wednesday, December 1. At dusk, the demonstration of the "empty pots and baskets", called by the women of Santiago, begins. Even its organizers were surprised by the number and enthusiasm of the participants, and it became the most multitudinous, enthusiastic and combative women's rally in the country's history. Ultra-left elements of the MIR and MAPU and of the increasingly famous communist and socialist brigades attacked the women with stones, chains, sticks and even with potatoes bristling with pieces of razor blades.

The economic, political, social and cultural situation of the country could not have been worse. Chile broke the world record for inflation, with 143%. The Central Bank announced that a total of 36 367 million escudos were issued that year, which implied an increase of 174.4% over 1971. In a high-level meeting of the Communist Party, the Minister of Finance gave equally gloomy statistics: the 140 nationalized companies left 50 000 000 escudos of losses in 1792; during the month of October alone, 6 000 000 escudos had to be printed to cover their enormous "financial hole"; and a third of the 1973 fiscal budget was spent on buying foreign foodstuffs. The exasperation of the Chilean consumer with inflation and shortages was demonstrated in daily acts of violence. Calama: 200 people assaulted two trucks carrying Argentine meat for Antofagasta, forcing them to go to the city slaughterhouse, which (said a neighbor) did not receive "not even bones from the authorities".

Despite the proximity of the parliamentary elections, the government decided to face the problem. The Minister of Finance announced, on radio and television, that rationing had arrived in Chile: "The Government is aware that there is a set of difficulties, derived from the shortage of products indispensable for consumption; from rampant speculation; and from the black market, difficulties that have tended to worsen in recent times".

The Minister's revelations provoked an avalanche. Former President Eduardo Frei Montalva defined them as "a clear and definitive action for the totalitarian control of the country". Christian Democrat Senator Juan Hamilton described the speech as "shameless and sinister". "Those who have plunged the country into hunger, want to impose dictatorship through the stomach. Whoever does not submit to the JAP ("Committees of Popular Supply") and the Popular Unity Party Coalition, will not eat".

The Government's ineffable official comment was transmitted by Bosco Parra: "It is not rationing - he said -. On the contrary, it is a search for a solution to the existing problems. It is the establishment of standards for the identification of needs. Allende himself tried to minimize the problem, saying: "There will be no food rationing, but a truly equitable and humane distribution of essential items for consumption. distribution of essential items for family consumption".^[14]

1972 Trucker strike[edit]

Between October 9 and November 5, 1972, the most extensive and massive national strike in Chilean and Latin American history to that date took place. When, at the beginning of October 1972, the Chilean truckers' union decided to paralyze its functions from north to south, it was fully aware of the rupture it would produce in the Allende regime.

International aid, especially from the U.S., came to help the truckers. The transport union and others started the process of the beginning of the end of the Red Terror that the left wanted to impose. The action of this movement in the struggle to overthrow the leftist government in power was fierce until the end of that nightmare.

The struggle of unions and organizations that united against the tyranny improved with the passing of events and in practice there was no other way out but to stop transportation as a weapon that would prevent the total destruction of the national economy.

It was in this scenario full of struggle that on October 9, 1972, Chile was awakened by the courageous carriers who began their strike. This stoppage, which was a historical product of their strength and cohesion, was the prelude to the intervention of the Armed Forces and the Order Forces (Carabineros), whose commanders were others.^[15]

Paramilitary Marxist Terrorist groups and political persecution[edit]

Main article: Left Wing Terrorism in Chile

The Left was creating paramilitary forces that were loyal to the Popular Unity project (even more than the President himselft) and not loyal to the Chilean citizenry, one of the groups was called MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left) these groups gone to farms and seized the land in the name of "the people" and killed the landowners and their families. Around 500 Chileans died in this Red Terror.

The MIR killed seven in the three years of Allende's Popular Unity Regime. Five of them were members of the Carabineros (The Chilean Police), another second lieutenant of the same corps and the last was an agent of Investigations Police.The group called VOP (Organizated Vanguard of the People) assassinated the former Minister of the Interior and former Vice President of the government prior to the arrival of Allende, Edmundo Pérez Zujovic. The material authors of the assassination were the same terrorists who had been pardoned in Allende's first decree.

