Pinochet/Allende/Nixon

~~ Pinochet ~~

Though General Pinochet became a devil symbol of the international left, he was a far more complex figure and cannot be understood apart from the global Cold War conflict of which he and his country were a part. Pinochet's legacy is a paradox--a long string of them.
He took power in a coup in 1973, but ultimately he created an environment where democratic institutions would prevail. He is responsible for the death and torture that occurred on his watch, but had Salvador Allende succeeded in turning Chile into another Cuba, many more might have died.
Why did the United States, which helped Pinochet seize power from Salvador Allende, support the violent dictator for nearly two decades? Scholars answering these questions have usually focused on the threat posed by Allende, the first elected Marxist head of state, to Chilean and US business interests and to the cold war foreign policy of the United States. But recently declassified documents, along with the reissue of Patricia Politzer's Fear in Chile: Lives Under Pinochet, suggest that the Chilean counterrevolution, however much shaped by immediate economic and political causes, was infused with a much older, more revanchist political spirit, one stretching as far back as the French Revolution.

~~ Allende ~~

Salvador Allende was born in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1903. As a medical student he became involved in radical politics and he was arrested several times while at university.
In 1933 Allende helped to found the Chilean Socialist Party, a Marxist organization that was opposed to the Soviet Union influenced Communist Party.
Allende was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1937 and served in the government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda as Minister of Health (1939-41). He was also senator between 1945 and 1970.

Allende's attempts to build a socialist society was opposed by business interests. Later, Henry Kissinger admitted that in September 1970, President Richard Nixon ordered him to organize a coup against Allende's government. A CIA document written just after Allende was elected said: "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup" and "it is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG (United States government) and American hand be well hidden."

~~ Nixon ~~