ABSTRACT
Salvador Allende Gossens, President of Chile in 1970-73, was born in Valparaíso in 1908. The son of a lawyer, he studied medicine and graduated from the University of Chile in 1932, after a brief interval in which he had been excluded from the University for political activity. Being known as a relative by marriage of Marmaduque Grove, he was arrested after the fall of the Socialist Republic, but was finally acquitted of all charges. In 1933 he was a founder member of the Partido Socialista de Chile, of which he became secretary-general in 1943. Elected a deputy in 1937, he helped organize the presidential campaign of Pedro Aguirre Cerda, who appointed him Minister of Health, in which post he established both health insurance and compensation for victims of industrial accidents. In 1945 he was elected for the first time to the Senate, where he remained until 1970, being re-elected on three occasions. However, in his first campaign for the presidency in 1952 he obtained only 6% of the votes cast. In 1958 he won 29% and in 1964 39%, but it was only in 1970, when he obtained 36.2%, that he was elected as President as the candidate of the Unidad Popular coalition. According to custom, the Chilean Congress agreed to confirm his election, but only after he had undertaken to respect the Constitution. Despite this, he immediately launched a far-reaching programme of social reform, including nationalization of the copper mines and other strategically important industries, and a programme of land reform, which, however, soon got out of control as the country became increasing polarized. Although his coalition gained support at the congressional elections, on 11 September 1973 he was overthrown in a military coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. After the air force had bombed La Moneda, the presidential palace, and had set it on fire, Allende ensured that his supporters left the building safely and then shot himself.
