Gonzalo Vial Correa (29 August 1930 – 30 October 2009) was a Chilean historian, lawyer and journalist. He was a member of the State Defense Council and the Council on Ethics in Social Media.
[BALANCE DE UN SIGLO DEL DERECHO EN CHILE - Presentation by Professor Gonzalo Vial Correa](_blank)
. Revista de Derecho (Valdivia). Accessed 22-12-2007. In addition he was president of the Barnechea Foundation for Education, which he founded with his wife, MarÃa Luisa Vial Cox.
- Teaching Together. Accessed 22-12-2007.
In 2005, Vial was voted the most influential intellectual in Chile by 112 Chilean scholars and politicians.
. Qué Pasa, 31-12-2005. Accessed 20-03-2008. In August 2010 the Faculty of History at
Finis Terrae University instituted a prize bearing his name.
Despite this recognition, Gonzalo Vial has been widely criticized for his work ''White Book on the Change of Government in Chile'', written immediately after the
1973 Chilean coup d'état
The 1973 Chilean coup d'état Enciclopedia Virtual > Historia > Historia de Chile > Del gobierno militar a la democracia" on LaTercera.cl. Retrieved 22 September 2006.
In October 1972, Chile suffered the first of many strikes. Among the par ...
and supervised by Admiral
Patricio Carvajal
Vice Admiral Patricio Carvajal Prado (16 July 1916 – 15 July 1994), was a Chilean admiral, several times Minister and one of the principal leaders of the 1973 Chilean coup d'état that ousted President Salvador Allende.
Military career
He jo ...
, which described the so-called "
Plan Zeta
A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal.
...
". Plan Zeta disseminated the false idea that left-wing elements were organizing a
self-coup
A self-coup, also called autocoup (from the es, autogolpe), is a form of coup d'état in which a nation's head, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means. The leader may dissolve or render powerless ...
against President
Salvador Allende
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (, , ; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the fir ...
and the
Unidad Popular, and for years this was the main justification of the coup and subsequent establishment of a
military government
A military government is generally any form of government that is administered by military forces, whether or not this government is legal under the laws of the jurisdiction at issue, and whether this government is formed by natives or by an occup ...
. Under the pretense of countering Plan Zeta, the
DINA
Dina ( ar, دينا, he, ×“Ö´Ö¼×™× Ö¸×”, also spelled Dinah, Dena, Deena) is a female given name.
Women
* Dina bint Abdul-Hamid (1929–2019), Queen consort of Jordan, first wife of King Hussein
* Princess Dina Mired of Jordan (born 1965), Princ ...
arrested, tortured, and murdered many people.
Biography
Gonzalo Vial Correa was the fourth child of six born of Wenceslao Vial Ovalle and Ana Correa Sánchez, and his brother was the doctor Juan de Dios Vial Correa. He went to school at Sacred Hearts School and after this he studied law at the
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (''PUC or UC Chile'') ( es, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) is one of the six Catholic Universities existing in the Chilean university system and one of the two pontifical universities i ...
, graduating in 1957 and receiving the Tocornal Prize which is awarded to the best law student from each graduating class.
[Pinochet, the biography - About the author](_blank)
El Mercurio
''El Mercurio'' (known online as ''El Mercurio On-Line'', ''EMOL'') is a Chilean newspaper with editions in ValparaÃso and Santiago. Its Santiago edition is considered the country's newspaper of record and it is considered the oldest daily in t ...
. Accessed 22-12-2007. At the same time he studied the history of education and some of his mentors in this field were
Jaime Eyzaguirre
Jaime Eyzaguirre (21 December 1908 – 17 September 1968) was a Chilean lawyer, essayist and historian. He is variously recognized as a writer of Spanish traditionalist or conservative historiography in his country.Góngora ''et al''., pp. 201â ...
,
Mario Góngora
Mario Góngora del Campo (June 22, 1915 – November 18, 1985) was a Chilean historian considered "one of the most important Chilean historians of the 20th century". Though his work he examined the history of the inquilinos, the encomentaderos, ...
and
Ricardo Krebs.
[Special: Gonzalo Vial Correa](_blank)
. La Segunda, 30-10-2009. Accessed 03-11-2009.
Professional activities
Vial taught in the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile's Faculty of Law and in its Faculty of Sociology. He had also served as Dean of History, Geography, and Arts at the
Metropolitan University of Educational Sciences
The Metropolitan University of Educational Sciences ( es, link=no, Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación (UMCE), is a public and traditional university located in the commune of Ñuñoa, Chile. It is the fourth oldest university ...
and Dean of the Faculty of Education at Finis Terrae University.
[Seminar - "History of Chile, 20th Century"](_blank)
- Adolfo Ibáñez University
The Adolfo Ibáñez University ( es, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez) (UAI) is a private research university in Santiago, Chile associated with the Adolfo Ibáñez Foundation. In 1988, in accordance with new educational legislation, a university was ...
. Accessed 22-12-2007.
During the second administration of President
Carlos Ibáñez del Campo
General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (; 3 November 1877 – 28 April 1960) was a Chilean Army officer and political figure. He served as President twice, first between 1927 and 1931, and then from 1952 to 1958, serving for 10 years in office.
T ...
, Vial was private secretary to Finance Minister
Jorge Prat.
Journalism and works of history
Vial was a full member of the
Royal Academy of History
The Real Academia de la Historia (RAH, 'Royal Academy of History') is a Spanish institution in Madrid that studies history "ancient and modern, political, civil, ecclesiastical, military, scientific, of letters and arts, that is to say, the diff ...
and of the Chilean Academy of History, which had awarded him the Miguel Cruchaga Prize.
