Military dictatorship of Chile in the context of "Chicago Boys"

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean military officer and politician who was the President of Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader of the military junta, which in 1974 declared him President of Chile; in 1980, a referendum approved a new constitution confirming him in the office, after which he served as de jure president from 1981 to 1990. His time in office remains the longest of any Chilean ruler.

Augusto Pinochet rose through the ranks of the Chilean Army to become General Chief of Staff in early 1972 before being appointed its Commander-in-Chief on 23 August 1973 by President Salvador Allende. On 11 September 1973, Pinochet seized power in Chile in a military coup. The military had previously received financial and intelligence support from the United States, which favored the military coup that toppled Allende's democratically elected socialist Unidad Popular government and ended civilian rule. In December 1974, the ruling military junta appointed Pinochet Supreme Head of the nation by joint decree, although without the support of one of the coup's instigators, Air Force General Gustavo Leigh.

The Government Junta of Chile (Spanish: Junta de Gobierno de Chile) was the military junta established to rule Chile during the military dictatorship that followed the overthrow of President Salvador Allende in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. The Government Junta was the executive and legislative branch of government until 17 December 1974, when Augusto Pinochet was formally declared President of Chile. After that date, it functioned strictly as a legislative body until the return to democracy in 1990.

The territory of Chile has been populated since at least 3000 BC. By the 16th century, Spanish invaders began to raid the region of present-day Chile, and the territory was a colony from 1540 to 1818, when it gained independence from Spain. The country's economic development was successively marked by the export of first agricultural produce, then saltpeter and later copper. The wealth of raw materials led to an economic upturn, but also led to dependency, and even wars with neighboring states. Chile was governed during most of its first 150 years of independence by different forms of restricted government, where the electorate was carefully vetted and controlled by an elite.

Failure to address the economic and social increases and increasing political awareness of the less-affluent population, as well as indirect intervention and economic funding to the main political groups by the CIA, as part of the Cold War, led to a political polarization under Socialist president Salvador Allende. This in turn resulted in the 1973 coup d'état and the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, whose seventeen-year regime was responsible for many human rights violations and deep market-oriented economic reforms. In 1990, Chile made a peaceful transition to democracy and initiate a succession of democratic governments.