Yankee, Yankee, Yankee
Be careful, be careful
You are going to hear the complaints
Black eagle, you will fall.
THE eagle is the U.S. The verse is part of a protest song that is popular in the cafés and boîtes of Santiago. In the dim light of those peñas folklóricas, as they are known, Chilean students representing every shade of the leftist spectrum—from Christian Democrat to anarchic urban terrorist—gather to sing their praise of Fidel Castro's Cuba and their passionate hatred of the local oligarchy and the U.S.
At first glance, the fierceness of Chilean leftist feeling against the U.S. seems strange indeed. Chile, after all, is more prosperous and more egalitarian than most of its neighbors. It is also the staunchest democracy in South America, undisturbed by coups d'état since 1932 and led for the past six years by the strenuously reformist government of President Eduardo Frei. Few countries in Latin America have appeared to be so devoted to the democratic process as this nation of 9,000,000. Even its geography helped by isolating it from its neighbors. Stretching more than 2,600 miles down the west coast of South America, Chile has the towering Andes to the east, the Pacific to the west, the parched and barren Atacama Desert to the north and, in the south, the craggy shores of Tierra del Fuego. Yet next week the Chilean Congress will confront a dilemma that no republican legislature has ever faced: whether or not to allow a freely elected Marxist to become President of the country. Dr. Salvador Allende Gossens, 62, head of a coalition of leftist, Socialist and Communist parties, was the front runner in last month's elections. If he is denied the presidency, his followers may well plunge the country into a murderous civil war. But if he is acknowledged the winner, as seemed virtually certain last week, Chile may not have another free election for a long, long time.
Two months ago, the U.S. National Security Council received a report that if Allende won, a Communist takeover would inevitably follow. With it would come a dismantling of the democratic electoral process. As a Western diplomat put it last week: "Chile is a victim of Communist Russian roulette. Democracy gave the Communists one chance at power every six years. Now they've won, and they'll never give democracy another chance."
Allende has categorically denied such charges, but there have already been some disquieting signs. Chile's Communist Party has 45,000 members and is one of the largest in Latin America; it is smaller but far better organized than Allende's own Socialists. Of the 8,000 Popular Front committees organized for the campaign, 80% were led by Communists; the number of committees has grown to 12,000 in the past four weeks. Apparently because he is afraid of the Communists' strength, Allende has so far denied the Communists any key posts on his government planning team. That, of course, could change after his formal election as President. Late last week, in any case, Allende offered a government post to Felipe Herrera, president of the Inter-American Development Bank and a respected hemisphere financial expert. Herrera was said to be ready to accept if he believed that Allende would follow an independent, nationalist line.
Political Indoctrination