Under the header “They mustn’t forget why they struck down Allende,” the magazine announced in October 1973 that: “The junta has been the victim of a campaign of organised hostility in the west as well as of its own mistakes”.
The article continued: “Perhaps the imposition of martial law, the mass interrogations and the summary execution of snipers would not have aroused so much criticism if there were a clearer understanding of the events that precipitated the coup.”
The magazines Latin American editor Robert Moss would go on to become a speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher, who described Pinochet as Britain’s “staunch, true friend” and praised the former dictator for having “brought democracy to Chile.”
The Economist’s and Britain’s role in the coup of 1973 against Allende
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