[lqclamar]

Pinochet was named the commander of the Chilean Army. He was not a minister in the government and had no position in the constitutional line of presidential succession.

Except that the Commander in Chief could qualify as head of the military department.

Perhaps you don't understand that calling for Allende's arrest (as you have so often mentioned) is very different than calling for an unconstitutional coup.

Not if Allende resists arrest and orders his thugs to fire back.

The conditions were very different after the coup.

Yeah. There was no Allende.

[zimdog]

Except that the Commander in Chief could qualify as head of the military department.

That would be the minister of defense. Pinochet was in charge of the army, not the country's armed forces as a whole.

Yeah. There was no Allende.

There was also no constitution, de facto or de jure thanks to Pinochet. Frei could at least appeal to the constitution in his campaign against Allendism. The Pinochet junta precluded that possibility.