The American Spectator : The Last Chilean Myth

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From the May, 2007 issue: Far from a friend to the United States, Michelle Bachelet is the latest in a long line of far left leaders in the tradition of Castro and Chavez. Read up on the Chilean president our president celebrated at his press conference yesterday.

Editor's Note: In yesterday's press briefing, President Obama said of Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, "I'm very much looked forward to seeing President Bachelet. I think she's one of the finest leaders in Latin America, very capable person.... And I will be looking at President Bachelet giving us further advice, in terms of how we can take the kind of relationship we have with Chile and expand that to our relationships throughout Latin America."

In the May, 2007 issue of The American Spectator, James R. Whelan reported on the real Bachelet, explaining that -- contrary to what the President would have you now believe -- she is neither a fine leader nor an ally of the United States. That article is reproduced here.

THERE IS AN OLD ADAGE IN STATECRAFT which instructs that the height of stupidity is the inability to distinguish between friend and foe. What, then, are we to think of the White House of George W. Bush and the State Department of Condoleezza Rice, as they and their minions fawn and fuss over the Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet, as though she were some sort of Tony Blair in drag? They even managed to hornswoggle into their minuet old Daddy Warbucks himself, Donald Rumsfeld, a few weeks before he was sent packing.

But then the White House itself came out of the closet and, in a mind-boggling statement, proclaimed its fealty to Chile’s Socialist government on the occasion of the death of former President Augusto Pinochet.

Let’s lay it on the line: Michelle Bachelet is not a friend of the United States. True, she is not a declared enemy of the United States. But friend? There is not a scrap of evidence to support such tomfoolery. Yet, no one—in the U.S. government, in the media, in other governments, in public affairs in general—ever speaks ill of Michelle Bachelet, as though to do so would be like spitting on the sidewalk or blowing smoke in someone’s face—simply not done, old top. In part this may be because there is so little there, there—there is much more form than substance about Michelle Bachelet, much more appearance than reality. Increasingly, questions are being raised about her ability to govern, her competence.

She came to the presidency with strong public support. By early March, support for her had fallen from 65.3 percent to 47.5 percent. Fully half those surveyed (50.8 percent) said her government was less than what they had expected. On a scale of one to seven, her government got a poor 3.9 rating.

No wonder. She was abroad much of the time last year when Chile suffered the worst outbreak of public disturbances in three decades—a strike of 600,000 high school students, aided and abetted by former terrorists and Communists. More recently, the government implanted a new public transportation system—a total and unmitigated disaster.

Sebastian Piñera, leader of the opposition, called Bachelet’s first year “a comedy of errors, omissions and improvisations.” The problem, he said, is that Bachelet came to the presidency “without clear ideas, or well-defined programs, nor qualified people.” Indeed, Bachelet insisted on a cabinet evenly divided between men and women—whatever their qualifications. She was forced recently to jettison that idea in re-shaping her cabinet to meet the transit crisis.

Briefly, who is this person we are talking about? Michelle Bachelet is, since March 11, 2006, the first woman president of Chile: In a recent Barometer of Governability in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal, Bachelet topped the list of 15 presidents, polling an 87 percent approval rating of her performance. Not surprisingly, Bachelet has wowed the Beautiful People. On her first visit to Washington last year, Hillary Clinton gave a party in her honor, with a host of glitterati in attendance (including the actress who plays the U.S. president in the now-discontinued TV series, Commander in Chief. Bachelet later let on that she liked the actress—but not the program). Bill Clinton, glad-handing around Santiago a year ago, described Bachelet as a “particularly well-qualified candidate, because of her experience.”

One wonders what experience Clinton had in mind. Until President Ricardo Lagos plucked her from virtual anonymity in 2000, naming her his minister of health, she had never held a significant job. Later, in 2002, he named her his defense minister—first woman in Chile or Latin America ever to hold that job. Although in neither post did she distinguish herself, in the second in particular she did attract media attention, including a famous photo where she posed aboard a half-track. (She had prepped for that job: She graduated at the top of her class in 1996 from Chile’s National Academy of Political and Strategic Studies. That entitled her to a one-year scholarship at the U.S.- run Inter-American Defense College at Ft. McNair in Washington, D.C., along with 46 civilian and military officers from around the Americas.)

VERÓNICA MICHELLE BACHELET made her debut in this world on September 29, 1951, after only seven months in her mother Angela’s womb. She weighed but 3.9 pounds, but then she was lucky: Her mother had lost four babies before giving birth to Michelle (though she had managed to bring into the world a son, Alberto—Beto). Although baptized in a Catholic church (at the insistence of a staunchly Catholic paternal grandmother), Michelle—like her parents— has been a lifelong agnostic.