The crimes committed during the violent occupations of farms were committed mostly by the Revolutionary Peasant Movement (MCR), a franchise of the MIR in the rural world. In this series of events, which were committed in many cases by members of the Socialist Party, the main political force in the government coalition, there are dramatic events. Perhaps the most shocking of all was that committed against the middle-aged woman Antonia Maechell Ricardi, owner of La Tregua de Valdivia who was abducted from her own home, raped by the MIR a situation that led to her suicide.

Similar crimes were committed throughout the country. More than 500 deaths among landowners and workers who defended them from the occupations are documented. All this in more than 300 violent occupations of farms.

Several businessmen were murdered when they refused to pay the "revolutionary" tax. An example is the case of Raúl Méndez Espinosa, dedicated to the industrial manufacture of sweets, beaten to death for refusing to give money to the terrorists.

Jorge Baraona Puelma, former congressman, died on April 30, 1971 of a heart attack after being evicted from his property and seeing his Nilahue de Colchagua farm occupied by officials of the Corporation of the Agriarian Reform.^[16]

Among the actions of the left-wing radicals of the MIR and the VOP, among which there were quite a few militants of the Socialist Party, the assassinations of members of other political parties also stand out. Thus Héctor Castilla, of the Christian Democracy, was assassinated in retaliation for the victory of his student associations in Chilean universities. Also Rolando Matús, a member of the National Party, was assassinated by socialist militants collaborating with the MIR. And the frustrated assassination of the Christian Democrat leader Patricio Aylwin, when he was giving a lecture in a gymnasium in the town of Curicó.

There were also attacks on critical media. Such as the assaults by members of the Socialist Party youths on radio stations linked to the newspaper El Mercurio, a newspaper that Allende managed to close.

In 1972, 4000 Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles were brought from Cuba and stored in the offices of the Socialist Party presided by Allende, using diplomatic pouches for their transportation.^[17][18]

The MCR (Revolutionary Peasant Movement) member, Gregorio José Liendo, also known as "Comandante Pepe", told the journalist Nena Ossa, in a personal interview with her in 1972, reproduced in her book "Allende, Thank You":^[19]

This 1972 guerrilla generation was trained in the Punto Cero camp in Cuba, in Algiers, Algeria and Libya.

A typical phrase used by the far-left was "Momio to the wall, Momia to the mattress" (Momio al paredón, Momia al colchón) Momio reffers to conservatives, "to the wall" means execution and "Momia al colchón" means raping female conservatives. They also used the phrase "Enough of conciliating, it's time to fight back" (Basta ya de conciliar, es la hora de luchar) and other macabre expressions.

The Foreigners who entered the country illegally between 1970 and 1973, based on a report of the "Special Commission for Consultation on Security" of the Organization of American States (OAS), formed by delegates from the United States, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic, and presented to the twenty-first special session of 1974, where it said: "The approximate number of foreigners illegally entering Chile, could be estimated in September 1973, between 12 and 15 thousand individuals." It adds: "After September 11 and up to the following March, more than 3,500 foreigners left Chile as asylum seekers, refugees or expelled".^[4]

Torture during the Allende Regime and Human Rights Violations[edit]

Illegitimate arrests of political opponents were a common practice during the Popular Unity government. That is why the Agreement of the Chamber of Deputies of August 22, 1973 contemplated them in a separate paragraph as one of the reasons for requesting the intervention of the armed forces to "put an end to the existing de facto situations".

Numerous public figures were subjected to torture, among them the then director of the Santa Cruz newspaper "El Condor", Maximiano Errazuriz, at the hands of detectives of Investigaciones in 1972, which he described in his book "Maximiano, Perdón y Olvido" (Maximiano, Forgiveness and Oblivion).

The pressures decisively undermined the health of the announcer of Minería Radio and Channel 13, Carlos de la Sotta, imprisoned for the case of interference, during the Popular Unity government, to the transmissions of Channel 13 in Concepción.

But the case that attracted most attention was that of the president of the National Party Youth and Vice President of the party, Juan Luis Ossa Bulnes, whose letter referring to them was published by "El Mercurio" on January 23, 1972.

