Crucial Decision

Newspaper ads in Santiago show a Soviet tank squatting threateningly in the courtyard of Chile's Government House. "They didn't think it could happen in Czechoslovakia, either," the ads warn. A billboard, which depicts a street clogged with barbed wire, carries the message: "Here children used to play." Says another: "If Allende wins, this will be the last election."

Dr. Salvador Allende is the Communist-supported candidate for the presidency of Chile. The ads are part of what he derides as the campaign of terror against him by Chilean rightists. Yet Allende, a Chilean Senator who leads the radical Socialist Party, which is left of Chile's Communists, proudly boasts of his Marxist goals. "The capitalist regime has failed," he says. If elected, Allende promises a government-led revolution that would totally remold the country's social and economic order. He makes no secret of his admiration for Castro and Mao.

Allende, who was runner-up with 38.9% of the vote in the 1964 presidential race, answers the question of whether he would hold elections again. "I believe that in 1976 there will be elections. If we have done badly, they will throw us out and elect someone else." Despite disclaimers, some Chileans are fearful that Allende might attempt to turn the country into a one-party Marxist state, where elections might be no more meaningful than those in any Communist country. Even so, as Chileans go to the polls this week, three presidential candidates are running neck and neck, with Allende looking stronger than in previous bids for the presidency. If he wins, he will head the first government dominated by communists and socialists ever to be freely elected in Latin America.

Unlikely Scene. The precedent might well prove shattering throughout the hemisphere. In Chile, Allende's triumph could trigger the military, which already is restive about the Communist threat, into its first coup in 38 years. His victory would also polarize the already socially stratified country of 9,000,000 in harshly antagonistic groups. In Latin America as a whole, a Marxist victory in Chile would enliven Fidel Castro's waning image and stand as the ultimate mockery to the U.S.'s loftily conceived but ineptly carried out Alliance for Progress. Chile's neighbors, notably Argentina, would most likely redouble their own harsh anti-Communist efforts. There is some fear among U.S. diplomats that the Soviet Union might seek to proffer its protection to Chile, just as it has to Cuba, thus establishing a second foothold in the Americas.

Chile is an unlikely place for such a scenario. Unlike its Latin neighbors, it has a record of democratic stability and honest elections dating back to 1932. Under President Eduardo Frei, who is prevented by the constitution from seeking a second consecutive six-year term, Chile has made some outstanding progress. In a farsighted reform program, Frei's government has expropriated 1,224 private estates and distributed the land to 30,000 families. It increased income tax revenues 80% by catching wealthy tax dodgers, and has built 400,000 housing units since 1964. In the past few months, the rate has been up to one unit every 13 minutes. During Frei's six-year term, university enrollment has increased 124% while infant mortality has dropped from 102 to 79 per 1,000.

Endemic Inflation. But Chile, like its neighbors, suffers from a lack of industrialization and a heavy dependence on fluctuating world raw-materials prices, which gives many Chileans the impression that they are mere pawns in a world controlled by conniving capitalists. Worst of all is Chile's endemic inflation, which ran 28% last year and is presently climbing at the rate of more than 2% per month. More than half of Chile's families subsist on less than $30 a month. The cities are pockmarked with ugly slums, and life in the countryside remains burdensome and poverty-stricken for the vast majority of peasants.

The situation has created dangerously conflicting anxieties in the electorate, and those concerns are reflected in the spectrum of presidential candidates. Allende, a physician by training, has done most to dramatize the tragic conditions. As a panacea, he promises to nationalize mining, banking and foreign trade, and see to it that every Chilean baby has a pint of milk a day.

Coalition Speculation. On the center left is Radomiro Tomic, the former ambassador to the U.S., who is the candidate of Frei's Christian Democratic Party. Tomic, the 56-year-old father of nine, has criticized the Frei government's failure to reduce inflation and to move from "Chileanization" (51% ownership) to full nationalization of the copper industry.

On the right is former President Jorge Alessandri, 74, who is backed by the country's business interests but retains a carefully preserved common touch. Every Saturday morning he carries a wreath to the grave of his father Arturo, a onetime President whom the Chileans revere as "the lion of Tarapaca." To hundreds of thousands of poor rows (broken ones) who have flocked from the large estates to Santiago, Jorge Alessandri is himself a father figure. "There is too much politics," he says, "and not enough work."

Since none of the candidates is likely to win a majority in the Sept. 4 election, the contest will probably be settled next month by the Chilean Congress. Any outcome is possible. But the reluctance of Allende and Tomic to create ill feeling by criticizing each other during the campaign could be a sign that they are considering the possibility of a leftist coalition if Alessandri should poll the most votes.

In the past, the Chilean Congress has always selected the candidate who received the largest number of popular votes. But it is not legally bound to do so, and the leftist parties control by far the largest bloc of votes in Congress. The Congressmen must bear in mind, however, that if they put a Communist-backed President into office, the army may decide to enter its own ballot in the form of a swift coup.

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