Dec

11

Larry,

He was good for the economy, but bad for the lower and middle class. My wife is not mourning, but some of her friends and family are. She was involved first hand on the streets of Santiago in the demonstrations and fighting that led to Allende’s overthrow. She was in her first year of University and was suddenly studying with many Cubans who didn’t open their books much. Of course, you know that Allende committed suicide on the runway with a machinegun given to him by Fidel Castro. This truly was a battle of left and right with landowner’s parcels being expropriated by a socialistically elected president who turned to communism.

Pinochet would be a hero today if he had done as promised and helped the return of the country to democracy in the two years he and the rest of the Junta promised. Instead he went on a campaign of terror and fist-tightening control for nearly 17 years. Anyway, I first lived in Chile in 1981. Then I knew Marco Antonio Pinochet (his youngest son) when I worked in Portillo in 1982. There is a long story here which I always wanted my wife to put down. Her father was with Pinochet — a longtime landowner/barone in Chile. Her mother, Swedish and French, was a second cousin to Allende. Interesting.

Take care, ######


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