Augusto Pinochet
* Michael Warder, in his defense of Augusto Pinochet (Column Right, Jan. 5), states that Pinochet’s 1973 military coup “toppled the radical Marxist dictatorship of Salvador Allende.” This is too blatant a rewrite of history to go unchallenged. Allende was a democratically elected president of Chile; he was not a dictator. The military coup overthrew the legitimate government. Pinochet was the usurper and tyrant.
And, since the U.S. government was intimately involved in the plotting of the coup, Warder’s notion that the U.S. should now “stand up in the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine” to assist American states affected by aggression--i.e., to defend Pinochet--is sublimely hypocritical. Look on the bright side, Mr. Warder: At least Pinochet is alive and has legal redress, which is more than he and his minions ever allowed to Allende and thousands of Chileans.
PHILIP BRIMBLE
Los Angeles
*
Warder is wrong to assert Allende’s government, overthrown by Pinochet in 1973, was a dictatorship. Indeed, Allende was Marxist, but he ran as a Marxist and was fairly elected in a long-standing democracy by the Chilean people.
KEVIN A. KING
Torrance
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