Gonzáles Videla, Gabriel

Born Nov. 23, 1898, in La Serena. Chilean statesman and politician. A lawyer by education.

From 1930 to 1939. Gonzáles Videla was one of the leaders of the bourgeois Radical Party and a congressional deputy. From 1939 to 1941 he was ambassador to France, Belgium, and Luxembourg and. from 1942 to 1944, ambassador to Brazil. From 1946 to 1952 he was president of Chile. He came to power with the support of the progressive organizations that made up the Democratic Alliance, and he promised to carry out its program. When he became president, he expelled Communists from the government (April 1947), broke off diplomatic relations with the USSR (October 1947), banned. the Communist Party (1948), and established a regime of cruel terror; in foreign affairs, he acted in accord with the interests of the American monopolies. From 1952 to 1970 he was director of the Franco-Italian Bank for South America. In 1970 he left the party as a sign of protest against its entry into the Popular Unity bloc and joined the reactionary camp, which overthrew the government of the Popular Unity bloc in September 1973.