Not surprisingly, leftwing publications and Internet sites are filled with paeans to Allende, suggesting that he was creating a socialist paradise through democratic vote.

Of course, it's all liberal (i.e., progressive) nonsense. Socialism produces hellholes, not paradises. Just ask the people who live in Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Allende's socialist policies produced massive economic crises and chaos in Chile. 

But what did socialism in Chile have to do with the United States? Chile is an independent country, one situated thousands of miles away from the United States. Why was the Chilean people's election of a socialist any business of the U.S. national-security establishment as well as other members of the U.S. government?

The reason lies in the Cold War mindset that held the United States in its grip ever since the federal government was converted to a national-security state after World War II.

The officials in the national-security establishment — e.g., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — were convinced that there was a worldwide communist conspiracy based in Moscow, Russia, that was hell-bent on conquering the world, including the United States. That's why U.S. officials adopted the national-security form of government after World War II — to prevent this supposed conspiracy from succeeding.

That's also why the U.S. national-security establishment intervened in Korea's civil war and, then later, in Vietnam's civil war. U.S. officials were convinced that interventionism was necessary to stop the Reds from coming to the United States and getting us.