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Pinochet’s American backers saw his regime as a bulwark against Communism; his nation was a testing ground for U.S.-inspired economic theories. Countries desiring World Bank support were told to emulate Pinochet’s free-market policies, and Chile’s government pension even inspired President George W. Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security. The other baggage—the assassinations, tortures, people thrown out of airplanes, mass murders of political prisoners—was simply the price to be paid for building a modern state. But the questions raised by Pinochet’s rule still remain: Are such dictators somehow necessary?
Horrifying but also inspiring, The Dictator’s Shadow is a unique tale of how geopolitical rivalries can profoundly affect everyday life.
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's reign (1973-1990) still resonates for its brutality and its role in pioneering controversial free-market development policies. This thoughtful retrospective explores that history from a unique perspective. Muñoz, an official in the Allende government overthrown by Pinochet in 1973, found himself vainly confronting the coup with a revolver and a fistful of dynamite, dodging arrest while friends disappeared into the junta's dungeons. In the 1980s he became a leader of the moderate left opposition. His first-hand account of the political movement that, with crucial help from abroad, forced Pinochet from power in 1990, is both shrewd and inspiring. Muñoz, who is now Chile's ambassador to the U.N., is measured in his condemnation of the dictatorship and cognizant of the unstable political environment that formed it. He gives the regime's economic program mixed reviews, on the one hand crediting it with reinvigorating Chile's economy while admitting that it has left most Chileans worse off. He paints Pinochet as a complex character-a canny operator, a "man of limited intellect" and an ideological lightning rod. Combining sharp historical analysis with telling personal recollections, this is an excellent assessment of a tyrant and his legacy. Photos. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Muñoz, currently Chile's ambassador to the United Nations, is both a diplomat and a scholar. While Augusto Pinochet was president of Chile from 1973 to 1990, Muñoz (Democracy Rising: Assessing the Global Challenges) was active in left-wing dissident groups. This memoir of his political life chronicles dissent and protest for 17 years, in reaction to many incidents of arrest, torture-and killings-of the brutal Pinochet regime's opponents. The detailed stories with names, dates, and fates paint a bleak picture of life under an authoritarian ruler. Muñoz's sources are news accounts, interviews, and extensive personal contacts; the result is a detailed and horrifying narrative. President Pinochet's economic reforms, especially privatized pension accounts, received much U.S. praise at the time but are covered here only briefly. The author feels that their benefits, unequally distributed across income levels, were outweighed by the evil in the political realm. Muñoz includes briefer coverage of the multiple attempts to try Pinochet for crimes against humanity before he died in 2006. Recommended for collections on Latin America.
—Marcia L. Sprules
1 A Different 9/11 1
2 The Two Pinochets 22
3 The Power to Dictate 60
4 Pinochet's Global Reach 81
5 Regime on the Ropes 120
6 To Kill Pinochet or Defeat Him with a Pencil 160
7 Governing with the Enemy 209
8 Lost in London 242
9 Reversals of Fortune 274
10 Pinochet's Long Shadow 299
Sources 317
Index 327
Anonymous
Posted January 2, 2011
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
Augusto Pinochet was the most important Third World dictator of the Cold War, and perhaps the most ruthless. In The Dictator’s Shadow, United Nations Ambassador Heraldo Muñoz takes advantage of his unmatched set of perspectives—as a former revolutionary who fought the Pinochet regime, as a respected scholar, and as a diplomat—to tell what this extraordinary figure meant to Chile, the United States, and the world.Pinochet’s American backers saw his regime as a bulwark against Communism; his nation was a testing ground for U.S.-inspired economic theories. Countries desiring World Bank support were told to emulate Pinochet’s free-market policies, and Chile’s government pension even inspired...