designated Marxist officials carefully and deviously manipulated the reins of power and brought total ruin to the economic and political structure of one of the most progressive and energetic peoples of Latin America. Also, these matters must be examined to determine any connections between revolutionary groups functioning in this country and those functioning in Latin America.

The actions taken by the Allende government could not have been carried out without support of sympathetic forces. Of particular interest in our continuing study of the theory and practice of communism is the development, if possible, of any interrelationship between the Marxist forces that functioned in Latin America in support of the Allende government and Marxist-Leninist-Maoist forces that are functioning in this country. Our national security and welfare depends on a thorough understanding of how these revolutionary parties throughout the world work in concert with complete dedication to their cause of eventually establishing world communism. Incidentally, I just noticed this morning, in my kitchen at home here, that my wife had set out a beautiful silver plate. I believe it came from Chile. We have been to Chile. My wife and I have been there three times. It is quite a beautiful country, with a noble tradition of democracy and culture. It is a matter of deep concern that that great country has been plagued with such problems. The relationship of those problems and how they occurred or came about, possibly, is of very great interest to us.

We are fortunate today to have as witnesses two distinguished Chileans who have just arrived from Chile. The Honorable Hermogenes Perez de Arce is a former member of the Congress of Chile who served during Allende's administration. He is accompanied by the Honorable Carlos Figueroa, now connected with the Supreme Court of Chile and a former Minister of Economy under the Frei government that preceded the Allende administration.

Gentlemen, it is a pleasure to welcome you as witnesses. I will ask the counsel if he will proceed.

Mr. CRANDALL. Mr. Chairman, in addition to the two witnesses that you mentioned in your opening statement, I would also like to introduce Mr. Carlos Sepúlveda. He is the president of the National Association of Journalists. This association includes all journalists in Chile. He also is the director of La Patria, one of the four national newspapers in Chile.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Sepúlveda has requested that we introduce, on his behalf, a statement that he has prepared. It is prepared in Spanish, and we will have it translated.

With the permission of the Chair, I will introduce the statement and translation as exhibit No. 1.

Mr. PEPPER. Counsel, on your recommendation and after you have examined the statement and seen that it is in order, it will be accepted for the record.

[The statement in Spanish is retained in committee files and the translated version is reproduced in the appendix, pp. 2599-2607.]

Mr. CRANDALL. Mr. Chairman, with the permission of the Chair, I would also like to insert in the record additional biographical information with regard to two of the witnesses.

Mr. PEPPER. The material will be accepted for the record. [The biographical material referred to follows:]

HERMOGENES PEREZ DE ARCE

Mr. Hermogenes Perez de Arce in 1973 was elected to the Chilean Congress as a Representative of the First District, National Party, Santiago. He is a graduate of the University of Chile Law School in Santiago and in 1967 became a Professor of Law at Catholic University in that city. In 1971 he formed part of a group that founded the weekly magazine, "Que Pasa." Since 1962 he has been active as a newspaper columnist in the leading Chilean newspaper and since 1971 as a radio and television commentator specializing in economics. During that period his newspaper columns and commentaries principally concerned economics and appeared in the newspaper El Mercurio, the magazine "Que Pasa," and on "Radio Agricultura." Since 1973, also on channel 9 of the University of Chile Television Station, in Santiago.

CARLOS FIGUEROA

Judge Carlos Figueroa is a Professor of Law at Catholic University, Santiago, Chile, and since 1971 he has served as the President of the National Association of Broadcasters of Chile. Judge Figueroa has been active in law and politics in Santiago and was prominent in the Chilean Government administration of President Eduardo Frei. Among the positions held by him in that administration were Minister of Economy in 1969 and 1970 and Secretary of Agriculture from 1965 to 1969. He served as Auxiliary Judge on the Supreme Court of Chile in 1971 and 1972.

Mr. CRANDALL. In addition, I would also like the record to reflect that Mr. Theodore E. Herrera from the Department of State will serve as interpreter in today's hearing.

Mr. PEPPER. We are very pleased to have this distinguished representative of the Department of State with us today as interpreter. Mr. CRANDALL. I would like

Mr. PEPPER. You wish to swear the interpreter, so that he will make a faithful translation to the best of his ability?

