An Internationalist in Chile Fifty Years Ago: I still have the cassette recording I made of Salvador Allende's last speech on September 11, 1973.

• Author: Dinges, John

The Chilean president knew he could no longer resist the military takeover. He had told his supporters in the presidential palace to surrender. He promised us that the way would open up again for free men and women to construct a better society. I can still taste the bitter disappointment, the deep feeling that it cant really be over. That day, some of us made the trek to the worker-controlled industrial belts around Santiago, thinking the defense of the revolution would start there. It didn't.

At the time, Chile had been a center of hope and political optimism. Tens of thousands of people from all over the world--mostly young--gathered there to live the great experiment: to experience, and in many cases, to work in an elected government with a program for real revolution and democracy. Many who came were exiles from military governments elsewhere; others were academics and experts from the United States and Europe who wanted to do their part to make Allende's ambitious projects for land reform, income redistribution, and economic growth a success. They had a stake in what was happening in Chile, just as the International Brigades came to the defense of Spain's Republic in the 1930s, conscious that they were a bulwark against encroaching fascism in Europe.

In Chile, the internationalists were aware that we might be witnessing a model for a more just global future. And at first, it seemed to be working, as wages, production, and employment soared. The country seemed to be moving toward a socialist economy that mixed capitalist ownership, worker control, and state planning to wrench the working class and peasants out of poverty and integrate them into a culture of dignity and social opportunity. Political rhetoric promoted democracy and people power; there was a raucously free press like none other in Latin America; and an explosion of new music, film, and theater created a joyful cultural scene. The positive vibe seemed to have drowned out other undemocratic Marxist topics, such as the dictatorship of the proletariat and armed struggle, which never disappeared but were relegated to the margins.

In Washington, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon could envision no greater threat to U.S. interests. "What happens in Chile over the next six to twelve months will have ramifications that will go far beyond just US.-Chilean relations," Kissinger wrote in a memo to Nixon after Allende came to power. "They will have an effect on what happens in the rest...