Talk:Salvador Allende/Archive 3

Needing at least an improved citation
From the current state of the article:

"After Pinochet assumed power, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told U.S. President Richard Nixon that the U.S. 'didn't do it' (referring to the coup itself) but had 'created the conditions as great as possible', including leading economic sanctions."

The quoted phrase is not on the referenced web page (though the reference is clearly relevant to the article in general), and the quoted phrase is not good English, which makes it unlikely that it is an accurate quote of Kissinger, whose use of English is generally correct, if not always inspired. Does anyone have an accurate quotation and a citation? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:30, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)


 * This has still not been addressed. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:57, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

on this Kissinger quote
"didn't do it" and "created the conditions..."

I've read a lot about this whole coup before during and after, and the quote appears consistent with what Kissinger would say on this topic, at least it is historically accurate; but I agree the wording is not right at all, and I think that is probably something that was translated from English to another language and back to English by someone not totally fluent in English.

Even so I agree as it is it is not useful, though it would be nice if the original text could be found as it seems to convey important content.

Nfgii 05:04, 28 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Found it. It's Box 22, File 3, Telcon, 9-16-73 11,50 Mr. Kissinger-The Pres (PDF). Not sure how standardized that notation is. The transcription in our article is not quite right, but it looks like the bad English was Kissinger's:

P: Well we didn't - as you know - our hand doesn't show on this one. K: We didn't do it. I mean we helped them. ______ created the conditions as great as possible (??)


 * -- Jmabel | Talk 06:40, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm new here and it is cool how this works

Nfgii 13:37, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment on archive
Given that this unaddressed issue (Needing...improved citation) was archived, it won't surprise me if the same happened to other unresolved matters. Someone may want to look through the archive and see if other things should be retrieved. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:57, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

Incoherent passages
I've done my best to edit the recently added passage on the KGB. Some of this was too confused for me to edit; I've taken the liberty of inserting HTML comments on what is confusing, clarification would be welcome. Also:


 * "We are not mental colons", about his relationship to Cuba, and "I do not receive subsides from them". "Reality in Cuba is really different from Chile. Cuba came from a dictature, I came to be president after being senator for 25 years". (in an unreleased 1971 interview with Saul Landau, published by La Nacion on September 24th, 2005)

"We are not mental colons" has to be wrong. I'm guessing either "We are not mentally colonized" or "We are not mental colonists" or some such. "We are not mental colons" would be "No somos anos mentales," clearly not what he said. If someone will provide the Spanish-language original, I will gladly render it into better English. Similarly, "dictature" is not an English word. Perhaps "dictatorship" ("dictadura")? Again, if someone will provide the Spanish-language original, I will gladly render it into better English.

If no one responds within 48 hours, I will probably cut that paragraph, because in its current state it is an embarrassment. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:28, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I am still leaving the KGB passage in the article, but no one has responded to my questions in HTML comments, so I am going to raise the matter more explicitly here. My questions are bracketed, in red.

"The KGB's archives report [report? In what sense? Perhaps record?] that Svyatoslav Kuznetsov, KGB case officer in Chile, was instructed by the centre [what 'centre'?] to 'exert a favourable influence on Chilean government policy'. The Times extract from the Mitrokhin Archive volume II from historian Christopher Andrew and KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin says that 'In the KGB's view, Allende's fundamental error was his unwillingness to use force against his opponents. Without establishing complete control over all the machinery of the State, his hold on power could not be secure.' In other words, his respect for democracy and legal actions made him insecure in the eyes of Moscow. According to Allende's KGB file, he 'was made to understand the necessity of reorganising Chile's army and intelligence services, and of setting up a relationship between Chile's and the USSR's intelligence services', and he was said to react positively (keeping in mind that KGB had a policy of handing up good news to the center). [Is 'center' here the same thing as 'centre' a few sentences earlier?] In June 1972, it seems [seems to whom?] that Kuznetsov's close relationship to Allende was disturbed by the arrival in Santiago of a new Soviet ambassador, Aleksandr Vasilyevich Basov, member of the Central Committee. [Meaning Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party? or what?] In 1972, Moscow downgraded its assessment of the prospects of the Allende regime. The 'truckers' strike', backed by CIA funding, virtually paralysed the economy for three weeks, which Moscow saw as evidence of the weakness of the Popular Unity government."