Her father was an air force general, and in 1962- 1963, he was assigned to Washington. There, at a Prince George’s grammar school, she mastered English. Her father, long left-leaning, strongly backed the Marxist- Leninist president Salvador Allende (1970-1973), and was up to his epaulets in subversive scheming. When Allende was ousted in the 1973 coup, General Bachelet was one of two air force generals (along with a passel of lower officers and enlisted men) arrested and tried for treason. He died in prison before coming to trial.

Though he had suffered a massive heart attack in 1968 that very nearly killed him—after playing basketball— he insisted on doing the same thing while in prison, despite medical advice to the contrary. That second massive attack did kill him. (His only son, Alberto, died of a heart attack in the U.S. in 2001, at age 54.) There are four or five keys to understanding Michelle Bachelet:

• She is a hardcore, lifelong socialist, but a brand of socialism which, during the years in which she was growing up in the party, had nothing in common with the parliamentary socialists of Europe and far more in common with the murderous Maoists of China. The party no longer either preaches or practices violence, but Michelle Bachelet continues to identify strongly with those for whom revolutionary violence was a way of life.

• Superficial: From the time in 1970 when she joined the Young Socialists, Michelle was a “gopher,” delivering messages, writing manifestoes, running errands, even at one point, serving as “bag-man”: delivering money from the Socialist high command to the very embattled terrorists of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). That would lead to her arrest. She was held for two weeks, later insinuating that she was tortured. Her mother, arrested with her, was held a month, and later said she was not tortured, but submitted to a brutalizing “softening-up” procedure. After their release Michelle decided to leave the country, traveling with her mother to Australia, where Beto awaited them.

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topics:
Chile, Michelle Bachelet

About the Author

James R. Whelan's books include Out of the Ashes: Life, Death and Transfiguration of Democracy in Chile, 1833-1988. He has reported on the country since 1958, and served 1992-1995 as visiting professor at the University of Chile. He presently lives in Santiago.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (11) | Leave a comment

Bhaskar Sunkara| 6.24.09 @ 9:06AM

Given how long traffic is on this site of yours, it's not even worth mentioning how many flat out falsehoods are paraded as facts in your article.

Let's start with the fact that you claim Allende was a "Marxist-Leninist" (nice grammar!).

Bachelet is mildly center-left and actually adheres to large chunks of neoliberal dicta. Read more before you write more.

Bram| 6.24.09 @ 9:06AM

So, she is a hard-core leftist and her first year is “a comedy of errors, omissions and improvisations.” ... came to the presidency “without clear ideas, or well-defined programs, nor qualified people.”

No wonder Obama likes her - they have so much in common.

Michae Tomlinson| 6.24.09 @ 11:06AM

Mr Sunkara when Salvador Allende became President of Chile (with a 36% plurality of the vote) he declared himself a Marxist President. Like Barack Obama he thought he could borrow and spend Chile’s way to prosperity. He was wrong. When his oligarchy was toppled in a hail of gunfire the country was suffering from 500% inflation (a potential harbinger of what might be coming under Obama). This was exacerbated by his government illegally seizing farms and factories without Congress’ approval to collectivize Chile – a very Marxist-Leninist policy that Obama seems eager to duplicate, but with the Democrat Congress cheering him all the way.

As Chile began to spiral out of control forces across the land (the center-left to the right) demanded the Army end the chaos and remove Allende. They did so with a tragic cost in life of roughly 4,000 souls, but a coup far less bloody than the typical socialist/Marxist revolution. Ultimately, under General Pinochet’s free market government the economy of Chile thrived and ultimately (thank God) democracy was restored. Unfortunately, Bachelet seems determined to undo Chile’s successes and lead it into another socialist inspired nightmare of economic despair and chaos.

That she possibly detests the United States is what may endear her to Barack and Michelle Obama since loathing America is in style in the Obamanation.

Joseph| 6.24.09 @ 2:40PM

Socialism is an euphemism for communism, or as my father used to say, a communist is nothing more than a socialist taking a break. Allende was a well know socialist and the Chilean communist party's candidate upon his being elected president. He was a self-avowed communist and agent for the Soviet Union, and had it not been for his overthrow in 1973, he would have made of Chile what his good friend Fidel Castro did with Cuba. His daughter, Beatriz, upon the communist takeover of Cuba in 1959, used to roam the of the halls of the University of Havana, decked out in Castro's blue and green militia garb and red beret, ferreting out and expulsing any and all non-socialist students. My mother was one of those expulsed for refusing to be cowed. So Bhaskar Sunkara, before you go on criticizing this website or those who offer their comments and their views, grow up and read up real history yourself, for it is obvious that you are living in a fantasy world. My opinions, consistent with most of those herein contained, is empirical, not fiction-based as yours are. Ms. Bachelet is well left of center, make no mistake about it. Just give a few years more and see what she will do to the most succesful economy in South America. See Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, and finally, Cuba, if you lack the foresight to see what's about to afflict the poor Chileans, again.

