The Rehearsals
Augusto Pinochet seized power in Chile in September 1973 after a vicious coup d'etat. He had been Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces for a month. Pinochet succeeded General Carlos Prats González, who had been undermined from within, but murky practices began far earlier. Prats became Commander-in-Chief in 1970, following the assassination of his predecessor General René Schneider Cherau.

Schneider simply had to go as he stood in the way of murky plans to circumvent the democratic process. In 1969 Schneider, then the Army's Head of Staff, played a major part in preventing General Roberto Viaux Marambio's coup attempt – the Tacnazo Insurrection. Negotiations resulted in the retirement of the then Commander-in-Chief and minister of Defence, increases in army salaries and also the military budget. General Viaux then surrendered. Schneider forced Frei to agree the terms and followed through in 1970. It secured his personal popularity in the military, but earned him enemies too as Schneider believed in the Constitution and would die defending it if need be.

Obstacle
The pay of generals increased from six times the minimum wage to double that. Schneider ensured that the terms of the Tacno agreement were kept. However, Viaux had developed a taste for coups. The Socialist leader Salvador Allende won the general election in September 1970. The US government of Richard Nixon, whose contempt for democracy would be shown by his involvement in the infamous Watergate Conspiracy before long, wanted Allende out of the way before he even took office.

Viaux knew that Schneider would not tolerate a coup, so he had to go. Then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, explored the possibility of a coup with Viaux. He pulled the plug on it, believing that it could not succeed and 'nothing was worse than a failed coup.' Time would prove that a successful coup – Pinochet's – was far worse on every level.

Undeterred Viaux decided that the biggest obstacle was Schneider and that he could not be allowed to block his plans for a military junta with himself at the head. Well, that was easily solved by a few bullets. On October 22nd 1970 Schneider was ambushed in Santiago. General Schneider respected the Constitution to such an extent that he would not tolerate a coup at all, so there was no other way to stop Allende taking power than eliminating his Commander-in-Chief. Who cared if that was illegal and who cared if the price of a coup was murder, disappearances, torture, repression and a vicious and venal kleptocracy? Viaux certainly didn't and nor did Kissinger. Where was the respect for human rights and democratic values then?