Editor’s Pick

ON 3 NOVEMBER 1970, Salvador Allende became the first socialist president of Chile. Born in 1908, in Valparaíso, into an upper-middle-class family, Allende helped found the Socialist Party in 1933. Allende, seen here giving a speech, in 1962, at a solidarity rally for the Cuban Revolution, had a long political career.

Though he had been a senator four times, Allende had lost three presidential bids before 1970, when he ran as the candidate for Popular Unity, a coalition of socialists, communists, radicals and dissident Christian democrats. After his win, Allende set out to restructure Chilean society along socialist lines while retaining democratic institutions. His government nationalised the copper industry, much of which was controlled by companies from the United States; established peasant cooperatives, which took over large agricultural estates; authorised large wage increases; and froze prices.

In response, the United States blocked foreign loans and the Central Intelligence Agency spent over $8 million funding activities to disrupt Allende’s presidency, including strikes and opposition media. By 1972, Chile was experiencing stagnant production, rising inflation, food shortages and widespread unrest.

Allende’s coalition still won nearly half of the vote in the election held in March 1973. His second term was short-lived, as a coup d’état led by Augusto Pinochet overthrew the government in September that year. Allende refused an offer of safe passage out of the country, and on 11 September 1937, he died—apparently by suicide—after the air force bombed the presidential palace.