Carlos Prats González (Talcahuano, February 24, 1915 - Buenos Aires, September 30, 1974) was a Chilean military officer who served as Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, Minister of the Interior and Minister of National Defense. He was one of the main allies of President Salvador Allende and within the Chilean army he led the "constitutionalists" faction, which opposed a coup in Chile.
Biography[]
Carlos Prats was born in 1915 in the city of Talcahuano. He entered the army at the age of 16, being considered the best student of the Military School. He married Sofia Cuthbert in 1944, with whom he had three daughters.
In 1970, the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army and friend of Prats, René Schneider, is assassinated by far-right terrorists in an attempt to prevent the socialist candidate Salvador Allende from winning the presidential elections that year. Due to this unexpected event, Prats had to assume the post of Commander-in-Chief as Schneider's replacement. In his new position, Prats continued the so-called "Schneider Doctrine", based on respect for the will of the citizenry and defense of the democratic order.
During the Allende government, Prats was in charge of maintaining the independence of the armed forces with respect to political groups and oversaw that the armed forces complied with the constitutional order at a time when the country was highly polarized. In 1972 he was appointed Minister of the Interior, a position he would cease to hold in March 1973. In June of that year, Lieutenant Colonel Roberto Souper attempted to carry out a coup called "Tanquetazo", which would be quickly placated by Prats and loyal troops to Allende.
On August 9, he is appointed Minister of Defense, but 12 days later Prats resigns due to the unstable internal situation within the Chilean army, which by that date had been infested with soldiers who wanted to overthrow Allende. After the September 11 coup d'état led by Augusto Pinochet, Prats and his family fled to Argentina, because they were under death threat.
On September 28, 1974, Prats and his wife were killed in a car bomb attack in Buenos Aires. The attack would have been prepared by the DINA, Augusto Pinochet's secret police.