Jmabel | Talk 05:35, 13 October 2005 (UTC)


 * These questions seem now to have been addressed -- Jmabel | Talk 02:59, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Personal doctor
Once again, the claim has come into the article&mdash;again unsourced&mdash;that Allende's "personal doctor" testified that he was a suicide. I [Talk:Salvador_Allende/archive#Did_he_shoot_himself_.28revisited.29 thought we had dismissed that]. Mel Romero provided a citation that has this testimony from a doctor present at the scene, Dr. Patricio Guijón, but not by Allende's personal doctor, Enrique Paris Roa, who died shortly afterwards at the hands of the Pinochet regime. Unless either a new citation is forthcoming (which would surprise me, but not astound me), or if someone can show that Patricio Guijón was in some meaningful sense Allende's "personal doctor" (which would astound me), then the text should be amended accordingly and Mel's citation restored: I'll give at least 24 hours for someone to respond before I act on this. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:59, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Camus, Ignacio Gonzalez, El dia en que murio Allende ("The day that Allende Died"). Instituto Chileno de Estudios Humanísticos (ICHEH) and Centro de Estudios Sociales (CESOC), 1988. p. 282 and following.


 * [copied from User talk:Jmabel:


 * At first I thought your question was only, as it is for a lot of people, whether Allende committed suicide or was killed, and answered this at length in the "talk" page of Allende, but now it dawns on me you may have just questioned whether this info source was from a "personal doctor'.


 * If so, you raise a good point, as I believe the two doctors in question were not personal doctors but doctors there in another capacity. You are right that probably got into my head from many secondary sources that just repeat this from some inaccurate original report from a long time ago.

Nfgii 10:51, 25 October 2005 (UTC)


 * [end copied material]


 * OK, sounds like we have no real disagreement here. I will put the actual citation in as to what doctor said this. If someone has something more, also decently cited, it's welcome. -- Jmabel | Talk 16:50, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Allende a marxist?
As I understand it, Allende was center-left but took a turn towards the hard left after being elected (as the article here points out, partly due to pressure in his coalition). However he might have been a marxist and I just didn't know about it. How about a source on that? --MateoP 02:07, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * He was a founder in the 1930s of the Chilean Socialist Party, which was always overtly Marxist. I'm not sure what sort of citation exactly you want, but I suspect that if you do a Google search on Allende Marxist you will easily find every type of useful online citation imaginable. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * One from a historian, preferrably. Thanks.  --MateoP 00:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Will a citation that he was a founder of the Chilean Socialist Party suffice? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:46, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * No, for the simple reason that founders of political parties don't all agree ideologically. --MateoP 16:14, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

My understanding is that the term "Marxist" encompassed both communism and the social democratic left during this period of Chilean history. Perhaps if this point is clarified in the article, the current dispute can be set to rest. CJCurrie 01:14, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * This would better fit with my understanding. It's well known that he took a hard dive towards the left after he was elected.  How does someone who's already on the hard left go further to the left (enough that everyone signals that he moved to the left)?  Allende might have been a Marxist, but that doesn't really say a whole lot.  In the context of the article it seems to indicate that he is a soviet-aligned marxist.  However, I want an actual source from a historian that has studied primary documents either way.  --MateoP 16:13, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * He was not a Leninist, if that is the point. But he was a Marxist. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:48, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Source? --MateoP 16:13, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't have a lot handy at the moment, and something really solid will take library research. An interesting thing I found online is this page from Socialist Outlook has excerpts from an article by Tariq Ali, which gives a citation to Regis Debray (Conversations p118) for the following quotation from Allende:

"We consciously entered into a coalition in order to be the left wing of the system – the capitalist system, that is. By contrast, today, as our program shows, we are struggling to change the system … Our objective is total, scientific, Marxist socialism."


