(Nota de JP. Comparto con Uds. un interesante intercambio de emails que tuve con Milton Friedman. El contexto es el siguiente. Tras la injusta detención en Londres del ex Presidente Pinochet el 16.10.98, se volvió a repetir el equivocado "mantra" izquierdista de que Allende había sido removido por un golpe militar típico de América Latina. No hay artículo en la prensa mundial que no se refiera al "democráticamente electo Allende"...aunque nunca se escribe "el democráticamente electo Hitler". Lo relevante, política y moralmente, es si un gobernante es o no "legítimo" al momento de ser removido. Pues bien, la prueba irrefutable de que Allende perdió esa calidad -como Hitler, y cuan distinta será la Historia si el dictador nazi hubiese sido removido por el Reichstag antes de lanzar al mundo a una guerra mundial y consumar el Holocausto- fue el Acuerdo del 22.8.73 de la Cámara de Diputados, un brazo del mismo Congreso que lo había designado Presidente ante su insuficiente 36.2% del voto popular. Decidí entonces usar la coyuntura para hacer un aporte a la verdad histórica, traduje no sin dificultad y ayuda el extenso Acuerdo, y lo envié a los consejos editoriales de los principales diarios del mundo y a diversos líderes de opinión, entre ellos a Milton Friedman, con el título "Chile: The missing link", aludiendo al eslabón perdido que explicaba la remoción de Allende. Al día siguiente, recibí un certero email de Friedman, que reproduzco abajo junto con mi respuesta, en la que además intento corregir una imprecisión que contienen sus memorias).
 

De: Milton Friedman
Enviado el: Jue 22-10-1998 13:59
Para: Jose Pinera
Asunto: Re: Chile: the missing link
 

Dear Jose:

That is a remarkable document that deserves wider circulation. More akin in structure and role to the U.S. Declaration of Independence which lists grievances against King justifying rebellion than to US impeachment which requires a trial.

Thanks for sending it to me.

Yours,

Milton

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De: Jose Pinera [mailto:jose@cato.org]
Enviado el: Jue 22-10-1998 20:12
Para: Milton Friedman
Asunto: Allende's suicide
 

Dear Milton,

Thanks for your comment. I so much agree that I gave the resolution the name "The Declaration of Breakdown of Chile's Democracy" thinking of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Regrettably, while this last one was addresed to "a candid world" and circulated extensively in informed circles in Europe, ours was kept almost as a Chilean secret.
 

Congratulations for your wonderful book. Lucky yes, but also courageous, persistent and correct!
 

Incidentally, I do not believe it was accurate to say, in the Chile Chapter of your Memoirs, that Allende "was murdered (or by some accounts, committed suicide)". Today in Chile, there is almost unanimity in that he committed suicide. Even Jon Lee Anderson in the New Yorker magazine of this week (Oct.19, 1998), in a several pages profile of Pinochet, says: "...the Army staged a coup and Allende killed himself during the attack on ... the presidential palace". He does not mention the "murder" hypothesis, as not even Allende's family does it in Chile nowadays.
 

Historian James Whelan, in what I believe is the most complete and fair book on the subject, "Out of the Ashes", tells all the details of the suicide, given, both publicly and in interviews with him, by Dr. Guijon, Allende's private doctor, who was with the former President in La Moneda and was the last to saw Allende alive (who still lives and who for 25 years has told exactly the same story). Maybe in a revised edition you may want to rewrite this statement and to add the Chamber of Deputies Resolution of August 22,1973.
 

Best wishes to you and Rose,

Jose