The Politicization of the Chilean Military and the Breakdown of Eemocracy

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This study examines the Chilean civil military relations leading up to the coup d'etat of September 11, 1973, focusing on the military side of the equation.Unlike in other Latin American countries, the Chilean military had rigidly observed the "double discipline", ie., absolute obedience to one's superiors and complete submission to. the civilian authorities. However during the Frei Government (1964-1970), protest movements developed in the military due to the low salaries and insufficient supply of military materieL. These movements have been heretofore understudied, but this study confirmed that beneath the surface they commanded a great mobilizational potential among the middle- and lower ranking officers. Although the motives of the protests were not political, the psychological effect of breaking the discipline made it easier tochallenge it later on political grounds. Another effect of the protest movements was that both civilians and the military realized the potential power of the armed forces. From that time on, civilians of diverse tendencies tried to cultivate the military for their political ends.The atmosphere of polarization and violence during the Allende Government (1970-1973) politicized the officer corps, and their traditional anticommunist sentiment became ever more acute. While there developed leftist secret organizations within the armed forces, the majority of officers radicalized in the opposite direction. By June, 1973, the officers, intent on a coup d'etat, established a hegemony in the navy and the air force. Still, they could not fix a date because the commander-in-chief of the army was opposed to the move. The obedience to the hierarchy was not yet a dead letter, and a coup could lead to a civil war if a substantial number of army units followed the orders of its commander-in-chief The obstacle to the coup was finally removed when the army commander-in-chief resigned on August 23.