By Tito Drago
MADRID, May 23 2005 (IPS)

A new book alleging that former socialist Chilean president Salvador Allende (1908-1973) was anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi has been described as little more than slander, given its biased, selective approach to supposed “evidence” taken completely out of context and misrepresented.

The book in question, Salvador Allende: Anti-Semitism and Euthanasia, was written by Víctor Farías, who claims that the former Chilean leader was a confirmed anti-Semite who believed that criminal behaviour is genetically determined. He further accuses Allende of harbouring Nazi war criminals in Chile.

The controversial new book, while purporting to be an academic study, is simply an exercise in character defamation, attorney Joan Garcés, director of the President Allende Foundation, told IPS.

Garcés was a personal adviser to Allende during the latter’s presidential campaign. Elected in 1970, Allende governed Chile until Sept. 11, 1973, when he was overthrown in a U.S.-backed military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet.

At the time of the coup, Garcés first sought asylum in a foreign embassy, and eventually returned to Spain, the country of his birth, where he continues to live today.

Farías accuses Allende of sheltering former Nazi SS lieutenant colonel Walter Rauff, who played a key role in developing the “gassing vans” used as mobile gas chambers to kill hundreds of thousands of Jews and other Nazi victims.

According to the author, his allegations regarding the former Chilean leader’s supposed anti-Semitic and fascist views are based on Allende’s 1933 doctoral dissertation, “Mental Hygiene and Crime”.

But Garcés maintains that these allegations are deliberate falsehoods and completely unfounded. Farías bases his book on the premise that the doctoral thesis has been kept hidden, “which is not true, because anyone who wants to see it can ask for it at the University of Chile Medical School,” he told IPS.

The attorney and human rights activist announced that the President Allende Foundation has plans to publish “within three weeks, at the most” the full text of Allende’s doctoral dissertation, which was provided by the medical school library in the form of a certified copy.

“Reading the thesis suffices to demonstrate that this book is nothing but vulgar slander, as if it were written to order,” noted Garcés, who described it as “far-fetched” and “totally unfounded”, despite the author’s academic credentials.

Chilean-born Farías teaches at the Berlin Free University in Germany.

A communiqué released May 17 by the Allende Foundation notes that the 1933 dissertation reflects the prevailing schools of thought of the era in the fields of forensic medicine and criminology with regard to the causes of criminal behaviour and methods to prevent crime and rehabilitate offenders.

Allende refers to the observations of Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso on the purported predisposition to certain types of crime among “Hindus”, Arabs, gypsies and “Hebrews”. These are beliefs that Farías attributes to the author of the thesis, although Allende himself points to the lack of precise data to demonstrate the influence of ethnic origin on crime.

Also addressed in the dissertation is the theory developed by endocrinologist Nicolás Pende – a highly influential figure at the time – regarding alleged behavioural attributes among southern Italians, Spaniards and the English, resulting from thyroid activity.

Yet Allende himself describes the theories of the “endocrinological school” as “insufficient, simplistic and one-sided,” in that “they view internal glandular secretions as the only explanation for crime.”

Elsewhere in his dissertation, the young medical student touches on the nascent fascist movements of the era under the category of “collective crimes,” commenting that “The worldwide economic crisis and political instability have led to the creation of armed institutions with the characteristics of political parties, which are involved in highly violent combat in different countries.”

Allende also refers to the “criminal nature” of certain popular leaders of the era and their use of force to “impose their principles above all else,” in addition to the “pernicious influence” that can be exercised on the masses by individuals who may appear normal, yet are in fact mentally disturbed.

Allende concludes his dissertation by stating his belief in free will and human conscience – a far cry from the endorsement of theories of genetic predisposition attributed to him by Farías.

As for his alleged anti-Semitism, the Foundation stresses that the traditional mass held in the Santiago Cathedral to mark Allende’s inauguration as president, in November 1970, was the first and only in history to include all of the country’s religions, including Judaism.

One of the most damning accusations made by Farías is that Allende provided safe haven to Rauff, the German war criminal who fled to Chile at the end of World War II and remained there until his death in 1984.

In fact, as the Foundation’s communiqué clarifies, the Allende government arranged for Rauff to be questioned by a German judicial official on Jun. 28, 1972, in what was then the West German embassy in Santiago.

According to the Foundation, Farías distorts the cooperation extended to Nazi war crimes hunter Simon Wiesenthal, and the fact that the president was obliged to comply with a 1963 Chilean Supreme Court resolution regarding Rauff.

A document signed by Wiesenthal himself and reproduced by the Foundation states that Rauff was fortunate, because in accordance with Chilean law, there is a 15-year statute of limitations for the crime of murder, and when Rauff’s case was studied by the Supreme Court in Santiago, 18 years had already elapsed, and as a result, Rauff could not be prosecuted for the crimes in question.

Once Allende had taken office, Wiesenthal sent him a letter through the Chilean ambassador in Vienna, asking him to look into the Rauff case.

“Allende answered very cordially,” recounted Wiesenthal, “but he indicated how difficult it would be to reopen a case when the Supreme Court had already passed sentence. I asked Allende to study the possibility of deporting Rauff, who was not yet a naturalised Chilean citizen. But before Allende could respond to my second letter, there was a coup d’état, and he died.”

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