Most of all for my fellow Americans, Chile raises a frightening question to keep in mind as you read this chapter. The U.S. shares with Chile a strong democratic tradition. The yielding of that tradition to a dictatorship seemed utterly inconceivable to Chileans in 1967, just as it seems inconceivable to many Americans today. But it did happen in Chile, and the warning signs there were visible in retrospect. Could it also happen to the U.S.?
