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

programs were based on the often contradictory or indecisive or misinformed attitudes of the masses. In all fairness, though, I must admit that, while it was the Christian Democrats who handed the government over to the Marxist, the other traditional political parties, including the one to which, at that time, 1, myself, belonged, --the National Party- had abdicated their political responsibilities six years earlier when they surrendered to Frei. A vicious circle came into being. Parliamentary behavior deteriorated to such an extent that the poiitical system lost prestige in the eyes of the general public. People no longer believed -or at least acted as if they no loriger believed- in anybody or anything. Thus, many individuals of intell igence, competence and experience found an excuse to withdraw from the forums of public life, and to devote themselves entirely to business or money– making activities. In the last three years of Frei's regime, the per capita income did not increase at'all in real terms, while, ultimatély, the state bureaucracy was consuming 25 % of the gross national product. Party strife had taken its toll and, when carried to extremes, began to destroy the nation itself. In the end, public opinion came to view politics almost as something to be ashamed of. These conditions created a growing political vacuum which was an outright gift to the Marxist. In turn, this very same vacuum was to be filled by the military. One effort to cope with the evident threats of this decay came into being during the Christian Democratic administration. A small group of former mil itants of the old Conserva– tive and Liberal Parties and a great number of political independent people formed a new grouping, the National Party. Their action was significant because it gave birth to Chile's second leading political force, and it awakened the Chilean sensé of responsibility and strengthened the "no surrender" decision of a very large number of citizens. But in spite of its decisive contribution to develop new poi itical attitudes, the organization of the National Party was not timely enough to reverse the tide of decay. Therefore no Chilean -not even those who fought the hardest against that harmful trend- can claim freedom from responsi– bility for bringing Chile to the verge of annihilation. HOW ALLENDE BECAME PRESIDENT Allende did not come to power as the result of a popular election. He received barely 36.5 % of the vote. He was, in fact, elected President by Congress, essentially by the Christian Democrats, after he had accepted a Statute of Guarantees as an amendment of the Constitution, appropriately dubbed "a paper dam". During the legislative debate on this amendment, Allende addressed the Senate with convincing sincerity, but only a few months later, asked by the French journalist Régis Debray, why he had'acquiesced to such guarantees, he repl ied flippantly that his move had been merely a tactical one to insure his designation as President. Once in office, Allende himself, his Unidad Popular, and the Communist Party repea– tedly claimed that, although they had acceded to government, they had not acceded to power. In other words, they were saving that their real goal was not democratic but totalitarian government. IMPERIALISM AND FOREIGN INTERVENTION From the moment that Unidad Popular set out to attain that total power, my country began to experience the sufferings resulting from the techniques of communist interven– tion. Cubans, of course, were in the lead. We also felt the Chinese touch, and UN action against self-determination carried on through ECLA. A score of foreign universities became sources of boastful, pseudo-academic judgments and misinformation about Allende's experiments, which received wide publicity by much of. the world's press. This whole 64