Alejandrina Cox incident
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The Alejandrina Cox incident was a scandal in Chilean history, involving General Carlos Prats, then Minister of the Interior for President Salvador Allende, that had a far bigger impact on the course of Chilean history and helped launch the Chilean coup of 1973.
[edit] Background
On June 27, 1973, General Carlos Prats, army commander-in-chief and Interior minister of President Salvador Allende, was driving back to his home in his private car. At the time civil unrest was at its height, both in favor and against the administration's policies. General Prats, as interior minister, was responsible for maintaining order in an increasingly polarized country.
As Prats was approaching a busy intersection, a housewife named Alejandrina Cox, who happened to drive by in her own car, gave the General a raspberry - that is, she stuck her tongue out at him as an insult. The tense and overworked General snapped and, in an enraged and clearly irrational reaction, chased her for almost two kilometers through the streets of Las Condes, a then-quiet upper-class suburb of Santiago. He eventually ran her off the road and resorted to waving his side arm, demanding at gunpoint that she apologized to him.
As he was threatening Mrs. Cox, a crowd started to gather around him openly siding with her. Very soon he was being insulted and jeered, and a passing motorist had to rescue him from further violence, after he had his car graffitied and his tires slashed.
[edit] Aftermath and importance
From the scene of the incident, he had himself immediately driven to the house of President Allende and presented his resignation. The president managed to convince him to stay, but his public position was already seriously undermined and he only managed to remain in office for less than two months after that.
Shortly after the Alejandrina Cox Incident, another very public incident occurred. This one involved the wives of his officers, who staged a rally in front of his home and called him a coward for not restoring civil order in Chile. This time General Prats resigned his position both as Interior minister and as Commander in Chief of the Army on August 22, 1973. Together with him all the generals in favor of a constitutional solution to the political crisis also presented their resignations in a show of support. His replacement as Commander in Chief of the Army was his second in command and an officer thought to be loyal to Allende, General Augusto Pinochet.
This single, trivial incident, admittedly bizarre and embarrassing though it might be, had tremendous impact on Chilean history. For one, it made General Prats a laughingstock [citation needed]. On a much more serious level, he lost all standing within the armed forces[citation needed], and most especially the loyalty of the entire officer corps of the Chilean Army[citation needed], of which he was the Commander in Chief. The public perception of General Prats as a serious, level-headed bulwark of the so-called Schneider Doctrine[citation needed] - that is, deliberately keeping the Army out of Chile's civilian affairs - was totally shattered.
