Scenario for Chaos

For the 22nd time in only three years, Chile's Marxist President Salvador Allende Gossens formed a new Cabinet last week. Allende euphemistically described the latest reshuffle as a "readjustment" in his government. By any name, it was unlikely to have much impact on a long-running crisis that has pushed Chile into political chaos and to the verge of economic bankruptcy.

Within the past two weeks, three high-ranking military officers have resigned from the Cabinet. To prove to his countrymen--and perhaps to himself--that he still enjoys the confidence of the military, Allende included two new officers in the reshuffle. To replace Admiral Raul Montero as Finance Minister he appointed Admiral Daniel Arellano, and Four-Star General Rolando Gonzalez became Minister of Mines. To the position of Minister of Defense, Allende named a civilian, Orlando Letelier del Solar, until recently Ambassador to Washington. The sensitive post of Interior Minister fell to Carlos Briones, a close personal friend. Briones, as it happens, has managed to stay on good terms with former President Eduardo Frei Montalva, leader of the opposition Christian Democrats. If a crisis should require contact between Chile's past and present Presidents, Briones could provide the liaison.

Meanwhile, the paralyzing strike of Chilean truck owners and retail merchants continued. Announcing the Cabinet switches, Allende charged that the month-long strike by truckers protesting the threat of nationalization had already cost the country more than $100 million and had put 90,000 construction workers out of jobs. For openers in his new role, Briones threatened to withdraw armed protection from the truck owners and give it instead to leftist strikebreakers, but the stalemate was unresolved. (In Allende's Chile, paradoxically, most strikes have been staged not by labor groups but by conservative small-businessmen and professionals against the radical left.)

Allende also complained that the strikes were "blatantly political" and were part of a Machiavellian plot. The conservative opposition agrees; it has a scenario for getting rid of Allende constitutionally. First of all, according to the scenario, continuing economic chaos leads the Congress to censure the President repeatedly. (This requires only a simple majority, which the opposition parties command, not the two-thirds necessary for impeachment.) Military leaders are warned that if they join the Cabinet they may be liable to prosecution for violating their oath to defend the constitution if they help a President who is acting illegally. Allende is eventually humiliated and resigns, to be succeeded, in the absence of an effective Cabinet, by the president of the Senate--who is none other than Eduardo Frei.

The opposition plot fails to reckon with the virtually certain response of Allende's dedicated proletarian supporters. The 1.4 million members of the General Confederation of Workers and other Allende partisans would undoubtedly mount a general strike and take to the barricades on behalf of their leader. The specter of civil war would most likely bring in its wake a military coup.

Many responsible Chileans are already beginning to wonder how the military would respect civil liberties. Recently, there have been reports that enlisted navymen loyal to Allende have been not only arrested but tortured for their opposition to coup-minded officers. A group of marines broke into a Valparaiso radio station, where wives of the imprisoned sailors were taking part in a forum sponsored by the Socialist Party, and arrested all the participants. When Socialist Deputies called on the naval commander of the district to protest, he simply refused to see them.

"Some people say we need a coup to avert a civil war," Allende defiantly declared last week, "but in Chile there will be neither a coup nor a civil war." The tragic prospect is that while the harassed and embattled President may succeed in averting a military coup, he may soon be powerless to govern or to stave off overt civil war.

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