Mr. CRANDALL. I think they should all be sworn in

Mr. PEPPER. First, just the interpreter.

Mr. Herrera, do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. HERRERA. I do.

Mr. CRANDALL. Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that Mr. Perez de Arce will testify in English. He will serve, in a large measure, as the spokesman for all three of the witnesses. However, with your permission, I would like to inform them that they can interject comments if they feel they are pertinent and material.

Mr. PEPPER. Would you like to have the witnesses sworn now?
Mr. CRANDALL. Yes.

Mr. PEPPER. Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Mr. PEREZ DE ARCE. I do.

Mr. FIGUEROA. I do.

Mr. SEPULVEDA. I do.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. Crandall, you will proceed, please. Will you explain to the gentlemen to please try to speak into the microphone.

Mr. CRANDALL. Mr. Perez de Arce has asked to make a brief opening statement before he entertains questions.

Mr. PEPPER. We are pleased to have you.

Mr. PEREZ DE ARCE. Thank you very much. I would like to say in the first place that I am an ex-Congressman of my country. I was a Congressman representing the First District of Santiago until September 11, 1973.

In the second place, I came here invited by the Inter-American Development Bank. I have no connection at all with the present Chilean Government. My only desire or wish at this moment is to help to clarify the Chilean situation in the present and during the Allende government years, because as I have read and heard out of my country, the image of what really happened in Chile and what is really happening now is very much distorted, and, I would say, even falsified.

Those falsifications are really incredible for many of us Chileans that come out of the country. Only one example is enough. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a famous Colombian writer, has published in Harper's Magazine the most false version of what happened in Chile. That is a very clear example of how international public opinion has been, I would say, cheated, in respect to events in my country. Widespread international deceit of that kind, well financed by communist imperialism, is what has moved us to testify here.

That is the explanation I wanted to give before questions are directed to me.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. PEPPER. Thank you.

Mr. CRANDALL. With the permission of the Chair, I will proceed. TESTIMONY OF HERMOGENES PEREZ DE ARCE, CARLOS FIGUEROA, AND CARLOS SEPULVEDA, ACCOMPANIED BY THEODORE E. HERRERA, INTERPRETER

Mr. CRANDALL. Mr. Perez de Arce-Chile, like the United States, functioned under a three-branch system, the legislative, executive, and judicial. Also an important functioning body in Chile is the General Comptroller's office. However, in 3 years, that system virtually collapsed under the Allende Marxist government.

Would you please comment on the role of each of these branches of government and the Comptroller's office during Allende's rule and the methods used to render them virtually ineffective as government governing bodies.

We are particularly interested in his unwillingness to work with the legislative branch and how he circumvented the laws of Chile by using his executive powers.

Mr. PEREZ DE ARCE. Yes, sir. In the first place, I will say that

Mr. PEPPER. Excuse me, Mr. Counsel. If I may interrupt the witness. I notice in the statement here it said that Salvador Allende was the first Marxist to come to power. Did he admit that he was a communist? I thought at first he denied that he was a communist himself. What did he say about it?

Mr. PEREZ DE ARCE. He said he was a Marxist-Leninist president. He admitted it.

Mr. PEPPER. Did he belong to the Communist Party?

Mr. PEREZ DE ARCE. No; he belonged to the Socialist Party. But in Chile, the Socialist Party has-in the last years at least-been at the left of the Communist Party, if we could say that. They always have been Marxist-Leninists.

Mr. PEPPER. Well, he was not technically a member of the Communist Party. His party had become, in substance, a communist

party, and he openly professed his own alliance to the MarxistLeninist government.

Mr. PEREZ DE ARCE. Perhaps you would better understand this situation if I explained to you that the Communist Party in Chile was completely dependent upon Moscow. And the Socialist Party was the same, but its ideology came from Peking.

Mr. PEPPER. I see. You may proceed, Mr. Counsel. I didn't mean to interrupt.

Mr. CRANDALL. Mr. Perez de Arce, could you just briefly explain how Mr. Allende came to power through the coalition of the Socialist and Communist Parties?

Mr. PEREZ DE ARCE. Yes. Well, really, that was a communist strategy. I mean, when I say communist, a Moscow strategy-the same strategy that was used when the "popular fronts" appeared all around the world, under communist patronage.

