Chile Effect

WHEN Lady Thatcher sent her recent letter to the London Times urging that General Pinochet be allowed to return to Chile, she made a very limited case. Far from exonerating the former Chilean dictator of human-rights abuses, she explicitly stated that there had been such abuses (although, as she added, these were not all on one side). That said, she pointed out that the General had helped save the lives of British soldiers during the Falklands War—with the clear implication that if Britain betrayed those who had assisted it in previous crises, it would not find many friends in future ones—and she warned that Britain should not risk upsetting the Chilean settlement that had restored democracy.

The nervous pleas for Pinochet’s release from his political opponents in Chile and from President Menem in Argentina suggested they shared at least the second of those views. After one week, the British government’s dramatic arrest of the General, which had at first looked like a splendid gesture of legal humanitarianism (or a shrewd move to please the European Left), seemed a thoughtlessly imprudent move by inexperienced ministers reliving their youthful “idealism.” As Mao Tse-tung said, an eight-year-old should never be made Foreign Secretary, no matter how brilliant.

About the Author

John O’Sullivan

John O’Sullivan is a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

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WHEN Lady Thatcher sent her recent letter to the London Times urging that General Pinochet be allowed to return to Chile, she made a very limited case. Far from exonerating the former Chilean dictator of human-rights abuses, she explicitly stated that there had been such abuses (although, as she added, these were not all on one side). That said, she pointed out that the General had helped save the lives of British soldiers during the Falklands War—with the clear implication that if Britain betrayed those who had assisted it in previous crises, it would not find many friends in future ones—and she warned that Britain should not risk upsetting the Chilean settlement that had restored democracy.

The nervous pleas for Pinochet’s release from his political opponents in Chile and from President Menem in Argentina suggested they shared at least the second of those views. After one week, the British government’s dramatic arrest of the General, which had at first looked like a splendid gesture of legal humanitarianism (or a shrewd move to please the European Left), seemed a thoughtlessly imprudent move by inexperienced ministers reliving their youthful “idealism.” As Mao Tse-tung said, an eight-year-old should never be made Foreign Secretary, no matter how brilliant.