Thread by @GonzaloLira1968

Let's talk about Chile, Allende and Pinochet.

When Salvador Allende won the election of 1970 to become President of Chile, he won it with a plurality—the center and right-wing candidates got a combined 63% of the vote.

Allende got only 37% of the vote in 1970.

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Allende immediately embarked on a radical economic transformation of Chile, starting with the nationalization of the big copper mines, which natch pissed off the Americans.

But the Nixon Admin was so mired in winding down Vietnam that it didn't pay much attention to Chile.

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Allende nationalized most of the big industries in Chile using “resquicios legales”—legal subterfuges.

He also fomented Leftist paramilitary groups, namely the MIR (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria) and the GAP (Grupo de Amigos Personales).

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Both groups terrorized political and social opposition in Chile. This led to the emergence of right-wing paramilitary groups, creating more social chaos.

In the first year, the economy boomed for the simple reason that Allende froze prices and decreed an increase in wages.

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This of course led to the rapid depletion of Chilean hard currency reserves.

It also led to the bankruptcy of most small and medium sized businesses—which was the point: The Allende regime deliberately wanted to break private enterprise so as to nationalize all of it.

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As businesses failed in '71 and into '72, shortages and scarcity began to emerge. Long queues for basics—soap, TP, meat, etc.—became the norm.

Allende created the Juntas de Abastecimiento y Control de Precios—“Comittees of Supply and Price Control”—known as the JAP.

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The JAP were essentially rationing boards—with a twist: If you were not considered “politically reliable” by whoever was leading your local JAP, you could be denied food—which happened all the time.

This all of course led to a booming black market—and huge inflation in '72.

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By '73, all hard currency reserves were gone. Inflation was getting completely out of hand. Unemployment was becoming catastrophic. Farms were being expropriated and handed to incompetent government bureaucrats or cronies—so no food.

Here we come to Gen. Carlos Prats.

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Prats was head of the Army, and a respected man. The Chilean armed forces had always been apolitical. But as the economic and social situation deteriorated, more people called on Prats to stage a coup.

The Christian Democrats in particular were pressuring Prats.

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The center-left party, the Christian Democrats had been in power before Allende—and they expected to take power after Allende. They were goading Prats into overthrowing him.

But Prats equivocated. He was the Hamlet of Chilean history, constantly flip-flopping about a coup.

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Meanwhile, the Allende regime was cracking down on all opposition—curfews, goons, murders, the usual.

The Americans were completely ineffectual. The Chilean center, right wing & armed forces thought they were morons who only cared about the interests of US mining companies.

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But the CIA did two extremely effective moves: They financed the lone opposition paper, El Mercurio, which kept reporting the news the Allende regime did not want people to hear, which kept the opposition alive. And the CIA financed the second truckers' strike.

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Because of geography, trucking is essential in Chile—and in October of '72, the truckers struck for 4 weeks. The effects of this first strike were disastrous for the Allende regime, weakening its political base and worsening the economic situation.

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With more chaos during the Summer of '72-'73—and a hinky parliamentary elections in March of '73—not to mention an inflation that was at +50% annualized and rising, there was a second truckers' strike in '73.

This was likely financed by the CIA through Agustín Edwards.

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Where was Pinochet? He was just a staff general, considered politically neutral. He had in fact implemented the curfews imposed on Santiago by Allende in the face of peaceful protests—and cracked down hard on those anti-Allende protestors. Allende considered him a friend.

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The chaos in the winter of '73 (June–Sept.) was almighty—inflation at +100%, strikes all the time, no food, no gas, people fleeing the country with whatever they could hawk. People sold luxury apartment for USD$5,000—but only in cash. Like that.

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Meanwhile, Carlos Prats' flip-flopping had cost him the trust of all sides. He finally resigned as commander in chief of the armed forces—and was replaced by Allende's good and loyal friend, Augusto Pinochet, on August 11, 1973.

Note the date.

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Then on August 22, 1973, the Chilean Congress declared the Allende regime illegitimate, and called on the armed forces to “restore order and safeguard the public good”.

The coup of September 11, 1973, was not illegal: It was being called for by the Chilean Congress.

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The single person most responsible for the coup was the head of the Air Force, Gen. Gustavo Leigh. He had been goading the other heads of the other branches—Adm. José Toribio Merino and Gen. of Carabineros Carlos Mendoza, as well as Prats—for *months*.

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They had ignored him—until the Congressional statement of 8/22.

Leigh was a weakling and a coward: He wanted a coup—but didn't dare lead it, for fear of the blame if it failed.

The man who *did* dare lead it was Admiral Merino: After Congress' call, he organized the coup.

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Merino was my grandfather's aide back in the '50's or so. He told me that Merino was very capable, though my grandmother thought he was nuts—she remembered him riding around the naval base on a motorcycle with a side-arm, both of which she considered outrageous.

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Be that as it may, Merino had balls—he put the coup together.

There was something else: Credible rumors were circulating that Allende had a “Plan Z”—a plan to arrest all the senior officers of the armed forces who were considered “disloyal” to Allende and his regime.

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This Plan Z was supposed to take place on the following Sept. 18—Chile's Independence Day.

Leftists and their historians have always disputed this Plan Z as a conspiracy theory. But there is enough evidence of Allende's intent. Pinochet himself always raised the issue...

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...and denounced it. The suspicion of many in the armed forces was that Pinochet knew the Plan Z was real because Allende would have likely ordered *Pinochet* to be the one to carry it out. After all, Allende considered him loyal—that's why he'd just named him C-in-C.

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Up until Sunday, September 9, Pinochet had no idea at all of a coup. The story I heard from family in the Navy was that Adm. Patricio Carvajal went to Pinochet's house, where they were celebrating his youngest daughter's birthday.

