Blogs > Liberty and Power > A Dictator Dismantled

Dec 11, 2006

A Dictator Dismantled




This account struck me as a fair appraisal of Augusto Pinochet.

"Pinochet was admitted late to the plot that led to the coup against President Salvador Allende on September 11 1973. His genius was to appropriate power to himself and to use terror, both to eliminate opponents on the left and to intimidate those members of the armed forces who upheld constitutional rule. The dictatorship he installed was not the bloodiest in Latin America. It was shocking because it happened in a country proud of its democratic traditions."


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