After a few months off, we are returning to our Modern Chile series with today’s episode. For our next episodes in this series, we will be covering the Pinochet years, defined primarily as the years between 1973 and 1990 in which General Augusto Pinochet ruled Chile as a brutal, bloody dictator. We will also investigate the efforts to bring Pinochet to justice following his ousting by a popular plebiscite in 1988 and the return to democracy in 1990.
In this episode, we start by looking at an obituary written for General Pinochet in The New York Times, which provides us with insight into how Pinochet is remembered and the impact he had on Chile. We then discuss Pinochet’s background and how he came to lead the coup that would sound the death knell for President Salvador Allende and Chilean democracy. To close the episode, we describe a framework for studying Pinochet’s government proposed by scholar Carlos Huneeus in his book, The Pinochet Regime.
There is a lot of history to dig into with this particular era in Chilean history, and we hope to shine a light on some of its most interesting and important aspects, all while drawing out the relevance of this period for our contemporary moment.
Show Notes
Listen to The History Onion’s Modern Chile Series:
* Revolutionary Road (Modern Chile Ep. 1)
* Salvador Allende (Modern Chile Ep. 2)
* The Economics of the Allende Years (Modern Chile Ep. 3)
* The US in Chile: Part 1 (Modern Chile Ep. 4)
* The US in Chile: Part 2 (Modern Chile Ep. 5)
Real Dictators podcast - first Pinochet episode.
Seymour Hersch NYT article linking CIA to Chilean truckers’ strike 1974
Credits
Theme music by our youngest brother Tate.
Cover art by Arthur Santoro.