A writ of amparo had been filed in Ossa's favor, but the judge who heard the case did not order his release, but rather his transfer to the Rancagua prison, where he was interrogated by another judge, who was hearing a government complaint for violations of the Internal Security Law of the State. Before both magistrates Ossa referred to the torments he had suffered, but without any reaction from them. Ossa remained deprived of his liberty from Wednesday, January 12 to Saturday, January 15, 1972, without any reason to justify it.

The Allende government had no reaction to the publication of the tortures inflicted on the opposition youth leader, and Deputy Director Carlos Toro, a communist, remained at his charge, immovable, and probably reflecting on how to improve his interrogation methods so that the new detainees he had arrested would really say what he wanted to hear them say.^[4]

Agrarian reform[edit]

"Here, now the peasants will be in charge," declared the Minister of Agriculture at a press conference. Very few dared to think that Jacques Chonchol's words were prophetic. The timid - according to the UP - Agrarian Reform initiated by the Frei Government, was going to transform, in the coming months, to a real revolution in the countryside.

This was going to go beyond Allende's declarations, according to which this reform would not be carried out through land occupations, but within a technical process, with an adequate planning, so that the country would produce more food. However, in December, the press began to reproduce news like this: "Occupations of estates and land in San Bernardo, Puerto Montt and San Fernando". In January 1971, along with the new year, the seizures increase: 50 properties in the area of Temuco; another 52 in Cautín; more than 30 "arbitrarily occupied in the provinces of Valdivia, Osorno and Llanquihue.

The National Agricultural Society denounced that since Allende took office, 250 properties had been illegally occupied. In summary, in February, 30 or 40 estates were expropriated every week. The expropriation procedure was simple: the illegal seizure, even if carried out by persons outside the estate, was classified as a "conflict". The resumption of work was decreed, with an intervener to direct it and an arbitration tribunal to resolve the pseudo-conflict. The owner, an absolute minority in this tribunal, finds himself with the estate in the hands of strangers and directed by a stranger, and with an arbitration decision issued by his counterpart in the conflict, a decision that meant unacceptable demands and impossible expenses. With this fact, the owner is forced to accept expropriations without legal cause. The Supreme Court has decided not to intervene in the arbitration rulings, thus throwing the agricultural entrepreneurs into complete indifference.

Taking stock of the agrarian policy in Temuco, Allende affirms without even blinking: "we have committed ourselves to emphasize that we are not looking for twisted procedures to promote the Agrarian Reform extra-legally". Three days later in the Plaza de la Constitución, he said: "We have wanted to play absolutely clean and the interveners will not go beyond the clear instructions that the Government has given... the agricultural boss who complies with the Law and wants to work his land, knows that he will be supported by the Popular Government".^[14]

Interference in the educational system[edit]

The Allende government proposed the Unified National School (Escuela Nacional Unificada, ENU), a pamphlet from February 1971 entitled "For a democratic, pluralistic and popular national education: goals for 1973", caused fear in many Catholics since it would shatter Christian valoric education of Chile. The center party, Christian Democracy, typically spoke of "Let's wait, let's see what happens..." but this time they began to worry about Allende's political project (somewhat late). This project provoked the mass outing to the streets of conservative students from the Catholic University led by Jaime Guzmán, father of Guildism and also those from the University of Chile.^[21]

1973 Parliamentary Election Vote Fraud[edit]

On July 17, the dean of the Catholic University Law School, Jaime del Valle, announced on Channel 13, "Chilean men and women: our nation is the victim of an infamy". This consisted of having perpetrated, in the last parliamentary elections, a massive fraud, 200 000 votes, in benefit of the Popular Unity and its candidates. The fraud had been committed through the multiple registration of the same person in several communes, with his real identity or with his real identity and other falsified identities, so that when the election came, the same person could vote several times. Organizing the crime in a systematic way, throughout the whole country and on a gigantic scale, would have totally adulterated the electoral results.

The Popular Unity coallition increased its power in the Congress after the election.