The Communist Party in Chile in every election tried to establish a coalition, as wide a coalition as possible. They understood something that was, or should have been, very clear to all Chileans. That in a confrontation between three presidential candidates, if one of the sides, the right or the left, is divided, the other would win if it is united. That is elementary.

From the beginning, in my opinion, it was decided that Mr. Allende was to be the designated candidate of the left. But in order to get the support of some other groups, they made what we called a roundtable of candidates. These groups initially were not Marxist but came originally from the Christian Democratic Party or the Radical Party-that was a traditional center party in Chile and was originally also a democratic party.

In that roundtable that comprised the Popular Unity Government [Unidad Popular], every party was represented. But the communists from the beginning were not going to try to impose their own candidate. So, they finally supported Allende. As the other parties were minor parties in that roundtable, at the end, Allende's name was imposed.

That is how they got to make a united front and how they managed to win the election in which the democratic forces were divided. In the end, Allende's victory was by a margin of 1 percent of the vote, only.

Mr. CRANDALL. Would you now address yourself to the methods used by the Allende government to render the legislative, executive, and judicial branches in Chile virtually ineffective in the 3-year period following his election?

Mr. PEREZ DE ARCE. Of course, with the legislative branch, Allende used what we would say is a manipulation of the Constitution and of the law. For example, if the Congress heard an accusation against one of Allende's ministers and the Congress accused this man, the Constitution said that he should be suspended. Allende didn't suspend him, but interchanged him with another minister. That was the way Allende began circumventing the Constitution. Then, to carry out Marxist strategy it was necessary to gain economic power. However, in Chile, the consent of Congress is needed to confiscate property. Allende's government did not get that consent, but proceeded to manipulate the Constitution and law. For example, he said that

industry was not accomplishing what was required to supply the necessities for the consumers. So, he dictated a decree by which the government could intervene and take control of that industry in order to produce what was necessary for the consumers.

In our law this can be determined as a temporary measure. But Allende used it as a permanent measure. So, he "intervened" [took over] many industries. For example, he would assign an "interventor," [Spanish word meaning comptroller or inspector] and if the comptroller told him that this could only be temporary, then Allende would designate a new "interventor" or renew the intervention. That is why we say he distorted or manipulated the law.

He said in his speeches that that industry from then on was a state industry. But legally, it wasn't; it couldn't be without a law. So, that is what happened with 400 industries in my country, including the bigger ones and also many small ones. Even chocolate factories were intervened, small chocolate factories. All kinds of industries. And the same thing happened with farms of all extensions. So, that is one of the reasons there are many more-why we say Allende in Chile bypassed the legislative branch. But that is only one aspect of the question. It is a very important aspect, though, as we will see.

The legislative branch has, in Chile, the mission of approving the national budget every year. But as Allende proceeded to form his "Social Area of the Economy," as he called it, or State program, with these hundreds of industries that he took over in this method, the national budget in Chile lost all significance. It came to be less than 10 percent of the money that the Government had to manage, because he had under his power all the main industries, all the main lands, and all the more important mining companies.

So, according to the Constitution, Congress should have known. about the management of all the public economy. In the end, in 1973, I would say Congress got to be only a very secondary part of the state apparatus. The major part of the economy was managed almost entirely by Marxist bureaucracy, which was openly against the Chilean Constitution.

Now, in connection with the judicial branch, I could summarize the situation by saying that 8,000 judgments handed down by our judicial authorities were not executed. Those verdicts were not enforced by the public authorities dependent on the Government. Eight thousand judgments.

So, that is why the Supreme Court in Chile, twice during 1973, told Allende's government that our country was under a state of what the judges called "broken juridicity" or "broken state of law." The law in Chile had collapsed. That was declared unanimously by the Supreme Court in Chile 3 months after Allende was ousted.

The Congress, on August 22, through its Chamber of Deputies, of which I was a member, approved, by 81 votes to 47, a declaration that said clearly that Allende had systematically violated the constitution. This declaration called upon Allende and the Government, and also the Armed Forces [Fuerzas Armadas] to put an end to the situation.

The General Comptroller's office in Chile is not properly a branch of the State, but is an independent office that controls, among other things, the legality of the acts of the Government. The Comptroller's office was frequently opposing and objecting to Allende's decrees. But