ABSTRACT
Alone in a restaurant in Santiago de Chile this past November, I attempted to order dinner in my rudimentary Spanish. Taking pity on me, a well-dressed man of about thirty at the next table offered to help, and soon a lively conversation began. He was, it turned out, an ophthalmologist with a strong interest in international affairs. Although he had only been to the United States once, for a short and not terribly pleasant trip to Miami, he assured me that he had warm feelings for the American people. But then he added, politely hoping I would take no offense, that he thought we had the events of September 11th coming to us. Eyes narrowing, he asked if I knew what that date meant in the history of his own country. When I confessed ignorance, he explained that it was on that very day in 1973 that the bloody coup of General Pinochet against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende had taken place, a coup that had been fully supported by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. It was only fitting, he concluded grimly, that the chickens would finally come home to roost on another September 11th.