Supreme Court acussations[edit]

Enrique Urrutia, President of the Supreme Court, sent a letter on May 26, 1973 to "El Mercurio" Newspaper about the illegal seizures of land by the regime directed to Allende.

Congress accusations[edit]

In July 1973, the then President of the Senate and former President of the Republic, Eduardo Frei Montalva, faced with the serious crisis after 900 days of government of the Socialist Party united with the Communist Party, told important businessmen: "This problem can only be solved with guns", as revealed in the Rivera Act.

Allende was formally condemned by Chile's Congress, the Chamber of Deputies, the arm of the Congress that had elected him, in its Resolution of August 22, 1973,^[23] called for Allende's removal from the Presidency in a historic Accord which accused Allende of 20 violations to the Constitution and the law: support of armed groups, torture, illegal arrests, muzzling the press, manipulating education, confiscating private property, and not allowing people to leave the country. The text of the Resolution was published in the government newspaper LA NACION on August 25, 1973, and (English translation by Chilean economist José Piñera) "...it is their (the Chilean military's) duty to put an immediate end to all situations herein referred to that breach the Constitution and the laws of the land..." It is eloquent that the Agreement was voted in favor by all the deputies of the Christian Democrats (including B. Leighton).

To understand this situation, the key premise is this: Whoever from power violates the Constitution of a country is the one who gives a "blow" to the democratic system and becomes a "tyrant".

The most famous case in history: Hitler with the so-called "enabling law" of March 23, 1933. Elected democratically, he becomes a tyrant. I even suggested to the historian Niall Ferguson to write a "virtual history" essay: What if the Reichstag had approved an Agreement similar to that of the Chilean Chamber of Deputies?

Good Constitutions (e.g. USA) contemplate reasonable rules to remove by vote the President who tries to become a tyrant. Unfortunately, the one in force in Chile in 1925 made it almost impossible to remove a violator of the Constitution and the law.

In these cases, democrats face a terrible crossroads: surrender to the violator of the Constitution (as in the case of Germany in March 1933) and suffer the consequences, or seek the most democratic formula possible, albeit imperfect, to prevent a path to tyranny. Chile followed this second path and found that formula in the Agreement of the Chamber of Deputies. So those who really removed Allende were the 81 Chilean deputies (63.3% of the Chamber) who voted in favor of the Agreement of August 22, 1973.^[24]

Military Intervention[edit]

Main article: 1973 Chilean Military Intervention

Two weeks later, on September 11, 1973, the Chilean military began the removal of the Allende regime. With the Presidential palace surrounded, Allende committed suicide with a gold-engraved AK-47 given to him as a gift by Castro rather than be arrested.

This Chamber of Deputies legislatively authorized removal is ubiquitously and fallaciously referred to as a "coup" by those pushing or under the sway of Marxist propaganda. The coup, proper, began only when Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet, victorious, refused to return governmental power to the civilian legislature, and to rule instead at the head of a junta.

The Senate Intelligence Committee under Senator Frank Church investigated US involvement and exonerated the Nixon administration of any unlawful activity.^{[25][26][27][28]}

The truth about CIA involvement[edit]

So many people refuse to accept that the CIA had no involvement in the 1973 military intervention, the CIA interference was centered on the killing of General René Schneider in 1970.

There was a nationalist small group called Patria y Libertad, they were definitely financed by CIA. And somehow, they got the idea to kidnap the commander-in-chief of the Chilean Armed Forces, General René Schneider.

He was and a man who was extremely well-respected throughout Chilean society, especially in the military. After the 1970 election, there were calls to ignore the democratic process and prevent Allende from taking power. Gen. Schneider publicly articulated what became known as the Schneider doctrine: The armed forces would always support and protect institutional democratic authority, and would never go against a legal outcome duly passed by Congress or the courts. In other words, Schneider was refusing to stand in the way of an Allende presidency. This enraged Allende's hardest opposition, so Patria y Libertad came up with the idea of kidnapping Schneider, possibly, at the instigation of the CIA. This has never been very clear.

