In December 1971, General Augusto Pinochet stated in an official speech, "Coups do not happen in Chile." Yet two years later, he played a key role in the bloody coup that felled the government of Salavador Allende and marked the end of the "Chilean Way" - the consitutional, democratic road to socialism. As US ambassador to Chile, Davis witnessed this turbulent period, and his firsthand observations, enriched by new evidence brought to light during the last decade, provide a vivid picture of the controversy that has become a topic of fierce international debate, following the arrest of General Pinochet in London in 1998. His portrait of Pinochet as a constitutional loyalist until shortly before the coup, a committed Christian, and a troubled individual at loggerheads with his fellow plotters at several crucial moments, offers a fascinating insight into the man.