173. Telegram 5559 From the Embassy in Chile to the Department of State1
5559. Subject: One Year of the Chilean Junta.
1. Summary: As it reaches its first anniversary, the military junta which overthrew the leftist government of Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973 is firmly ensconced in power. Its greatest source of strength is that it has, and is seen to have, supplanted political and social strife, hyper-inflation and an economy near chaos by internal order and a fairly effective if harsh austerity program which could pave the way [Page 463] for future economic growth. Its weaknesses include the rigidity and limited capacity of a government dominated in almost all respects by the military; the actual and still more the potential liabilities created by repressive human rights practices, both at home and abroad; and the vulnerability of an economy irrevocably tied to the price fluctuations of a single export commodity—copper.
2. We see no effective threat and no alternative to the junta at the moment. It is slowly relaxing its human rights restrictions, but whether and to what extent it will move toward full restoration of traditional Chilean democratic norms remains very much an open question. End summary.
3. The inevitability of revolt. In evaluating the junta’s record, it is important to bear in mind the situation which led to the coup. To a considerable extent, rather than seeking power, the junta had power thrust upon it. The thousand days of the Allende regime had left the country in a shambles. It was wracked by political disputes, polarized by social antagonisms, disorganized by labor and civic unrest, and impoverished by unsound economic policies. It is reasonable to believe that the situation had deteriorated so sharply that some form of violent change was imminent—from the extreme left if not from the right. In these circumstances the assumption of power by the military was urged by some and welcomed by most as an appropriate response. A nation traumatized by what it had been through in the main responded gratefully to the reestablishment of order, sobriety, and more normal economic processes, even at the cost of further suppression of traditional Chilean freedoms. What remained of the left went underground to await a more auspicious day, while centers of anti-junta activity were organized outside the country.
4. Nature of the military government. New as they are to politics and civil administration, the leaders of the junta have organized their government with considerable success. With the single exception of economic and financial matters, all leading government functions continue to be headed by active or retired military officers. There is no Caudillo, although the senior member of the four-man junta, Army Commander General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, has emerged as Chief of State, and is gradually assuming greater ascendancy. This is still a regime in which all the military services participate: while rivalries exist, they do not affect decision-making at the general policy level. Government leaders work hard and appear to maintain high standards of personal official probity.
5. Administration is frequently heavy-handed and fumbling; the military types vary widely in their administrative ability; the prevailing thrust of the leaders is self-righteous, didactic, intolerant, and conservative. As time has gone by, fear of an imminent Marxist counterattack [Page 464] has diminished, but it is still a leading element in government thinking. It has resulted in a strident and oversimplified anti-Marxist approach in most areas of the regime’s activity.
6. The new Chilean society. An authoritarian society has taken shape within this framework. Traditional political activity and the parliamentary system have been suppressed, and the normal political processes of interaction and feedback between government and people have been curtailed. Leftist parties have been banned; the others have been placed in “recess,” forbidden to carry out political activities and limited to the barest administrative tasks. What remains of a once lively press is supine and controlled, largely through self-censorship. Elections are forbidden in all social organizations; new leaders are appointed, and initiatives flow from the top down. The traditional gremios (professional, student and business organizations) continue to function. Their notions of a corporate state influence the junta, which is ideologically tugged this way and that by advisers who on the extreme are authoritarian, nationalistic and militaristic, while on the moderate wing they are less rigid and more populist in approach.
7. The human rights problem. In these circumstances, the exercise of human rights in Chile has been severely restricted. The junta has utilized strained legalisms and a compliant judiciary to justify harsh punitive measures—in the early days of the regime, summary executions; later, trials based on the retroactive application of present emergency legislation, sometimes accompanied by strong circumstantial evidence of torture. With experience over time, and with its success in counteracting the clandestine internal opposition, the regimes self-confidence has increased. A moderating trend has set in in this area, but there is no doubt that its continuance is subject to the maintenance of strict internal security standards. By all indications, the system of lengthy detention with little or no contact with families or attorneys, stringent investigation measures, and military justice will continue to be in effect for some time.
