# Allende and Chile **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 26, 2012, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977 "2012-04-26T02:29:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/1 "2012-04-26T02:29:23Z")
I’ve read in _The Secret History of the CIA_ that he was the best thing that ever happened to Chile, and Nixon and the CIA were assholes for staging the coup. Wikipedia on the other hand reports that the military held free elections soon after the coup, and that was the best thing ever to happen to Chile. What’s the straight dope? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/2 "2012-04-26T04:10:09Z")
No doubt opinions about Allende and the coup are going to depend a lot on people’s political prejudices, but I do not see the bit about free elections soon after the coup in [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile#20th_century), and, frankly, it does not sound likely. The first election mentioned is a “controversial” plebiscite to establish a new constitution, with coup leader Pinochet becoming president, seven years after his original coup. Are you reading a different article? (Possibly there are edit wars going on.) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/3 "2012-04-26T04:16:49Z")
Missed edit window: No, it does not look like edit wars. Seven years is not soon after, and a plebiscite that confirms the current dictator as president for the next 8 years does not sound to me like a free election. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/4 "2012-04-26T04:24:52Z")
Everything I’ve read (and been taught) says that Allende being ousted was horrible for Chile. Pinochet’s reign left thousands tortured/killed/disappeared. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/5 "2012-04-26T04:41:47Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > … Wikipedia on the other hand reports that the military held free elections soon after the coup, and that was the best thing ever to happen to Chile. > > What’s the straight dope? … As every cell in Chile will tell The cries of the tortured men Remember Allende and the days before Before the army came Please remember [Victor Jara,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Jara) In the Santiago Stadium Es Verdad Those Washington bullets again … Joe Strummer (for The Clash) [_Washington Bullets_](http://lyrics.wikia.com/The_Clash:Washington_Bullets) > [@](#): > > … On the morning of September 12, Jara was taken, along with thousands of others, as a prisoner to the Chile Stadium (renamed the Estadio Víctor Jara in September 2003). In the hours and days that followed, many of those detained in the stadium were tortured and killed there by the military forces. Jara was repeatedly beaten and tortured; the bones in his hands were broken as were his ribs. Fellow political prisoners have testified that his captors mockingly suggested that he play guitar for them as he lay on the ground with broken hands. Defiantly, he sang part of “Venceremos” (We Will Win), a song supporting the Popular Unity coalition. After further beatings, he was machine-gunned on September 16, his body dumped on a road on the outskirts of Santiago and then taken to a city morgue where 44 bullets were found in his body. … > > … In June 2008, Chilean judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes re-opened the investigation into Jara’s death. Judge Fuentes said he would examine 40 new pieces of evidence provided by the singer’s family. On May 28, 2009, José Adolfo Paredes Márquez, a 54-year-old former Army conscript was arrested the previous week in San Sebastian, Chile, and was formally charged with Jara’s murder. Following Paredes’ arrest, on June 1, 2009, the police investigation identified the name of the officer who first shot Víctor Jara in the head. The officer played Russian roulette with Jara, by placing a single round in his revolver, spinning the cylinder, placing the muzzle against Jara’s head and pulling the trigger. The officer repeated this a couple of times, until a shot fired and Víctor fell to the ground. The officer then ordered two conscripts (one of them Paredes) to finish the job, by firing into Jara’s body. … 'Cause fucking folk singers were really that fucking dangerous to fucking Pinochet. :mad: CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/6 "2012-04-26T04:52:25Z")
I too rely on punk rock for accurate historical information. I do not think it is very widely disputed that the Pinochet regime was absolutely horrible, though. As for Allende, he never got a chance to do much. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/7 "2012-04-26T06:08:42Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I too rely on punk rock for accurate historical information. … I don’t. _I_ start with things like this [_Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents relating to the Military Coup, 1970-1976_](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm). I proceed from there until I get that “I’m really wanting to open an artery” feeling, then stop reading and just add sites to my already bloated bookmarks. Joe only introduced me to Victor Jara. CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/8 "2012-04-26T11:49:26Z")
Perhaps I confused Wiki with the CIA Factbook. Thanks, all. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/9 "2012-04-26T13:34:26Z")
Allende was ruining the country’s economy and triggered a constitutional crisis. He was not the best thing to happen to Chile. The coup was not the best thing either since it resulted in a 15 year dictatorship and many several thousands of people being killed. Whatever the best thing to happen to Chile was it probably did not happen in the 70s. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/10 "2012-04-26T21:36:34Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Allende was ruining the country’s economy and triggered a constitutional crisis. He was not the best thing to happen to Chile. The coup was not the best thing either since it resulted in a 15 year dictatorship and many several thousands of people being killed. Whatever the best thing to happen to Chile was it probably did not happen in the 70s. Was it Allende that ruined the economy? I thought it was the U.S. that did so in order to destabilize Chile. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/11 "2012-04-26T22:41:33Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Perhaps I confused Wiki with the CIA Factbook. > > Thanks, all. Does the CIA Factbook assert that there were free elections held soon after Pinochet’s coup? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/12 "2012-04-26T22:41:39Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > Was it Allende that ruined the economy? I thought it was the U.S. that did so in order to destabilize Chile. The US (and other countries) imposed a boycott of Chile in response to Allende nationalizing foreign-owned copper mines. Whether you want to hang the boycott on Allende or Nixon is up to you. It’s hard to say if Allende’s economic reforms would have ruined the economy on their own or not, but certainly the US boycott made it impossible for them to succeed given the degree to which Chile’s economy was dependent on exports, especially copper exports to the US. It’s probably pretty safe to say that antagonizing one’s largest trading partner was an economic blunder, even without CIA conspiracies. Allende may have assumed that friendlier relations with the communist world would bring in more trade, but he was working under the overly optimistic picture of the Soviet economy most of the world had at that time, and in retrospect that was not a realistic assumption for him to make. The price of copper also came down quite a lot during his rule, which definitely did not help. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/13 "2012-04-26T23:40:25Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Whatever the best thing to happen to Chile was it probably did not happen in the 70s. Excellent way to describe the situation. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2012, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/14 "2012-04-27T00:32:33Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Does the CIA Factbook assert that there were free elections held soon after Pinochet’s coup? :dubious: No, I believe they have the dates right. “After a series of elected governments, the three-year-old Marxist government of Salvador ALLENDE was overthrown in 1973 by a military coup led by Augusto PINOCHET, who ruled until a freely elected president was installed in 1990. Sound economic policies, maintained consistently since the 1980s, have contributed to steady growth, reduced poverty rates by over half, and have helped secure the country’s commitment to democratic and representative government. Chile has increasingly assumed regional and international leadership roles befitting its status as a stable, democratic nation.” [Link](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ci.html) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2012, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/allende-and-chile/619977/15 "2012-04-27T02:14:11Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > No, I believe they have the dates right. > > “After a series of elected governments, the three-year-old Marxist government of Salvador ALLENDE was overthrown in 1973 by a military coup led by Augusto PINOCHET, who ruled until a freely elected president was installed in 1990. Sound economic policies, maintained consistently since the 1980s, have contributed to steady growth, reduced poverty rates by over half, and have helped secure the country’s commitment to democratic and representative government. Chile has increasingly assumed regional and international leadership roles befitting its status as a stable, democratic nation.” > > [Link](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ci.html) So the prompt, post-coup free elections were entirely a figment of your imagination, I guess.