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Diary of Murdered Chilean Diary of Murdered Chilean By Marlise Simons "holocaust": the opposition for sabo- Special to The 'Washington Post taging the economy and conspiring MEXICO CITY—Just after mid- with the military, the government for night on a night in September 1974, paralyzing itself with its own internal Chilean Gen. Carlos Prats and his disagreements. wife, Sofia, died on a Buenos Aires But Prats is also keenly aware of street in a burst of machine-gun fire U.S. intervention. On Aug. 27, four and a powerful explosion. days after rebelling generals nave At the time, their murder—which forced him out of office and two came almost exactly a year after the weeks before the coup, he writes: bloody overthrow of Chilean Presi- "I believe we have underestimated dent Salvador Allende—was almost the seriousness and the extent of the lost in Argentina's widespread vio- conspiracy manipulated from the lence. United States . although we knew Nonetheless, it may have been the of Kissinger's private meeting in Chi- moat significant killing of the Chilean cago two weeks after the Unidad Pop- coup except for the death of Allende ular [Allende's leftist coalition] won himself, for (Prats had been a princi- the elections." At that meeting, Kis- pal obstacle to the coup and, after- singer said plainly that the United ward, a permanent potential threat to States would not accept the possibility the junta. of a Communist government in Chile, Prats writes. Now the unexpected publication Most interesting, perhaps, are his here in Mexico of a private diary kept observations about Chile's armed by the murdered army commander is forces, in which he spent his life and arousing more interest than just whom he knows "as my own child- about anything else written about the ren." Chile's socialist experiment and its "I believe that neither President Al- bloody consequences. lende nor the government parties Commander-hi-chief of the Chilean GEN. CARLOS FEATS know how profound the North Ameri- army and. at one time or another dur- ... critic of both sides can influence is in our armed forces, ing the three Allende years, interior and especially in the mentality of the minister, defense minister and vice Chilean military man," he says, call- president, Prats was the one military "We have no doubt about its au- ing it an "influence without counter- man who could have challenged the thenticity, though," he added. weight that I wanted to limit or at jiinta members on their own, ground With much of the Allende years, least balance," • ' and, in addition, have drawn civilian events now duly unraveled, the diary He was convinced that Chile's mili- support. Many people, in fact, were has few stunning revelations. What tary, inevitably becoming politicized, hoping that Prats would be the next this critical, often-moving account ought to understand the country's so- president of Chile. brings to the events is the unique per- cial realities and participate in the The 137-page paperback—called "A spective of a thoughtful, accomplished tasks of developing it He told the Life Within the Law" (Una Vida Por military man who was able to operate president that officers should •be sent la Legalidad)--has an anonymous pro- in and between the military and polit- to Europe, Africa and Asia — "not to logue and offers no Photographs of ical worlds. Copy them, but to understand that the the manuscript or any other attempt The diary begins in February 1973, world does not begin and end with the to deal with the inevitable question of when Prats is "overwhelmed" by the schools of the Pentagon." authenticity. Many of Pratte friends problems of the Interior Ministry and But in the School of the Americas knew that he was working on a book the Cabinet and his duties as army and other Pentagon organizations, be on recent events in Chile and the commander. The entries rely prima- writes, Chilean officers learned in- armed forces' role, but apparently no rily on first-hand experiences and ob- stead to respond "to the stereotypes one knew of this diary. servations. Sometimes he stops to an& and reflexes of those courses." "While If the text is to be taken as the au- iyze the turmoil in his society, other thinking that they were liberating the thor's word-and there seems no real times he offers interesting political in- nation from 'the enemy within,"' Prats reason not to—the diary was kept as sights by recording his conversations wrote, "they have committed a crime an aide-Memoire to his other writing. with the president. that can be explained only in terms of The book manuscript itself disap- For example, Allende recounts to their ingenuousness, ignorance and peared immediately after his death; him a meeting he had with then-U.S. political shortsightedness." intimate friends of the Prate say it Ambassador Edward Kerry, who ad- Proof of the "simplicity" of Chilean presumably was kept by Chilean em- vised him to reach an understanding military thinking, he told this re- bassy officials who were the first to with the United States "which would porter in an interview after the coup, enter the murdered couple's apart- have meant renouncing the nationali- was—that "Our military intelligence ment zation of copper. The president told exclusively investigated activities and At the publishing house here a me be had to cut the ambassador off terrorism of the left, while the right spokesman said he understood that abruptly when he tried to accompany was just as dangerous and strockpin the diary had been smuggled out of his suggestions with threatening insin- ing more arms." Chile, but he said he could say no uations." APpriasing the diary against the more at the "explicit request of the Above all, Prats blames Chile's own background of long conversations that person who placed it in our hands." politicians for bringing about the I had with Frets after the coup, in his THE WASHINGTON POST Tuesday, March 8,1977 A13 General Surfaces in Mexico Buenos Aires exile, it is consistent where he describes the humiliations weeks before his death, may indicate with many of the ideas and opinions and deaths of his comrades-in-arms why someone decided he had to die.: he expressed. But some topics do not and deplores the destruction caused 'Chilean military men were contacting -,. appear in the text—which seems sur- by men he knew well, who have him, prising, judging by the intensity with "demolished, vilified, spitted every- He mentions a despairing letter which he discussed them at the time. thing" and even "turned the word written by two officers and a ser- One such topic is the U.S. military 'Chile' into a curse beofre the world." geant's offer to leave retirement and role in the months leading up to the As l'rats realizes he is being fol- go into exile in Argentina "if you -I lowed by "agents of the Chilean need me." coup. He admitted that he did not 0 know all its details, but he harped on junta" and death threats increase, he "This is not the first message that - the fact that "coordination and prepa- presses the Chilean consul in Argen- comes from within the armed forces," `- ration for the coup" had taken place tina to give him the passport he has he writes. in the port of Valparaiso, where high vainly been requesting for seven His reply to the sergeant's brother, Chilean navy officials "plotted di- months. who brought the message, was: rectly with representatives at the U.S. He plans to travel to Europe: "Sofia "Thank you very much. Stay where naval station." is suffering from this war of nerves." you are. Your duty is to help save the Another point was his virtual obses- He told friends he had finished almost army from the situation it has been -e sion with the "destructive tactics" of 400 pages of the book, which is still dragged down into." Eduardo Frei, Chile's Christian Demo- missing. The diary, sometimes written in the cratic president from 1964 to 1970. Unlike his colleague in the Cabinet, melodramatic rhetoric of official More than Allende, whom Prats saw Orlando Letelier, who was murdered Spanish and sometimes with direct as well-intentioned but unable to con- last year in Washington, Prats never simplicity, shows Prats as many pea- trol his own parties, he considered spoke out publicly or acted against his ple friends and critics— knew him: Frei responsible for the coup. Frei former companions. a decent man, caught in a tragedy he was using the military to get back The last entry in the diary, six had struggled to prevent_ , into power himself, Prats said, and when he had gone to plead with the former president for peace and rec- onciliation with Allende, Frei had been "arrogant and insulting." Prats said he had been particularly shocked to discover Frei's hand be- hind "Operation Charley," the cam- paign designed to discredit him and force him out of his command. The campaign pushed by the Christian Democrats, he said, had access to anti- Allende funds "provided by the Ital- ian and West German Christian Dem- ocratic parties." After the coup, when Prats got a job as an accountant in a Buenos Aires tire factory, he seems to ap- proach despair as he learns of the "executions, tortures and acts of cor- ruption" perpetrated by an institution to which he had dedicated most of his life. Gen. Augusto Pinoehet, a man he knew all his life, who led the coup and became president of Chile, leaves him dumfounded.
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