Frei Montalva, Eduardo

(1911–1982)

   President of Chile (1964–1970). Representing the Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC, Christian Democratic Party), he was elected president in 1964 under the slogan “Revolution in Liberty.” His administration was reformist—he partially nationalized the copper industry, for example—though his reputation suffered after he forcibly put down strikes in 1966 and 1968. Prevented by the constitution from running for president again in 1970, he was elected to the Senate in 1973. Although he supported the coup that toppled his successor, Salvador Allende Gossens, he would later turn against the military regime.

   He died in a hospital in January 1982—from an infection after a hernia operation. His funeral drew thousands of mourners. In May 2006 retired army generals told Judge Alejandro Madrid that Frei Montalva had been murdered. The infection that killed him, they said, was caused by a bacterial agent designed by Eugenio Berrios, an operative in Pinochet Ugarte’s secret biochemical-warfare program. They also told the judge that Pinochet Ugarte had ordered Berrios to be disappeared. Berrios was discovered shot dead in 1995 on a beach in Montevideo, Uruguay, and an investigation by the Chilean journalist Jorge Molina showed that Chilean and Uruguayan security agents had been complicit in his kidnapping and murder. Pinochet Ugarte died in December 2006.