 * The Debray book should not be hard to find, and may have more. The quotation, though, is consistent with either view about Allende's politics prior to election.


 * The following all unqualifiedly call Allende Marxist, but I'm not sure I'd call any of them definitive: Encyclopedia Britannica, CNN, Spartacus School Net New York Times reporting at the time of the coup, Isabel Allende's publisher calling him a "Marxist-Leninist" (which I disagree with, and which none of the others say). So, yes, this could use some library research in search of a "killer" citation, but it seems to me like a preponderance. Do you have something citable on the other side that makes you doubt this? Have you done research on this yourself that raises a question about what seems to be the common view? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:05, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

My professor of Latin American Politics gave the impression that he was center-left prior to the election and then took a turn towards the left after elected. This makes sense in regards to the coalition. The Socialist Party was in a coalition with the Christian Democrat Party at the time of Allende's election. After he turned more towards the left the coalition broke down (the center-right members of the CDP couldn't get anything done with him) and the political system essentially went into deadlock. This is a common reason stated for why democracy collapsed in Chile. This doesn't make as much sense if Allende was hard left to begin with. This is my problem with this. I don't doubt it, if encyclopedias and such make the claim, but I still want a source. I also am fearful of the tendancy to oversimply ("member of the Socialist Party, therefore a soviet-aligned communist"). Either way I would like a source, and think the article should be changed to reflect his soft-socialist stance, as people might confuse him with being Castro-like due to his place in Cold War history. --MateoP 02:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

As I noted above, I believe that both Socialists and Communists were considered "Marxist" in this period of Chilean history. The term referred to a broad range of thought, not simply to armed revolution and the like. If this is clarified, I don't think there's much controversy in using the term. CJCurrie 02:52, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, but I think it's also important to know what Allende's beliefs were, aside from the vaguest definition of marxist. --MateoP 03:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds fair. A one-sentence clarification would probably do the trick. CJCurrie 03:09, 12 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The UP were not in coalition with the Christian Democrats at the time of the election; they were briefly in a slowly collapsing, informal coalition in the first year or so of the Allende regime. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:51, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Víctor Farías, again
These edits by Rune X2 revive the largely refuted accusations of Víctor Farías, and present them out of all proportion to the Allende Foundation's refutation, even adding to the quotations section material ("The Hebrews are well-known committers of certain types of crimes&hellip;" taken wildly out of context). We've been over this all before (see [[Talk:Salvador Allende/archive#.22Antisemitism and Euthanasia.22]). Much to my frustration, the site of the Allende Foundation, which had all of the relevant archival materials (including the text of the thesis) seems to be largely down while they move their facility, and the links http://www.elclarin.cl/hemeroteca.html, http://www.elclarin.cl/temas/18.html, and http://www.elclarin.cl/zip/p_270505.zip have gone dead.

These should all eventually show up on the Internet Archive, but these links are from June 2005, and their archive of www.elclarin.cl is currently only up to November 2004.

In any event I am reverting at least part of these changes; I suggest that if anyone disagrees they should at least read Jmabel | Talk 20:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I am being moderate in my reversion: however, Rune X2 has not provided very good citations for Farías's claims (no page numbers, for example). I would not object if others revert more of his material. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It looks like the El Clarín material is still available, just moved; I'll get things back in there. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:33, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I was merely putting in more information and a more NPOV on the part of the article with the racism and anti-Semitism (some other parts of the Allende article also reads a bit one sided), since I felt the previous version gave the impression that the allegation by Farías had been fully and completely rebutted and the case closed - which is not the case, since Farías strongly maintains his reading of the subject is correct and has described the Allende Foundation's claims that the cites are mere copies of other people’s work as “completely nonsense”. And that further Allende’s theories could not be dismissed as youthful mistakes since he was 24-25 at the time. Also that the views might have been common in the 1930s wouldn’t alter the fact that Allende held them too – if he did.


