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The junta has also moved vigorously in the economic sector, which Allende left a shambles. Draconian measures such as the summary execution of black marketeers, an across-the-board freeze on wages and the drastic devaluation of the escudo have stabilized prices. Under Allende, inflation had risen more than 300%. The lucrative copper mines, which were plagued with labor strife, are functioning smoothly again. The junta has also announced its interest in negotiating with foreigners to lure badly needed investments to the country. Striking truckers are back at work, and food and other staples are beginning to flow into the major cities. Despite the specter of night arrests and secret executions, daytime life in Chile is gradually returning to its familiar rhythms.
The men behind this startlingly swift transformation were at first total strangers to most Chileans. Their faces are now as well known as Chile's soccer players, and something of their personal!ties has begun to emerge from the sleek, 23-story office building in downtown Santiago that serves as junta headquarters. The four leaders:
> Army General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, 57, before the coup was known outside military circles, if at all, as a competent geographer (he has written three books on the subject). But he obviously had more in mind than maps and charts. He took a leading role in the extensive plotting that resulted in Allende's overthrow on Sept. 11. As commander of the most powerful of Chile's armed forces, Pinochet was the logical choice to head the junta. He immediately vowed to "exterminate Marxism," a promise that is being carried out with chilling efficiency.
> Air Force General Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, 53, is the junta's ideologue and, after Pinochet, its most imposing member. He has demanded a permanent role for the armed forces in Chilean life despite the fact that the armed forces had remained aloof from politics for 41 years. He seems to envision Chile evolving into a quasifascist corporate state.
> Admiral José Torbio Merino Castro, 58, comes from a family with a long naval tradition (an uncle was chief of the Chilean navy in the 1950s). Merino's passions include philately and anti-Marxism. His violent opposition to the left is sometimes expressed with a certain wit. Says he: "To call Karl Marx a philosopher is to overvalue him. He tried to be an economist."
> General César Mendoza Durán, 54, is head of the paramilitary carabineros. A top horseman who competed in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, Mendoza has been noticeably milder in his condemnation of leftists than his fellow junta members. Explains a foreign diplomat: "Mendoza knows that when the army gets tired of guarding itself and goes back to its barracks, his people will have to keep order."
Perhaps. But the military is showing no sign of returning to the barracks any time soon. Nor does the junta display any intention to return the country to democratic rule.