Word: chiles
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...first glance, the fierceness of Chilean leftist feeling against the U.S. seems strange indeed. Chile, after all, is more prosperous and more egalitarian than most of its neighbors. It is also the staunchest democracy in South America, undisturbed by coups d'état since 1932 and led for the past six years by the strenuously reformist government of President Eduardo Frei. Few countries in Latin America have appeared to be so devoted to the democratic process as this nation of 9,000,000. Even its geography helped by isolating it from its neighbors. Stretching more than 2,600 miles down...
...months ago, the U.S. National Security Council received a report that if Allende won, a Communist takeover would inevitably follow. With it would come a dismantling of the democratic electoral process. As a Western diplomat put it last week: "Chile is a victim of Communist Russian roulette. Democracy gave the Communists one chance at power every six years. Now they've won, and they'll never give democracy another chance...
Allende has categorically denied such charges, but there have already been some disquieting signs. Chile's Communist Party has 45,000 members and is one of the largest in Latin America; it is smaller but far better organized than Allende's own Socialists. Of the 8,000 Popular Front committees organized for the campaign, 80% were led by Communists; the number of committees has grown to 12,000 in the past four weeks. Apparently because he is afraid of the Communists' strength, Allende has so far denied the Communists any key posts on his government planning team. That, of course...
Then the Christian Democrats tried another tactic. In return for the united support of all 75 C.D.P. Congressmen in next week's balloting, they asked Allende, would he guarantee the survival of Chile's opposition political parties, free press, labor-union autonomy, and right of assembly? And would he relinquish his right to name the chiefs of the armed services and turn that prerogative over to the armed forces themselves, subject to congressional approval? It was a pathetic appeal. TIME Correspondent David Lee noted: "The governing party was beseeching the apparent President-elect for guarantees of the very freedoms that...
...make military appointments. It was a thin concession on Allende's part, but it was enough to swing the C.D.P. In a session at week's end, the party agreed to support Allende unanimously. Barring an unlikely military coup or even more unlikely outside intervention, he will be inaugurated Chile's next President...