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At the birthday party, Carvajal (who was best friends and classmates with Merino) told Pinochet that the coup was on for Tuesday, Sept. 11—and that if he was not with them, Carvajal would unfortunately have to take Pinochet into custody, and replace him with another general.

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This part is disputed among Navy people. Some relatives told me that Carvajal never made such a threat, others swear that he did. I personally think he didn't—but he didn't need to. Plotting a coup is insurrection—and neither of these men were stupid.

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If Pinochet had not agreed to join in the coup, Carvajal would not have been able to leave without Pinochet in custody, if only to stop him from telling Allende of the planned coup.

As it was, Pinochet wholeheartedly agreed on the spot.

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The reason the coup was set for Tuesday was because moving troops around would have looked suspicious on a Sunday. So position troops on Monday—stage the coup on Tuesday.

The Navy would take the ports of Valparaiso and Concepción, the Army would take Santiago.

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Very few people knew of the coup before it actually took place—maybe 50 people, all of them very senior, very trusted personnel, none below the rank of Colonel or Captain.

The CIA had absolutely no involvement in the coup, despite the agency later claiming that it had.

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Bottom line, the Americans were shut out.

No one in the Chilean armed forces trusted the Americans—much less the CIA. The only people who did were outcasts from the Chilean AF like Gen. Roberto Viaux or random crazies like Michael Townley and goons from Patria y Libertad.

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The professional military in Chile steered clear of the CIA or the Americans *because they did not matter*.

Remember, this was a time of far less globalism—a lot more nationalism and localism. There did not yet exist the notion of a transnational elite one could aspire to.

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The other thing that Chileans find bizarre is the notion that the US “made Chile's economy scream”.

First off, this was the early 1970's—long before neoliberalism and globalism. There wasn't that level of economic interconnection and dependence.

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Second, Allende *himself* did such a bang-up job screwing up Chile's economy all on his own, he needed no help from the US.

Understand who Allende was: He wanted a Maoist-Leninist regime, with himself as undisputed leader, his Unidad Popular party as the vanguard.

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Allende was a capricious, complicated man: He was upper-class but grew up poor—yet he hated the poor with a passion. He was the very definition of arriviste. My great-grandfather Eduardo Valdés despised him because of his politics AND because he thought he was a “resentido”.

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My great-grandfather credibly threatened to shoot Allende back in the '30's: Family lore goes that he wooed one of my great aunts, I forget if it was Lucía or Pepa, until my GG put a stop to it.

Allende hated the rich—yet wanted to be one of them. So he became a communist.

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Anyway: Come dawn of Tuesday Sept. 11, the Navy's Marines took control of Valparaiso and Concepción, the second largest port and a hot bed of Communists and Allende people. The two cities were locked tight by mid-morning.

Santiago was trickier because it was much larger.

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Allende barricaded himself in La Moneda, the presidential palace. He gave a very moving, impromptu radio address as the coup was happening. In it, he mourned Pinochet, whom he assumed was still loyal to him and had thus probably been arrested or killed.

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Allende shot himself with the AK-47 given to him by Fidel Castro. There is absolutely no doubt that he committed suicide. Allende's personal doctor later testified to the effect while in exile, so he had no reason to lie.

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Gustavo Leigh, the head of the Air Force, had the idiotic idea of bombing La Moneda with British Hawker fighter jets. He fancied that he would be able to position himself as the leader of the coup. He was that type of guy.

The Christian Democrats were no different.

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After the coup, the Christian Democrats made it clear they expected the military to step aside once order had been restored, and let the former CD president, the pompous and incompetent Eduardo Frei, take over.

Pinochet was having none of that.

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It must be understood how tenuous Pinochet's position after Sept. 11 really was.

The Armed Forces had always thought Pinochet was Allende's man. Many officers in all the branches thought Pinochet was a turncoat, an opportunist, even a traitor to Allende.

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Further, for the first 6 months after the coup, there was a real possibility of civil war in Chile.

The amount of weapons found after the coup was staggering. Allende and his goons had very obviously been gearing up to have a civil war. The weapons were Soviet via Cuba.

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There were also clandestine training camps—organized by the Allende government, with Cuban “advisors”—and literally thousands of men who had been in the process of training for a civil war in Chile.

Leftists and their historians deny it—but it's true.

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So for the first 6–12 months, the Pinochet dictatorship cracked down hard on the Communists—the MIR, the GAP, all those fucking bastards. After the coup, lists came out of people the Allende regime had targeted for assassination.

Again, Leftists deny-deny-deny.

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One thing that the Leftists did do was spread propaganda—really effective propaganda.

One story was how Pinochet would have communists and Allende sympathizers thrown out of helicopters into the Pacific Ocean.

Never happened—for two reasons:

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First, do you know how expensive and time-consuming it is to fly out in a helicopter? Why not just shoot him and dump his body in a hole in the desert?

Second, anything you throw into the Pacific in front of Chile's shoreline will inevitably wash ashore.

So that's a lie.

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But the bigger lie the Left has been telling for 50 years—everyone in Chile was against the coup.

No: Everyone WANTED the coup. I've spoken to of all walks of life—in 1973, people were protesting to DEMAND a coup.

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Maids, working men, politicians, businesspeople, all parties, all religions—EVERYONE wanted a coup in 1973. Even the *Congress* voted for a coup!

Because everyone saw what a disaster the Allende regime was—and everyone wanted him gone.

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(Quick sidenote: Here's a thread explaining why the CIA had zero involvement or even foreknowledge of the coup that overthrew Salvador Allende. By far this is the stickiest propaganda out there—pushed by the CIA itself to fake its effectiveness.)

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