Word: frei
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Chile's imaginative new President Eduardo Frei may not be able to get a single key bill through his lame-duck Congress, but he has certainly stirred the country's youth to unaccustomed activities. To help make good his election promise of "no child without a school," Frei has recruited an unpaid hammer-and-nail corps of 1,500 university students to build schools in out-of-the-way places that have rarely seen a government mission of any kind. Local communities provide building materials, plus food and lodging for the student workers. The students expect to complete...
...Frei knew he could not expect to pass his entire program, so he pushed "urgently" for three measures to get things started. He wanted higher taxes on personal property, legislation to support the cleanup of slums in municipalities around the country, additional presidential powers that would help him govern. Congress has answered no to all three items...
What happened to Frei's request for new presidential powers illustrates his problem. Frei asked for the right to create four new ministries, set up a national economic planning office, and modify tariffs as necessary, all of which required congressional approval. Every Chilean President has made similar requests upon assuming office, and Congress has normally granted permission with a minimum of todo. This time, right-wing conservatives joined left-wing Communists and Socialists to talk the proposal to death, arguing that "Frei is trying to concentrate too much power in one man's hands." Seeing the futility...
Appeal to the People. The major piece of legislation remaining before Congress is Frei's landmark "Chileani-zation of copper" agreement. Needing only a congressional O.K. before it goes into effect, the deal will give the government a 51% interest in the U.S.'s Braden Copper Co. and a 25% interest in two new U.S. mining ventures, the most promising of which will extend operations at Chuquicamata, already the world's largest open-pit copper mine (TIME, Jan. 1). Nationalists and leftists in Congress are not likely to act on that presidential idea either. They accuse Frei...
With his government stuck on dead center, Frei went on nationwide radio and eloquently drew the battle lines for the March 7 elections. "This country cannot wait indefinitely," said the President. "It is faced with problems of dramatic urgency. We cannot play politics, because the game costs lives and misery. I have not come merely to occupy a position. I have come to carry out a task, and I will appeal to the people as a supreme arbiter...