A First Word on the Chilean Tragedy

The worst intoxication is ideology. We must approach reality humbly. —Octavio Paz

The brutal destruction of the Allende government by the military junta is a heavy blow to democrats and socialists everywhere who hope for peaceful change in their societies. Whatever its failings and errors, the Allende regime had many positive accomplishments to its credit: a deepening of the land reform program that had begun under the previous Christian Democratic administration; the extension, for ...