Chile: the balanced view : a recopilation of articles about the Allende years and after

U.S. ECONOMIC POLICY TOWARDS CHILE DURING THE POPULAR UNITY GOVERNMENT(*) By JAMES D. THEBERGE Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I very much welcome this opportu– nity to discuss with you and the distinguished members of your committee U.S. economic policy towards Chile during the Popular Unity Government and its possible role in the tragic fate of President Allende and Chilean democracy. My remarks will focus, therefore, on the nature and scope of U.S. economic relations with Chile from November 3, 1970, when Salvador Allende was inaugurated President, and September 11, 1973, when he was forcibly removed from office by the Chilean Armed Forces and National Police. NATURE AND AIMS OF THE ALLENDE GOVERNMENT As a prel udeto any review of U.S. economic relations with the Allende Government, it is important to correct some misleading notions about the aims ofthe Allende regime that are still prevalent in the United States and Western Europe. Liberal publ i'c opinion outside o{ Chile was profoundly ignorant of the true nature and aims of the Allende regime and was deliberately, systematically and brilliantly misled by official spokesmen. The Chilean path to socialism (vía chilena) proclaimed by Allende soon after his election was widely misunderstood in the West. The image officially propagated at home and abroad was that of a uniquely Chilean path to a newtype of Marxist-humanist socialism where basic liberties, 'economic pluralism, and free elections were respected. An intense propaganda campaign misled world public opinion to believe that the Allende Government was constructing a new Western European type of democratic socialism that would combine individual freedoms and social justice. This image clashed with the real ities of Chile's Marxist experiment as it unfolded. Despite the assurances of the Marxist leaders of the Popular Unity Government that political pluralism and democratic freedoms would be preserved, it was no secret that they despised Chile's "bourgeois" constitution. In the Marxist jargon employed by the Allende officials, abstract terms like "democracy", "pluralism", and "freedom" meant something very different from the meaning given those terms in ordinary discourse. This perversion of language by the Marxist, which George Orwell has analyzed so brilliantly, helped to mask the true nature of the Allende regime. The ultimate goal of the Marxist leaders of the Popular Unity coalition did not waver throughout the Allende periodo It always was the conquest of complete power, not efficiency or social justice. The aimed at making the Chilean revolution "irreversible" which meant setting up a totalitarian system of government. There )Alas any doubt that the Moscow-line Chilean Communist Party's final objective was the installation of the "dictatorship of tlÍe proletariat" under Communist Party direction. How did Allende propose to destroy Chilean democracy? Before answering that let me add that Allende made no attempt to hide his purpose. As he himself told Régis Debray in nStatement before the House Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs. September 18. 1974. 153