The Economist Magazine’s Role in the Chilean Coup
The Economist marked 50 years since the Chilean coup by calling for the country to move on from the past. What the magazine didn’t do was confront its own key role in demonizing Salvador Allende and building Augusto Pinochet’s international legitimacy.
Augusto Pinochet with the ruling military junta of Chile, March 1, 1986. (Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile via Wikimedia Commons)
The Economist decided to mark the fifty-year anniversary of Chile’s coup by insisting that Chileans move on from the events of 1973 — even as its own writer distorted the historical record beyond recognition.
On September 11, 2023, exactly fifty years after the brutal 1973 coup, the Economist published an article under the ominous subheading: “Rather than cautionary tale, Salvador Allende has become a cherished myth for the left.”
In what was offered as a “hard history lesson,” the author declared that Chile’s coup “was home-grown and commanded much support among Chileans,” adding that it “was the consequence of a disastrous political failure, that of Allende’s Popular Unity coalition.”
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