Marc Jeric| 6.24.09 @ 4:37PM

It is incomprehensible how the marxism still infects so many "minds" - a 160-year history of mass murder, poverty, terror notwithstanding.

Mark Sanford| 6.24.09 @ 6:22PM

Chili is good, but Argeniner is finer!

I couldn't pass it up, guys.

Benjamin Witte| 6.24.09 @ 8:40PM

As her presidency winds down (elections will take place in December) Bachelet's approval rating is at an all time high. Although this author would like to paint her as incompetent and losing popularity, the perception of the vast majority of Chileans is something else entirely. Even though Chile, like the rest of the world, is feeling the effects of the global financial crisis, with the economy contracting and joblessness rising, she's polling over 70 percent.

Vicente| 6.24.09 @ 10:34PM

According to the Chilean Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1990/1991), General Bachelet, the current President's father, was tortured by the Pinochet-led Junta leading to his death. I noticed this omission in Mr. Whelan's article.

j b munoz| 6.25.09 @ 10:52AM

Is the something possitive about President Bachelet? This article is far away from being obejective and serious! There are many qualities that your can see of Bachelet by observation and her way of governing.

Richard Ranger| 6.25.09 @ 11:32AM

One of the problems in holding any rational discussion about Chile is that so often discussion about Chilean history is hostage to competing metaphors and competing narratives. From my experience -- which is far, far smaller than Mr. Whelan's -- I've come to believe that Chile is a story where the set-piece ideological battles of the late 20th Century founder on rock shoals.

To those of the left: Yes, Salvador Allende was a Marxist-Leninist, committed to the Marxist vision, but choosing to pursue it in a way he believed to be tactically achievable within the historical, cultural and political context of his country. He was no "social democrat". In fact, many "social democrats" opposed him. But more than ideology, what undid the credibility of the Allende regime was its lack of competence, and the anarchy that emerged in much of the country as various radical groups took la revolucion into their own hands, with neither sanction nor opposition from the Allende government. But, to the right, in the brief years of the Allende government, and in the years of the Frei government that preceded it, real change and the beginnings of real empowerment of Chile's hitherto disenfranchised urban working class and rural peasantry began to occur -- and there has been no turning back. Mr. Whelan might argue, but taking the long view, a case might be made that the Frei-Allende years were a necessary purgative to break the lock of oligarchy that had held Chile back.

But purgatives bring their own problems. A majority of the country desired a change away from both Allende's government and the trajectory it was taking the country in the Chilean winter of 1973. The military junta took power with the approbation -- if not the full endorsement -- of many Chileans. But then in short order it became the Pinochet junta. To those on the right: yes, the Pinochet years brought (or perhaps it could be said, force fed) a variant of laissez-faire economics to Chile, from which, in large measure, Chile still benefits. But the Pinochet government's thugs broke heads, caused or encouraged the exile of tens of thousands, and expanded its retribution well beyond identifiable Marxist gangsters to labor organizers, teachers, medical professionals, social workers whose "crime" was that they shared the vision and the objectives of the broad left. Some on the right quibble that the death toll attributable to the Pinochet regime was actually rather modest, as if this were an argument for calibrated use of the tools of the police state. The shadow of intimidation that the Pinochet government cast across Chile lasted for years -- and it was through intimidation that the Pinochet regime enforced its cold "peace". But, beginning with the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, then the leadership of a few, then with the recognition of many in Chile's emerging middle class, came the recognition that Chile could not truly enjoy the benefits of economic freedom without the benefits of political freedom. A Chile without justice was not a Chile worth living in, no matter what goods one's slowly growing bank account could buy. And, to the right: make no mistake about it. Pinochet did not exit his former place of power "voluntarily". He was forced out, by a combination of forces and behind-the-scenes efforts that -- ironically for those of the left -- included the Reagan Administration.

Since that time, Chile has remained closely divided politically, but the left has prevailed in every election. Yet the left - President Bachelet included - has consistently sought to govern from the center.

I hope some day to read Mr. Whelan's book "Out of the Ashes" for a more sustained perspective that I am sure he must have on Chile's history (but I can never seem to find copies available for less than $100!!). I wish he did not appear so often to serve as an apologist for the Pinochet regime, whose excesses and evils are well documented. I also wish that so many of my friends on the left were not apologists for the Allende regime, whose shortcomings nearly bankrupted the country, and nearly left it ungovernable.

Chile today is a remarkable country, a product of a difficult history, and the achievement of a resilient and talented people. Michelle Bachelet may be no Lincoln, but she is assuredly no Evo Morales or Hugo Chavez. She is a democrat in a society that has earned its democratic place in the family of nations through privation, blood and fire -- and, I think, through blending some of the left's understanding about justice with the right's understanding about opportunity in a way that should offer hope to the rest of the hemisphere it shares.