A Chilean Dictator's Dark Legacy

In the 1980s, Pinochet's government promulgated a new constitution that provided for a plebiscite in 1988 on whether he should continue in office. He received 43 percent of the vote. He declined to be a candidate in a presidential election the following year, which was won by Patricio Aylwin, a Christian Democrat, who took office in 1990.

Chile's current president, Michelle Bachelet, was tortured alongside her mother by Pinochet's government in 1975; her father had been arrested and tortured, and he died of a heart attack in prison shortly after the coup. Bachelet's government announced Sunday that Pinochet would not receive a state funeral usually due former presidents. Pinochet's son Marco Antonio Pinochet said his body would be cremated because his father feared a tomb would be desecrated by his enemies.

Augusto Pinochet Ugarte was born into an upper-middle-class family in Valparaiso, Chile, on Nov. 25, 1915. After graduating from the Chilean military academy in 1936 and receiving a commission in the infantry, he studied law and social sciences at the University of Chile in Santiago.

He had several appointments as an instructor in military schools. He was the author of standard texts on Chile's geography and its history. In the 1950s, he was assigned as a military attache in Washington and Quito, Ecuador. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1968.

As Chile's 1970 presidential election approached, U.S. officials became increasingly concerned about the prospects of Allende, a Socialist, winning. President Richard M. Nixon directed the CIA to take steps to ensure that this did not happen. But when the ballots were counted, Allende had eked out a bare plurality of 36.3 percent of the vote against two other candidates.

In Nixon's memoirs, he said he quoted an informant who told him that Latin America could become "a red sandwich" with Cuba on one side and Chile on the other. He directed the CIA to "make the Chilean economy scream."

A key part of Allende's program was the nationalization of industry, including U.S.-owned copper companies, and the redistribution of land. By 1973, inflation was soaring and the economy was further crippled by CIA-supported strikes in the trucking industry. The government also was unable to control unofficial land expropriations by leftist groups operating on their own.

In an effort to shore up his government, Allende sought support from the army, which had a long tradition of standing aside from politics in Latin America's longest continuous democracy. Among other things, he put Pinochet in command of the army.

Nineteen days later the coup began. Allende died in the Moneda Palace, the presidential residence and office. There were conflicting reports about whether he committed suicide or was killed by government troops.

Pinochet reportedly had a minor role in planning the coup, but he was a member of a four-man junta that took control immediately afterward. He became president and sole ruler of the country in 1974.

Pinochet ended the nationalizations and returned many businesses and much land to private ownership. Although not an economist, he embraced the free trade policies of Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago. He gave free rein to a group of young Chilean economists who had been trained by Friedman and who were known as "the Chicago boys."

Pinochet's survivors include his wife, Lucia Hiriart Pinochet, and five children.

J.Y. Smith, a former obituary editor of The Washington Post, died in January.