7 Augusto Pinochet 7Salvador Allende of Chile on Sept. 11, 1973, and head of
Chile’s military government from 1974 to 1990.
Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, a 1936 graduate of the mili-
tary academy in Santiago, was a career military officer who
was appointed army commander in chief by President
Allende 18 days before the coup, which he planned and
led. Pinochet was named head of the victorious junta’s
governing council, and he moved to crush Chile’s liberal
opposition. In its first three years, the regime arrested
approximately 130,000, many of whom were tortured. In
June 1974 Pinochet assumed sole power as president, rel-
egating the rest of the junta to an advisory role.
Pinochet was determined to exterminate leftism in
Chile and to reassert free-market policies in the country’s
economy. His junta was widely condemned for its harsh
suppression of dissent, even though its reversal of the
Allende government’s socialist policies resulted in a lower
rate of inflation and an economic boom in the period from
1976 to 1979. A modest political liberalization began in
1978 after the regime announced that, in a plebiscite, 75
percent of the electorate had endorsed Pinochet’s rule.
Under a new constitution adopted in March 1981,
Pinochet remained president for an eight-year term until
1989, when a national referendum would determine
whether he could serve an additional eight-year term.
During the 1980s, Pinochet’s free-market policies were
credited with maintaining a low rate of inflation and an
acceptable rate of economic growth despite a severe
recession in 1980–83. Pinochet permitted no meaningful
political opposition, but he fulfilled his constitutional
obligation to hold the plebiscite scheduled, which took
place earlier than mandated in October 1988. The result
was a “no” vote of 55 percent and a “yes” vote of 43 per-
cent. Although rejected by the electorate, Pinochet
remained in office until free elections installed a new