 * Perhaps it’s also worth nothing that the Allende Foundation is not a neutral observer, but besides trying to maintain Allende’s reputation, is a Marxist organisation from Catalonia. The same goes for Allende’s family naturally – not being neutral observers.


 * Also I see no reason not to include quotes from the controversial sections of Allende’s dissertion. Readers of the Wikipedia article wants to know what in particular the controversy is about, and not just vague allegation of racism and anti-Semitism – so put them up and let reader themselves decide. Rune X2 09:24, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Also I'm afraid your links 12 & 13 are still not working Rune X2 09:55, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't know what to say about the links "not working" for you; they're working perfectly for me. Weird. Can you access http://www.elclarin.cl at all?


 * Quoting Allende paraphrasing Lombroso is a bit of a stretch, but I'll agree to it if we do it in a balanced way. We should not quote only negative remarks about Jews and Arabs and omit positive ones, nor should we mistranslate the passages we quote. You wrote, “The Hebrews are well-known committers of certain types of crimes including: fraud, deceit, defamation, but most notably usury”, and about Arabs “most are adventurers, thoughtless and lazy with a tendency to theft”.


 * On race, the relevant passages&mdash;clearly cited in Allende's thesis as paraphrases of Lombroso&mdash;are "Los ebreos se caracterizan por determinadas formas de deleito: estafa, falsedad, calumnia y, sobre todo, la usuria. Por el contrario, los asesinatos y los delitos pasionales son la excepción." (p. 115 in the PDF I linked to, and "Entre los árabes hay algunos tribus honradas y laboriosas, y otras aventureras, imprevisoras, ociosas y con tendencia al hurto." (op.cit. p.114.).


 * Translating the passage about Jews: "The Hebrews are characterized by certain forms of crime: fraud, deceit, defamation and, above all, usury. On the other hand, murders and crimes of passion are the exception." Your version quotes the first sentence without the second; also, "well-known committers" is not there at all in what Allende wrote. Translating the passage about Arabs: "Among the Arabs there are some honored and hardworking tribes, and other who are adventurers, thoughtless and lazy with a tendency to theft.") The "honored and hardworking" Arabs are missing from your quotation; "most" in your quotation comes from nowhere in Allende's writing.


 * By 21st century standards, the racializing is not pretty, but it is not nearly as ugly as the mistranslations and omissions make it sound. Allende gives Lombroso's ideas on race/tribe/nation more credence than much anyone would today, but he does not embrace them: "Estos datos hacen sospechar que la raza influye in la delincuencia. No obstante, carecemos de datos precisos para demostrar este influjo en el mundo civilizado." (op.cit. p.114: "These data lead one to suspect that race influences crime. Nonetheless, we lack precise data to demonstrate this influence in the civilized world.")


 * Four paragraphs later Allende remarks, "La civilización&hellip; ha traído&hellip; un mayor incremento de los delitos&hellip;": a similar quoting out of context could make Allende appear to be raging against civilization itself. (op.cit. p.115)


 * On homosexuality, what he has writes is clearly homophobic, though not atypical of the time. He entertains (but, again, does not clearly embrace) ideas about what strike us now as weird medical operations to try to "cure" homosexuality. I'm not sure how exceptional that was for 1933, but I agree it's worth a sentence.


 * As for the allegations that do not relate to the thesis, I don't know my way around these. I could do some research, but before I do, is there someone else working on this article who has already looked into what others besides Farías and those using Farías as their sole source have written about this?


