History of Chile him to Spain. Thereafter, Pinochet returned to Chile in March 2000. Upon descending the plane on his wheelchair, he stood up and saluted the cheering crowd of supporters, including an army band playing his favorite military march tunes, which was awaiting him at the airport in Santiago. President Ricardo Lagos later commented that the retired general's televised arrival had damaged the image of Chile, while thousands demonstrated against him. The "Concertación" coalition has continued to dominate Chilean politics for last two decades. In January 2006 Chileans elected their first woman president, Michelle Bachelet, of the Socialist Party. She was sworn
Miracle of Chile Shortly after Salvador Allende was elected president, but before he assumed office, then-CIA-director Richard Helms met with President Richard Nixon and discussed the situation in Chile. Helms' notes from his September 15, 1970 meeting contain the indication: "Make the economy scream." A week later Ambassador Edward Korry reported telling outgoing Chilean president Eduardo Frei Montalva, through his Defense Minister, that "not a nut or bolt would be allowed to reach Chile under Allende." By late 1972, the Chilean Ministry of the Economy estimated that almost one-third of the diesel trucks at Chuquicamata Copper Mine, 30 percent of the privately owned