From time to time throughout the calendar, year after year, decade after decade, the question of the true cause of President Salvador Allende’s death arises. To mark the 50th anniversary of the coup and the death of the President, in an angry column published in Le Monde Diplomatique on July 17, 2023, national laureate for journalism Juan Pablo Cárdenas raises the issue and challenges the official truth that Allende committed suicide. To substantiate the doubts once again, the journalist confirms the existence of “several testimonies suggesting that this was killed by the first military commando to enter the headquarters of the executive power” and stresses the “lack of transparency” during Patricio Aylwin’s government “exhuming his remains,” an unfair accusation as an exhumation does not depend on any government, also forgetting that several exhumations and autopsies took place in later years. According to Cárdenas, there are “several testimonies” pointing to the murder, none of which are truly new: just a mention of a young army lieutenant of the time (unidentified) bragging to a detainee (Robinson Guerrero). , recently interviewed on Universidad de Chile radio, presumably by Cárdenas himself) for shooting Allende and wearing his watch on his wrist. From time to time objects and artifacts are requested to sow doubt: in this case a watch, yesterday the helmet or the submachine gun (both artifacts disappeared) and even the disputed position of the submachine gun in relation to Allende’s body to an expert photograph from which there is no negative.
It is not necessary to refute the journalist’s column to prove anything like the historical truth of Allende’s death: just a few days ago, the national architecture award Miguel Lawner denied this and the testimony of one of the President’s doctors, Arturo Jirón, requested and remembered that the watch Allende wore on 9/11 had been on display at the Salvador Allende Solidarity Museum for years.
There are two stories to tell about Allende’s death: one, the story of the versions of his death, and the other, the story of his death itself. Both stories are inextricably linked. Therefore one can speak of the death of Allende. In 2020, together with Mauro Basaure and Manuel Gárate, we published an article on the mysteries related to the circumstances surrounding the deaths of two former presidents, as well as the exhumations of the bodies of Salvador Allende and Eduardo Frei, two cases that speak to us about the nature of the Pinochet dictatorship (in addition to the thousands of dead and missing prisoners are the murders of ex-Secretary of State Orlando Letelier – in Washington – and ex-Army Commander-in-Chief Carlos Prats – in Buenos Aires). – as well as the alleged crime of the Nobel Prize winner for literature Pablo Neruda).
The history of stories about Allende’s death goes way back, beginning on the day of the coup: These are the reports and stories from the newspapers El Mercurio, La Tercera and La Segunda that we had before us from 1973, as well as B. those in the 1980s Counter-stories published years ago in opposition magazines (APSI, Análisis and Cauce) and since the 2000s in the electronic newspaper El Mostrador, which allowed us to compare it with the forensic report.
Let’s start with the chronological events of the morning of September 11th. President Allende decides to oppose the coup: this decision is reflected in famous photos showing him with helmet and submachine gun in hand. The stories of this morning are numerous, some more apt than others. What we know after his extraordinary farewell speech on Radio Magallanes, delivered amid noise and smoke according to dozens of witnesses (an important point: this speech was anything but private, Allende wore a helmet that covered the earpiece to block out the noise of the reducing bombs and… screams) is that Allende would not give up. After this speech, Allende organizes the evacuation of La Moneda Palace and stays at the end of the line (as the organizer, not as the surrendering President). At this point the disagreements begin. Allende returns to get to the Independencia room on the second floor of La Moneda: in this room, President Allende puts his rifle to his chin and apparently before shooting himself screams: “Allende, don’t stop!” “Give up! (The Second, January 20, 1987).
How can I check this version? One of his doctors, Patricio Guijón, confirms that he witnessed the President’s suicide: When Dr. Guijón, while waiting in line to leave the palace, realized that he had forgotten his gas mask and went back to get it (El Mercurio, November 1). , 1973). At that moment, Dr. Guijón as Allende sits on the chair and shoots himself (El Mercurio, September 11, 1974). This testimony is crucial because it came from among President Allende’s personal physicians. Years later, a second story along the same lines was published in 1991, by a second personal doctor (APSI, September 9-22, 1991), which was joined by six other doctors (El Mercurio, September 13, 1991). 2003 ), leading to heated allegations between them and great confusion over what increasingly looked like a show-size suicide (El Mercurio, September 25, 2003).
Aside from the confusion and controversy, it is these testimonies from Allende’s doctors that provide the most credible source for his suicide, radically disproving the murder hypothesis. But it’s important to include as the source of the doubt the imaginative and heroic versions of Gabriel García Márquez (as well as Fidel Castro), who claims that it was the “gang” led by General Javier Palacios that riddled the president with bullets after a strange ritual. Or that it was a member of the GAP (Group of Personal Friends, an acronym for the names of his bodyguards) who killed him after making a pact with the President (La Tercera, May 25, 2011). The doubt was so great that his widow Tencha Bussi was able to confirm early on in exile in Mexico that her husband had been shot in the back and stomach, which even suggested that he might have been killed by snipers.
None of this should surprise us. Allende’s death was as extraordinary and sublime as it was historically unusual. A real rarity. In a way, Allende’s death is a matter of form at a critical moment where it doesn’t matter if he was killed in battle or if he committed suicide: he had to die, and Allende decided to do it. And what an overall success. All the empirical evidence points to and supports the suicide thesis: Does this change anything about the universal portrayal of his character? Absolutely nothing. To continue to insist that he was assassinated and that his death was not suicide is idle exercise: something of a pursuit of heroism with added value, when in reality presidential heroism and martyrdom are fully established. Since the first day.
Alfredo Joignant He is a Chilean sociologist, political scientist and columnist for EL PAÍS.