Chilean Coup of 1973: Pinochet Overthrows Salvador Allende

The Chilean coup of 11 September 1973 overthrew Salvador Allende, the elected socialist president of Chile, after three years of growing political and economic crisis. Chile’s armed forces bombed the presidential palace of La Moneda in Santiago, Allende died inside, and a military junta under General Augusto Pinochet took power. The dictatorship that followed lasted until 1990 and became known worldwide for its human rights abuses.

Background: Allende and Popular Unity

Chile had one of the longest traditions of constitutional government in Latin America. In the presidential election of 4 September 1970, Salvador Allende, candidate of the left-wing Popular Unity (Unidad Popular) coalition, won a narrow plurality of about 36.6 per cent. As no candidate had a majority, Congress chose between the top two, and it confirmed Allende on 24 October after he agreed to a statute of constitutional guarantees. He took office on 3 November 1970.

Allende promised a “Chilean road to socialism” through legal means. Congress unanimously approved the nationalisation of the large copper mines, then mostly owned by US companies, in July 1971. The government also expanded land reform, took over banks and many industries, and raised wages.

The first year brought growth, but by 1972 the economy was in deep trouble. Shortages spread, a black market flourished and inflation reached several hundred per cent a year by 1973. Society polarised sharply between supporters and opponents of the government.

The US role

Washington viewed Allende’s election as a Cold War defeat, coming a decade after the Bay of Pigs invasion had failed to topple Fidel Castro. In September 1970 President Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to try to prevent Allende from taking office. One part of the effort encouraged a military coup; it ended in the shooting of the army commander, General René Schneider, who opposed any intervention, on 22 October 1970. He died three days later.

After Allende took office, the United States cut off most credit and aid to Chile and, according to the Church Committee of the US Senate, spent about 8 million dollars between 1970 and 1973 on covert support for opposition parties and media. The committee found no evidence that the United States directly took part in the 1973 coup, but it was aware of plotting and welcomed the result. The episode echoed the earlier Guatemalan coup of 1954.

The crisis of 1972 and 1973

In October 1972 a nationwide strike by lorry owners, joined by shopkeepers and professionals, paralysed the country. Allende brought military officers into his cabinet to restore order, including the army commander, General Carlos Prats, a defender of constitutional rule.

Congressional elections in March 1973 left neither side able to win outright. On 29 June 1973 a tank regiment attempted a coup in Santiago, known as the Tanquetazo, which loyal troops under Prats suppressed. A second lorry strike began in July. On 22 August the opposition-controlled Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution accusing the government of violating the constitution. The next day Prats resigned under pressure from fellow officers, and Allende appointed General Augusto Pinochet as army commander.

What happened on 11 September

In the early hours the navy seized the port of Valparaíso. In Santiago, army units surrounded La Moneda, where Allende had arrived with members of his personal guard. The junta, made up of Pinochet for the army, Admiral José Toribio Merino for the navy, General Gustavo Leigh for the air force and General César Mendoza for the national police (Carabineros), demanded his resignation and offered him a flight into exile.

Allende refused. In a last radio address, broadcast on Radio Magallanes, he said he would not resign and expressed faith that Chile’s future would be better. Shortly before noon Hawker Hunter jets of the air force fired rockets into La Moneda, setting it on fire. Troops then entered the building, and Allende died by suicide inside. A forensic investigation after his remains were exhumed in 2011 confirmed this.

The dictatorship

The junta dissolved Congress, banned left-wing parties and imposed curfews. Thousands of people were detained, many in Santiago’s National Stadium. The singer Víctor Jara was among those killed in the first days. In October 1973 a military unit known as the Caravan of Death executed political prisoners in several provincial cities, and in 1974 the regime created the DINA secret police.

Chile’s official truth commissions later recognised more than 3,000 people killed or forcibly disappeared under military rule, and around 38,000 survivors of political imprisonment and torture. Estimates of those who went into exile run to about 200,000 or more. In 1976 DINA agents killed the former minister Orlando Letelier with a car bomb in Washington.

Pinochet concentrated power in his own hands and became president. Economists trained at the University of Chicago, the “Chicago Boys”, introduced free-market reforms. A new constitution was approved in 1980.

Key people

• Salvador Allende (1908–1973), a physician and veteran Socialist Party politician, president of Chile from 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973.
• Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006), army commander from August 1973, head of the junta and later president until 1990.
• José Toribio Merino (1915–1996), commander of the navy, whose forces began the coup in Valparaíso.
• Gustavo Leigh (1920–1999), commander of the air force, whose aircraft bombed La Moneda; he was removed from the junta in 1978 after clashing with Pinochet.
• Carlos Prats (1915–1974), the constitutionalist army commander who resigned in August 1973; he was killed with his wife by a car bomb in Buenos Aires in September 1974, an attack later attributed to the DINA.
• Richard Nixon (1913–1994), US president, who ordered covert efforts against Allende in 1970.

Consequences and legacy

In a plebiscite on 5 October 1988, about 56 per cent of voters rejected extending Pinochet’s rule. Patricio Aylwin was elected president and took office on 11 March 1990, though Pinochet remained army commander until 1998. That year he was arrested in London on a Spanish warrant. He returned to Chile in 2000 and died in 2006 without being convicted.

The coup remains one of the most debated events in Latin American history. For some it was a tragedy that destroyed a democracy; for others it saved Chile from chaos. Its memory still divides Chilean politics. In 2023, on the fiftieth anniversary, ceremonies at La Moneda and debates in Congress showed how differently Chileans still interpret the events, while the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, opened in 2010, documents the victims of the dictatorship.

Timeline

• 1970, 4 September: Salvador Allende wins a plurality in the presidential election.
• 1970, 22 October: General René Schneider is shot in Santiago; he dies on 25 October.
• 1970, 3 November: Allende takes office.
• 1971, July: Congress approves the nationalisation of copper.
• 1973, 29 June: The failed Tanquetazo coup attempt.
• 1973, 23 August: Pinochet replaces Prats as army commander.
• 1973, 11 September: The armed forces seize power; La Moneda is bombed and Allende dies.
• 1988, 5 October: Voters reject continued rule by Pinochet in a plebiscite.
• 1990, 11 March: Democracy is restored as Patricio Aylwin takes office.

Why it matters

The 1973 coup ended one of Latin America’s oldest democracies and opened seventeen years of military rule. It became a defining Cold War case of foreign interference and of state violence against citizens, and it shaped the global human rights movement and the idea that former dictators can be held to account.