The Anatomy of a Coup: Chile 1973 and Modern Echoes

Description

Coups are often remembered as sudden explosions of force. Tanks in the streets. Jets overhead. Governments collapsing overnight. But history tells a quieter, more unsettling story.

In this episode of This, Again, we trace the hidden psychological pattern that links coups across centuries and continents, from Napoleon’s rise in revolutionary France to Cold War interventions in Latin America and beyond. Using the 1973 Chilean coup as our central case study, we examine how democratic systems unravel long before soldiers ever move, through exhaustion, institutional paralysis, rumor, and the slow withdrawal of public belief.

Chile did not collapse because the military was powerful. It collapsed because trust eroded. Because Congress froze. Because courts lost credibility. Because everyday life became unpredictable. And because enough people, across enough institutions, quietly stopped believing the system could recover.

Along the way, we connect Chile’s experience to earlier and later coups in France, Poland, Spain, Greece, Guatemala, and Argentina, revealing a shared emotional architecture that repeats even when politics, ideologies, and eras change.

This is not a story about left versus right. It is a story about legitimacy, exhaustion, and the dangerous silence that settles in just before power changes hands.

History does not repeat in identical events. It repeats in human behavior.

Attribution Notes:

Every effort was made to cross-check primary sources and modern research. Where paraphrasing is used, it’s drawn from the texts below with narrative license for clarity and flow.
If you spot an error or have a source to suggest, DM @thisagainshow

Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow

This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust.

Allende's Final Address: https://youtu.be/IZVWOWA2Hpk?si=xNHlO33Ve9rc0jzU

PRIMARY SOURCES

Chile 1973 — Direct Primary Sources

1. Salvador Allende: Speeches & Broadcasts

Allende’s Last Speech (Radio Magallanes, Sept. 11, 1973)
Transcript + audio:
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB470/

2. Declassified U.S. Government Documents

(All hosted by the National Security Archive at George Washington University)

CIA: “Covert Action in Chile, 1963–1973”
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile-coup-nixon-kissinger
“Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1969–1976, Vol. XXI: Chile”
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v21
Nixon/Kissinger Telephone Transcripts on Chile
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB437/

3. Chilean Newspapers (Digitized)

El Mercurio (Digital Archive)
https://www.elmercurio.com/
(Full 1970–73 archives require subscription, but summary archives & headlines are viewable.)
La Nación (Chile) - Historical Archive
https://www.lanacion.cl/archivo/
Clarín (Archive + PDFs)
https://www.clarin.cl/historia/

4. Eyewitness/Oral History Archives

Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Chile) - Oral Histories
https://www.museodelamemoria.cl/archivos/

5. Allende Family & Personal Reflections

Isabel Allende - “Mi País Inventado” excerpts
https://www.isabelallende.com/en/book/my-invented-country
(snippets available via publishers; full text is a book)

B. Global Coup Parallels - Primary Sources with Links

1. Iran 1953