Word: frei
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Frei needed nationalization to restore Chile's economic sovereignty. But the feeble infant Chilean industries produced only luxury goods for the tiny upper class. Only nationalization accompanied by a marked income redistribution to create a market for Chilean production could have started Chile on the path to industrialization--and income redistribution was precisely the step Frei, crippled by his ties to the right, never tried to take...
...Chilean Left, which had been growing in strength in the previous years--Allende also came close in a 1958 election--attempted to pressure Frei into actually enacting his reforms. A group of younger radicals, tired of the plodding style of the Socialist and Communist Parties, broke away and formed the Movement of the Revolutionary Left--las miristas...
...Frei was caught in one of the contradictions of imperialism. The North American plunderers--the copper companies, ITT--were exploiting Chile so intensively that the entire nation objected: the poor, because funds needed for development were flowing out of the country; the rich, because they wanted a bigger share of the action. (In fact, when Allende finally sent his nationalization bill to Congress in 1971, all parties, including the right-wing Nationals, voted...
...SITUATION worsened in the later sixties and strikes began to rock Chilean cities, Frei turned to his only feasible alternative--repression--but only after he fought off the left within his own party. He broke the strikes with police, outlawed the miristas, forcing them underground, and formed the hatred grupo movil, his secret political police force...
...Frei, described in the American press as a liberal, actually by the end of his term was moving toward an authoritarian state. Reports that he has endorsed the present junta should therefore come as no surprise. A week before the military takeover, The New York Times ran an editorial entitled "Frei Has The Way." The Times neglected to inform its readers that Frei's way includes secret police, teeming jails and strikebreaking...