 * Rune, I think I've demonstrated pretty clearly above Allende's thesis was quoted misleadingly in the translations you originally gave; I assume that you gave these mistranslations in good faith, and that they are not your own. Do they come from the English translation of Farías's book, or a reviewer, or what? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:04, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Re. the quotes. I took them from the news sources which broke the story. They are much the same throughout the web, so I suspect they come from the same source. E.g. The Telegraph – which I believe is usually a fairly respectable and dependable source and I think is the one which was first out with the story:


 * http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/12/wallen12.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/12/ixnewstop.html


 * http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/12/wallen112.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/12/ixnewstop.html


 * Quoted:
 * Jews: "The Hebrews are characterised by certain types of crime: fraud, deceit, slander and above all usury. These facts permits the supposition that race plays a role in crime."


 * Arabs: "most are adventurers, thoughtless and lazy with a tendency to theft". – not quoting the first part with the "honored and hardworking" is of course a mistake, but I only took what was presented as a direct quotation, hoping to avoid someones coloured (Farías or the journalist) presentation.


 * Italians: "The southern Italians - in contrast to the north Italians - and the Spanish have a tendency to barbaric and primitive crimes of passion and are emotionally unpredictable."


 * The printed version of The Telegraph also includes this quote:


 * "[...]there was a theory which he praised, that homosexuality being a crime, it could be corrected with surgery - small holes would be made in the stomach, into which small pieces of testicle would be inserted. This would make the person heterosexual[...]"


 * A search on Google on "allende antisemitism" alone gives around 40,000 hits. These theories of his (or of Farías’ imagination) have produced a great deal of debate, and I should expect many readers of an article on Salvador Allende would find the article lacking without a throughout and neutral presentation of them.


 * The links work now. Don’t know why they didn’t work for me yesterday. Rune X2 11:24, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The "well-known" comes from the Spiegel article on Allende: Was Salvador Allende a Racist?: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,356461,00.html Rune X2 12:20, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I suspect that, on top of giving this a paragraph or two here, the Farías/Allende controversy deserves an article of its own, laying out in detail what Farías claims and what others have responded (or, where primary documents exist, citing them). And possibly the "food chain" if there was a "game of telephone" going on, with quotes being "improved" as they went along.


 * The Telegraph is not a bad newspaper, and is certainly citable, but I hope you will concede that it is certainly a conservative paper (to the point where it is nicknamed the Torygraph). Spiegel misquoting is more surprising; I can only guess that they worked from Farías claimed and did not go back to the original thesis. I hope you will agree that where primary sources are clearly misrepresented by secondary and tertiary sources, we need to give the primary sources.


 * You have no user profile, so I don't know whether you read Spanish, but I believe that on the Jews and Arabs matter it is absolutely clear that these were mistranslations and taken out of context. Are my translations of those passages acceptable to you? If not, do you have a specific issue with them, or need someone else bilingual to weigh in? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Since I haven't heard from you, I will at least carry the fuller quotations on the Arabs and Jews into the article.


 * Does someone have the Farías book (either in English or in Spanish) to indicate just what Farías quoted and whether the half-quotes of sentences are his? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:33, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Allende and the KGB
I have just finished Mitrokhin II, and it would appear the the excerpts in the article from the Times and various sources, dont even scratch the surface. If the book is to be beleived, and I think that is a safe bet, it would appear that Allende (knowingly) was up to his eyeballs with the KGB since 1961 when the Soviets opened a trade mission there. Considering the length of this new information, and the implications it has over several dozen articles, how best would this be incorporated? DTC 01:14, 21 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The key is to give clear citations for whatever you intend to add to articles. Be clear about exactly what work you are citing (title, publisher, date, ISBN), because Mitrokhin II may be a good shorthand to someone already familiar with the work, but is almost useless to someone who is not; when you cite, give page numbers; and be clear what comes from Mitrokhin as against any other source. I agree that what Mitrokhin says should be taken seriously. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:14, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

There do need to be citations added for many of the other parts on the KGB anyway. Saying that the KGB funded a major part of Allende's campagin "unbeknownst to him" is an important point, but I see no more support for Allende not knowing than the writer's own speculation. There is a degree of questionable motives involved here. Grenye | Talk 01:14, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

