Projecting the Common Touch

BE A PATRIOT, STICK A YANKEE, invited the sign in front of the National Library in Santiago, and hundreds of celebrating Chileans eagerly obeyed the injunction. For two escudos (14-c-) apiece, they pitched darts at an 8-ft.-high wooden image of Uncle Sam in full flight, clutching money-stuffed suitcases labeled "Chilean copper." As Chile's Dr. Salvador Allende was inaugurated last week for a six-year term as the world's first freely elected Marxist President, a mood of anti-Americanism prevailed.

Coolly Correct. In private, Allende met with President Nixon's representative, Assistant Secretary of State Charles Meyer, for what was described as a "serious and friendly" chat. But Americans are not exactly popular in Chile. U.S. Ambassador Ed Korry, for example, has become a whipping boy of the far left. "When Korry returns to his own country," said the Socialist daily Ultima Hora, "it can be said with all justice and satisfaction, 'Yankee go home and don't come back again.' "

Washington was taking pains to be as inconspicuous as possible. The U.S. had been planning to close three Air Force meteorological and upper-atmosphere observation stations on Chilean territory by the end of next year. In view of the climate in the lower atmosphere, Washington last week decided to shut them down immediately.

No Carriage. Aside from Yankee baiting, the inauguration ceremonies were characterized by Allende's efforts to project the common touch. As diplomats arrived in medal-spangled military uniforms or white tie and tails, Allende received them in a dark gray business suit. Instead of riding in the traditional two-horse carriage to the presidential palace, he made the trip in an open Ford convertible. From the palace balcony, Allende, who won a narrow plurality as the leader of a coalition of far-left parties that includes the Communists, told the crowd below: "The people today enter the house of Presidents with me."

At the brief swearing-in ceremony, outgoing President Eduardo Frei removed from his shoulder the red, white and blue striped Banda de Bernardo O'Higgins--the symbol of presidential power. Allende, the sash draped over his own shoulder, exchanged an abrazo with Frei, who then left, according to tradition, by a rear exit. He was greeted by the most prolonged ovation of the week, evidence that he might have easily won re-election had he not been barred from succeeding himself. But the rest of the day belonged to Allende.

He lifted the state of emergency that had been in effect since the murder last month of the army commander, General Rene Schneider. Ten men have been charged in the case, including retired General Roberto Viaux Marambio, who led an abortive rightist army uprising in October 1969. Addressing 80,000 people at a football stadium later in the week, Allende described the assassination as an example of "the criminal lunacy of those who have always exploited the people." As for the future, "the anti-capitalist movement has assumed power in Chile," he said, and would swiftly create "a republic of the working class."

To aid him in that effort, Allende appointed a 15-man Cabinet that includes only one Chilean of international stature --Jacques Chonchol, an agronomist who headed Frei's agrarian reform movement but broke with the Christian Democrats because he believed they were moving too slowly on land reform. The new President reserved four Cabinet posts for his own Socialist Party, one more than expected, and gave the better-organized Communists only three. That may indicate that Allende has a healthy wariness of his foremost allies.

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