Pinochet - Military Coup of 1973

Military Coup of 1973

On 11 September 1973, the combined Chilean Armed Forces (the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Carabineros) overthrew Allende's government in a coup, during which the presidential palace, La Moneda, was shelled and Allende died. While the military later claimed that he'd committed suicide, controversy has surrounded Allende's death, with many claiming that he'd been assassinated.

In his memoirs Pinochet said that he was the leading plotter of the coup and used his position as commander-in-chief of the Army to coordinate a far-reaching scheme with the other two branches of the military and the national police. In later years, however, high military officials from the time have said that Pinochet reluctantly became involved only a few days before it was scheduled to occur and followed the lead of the other branches (especially the Navy, under Merino) as they executed the coup.

The new government rounded up thousands of people and held them in the national stadium, where many were killed, setting the stage for decades of brutal repression that followed. As many as 3,000 people died during Pinochet's years in power, and more than 1,000 are still missing.

In the months that followed the coup, the junta, with authoring work by historian Gonzalo Vial and admiral Patricio Carvajal, published a book titled El Libro Blanco del cambio de gobierno en Chile (commonly known as El Libro Blanco, "The White Book of the Change of Government in Chile"), where they attempted to justify the coup by claiming that they were in fact anticipating a self-coup (the alleged Plan Zeta, or Plan Z) that Allende's government or its associates were purportedly preparing. United States intelligence agencies believed the plan to be untrue propaganda. Although later discredited and officially recognized as the product of political propaganda, some Chilean historians pointed to the similarities between the alleged Plan Z and other existing paramilitary plans of the Popular Unity parties in support of its legitimacy.

Canadian Jean Charpentier of Télévision de Radio-Canada was the first foreign journalist to interview General Pinochet following the coup.