After Augusto Pinochet led a coup d'état in Chile on September 11, 1973, he exiled Allende's Foreign Minister, Orlando Letelier. After Letelier sought asylum in the United States, Pinochet believed he was acting as an informant to the U.S. government.

In the early '70s, Chile was in a state of political unrest -- its socialist president Salvador Allende and largely conservative congress were at odds, and by June 1973, the Chilean Armed Forces were plotting against the Allende government.

The Nobel prize-winning poet was a leftist politician and close friend of Marxist President Allende, who committed suicide rather than surrendered troops to Gen. Pinochet.