Time of Hope, 1964–1967

This chapter examines how, between 1964 and 1969, relations between the U.S. government and the Chilean government were conducted mostly through the channels established by the work of U.S. ambassadors and political officers assigned to Chile. This mode of operation was an underlying condition for the U.S. embassy's deep level of involvement in Chilean politics in the years of the Frei administration. The chapter then looks at the appointment of Ralph Dungan as ambassador to Chile. Dungan adhered, broadly speaking, to the ideas encompassed in modernization theory that served as the intellectual basis for U.S. foreign policy in the Kennedy–Johnson era, so his personal convictions converged nicely with the political project of the Chilean Christian Democratic Party. This ideological affinity made for smooth functioning of the relations between Chile and the United States while Dungan served as ambassador in Santiago even when the positions of both parties were at odds, as in the case of the U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965.