While Mitrokhin II is certainly very fascinating, it is far from a confirmed source. Parts of it have proved accurate, other parts not so much. If WP is to have academic pretensions at all, it shouldn't rely on material that has not been accepted by academia as a sole source for article sections. There is no corroborating evidence that Allende was a "KGB agent". It is particularly interesting that at this time just after his death, there is a major effort underway by U.S. right wing extremists to rehabilitate Pinochet's image by tarnishing the reputation of Allende and others. Please be careful that this article is not used as a tool to further the aims of the radical right.216.175.105.74 09:16, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

"very factories"?
"The network transmitted data from very factories". I have no idea what "very factories" could mean. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The Chamber of Deputies Resolution of August 22, 1973
I'm astounded that this Wiki entry has, apparently for years, been completely sans reference to this rather important avalanche rampaging down the hill of Chilean history. I've reworded the beginning of the entry to include it:
 * Dr. Salvador Isabelino Allende Gossens (June 26, 1908 – September 11, 1973) was a Chilean politician whose career in government spanned nearly 40 years, as a senator, deputy, and cabinet minister. Allende was elected President of Chile in the election of 1970 after three unsuccessful runs for the office in 1952, 1958, and 1964.


 * President Allende was killed during his military ouster from power on September 11, 1973 by Chile's armed forces (Commander in Chief Augusto Pinochet) weeks after the Chamber of Deputies of Chile's Resolution of August 22, 1973 authorized his forcible removal for, it held, Allende's violations of the Constitution and "goal of replacing legitimately elected authority and establishing the foundation of a totalitarian dictatorship." (Pinochet did not relenquish martial law back to the civilian government after the deposement, and Chile became a military junta under Pinochet at that point.) The manner of Allende's death is still contested (many supporters claim he was assassinated; a larger consensus finds he committed suicide rather than face arrest).

--Mike18xx 07:02, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Following exchange cut-n-pasted from the Pinochet talk-pages:
 * This "authorization," as the POV-filled page you link to plainly states, has no force of law behind it, and authorized nothing. The paragraph as written before was accurate. The resolution should of course be discussed in the article, but this tortured first paragraph is nothing but an attempt to push POV. Please, let's stick to the facts. More pre-September 11th information can and should be added to the article, although Chilean coup of 1973 is the main article for the events leading up to the coup. I've reworked the first paragraph into a compromise version, I hope you find it acceptable. Eliot 18:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Chile, as you may be aware, did not have any US-style "articles of impeachment" for the Chamber of Deputies to follow as de facto "force of law"; it's only recourse of action is the one it chose: imploring the nation's military to oust the President.


 * An analogy: It is about the same time in alternate history United States, where President Richard Nixon steadfastly refuses to resign in the face of growing demands he do so over gross misconduct in office. The US Congress, lacking a Constitutional means to impeach him, passes a resolution exhaustively detailing his various treasons and implores the US Army to address the grave national crisis; the resolution passes on a near 2:1 vote. Three weeks later, the US Army does so, and Nixon airs out his own head in preference to being arrested (and also to make a martyre of himself to his fervent supporters). General Westmoreland, rather than then going back to the barracks, uses the opportunity to establish a military junta ruled by him, and busies himself rooting out Nixon's supporters. Three decades later, Spanish-language historybooks and internet encylopedias still routinely present the Nixon's apologists' version of events in which the fact that an overwhelming majority of the Congress demanded he be militarily punted in the first place are buried way far down in the fine print if not swept under the rug entirely. Attempts to re-position the primary roll of the Congress in initiating the whole affair are ridiculed as "POV" and "misleading"; meanwhile, the apologists do not consider it "POV" to, variously, obsess over the "democratically-elected" "doctor" (actually a politician for thirty years) Nixon's "service" and "ambituous social reform projects", the contingency planning of his foreign adversaries, and especially, the "violent" details of the "coup" (which -- as opposed to the Congressionally-sanctioned removal of Nixon -- was actually bloodless, since it essentially consisted of Westmoreland just saying "No, I think I'll keep this brass-ring!" to Congress before dissolving it.)