The kidnapping was botched, Schneider defended himself with his side arm and in the process was killed by the kidnappers. This led to the accession of Carlos Prats to the post of commander-in-chief. It was also deeply traumatic to the Chilean military as a whole. A few senior officers outright blamed the Americans for the Schneider killing. Most took a more nuanced view. But the net effect was the same, no one in the Chilean Armed Forces would have anything to do with the CIA or the people from the US Embassy after this incident. Outcasts from the Chilean military, like Roberto Viaux, or marginal people in Chilean politics, gravitated to US Embassy personnel and the CIA, who gave them money.

But their involvement with the Americans made them even more suspect, and marginal, in Chilean society. Later, the CIA in order to justify itself and show that they had been effective in Chile, elevated these marginal or unimportant people as “key to the successful removal of Allende!” Leftists and historians ran with this notion. But it was just to hide CIA incompetence.

Because of the trauma of the Schneider killing, it’s absurd to think that the Chilean armed forces would cooperate with the US Deep State for the 1973 military intervention, especially when they didn’t need them to pull it off successfully. It was only after the military intervention, and only out of national economic necessity, that the Military Government got closer to the Americans.

But institutionally, the Chilean military never trusted the Americans, and never allowed themselves to be dependent on them. The American government was never happy with the Pinochet government, because it never gave back the lucrative copper mines that Allende had expropriated.^[29]

The book "La CIA en Chile" published in 2013, also demystifies the role played by the agency in the preparation of the military intervention plan. In a CIA document from 1973, it is pointed out that the CIA office in Santiago was proposing to encourage the military to carry out a coup d'état against Allende, an option that seemed difficult since the commander in chief of the army, Carlos Prats, did not seem willing to move forward with such an objective.

Ray Warren, the CIA director of the Chilean office, insisted to Washington about the possibility, but the CIA headquarters closed the door: "let's see how history develops, let's not do it", he was told. The US situation was no longer the same as it had been in 1970. The CIA interference had already come to light before Allende's inauguration, the Watergate affair had already broken out and the Vietnam War was culminating.

According to the book, "the CIA was so aware of the eyes on it that in a report from its Directorate of Operations, dated September 1972, it said that 'the temptation to assume a positive role in support of the military coup is great', but that they should restrain themselves, since they would be accused of 'engineering the collapse of the Allende government'". ^[3]

Unknown controversial statements[edit]

Chilean historian Víctor Farías published a controversial book, which could only be published thanks to a small publishing house in the face of the boycott by the country's major publishing houses, in which he collected the most polemic writings of the myth and martyr of the international left: Salvador Allende. The basic texts for the analysis of the Popular Unity leader's thought are his doctoral thesis - "Mental Hygiene and Delinquency"- and the Sterilization Law project he presented during his time as Minister of Health of the Pedro Aguirre Cerda Government.

In his doctoral thesis, Allende proposed the sterilization of the mentally ill, the punishment of homosexuals and harshly attacked the Jews, whom he described very graphically: "The Hebrews are characterized by certain forms of crime: swindling, falsehood, slander and, above all, usury". He considered the revolutionaries as mentally deranged and denounced "the pernicious influence that an apparently normal individual can exert on the masses and that, in reality, when studied, would show us that he belongs to a certain group of mental disorders (...) this type of collective disorders sometimes have epidemiological characteristics, and that is why when revolutionary movements break out in certain countries, they spread with incredible speed to neighboring states."

Perhaps more dangerous was the second of the texts, the Sterilization Bill, which he attempted to pass in parliament. With it he tried to institutionalize measures such as sterilization or the compulsory introduction of treatment for venereal diseases or drug addicts. Allende himself explained that it was "a legislative tripod in defense of the race", which included the imposition of compulsory treatment for drug addicts and those infected by venereal diseases, in addition to considering their contagion as a crime and the "sterilization of the mentally alienated".

In addition, the relatives of the sick were prevented from appearing in these proceedings. It also established therapies to deal with homosexuality, which it considered an illness. The text placed special emphasis on the problem of alcoholism, also proposing its sterilization, knowing that it did not cure the addiction and that it was, therefore, a measure based on punishment with no other objectives.^[30]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• What Really Happened In Chile 30 Years Ago, James R. Whelan, Wall Street Journal Online, 12 September 2003.
• CIA Activities in Chile, September 18, 2000.

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