We remember the 50th anniversary of what is sometimes referred to as the “other” 9/11: the U.S.-backed coup in Chile in which General Augusto Pinochet overthrew President Salvador Allende and installed a brutal military government that lasted nearly two years should last for decades. Allende’s death in the presidential palace on September 11, 1973 marked the end of Chile’s first socialist government. During Pinochet’s military dictatorship, more than 3,000 people disappeared or were murdered, and another 40,000 were tortured as political prisoners. From then on, Chile remained a country allied with the United States during the Cold War. “Chile’s young people are Pinochet’s children and I always believe that they should be Allende’s grandchildren,” says renowned Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman, who served as Allende’s cultural adviser from 1970 to 1973 and went into exile after the coup. His latest novel, Allende and the Suicide Museum, examines the mystery surrounding Allende’s death and attempts to clarify whether it was suicide or murder.
