As the coup against President Salvador Allende in Chile unfolded on 11 September 1973, Hugh O’Shaughnessy was one of the few foreign correspondents in the capital, Santiago, and was able to give an eyewitness account of the seizure of power by the armed forces, and the death of the president.
Forty years later, O’Shaughnessy recalled that he walked back to his hotel through the deserted streets, hands in the air, to find Pinochet’s rich supporters already celebrating victory: “They whooped as he announced on television the closing down of congress, the political parties, the trade unions and the judges.”
