Eduardo Frei Montalva

Chile state institutions Conservatism and Christian democracy 1911.1.16.–1982.1.22. ○ Died after surgery

Christian Democratic president of the "Revolution in Liberty", who led the opposition under Allende

On 6 July 1973, when industrialists' leaders told him the country was falling apart, he reportedly answered that "this problem can only be fixed with guns".

A lawyer born in Santiago, Frei founded the Falange Nacional with young Conservatives in 1938; it became the Christian Democratic Party of Chile in 1957. In 1964, in an election the United States secretly funded, he won 56% and became president, pursuing agrarian reform and the "Chileanisation" of copper (buying 51% of the foreign mines) under the banner of the "Revolution in Liberty". Barred from a second consecutive term, he could not run in 1970; Washington hoped Congress would choose Alessandri and bring Frei back through a new election, but he did not go along. Elected senator in March 1973, he led the opposition as President of the Senate, and his party backed the Chamber's August resolution and the coup. Afterwards he turned against the junta; he died in 1982 after surgery. In 2023 Chile's Supreme Court rejected the charge that he had been murdered.

Also known as: Eduardo Nicanor Frei Montalva