Let me go back to 1969. As part of a Human Relations class I was teaching at one of the branches of the University of Chile in the south of Chile, I took 25 of my students to a hospital. They were Home Economics majors.

We were taken into a room where the malnourished children were held. While the Social Worker was explaining that there were 4 to 5 children per bed because of the shortage in beds and lack of economic help, we saw two babies die in front of our eyes. Those babies looked like the ones you see in the movies. Faces like a skull and big, big swollen stomachs.

By that time, we had one doctor per 5000 people in Chile. However, since doctors were in the main cities, people there had more opportunity to visit doctors, especially if they could afford them. In Chile, babies died in the proportion of 100 per 1000 each year. Why?

Yes, I had Marxist ideas. I believed that socialism could be the answer. No Christian donations were coming to the hospitals. On the contrary, I saw so-called Christians accumulating food and goods as soon as a pro-socialist government was democratically elected in 1970. The President elected was an upper-middle-class medical doctor who had his daughters studying in my same high school. My mother and Allende’s wife used to sit together when attending my school sport competitions.

Allende knew and worked fighting malnutrition. He did not want a revolution. He wanted a peaceful way to socialism where everybody would have the access to feed their children and to medical insurance. The sin of that man was to be tired of the “Pharisees” dominion. In this case the conservative minority that owned almost all industries and were ready to please the “Roman empire”, that is USA, and transnational companies, and ready to condemn and impede the smallest attempt of love, compassion or mercy.

Allende received 36.2% of the vote. He was supported by the Unidad Popular (UP or Popular Unity) coalition formed by the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Radical Party, the Party of the Radical Left, the Social Democratic Party and MAPU (Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitario). The candidate of the Christian Democrat party, Radomiro Tomic, got 27.8% with a similar platform to Allende’s. Both Allende and Tomic promised to further nationalize the mineral industry and redistribute land and income. Conservative former president Jorge Alessandri, standing for the National Party, received slightly under 34.9% of the vote.

Allende’s election had to be confirmed by Congress. There was an extraordinarily strong opposition from the right totally supported by the press. According to research, President Nixon had approved money to impede Allende’s becoming President. A group of high-level officials in the CIA, known as the “Special Review Group”, chaired by Henry Kissinger, had constant contact with members of the Army in Chile, much before the election of 1970, and saw the danger of having a second Marxist government in Latin America. By that time, U.S. appeared to be totally against Marxist ideas. Nevertheless, the election was confirmed on October 24, 1970. Allende guaranteed support to 10 libertarian constitutional amendments demanded by the Christian Democrat party.

One of Dr Allende’s measures as president-elected in 1970 was the nationalization of copper mines. However, as I said, this was only a continuation of the “nationalization” process that had already started under the previous presidency of Eduardo Frei, from the Christian Democrat party. The government expropriated the U.S.-owned copper companies in Chile almost without compensation. The pro-socialist government also took measures to purchase several mining and manufacturing companies owned by national and foreign firms. This was not taken well by the traditional ruling class nor by the foreign investors, especially U.S.

Also, under Allendes’ government, the “agrarian reform” continued and large agricultural estates were taken to be used by cooperatives organized by field workers. Wages increases and prices were frozen to compensate the difference of salaries that were extreme. However, as salaries increased so did the prices of everything, especially food.

The government also produced large amounts of currency, without basis, because of the great fiscal deficit created by the purchase of basic industries.

By 1972 Chile’s production was stagnant. Exports decreased mainly due to the fall in the price of copper. Financial reserves were exhausted, and the private sector did not invest anymore. Strikes erupted on every sector, mainly in middle class neighborhoods. Inflation galloped. Food supply became very scarce, not only because the production was less but because the owners of grocery stores started accumulating goods and or selling them at an extremely high price. Inflation increased and domestic unrest took over. Middle class wives went to the streets banging on their pots to complain against the socialist governments. The owners of trucks in Chile, supposedly financed by the CIA, organized a nation-wide strike that practically stopped transportation and paralyzed the distribution of food, gasoline, and other fuel, and in fact, all necessities in all the country.

To add to the “damages” to the small dominant economic class in Chile, good relationships were established with Soviet Union, Cuba and China. Fidel Castro visited Chile in November 1971 and gave several of his 3 to 6 hours speeches at several venues. I was working at a university in the north of Chile and I stood for 3 hours listening to Fidel until I had to go sit somewhere else.

My cousin, Arturo Araya, a Captain of the Chilean Navy, was the Navy Aide to President Allende. He was impressed with the man, but not impressed with the politicians that surrounded the president. Arturo was probably killed by a hidden sniper from Patria y Libertad (Fatherland and Liberty Nationalist Front, a far-right militant group), or from the Navy Intelligence, at his residence in Santiago on 26 July 1973. (The investigation never found the real sniper or the weapon. The alleged murderer was one year in prison and then pardoned by the Dictator Augusto Pinochet). Arturo respected the Constitution and would have opposed the Military Coup, so he needed to be eliminated.

The head of the group Patria y Libertad happened to be the boyfriend of one of my girlfriends that lived in my neighborhood. The young man had a strange, hard character and the relationship did not last long.

When my family told me about the death of my cousin, I managed to get permission to travel in the restroom of a very full plane and arrived in Santiago, after two hours of flight, in time to go visit my cousin lying in state at the very Palace of the government. Lines and lines of people waited to see him.

Captain Arturo Araya was a submarine officer trained in Philadelphia, U.S. His career in the Navy was notable. He was first an instructor at the Navy School, then Deputy Director of the Naval Academy. After enhancing his studies he was made Chief of Public Relations of the Navy.  Arturo was buried standing on his feet in Valparaiso, looking at his beloved Pacific Ocean.

At that time the government of the United States under President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, were opposed to Allende’s government. A socialist government in Chile could influence other Latin American countries. Thus, the CIA was involved in covert operations that I personally confirmed when I came to study at the University of Texas in Austin. One of my professors at the Communications Schools let me know that they have designed one of the press campaigns against the government of Allende.

An interesting book that addresses what happened in Chile in 1973, and before, is “How to Stage a Coup: And Ten Other Lessons From The World of Secret Statecraft, by Rory Cormac” (Cormac 2023)

How time has changed.