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This volume is part of a "Foreign Relations" subseries that documents the most important foreign policy issues of the Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford presidential administrations. The volume documents U.S. policy toward Chile from January 20, 1969 to September 24, 1973, when the Nixon administration announced its extension of diplomatic recognition to the military junta under General Augusto Pinochet. The primary focus of Volume XXI is on the attitudes adopted and actions taken by the U.S. Government toward the installation of two successive Chilean presidents: the election and inauguration of Salvador Allende in September 1970 and the military coup d etat of General Augusto Pinochet in September 1973. Although organized into five chapters, this volume is perhaps best surveyed in terms of three periods in Allende s political career: Before his election on September 4, 1970;Between his election and inauguration on November 4, 1970;After his inauguration until his over-throw and death on September 11, 1973. The first period also corresponds to the final two years of the administration of President Eduardo Frei, which, in terms of U.S. policy, continued largely along lines established during his first four years in office. Frei, for instance, received substantial political and economic support, including covert assistance during the 1964 election from the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Since the deliberations on whether to provide similar assistance to any of the major candidates in the 1970 election were heavily influenced by the decision-making process six years earlier, as well as by political developments in the intervening years, readers should consult the compilation on Chile in Foreign Relations, 1964 1968, Volume XXXI, South and Central America; Mexico. Allende s narrow victory in the 1970 election represented a decisive break in this continuity, a break that is clearly represented in the pace of documentation, as the Nixon adm