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

and para-military brigades, worked feverishly to gain the upper hand in the confrontation that now seemed inevitable. Against this background, Alende tried to gain time. He tried to allay the increasing militancy ofthe Christian Democr;,ts by airy promises of changing his policy, oftaking them into the cabinet, and even of facing the country with a referendum. He tried to placate the armed forces by allowing them lo conduct arms searches in the heartlands of the Guerrilla Left -the Santiago poblaciones and the rural bases in the south- while at the same time trying to elbow out conser\lative officers like the Air Force commander, General César Ruiz, who lost his job in mid-August. He even tried to use the old formula of a joint Mil itary-Marxist cabinet that had bought him time back in 1972. He formed a new cabinet with the service commanders on 9 August, and when that fell apart afterPrats' resignation, he manag-ed to cobble together yet anothér one. But the tightrope that Allende was trying to walk was being cut away at both ends. As Allende's friend Régis Debray later acknowledged, the Left and the Right were engaged in a race against time. If the junta is to be believed, the Socialist Left and the Mír were now preparinc their "z plan" -a plan for the assassination of senior officers and civilian opposition leaders that was to have been executed on 18 September. It seems that they timed it a week too late. On Wednesday, 29 August, Admiral Merino and Admiral Sergio Huidobro, the chlef of the Chilean marines, went up to Santiago to see their commander. They told Admiral Monterothat he had lost the confidence ofthe Navy: he should resign, and the armed forces should withdraw from the cabine!. Montero insisted on consulting the president. So the three admirals drove around lo the Avenida Tomás Moro shortly afler midnight, where they found Allende "slightly drunk". According to one account,(5) he raged at Merino: "1 know what you are doing. Well' go ahead! What you discovered at Val paraíso is only one tenth of whal the Communists and the miristas are doing". And later, shaking his fist, "1 have declared war on the Navy". He had thrown down the gauntlet. He is even said to have boasted that his house in Tomás Moro was an "impregnable fortress", To which Huidobro replied: "You should leave matters of security to the .experts". 1I was as if Allende had strayed inlo that state of ate described by the Greek tragedians, in which it becomes impossible to decipher reality from illusion. T~e following Friday, back in Valparaí'SO, 500 naval officers waited in aconference room for an hour-and-a-half while the admirals talked in the nearby town of Las Salinas. Admiral Montero found that even his oldest friends were now convinced he should resigno Overcome by emotion, he agreed; and his decision was duly reported to the captains and commanders. Bul when he returned to Santiago, Allende insisted that he should stay on "a few weeks longer". The following morning, the admirals were summoned to Santiago for a surprise meeting in the Defence Ministry. They expected to be told that Montero's resigna– tion was confirmed. Instead, they were asked by Orlando Letelier, the Defence Minister, to stand up one by one and state their reasons tor wanting him lO go. Allende had calculated that their reluctance lo embarrass a fellow-officer in public would make them hold their tongues. He was wrong. Starting with Merino, the admirals stood up in turn and atlacked Montero for failing to secure the arrest of those responsible for the Valparaíso plot and for failing to press for military withdrawal from a cabinet that was "destroying the country". Afterthis show of adamancy, Allende adopted a different tack. He received Merino and Huidobro privately in his palace on Monday, 3 September, and asked them to give him "five or seven days more" to sort out his problems.At the end of that interval, he promised, he would appoint Merino as the new Navy commander and name an entirely civílian cabine!. (5)Allende iS,ol course, nol alive lo teslify as t!J the accuracy 01 these quotations; my account is based on eye-witness reports galhered in Santiago. 51