A disciple of Jaime Eyzaguirre, Vial was an exponent of conservative historiography and his work was criticized by leftist historians such as the new social historians who accused him of being excessively supportive of Chilean governments and of only telling the story of the elites.
Vial's masterpiece is his ''History of Chile (1891-1973)'', an attempt to continue the history of Chile written by
Francisco Antonio Encina
Francisco Antonio Encina Armanet (September 10, 1874, San Javier – August 23, 1965, Santiago) was a Chilean politician, agricultural businessman, political essayist, historian and prominent white nationalist. He authored the ''History of Chile ...
which concluded in the year 1891. He begins this work with a criticism of the development of Chile and of the total incompetence of the whole political class, especially the legislature, in the era between the suicide of two presidents. His final book notes that the country needs political consensus on how to construct itself. The work never received the National Prize for History.
Vial was also a professional journalist.
He was co-founder of the magazines ''Portada'' and ''
Qué Pasa''.
As a columnist for the daily newspaper ''
La Segunda
''La Segunda'' ( es, The second one) is a Chilean afternoon daily newspaper, owned by El Mercurio SAP.
Their tendency is conservative, is the first Chilean newspaper to disclose information that occurred in the morning because it is evening. Its ...
'' he strongly criticized the governments of the
Concertación
The Concertación, officially the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia ( en, Coalition of Parties for Democracy), was a coalition of center-left political parties in Chile, founded in 1988. Presidential candidates under its banner won ...
for their educational policies and their so-called "agenda of values". For years he supported increasing educational grants for the country's poorest people.
Military rule and human rights
After the military coup of 1973, Vial participated in writing the ''White Book on the Change of Government in Chile'', which denounced the alleged existence of the so-called "Plan Zeta", a fabrication by the military of a plan made by leftist groups prior to the military coup to launch a
self-coup
A self-coup, also called autocoup (from the es, autogolpe), is a form of coup d'état in which a nation's head, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means. The leader may dissolve or render powerless ...
and to exterminate opposition leaders and high-ranking commanders of the
Chilean Armed Forces
The Chilean Armed Forces ( es, Fuerzas Armadas de Chile) is the unified military organization comprising the Chilean Army, Air Force, and Navy. The President of Chile is the commander-in-chief of the military, and formulates policy through the Mi ...
. The existence of Plan Zeta was later called into question and Gonzalo Vial was criticized for having helped to write the White Book.
According to the
Valech Report
The Valech Report (officially The National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture Report) is a record of abuses committed in Chile between 1973 and 1990 by agents of Augusto Pinochet's military regime. The report was published on November ...
, the contents of the White Book were pure political propaganda and an excuse to justify the coup. Vial, on the other hand, insisted that documents relating to Plan Zeta were genuine, pointing out that the
Revolutionary Left Movement itself had publicly proposed a coup d'état and a
dictatorship of the proletariat
In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the ...
with the support of willing factions within the military. Vial also stated that the military itself did not immediately agree to make the existence of the plan public on the grounds that they were still investigating it, which indicates that the military did not intend for it to be propaganda.
["Carlos Altamirano, el Plan Z y la "operación blanqueo" (III)". Gonzalo Vial, La Segunda, 16-09-2003, p. 9.]
Between 1978 and 1979 he was
Education Minister in the military government led by Augusto Pinochet, though he was dismissed from his post abruptly. Some suspected freemasons of being behind his sudden replacement, due to his Catholic faith and his connections with the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
During Pinochet's dictatorship, Vial publicly criticized the human rights situation in the country. After Chile made the transition to democracy, Vial joined the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which would produce the
Rettig Report
The Rettig Report, officially The National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Report, is a 1991 report by a commission designated by Chilean President Patricio Aylwin (from the ''Concertación'') detailing human rights abuses resulting in dea ...
, in order to counterbalance the leftist-leaning members of the commission.
[Cavallo, Ascanio; Salazar, Manuel y Sepúlveda, Óscar (1998). La Historia Oculta del Régimen Militar, Santiago de Chile: Editorial Sudamericana. .] He also took part in the Round-Table Discussion of 1999 to 2000, but did not sign the final declaration because he felt that it did nothing to further the objective of the undertaking, which was to find the bodies of people who had been "
disappeared
An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organiza ...
" by the regime.
Works
* ''Historia de Chile (1891-1973)'' (
), 6 volumes published:
** ''La sociedad chilena en el cambio de siglo (1891-1920)''
** ''Triunfo y decadencia de la oligarquÃa (1891- 1920)''
** ''Arturo Alessandri y los golpes militares (1920-1925)''
** ''La dictadura de Ibáñez (1925-1931)''
** ''De la república socialista al frente popular (1931-1938)''
* ''Pinochet, la biografÃa''
* ''Arturo Prat''
* ''Salvador Allende: El fracaso de una ilusión''
* ''Chile, cinco siglos de historia; desde los primeros pobladores prehispánicos hasta el año 2006''. 2 Volumes.
Coauthor of:
* ''El senado de Chile''
* ''Balmaceda y la guerra civil''
* ''La Sudamericana de Vapores''
* ''Jorge Alessandri RodrÃguez, una biografÃa''
* ''Jaime Eyzaguirre y su época''
References
External links
Gonzalo Vial's columnsfrom the blog of the newspaper La Segunda
in the magazine Revista Capital
Genealogy of the Vial Familyfro
Genealog.cl
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vial Correa, Gonzalo
1930 births
2009 deaths
Ministers of the military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990)
People from Santiago
Chilean Ministers of Education
20th-century Chilean historians
20th-century Chilean male writers
20th-century Chilean lawyers
Chilean journalists
Male journalists
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile alumni
Deaths from cancer in Chile
20th-century journalists