8. Nevertheless, Chile is by no means a totalitarian society. Its record in releasing third-country nationals who took refuge in safe quarters, and asylees holed up in embassies, has been good; about 8,500 have gone. The government has allowed all manner of international observers, official and unofficial, to enter the country freely, and has affored them quite extraordinary opportunities to visit and talk with leading officials, detainees, and critics. The continuance of a four and one-half hour nightly curfew and the ubiquity of armed security forces are borne easily by the average Chilean, whose daily life continues to be carried on in a surprisingly normal fashion.
9. Economic factors may be crucial. It is in the economic area that the government’s problems may be greatest. The policy of austerity [Page 465] adopted to rein in Chile’s unequalled inflation has been pursued quite vigorously. But it has proved more difficult than anticipated to counteract world-wide inflationary forces and the inflationary momentum of an inefficient productive process heavily supported by public deficit financing. The cost of living index rose by over 200 percent during the first eight months of 1974 and seems likely to exceed 300 percent by the end of the year.
10. At the same time, under what the government calls the “social market economy,” the state continues to disburse resources to moderate the extreme hardship to which the lower and middle income groups have been subjected. Wages are periodically raised, the lowest levels more than proportionately; a national public housing program is getting under way; and agricultural output is being stimulated by sharply higher prices. With the approach of the Southern Hemisphere summer months, the junta has survived a rigorous winter of scarcity and unemployment and looks forward to easier times in the future. It relies on improvements in agriculture, paper and pulp production, copper mining, and other extractive and capital goods industries to take up the slack which low demand for durable consumer goods has created during the austerity period.
11. The Chilean economy, however, remains extremely vulnerable to external forces. Chile’s initial steps in the international economic area were highly successful: with USG support it refinanced heavy international obligations on very advantageous terms; it benefitted from the reopening of lending by international banking organizations; and it prepared for an as yet unrealized inflow of private foreign investment through new and encouraging domestic legislation. Beneficial as they are, these developments may well be undercut by events substantially beyond Chile’s control. Exports of copper usually comprise 75 to 80 percent of total Chilean exports. While copper at up to $1.40 a pound earlier in 1974 beefed up Chile’s international balances, the price in mid-September had slid to 66 cents. On the other hand, Chile’s imports, nearly half of which consist of food and petroleum, still had to be bought at almost unprecedented prices. With the highest per capita debt burden in all of Latin America, and with anything but a well-rounded or efficient local production base, Chile is ill equipped to withstand an international depression.
12. The prospects ahead. As the new regime enters its second year, it has settled down for the longer haul. For the time being it maintains excellent internal security against left-wing terrorist elements. It responds huffily and uneasily to criticisms of its civil and political rights practices from the Catholic Church and the Centrist Christian Democratic Party. While originally committed to the eventual restoration of democratic procedures in a Chile purged of the demagogy and social [Page 466] conflict of its recent past, it is moving in that direction very slowly indeed. It would be unsafe to predict when, how or if it will reach that goal.
13. Somewhat surprisingly, given the economic hardships and political restrictions of the last year, public support for the government appears to remain at a high level; there are few of the objective signs of discontent one might expect to see. While the trauma of the Allende denouement persists, most people would agree that there is no alternative to the junta. The regime will continue its search for more efficient administrative procedures; the struggle between authoritarian hard-liners and the more populist elements will continue to surge about the junta chiefs; the economic effort will move ahead but may be submerged under international developments. Meanwhile, pro-junta Chileans will continue to react sharply to outside criticism, most of which they regard as the propaganda of Marxist conspirators who carp at the mote in the Chilean eye, while ignoring the beam in the eye of the communist world.
14. More detailed analysis follows in separate airgrams.
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Summary: The Embassy reported that although the junta was firmly in power a year after the overthrow of Allende, its weaknesses included the limited capacity of a military-dominated government, the political liabilities created by repressive human rights practices, and the vulnerability of an economy dependent on a single commodity. Despite these challenges, the Embassy concluded that public support for the Chilean Government appeared to remain at a high level.
Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D740253–0688. Confidential; Priority. Repeated to Buenos Aires, Lima, La Paz, Brasília, Asunción, Quito, USUN, and the Mission in Geneva.
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