Dead Celebrity Alert

Augusto Pinochet, the former military dictator of Chile who was revered by supporters for leaving behind the most stable country in Latin America but reviled by critics who say he ruled with a complete disregard for human rights, died Sunday. He was 91. …

He was one of the most controversial political figures of the 20th century and had been in poor health in recent years, suffering from diabetes, arthritis, heart disease and the effects of at least three mild strokes that his family said had left him with mild dementia.

Pinochet will be most remembered for leading a military coup that toppled the world’s first democratically elected Marxist president, Salvador Allende, on Sept. 11, 1973. Allende had named Pinochet commander-in-chief of the armed forces just 18 days before the coup.

In recent years, declassified U.S. government documents have shown that the Nixon administration began a program to destabilize the Allende government, which had earned President Richard Nixon’s wrath by nationalizing U.S. copper mines and other foreign-controlled businesses, rural estates and banks and recognizing Cold War foes of the United States such as Cuba, North Korea and North Vietnam. Led by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Washington financed labor strikes, propaganda and military plotters, paving the way for Pinochet’s rise to power, some historians have argued. “It is not part of American history we are proud of,” former Secretary of State Colin Powell said in 2003. … Read full obituary

Filed under Government/Politics, War & Peace