 * RV'd with changes in the interest of pragmatic compromise. Also an alternate source for the Resolution is now linked (it goes to a page sans any site-owner's editorializing).--Mike18xx 19:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


 * You are approaching this article in bad faith, Mike18xx, by calling the long-standing consensus version of the article 'Rebrane's POV' and your own, ideologically driven edit the 'neutral version' even as it contains external links to political sites. Perhaps you should work on adding information to the encyclopedia (such as an article about the August 22 resolution) instead of tearing up parts that have already gone through rigorous consensus edits. Eliot 21:13, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm reverting again to the consensus version of the first paragraph. This is not "my POV version." I'm all in favor of you expanding the article, just to make it clear, but not in favor of you editing the first paragraph to reflect your personal biases. Thanks. Eliot 21:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

- Please address the analogy above, Rebrane and Eliot -- because that's what's been going on here. The mere fact that a manifest whitewash has a "long" pedigree does not entitle it to last forever.

Regards your accusation of "ideologically driven" -- I loathe the smell of hypocrisy in the afternoon.

Regards "consensus", the vote was 81 over 47.--Mike18xx 21:34, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The analogy is not an issue. Fictitious analogies are not a valid basis for adding to Wikipedia. Please see Verifiability.


 * The consensus I was referring to was the consensus of Wikipedia editors that the first paragraph was balanced and accurate. The first paragraph is not 'my POV', it is a consensus version which has stood for many months.


 * My problem with your modification to the first paragraph is that it suggests that the August 22 resolution was the most important event leading up to the coup, and that the coup was somenow 'authorized' or 'sanctioned' by the resolution. I don't think this is supported by any reliable secondary sources, at least none that you have attempted to present.


 * Just to make it crystal clear, I am not trying to bury any information or continue the pedigree of a long whitewash. I invite you to add as much verifiable facts and information about the Chamber of Deputies Resolution to the article and to Wikipedia as you want to. The verifiable facts and information contained in this article are the basis for the first paragraphs. Eliot 14:13, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * 1. You're avoiding the POV issues raised by the analogy; it is those I wished to see some response to.
 * 2. Regards consensus: You're the only one arguing against it in Talk.
 * 3. info regarding the Resolution is not difficult to find on Google (although much of it is in Spanish).
 * 4. You don't think the Chilean Congress' implorement of military intervention less than a month before actual military intervention is the "most important event" leading up to military intervention?
 * 5. Regards "supported by secondary sources": Military intervention is supported by the very wording of the Resolution -- I could certainly include the relevant phrasing...or would that be jumped all over as "POV" (despite being the POV of the Chilean congress rather than a Wiki editor)? I would argue that it is incumbant upon critics to demonstrate how the Resolution wasn't a call for military intervention.
 * 6. You're conflating the military removal of Allende (implored by the Resolution) with a "coup" (Pinochet's power-grab after-the-fact).--Mike18xx 20:05, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid we're never going to get anywhere if you continue to treat me as an ideological adversary to do battle with, instead of someone who's simply trying to maintain basic standards in the wiki.

Now, as to your point 5, it seems that you need to review the Wikipedia policy on verifiability. You really ought to read the whole article, but here's the nut of it: Facts, viewpoints, theories and claims in articles must only be included if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. The fact that there was a resolution, and the text of the resolution, are plainly verifiable. Good. But your interpretation of the significance of the resolution has not been backed up by a secondary source. It must be in order to merit inclusion in the article.

But again, I invite you to write a more thorough treatment of the resolution in the article, or write your own article on the resolution. If it merits inclusion in the first paragraph, then it definitely merits a fuller explanation on the article. And cite those sources. Eliot 06:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)