Chile: The Crucial Choice

Before World War II, an American setting off on a trip to Chile could count on a three-week voyage by boat down South America's west coast. Today, Panagra's jets make it from New York to the Santiago capital in 14 hours, but few Americans visit Chile. Yet in this faraway land of nitrates, copper and wine, the most important election in Latin America this year will take place on Sept. 4. There is a real possibility that Chile, long democratic, will become the first nation in the hemisphere to choose an avowed Marxist as its freely elected...