452. Chile, the U.S., and the Pinochet Dictatorship, 1973-90

Willie Hiatt via Zoom

On September 11, 1973, the Chilean armed forces overthrew President Salvador Allende’s democratically elected socialist government. Especially in the early years of his seventeen-year dictatorship, General Augusto Pinochet waged a “dirty war” against left-wing militants and political opponents that led to the confirmed death, disappearance, and torture of nearly 3,500 people, although informal estimates are much higher. This lecture explores the Cold War context in which President Nixon, at the urging of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, aided and green-lighted the coup and bloody internal war against perceived subversion.

10-12 noon                                                                                                                  1 Session

Tuesday, April 22                                                                                                       Fee:  $30

[A Zoom link will be sent to you prior to each session, typically on the day before your class and the morning of your class.  If you have any questions or need help getting online, feel free to call us at 516-480-5733 and we’ll get right back to you with assistance.]

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Willie Hiatt, a Kentucky native, is an Associate Professor of History at Long Island University,

Post Campus, and a former Society for the Humanities Fellow at Cornell University (2019-20).

He’s the author of The Rarified Air of the Modern: Airplanes and Technological Modernity in the Andes (Oxford, 2016). His current research is an oral history project examining how Maoist

insurgents in Peru targeted high-tension towers during the Shining Path movement (1980-92).