ABSTRACT
SEPTEMBER 11 (9/11) is one of those days that “live in infamy,” but it has a diff erent meaning for Chileans than for most other people in the world. On September 11, 1973, the Chilean Air Force bombed La Moneda, the presidential palace, putting an end to four decades of democracy in Chile. Salvador Allende, Chile’s elected socialist president, died in the bombing. It was only the most dramatic of the breakdowns of populist democracy that began with a coup in Brazil in 1964 and soon convulsed most other countries in the region.
