THE ELECTION OF SALVADOR ALLENDE AS PRESIDENT OF CHILE IN 1970 awoke world-wide interest. He obtained executive power at the head of an electoral coalition whose chief members were the Chilean Socialist and Communist Parties and he entered upon his term of oflice dedicated to finding a ‘Chilean Way to Socialism’ that would entail a continuing observance of Chile's well established constitutional traditions.

The peaceful election of a government led by a self-styled ‘Marxist-Leninist’ and containing two strong avowedly Marxist parties was in itself the cause of comment. Still more interest was aroused by the government's declared intention of conducting a revolution within the framework of a ‘liberal-constitutional’ system of government.