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

establishment of joint committees to work out further agreements. However, the Christian Democrats denounced these proposals as "dilatory" and broke off the negotiations. A few days before the dialogue was initiated, the truckers began another strike, which was to last from July 26 until the coup on September 11. As in October, the truckers were joined by the other gremios. Coming at a time when the 12-month inflation rate. fueled by massive government budget deficits and subsidies to the nationalized industries and agriculture, had reac~ed 323 percent -and in a situation where inventories had not yet been built up from the October strike- the fruckers' action created much more serious problems for the government than the earlier strike. This new crisis once again raised the question of military participation in the cabinet. and General Prats persuaded his fellow commanders that it was their patriotic duty to re-enter the cabinet in order to settle the strike. On August 9 Allende swore in what he called a "national security cabinet", with General Prats as Defense Minister, Air Force Commander César Ruiz as Minister of Transport (the ministry which would deal with the striking truckers), and the heads ofthe Navy and of the National Police in other cabinet posts. Almost coincident with the entrance of the military into the cabinet, the naval esta– blishment became involved in a serious conflict with the left wing ofthe Allende coalilion. On August 7, the.naval intelligence arm announced the discovery of a plot to carry out an enlisted men's revolt on' August 11 in Valparaíso and Concepción. The annoúncement accused PS Secretary General Carlos Altamirano, MAPU leader Osear Garretón, and Miguel Enríquez, head of the MIR, of being the "íntellectual authors" of the revolt and demanded the lifting of the congressional ímmunity of the first two, who sat respectively in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. Two days before the September coup, Altamirano admitted that he had encouraged navymen to resist their coup-minded (golpistas} offi– cers.(23) This attempt'to subvert the hierarchy of a service command from below was combined with maneuvers by Allende to replac'e officers unsympathetic to him. When General Ruiz resigned his cabinet post on August17 in' protest against his lack of sufficient power to settle the strike. Allende compelled him t9 add that his departure fromthe cabinet "impl ici– tly" carried with it his retirement as Air Force Commander. This was correctly seen as an Allendetactic to remove an officer opposed to him, and it met serious resistance froni within the Air.Force. provoking a series of actions which ultimately led directly to the September 11 coup. On August 20, top Air Force officers met to decide whetherto resist Allende's action. By evening, Ruiz had persuaded them to accept it on the condition that Allende appoint the second-ranking officer, General Gustavo Leigh, as Air Force Commander and name anot– her Air Force general to the cabinet (so that Allende could not repeat the same maneuver with Leigh). The next night the wives of high-ranking military officers, including those of six generals, gathered in front of General Prats' house tó present a letter asking tor his resignation. When the demonstrationwas broken up by pOlice tear gas, it provoked such dissension in the armed torces that on. thetollowing day General Prats decided to resign both as Detense Minister and ArmyCommander.He was jóined by two other generals who, with Prats, had led the military torces that had quelled the tank-regiment revolt in June. The resignation of what appeared to be the last defenders of Allende in the army now meant that all three services opposed to the President. It coincided with the adoption on the same day of a "sense of the house" (acuerdo) res91ution by the Chamber of Deputie,s directed at the President and the military ministers. drawing their attention lo "the serious breakdown on the constitutional and legal order".(24) The resoluiíon criticized the Allende governmentfor repeatedly bypassing the legislature through the use of legalloopholes and (23)11 was an índication ofthe continuing press Ireedom in Chile tha! newsstands in downtown Chile at this time contained a left-wing publication headlíned, "Soldiers. DisobeyYourOfficers." and a magazine 01 the extreme Right with Ihe headlines. "The Right 01 Rebellíon." "Rebellion and its Goals." and "Resislance 10 Ihe Tyrant" (24)Libro BlancO, pp. 239-42. 34