The death of Salvador Allende came as a shock to many people around the globe. During the military coup that ended the president’s socialist policies, a drama played out in the presidential palace. Salvador Allende was found dead in one of its many rooms. Two former personal physicians of the late president told Radio Netherlands Worldwide exactly what happened.

Chile is investigating hundreds of cases of murder and torture which took place during the military dictatorship of general Augusto Pinochet (1973 - 1990). Among the many documents pertaining to these cases is a report about the death of president Allende, which was never officially investigated. He is assumed to have killed himself, but legal experts want certainty.

About José Zepeda

In 1973, José Zepeda was head of a radio station in northern Chili: Radio Atacama in Copiapó.

After General Augusto Pinochet’s bloody coup d’état, the station was closed down, the transmitter was destroyed and the rest of the equipment was looted by soldiers. On 25 September in the same year, two weeks after the coup, José Zepeda was arrested and tortured. He was sentenced to prison for five years, for aiding and abetting rebellion against the military regime, violating the laws on internal security and activism against Chilean society. He was held in prison for two and a half years and in February 1976 he was banished to the Netherlands.

He joined Radio Netherlands Worldwide as a journalist and radio producer. In 2010 José Zepeda stepped down after 15 years as head of RNW's Latin America department.

Ten Minutes
During the coup, Óscar Soto, one of Allende’s four personal physicians remained in the presidential palace until the very last moment. Finally, he was stopped by one of the officers involved in the coup, who asked him to go up to the second floor to tell Allende he had ten minutes to give himself up. Soto did as he had been asked. Allende told him quietly: ‘Okay doctor, you go ahead, I’ll come down last”. It was the beginning of the end.

“We walked down the stairs. When we had almost reached the door to the Calle Morand, we heard shots. The president had gone to a small room, sat down on a chair and shot himself through the head with a machine pistol, placed under his chin.”

No soldiers
Another doctor, Arturo Girón, went into the room because he wanted a keepsake of this historic moment for his country. Oscar Soto says:

“And there he saw the president, with a machine pistol between his knees, with which he had shot himself through the head. His skull had been blown apart. There was brain tissue all across the room, on the walls, the ceiling… Girón was speechless. As in a reflex, he took the machine pistol from between the dead president’s knees and placed it on his lap. Nobody, not him and not me, doubted that the president had committed suicide.”

Dr Soto emphasises that at the time the shots were heard none of the soldiers had gone up to the second floor yet. They did not go there until after Allende had died. Both doctors say there were no foreigners in the building, as some people have alleged. In the past few years, there has been much speculation on a possible involvement of either Cubans or Russians in Allende’s death.

The truth
Doctor Arturo Girón said the left did not want to accept the truth about Allende’s suicide:

“We have told the truth right from the start. Of course, we were persecuted by the dictatorship, but we were also treated badly by the left. I told them: Isn’t the truth to you one of the most important principles of the revolution? We are telling the truth.”

The two doctors say that an official investigation will put all these rumours to rest. According to Oscar Soto:

”We will say what really happened, we are prime witnesses. However, many people would prefer to believe different versions. Like the one told by Fidel Castro, who on 28 September 1973 in Revolution Square said that a gun battle had been fought in the palace, utter nonsense. Or the version of author Gabriel García Marquez, three or four years later, who also told a story completely different from ours.”

Dignity
Doctor Soto was not just president Allende’s personal physician, but also his friend. In a conversation which took place 10 days before his death, Allende stated clearly he was not the kind of man who could accept being humiliated by the military. He was aware that other Latin American presidents who had been arrested and jailed, eventually lost the respect of their citizens. He would make sure that did not happen to him, and, to Soto’s satisfaction, it never did. To this day, many Chileans still honour and respect Salvador Allende.