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The Dictator's Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet | Heraldo Muñoz | Talks at Google

3,752 views · Published 7 May 2009 · 51:33 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: Talks at Google · 2009 · Education

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The Authors@Google program welcomed Heraldo Muñoz, Chilean Ambassador to the U.N, to Google's NY office to discuss his book, "The Dictator's Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet".

"Ambassador Heraldo Muñoz was Deputy Foreign Minister of Chile in 20002002 and Minister Secretary General in 20022003 at La Moneda Presidential Palace before assuming his present post as ambassador to the U.N., where he has served as President of the Security Council. The author of several scholarly books, he is frequently quoted on international issues by the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and other journals. He lives in New York City."

"Augusto Pinochet was the most important Third World dictator of the Cold War, and perhaps the most ruthless. In The Dictators Shadow, United Nations Ambassador Heraldo Muñoz takes advantage of his unmatched set of perspectives—as a former revolutionary who fought the Pinochet regime, as a respected scholar, and as a diplomat—to tell what this extraordinary figure meant to Chile, the United States, and the world.

Pinochets American backers saw his regime as a bulwark against Communism; his nation was a testing ground for U.S.-inspired economic theories. Countries desiring World Bank support were told to emulate Pinochets free-market policies, and Chiles government pension even inspired President George W. Bushs plan to privatize Social Security. The other baggage—the assassinations, tortures, people thrown out of airplanes, mass murders of political prisoners—was simply the price to be paid for building a modern state. But the questions raised by Pinochets rule still remain: Are such dictators somehow necessary?

Horrifying but also inspiring, The Dictators Shadow is a unique tale of how geopolitical rivalries can profoundly affect everyday life."

This event took place on March 12, 2009.

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