The history of Chile from 1964 through 1981 covers three presidencies and a nearly 360( turnaround in economic and political philosophy. It was a turnaround accompanied by violence and repression. Can a government be violently overthrown and a crackdown imposed primarily because of a dispute over economics and philosophy? It is difficult to remember, in this age of post-communist New World Order and pro-capitalist international economic models, that as recently as twenty years ago such notions were challenged with such vehemence that there was a violent disturbance over the issues of Capital and Class in some major world city almost every day. Spy movies and Tom Clancy novels have made clichT the notion of Cold War politics as a force majeure in the overall scheme of things: we all "know" that disorganized self-interest is the true motivator. Idealists of the Left and Right are but an illusion; the world runs on more shallow, more easily-grasped (and transferred to offshore bank account) fuel. Hence, it is with an almost fairy tale, open-eyed look of wonder that one must approach the recent history of Chile in order to understand the rapid succession of governments, ideologies, manipulations and tragedies that ensued there: this was not real in our contemporary understanding of politico-economic forces, this did not happen. But it did happen, and this paper will attempt to examine some of the forces - external and domestic - pushing within Chile during this period.
In 1964 Eduardo Frei, a Christian Democrat, was elected President of Chile with 56.1 percent of the total vote. His was a coalition government, an assemblage of slightly-left, moderate and rightist parties. Frei's campaign was clandestinely funded by the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency to the tune of double the amount per voter that the Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater campaigns together had spent in the States that same year.
Six years later, after ...