Augusto Pinochet

Augusto Pinochet

A career military officer, Augusto Pinochet was named head of the Chilean army around the same time he joined a CIA-backed coup plot against the man who had promoted him, President Salvador Allende. On September 11, 1973, the Chilean navy took over the port city of Valparaiso while tanks and troops advanced on the presidential palace in downtown Santiago. Directing the attack from a suburban command post, Pinochet ordered two fighter jets to fire rockets at the palace. As flames burst skyward, soldiers then stormed the building, prompting Allende, a democratically elected Marxist, to commit suicide rather than surrender. Pinochet’s men spent the rest of the day—and many days thereafter— rounding up thousands of Allende supporters to be tortured and, in many cases, executed without trial. Meanwhile, Pinochet began what would become a 17-year dictatorial reign. Congressional testimony and declassified documents later showed that, under U. S. President Richard Nixon’s orders, the CIA had for years attempted to foment Allende’s downfall, in part by funding anti-Allende propaganda, taking measures to hurt Chile’s economy and maintaining constant contact with known coup plotters. The CIA moreover played a role in the assassination of a pro-democracy general.

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