Copyright by Gregory Krauss 2007 - The University of Texas at Austin

which continued to be divided over some of the ideological issues from the Allende
era. 97 Socialists remembered that many political centrists had supported the 1973
coup and tolerated Pinochet’s repression. 98 There was also suspicion of Socialist
aims; Chile, after all, was the only Latin American democracy in which Marxist
leftists had won an election. 99 Within Socialist circles, some continued to prefer an
alliance with the Chilean Communist Party rather than join in a united democratic
opposition. 100
Lister worked hard to persuade the Socialists to cooperate with the democratic
opposition and not to join with the Communists. In this regard, Lister finally was able
to implement the approach he had urged upon the U.S. Embassy in Chile in the 1960s
and early 1970s, when he tried to apply the lessons of his Italian experience. The first
meeting between the two leading political parties from the Allende era— the
Socialists and Christian Democrats—was made possible by the coordination of
Abrams and Lister, according to Claudio Grossman. 101 Eleven opposition parties
eventually joined together in August 1985 to call for a return to civilian rule, signing
the National Accord for Transition to Full Democracy. 102 Although the democratic
opposition would again fracture, it eventually united to oppose Pinochet in a 1988
plebiscite that led to Pinochet’s ouster. 103
At least at first, the dialogue probably affected the Chilean opposition more
than it changed U.S. policy towards Chile. Abrams fought behind the scenes for a
tougher policy against Pinochet, U.S. policy was equivocal. 104 Despite statements of
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