Word: frei
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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...
...Frei was prohibited from running for re-election in 1970, and his lackluster successor was edged out narrowly by Allende, the "Marxist" candidate. Chile's woes began as soon as Allende took office. He ruined the economy and needlessly turned the great majority of the country against him as inflation skyrocketed and food and medical shortages grew. Allende's overthrow was tragic, certainly, but he had it coming because he tried to do too much too fast...
...begin, the Frei years were hardly halcyon times of peace and social justice. Frei snuck past Allende in the 1964 election with strong conservative and CIA support, and he was always beholden to the right. As a consequence, his rhetoric outstripped reality: his touted agrarian reforms did little to change the shape of the Chilean landscape and he never got around to nationalizing the copper interests and other North American businesses as he promised...
...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...