I am appalled at the sloppiness emerging in this discussion.

Sam reasonably speculated that Friedman could not possibly have
approved of the political regime under Pinochet.
I provided textual support for that speculation.
This expresses neither approval nor disapproval of
Friedman's decisions in his relationship to that regime.
This is a HET list, remember?

I don't mind exposing my own views of Friedman if any
cares, but why should they?  Here's one piece, in any
case.  I think Friedman (and Hayek too) were right to
promote economic freedom in Chile but were dreadfully
negligent to fail (to my knowledge) to speak out
**at the time** against a horrific political regime.
This looks like a moral failure to me, although not of
the magnitude of say Lange's support for the Lublin
Committee or his work as Polish ambassador.

In response to my post, John said "and Mussolini made the
trains run on time", which is a surprising non-sequitur
for someone who on occasion displays considerable
sensitivity to text and context.  This is not even
pure ad hominem or guilt by association, but guilt
by bizarre and inappropriate analogy.  As a reminder,
I posted the source of the quote:
http://www.sbe.csuhayward.edu/~sbesc/frlect.html
There are many causal and historical claims and specualations
that could be fodder for an interesting discussion.
John's comment does not start one.

I find Andrew's comment even more puzzling. He quotes out
of context from Friedman's letter, and suggests that the
"many measures" Friedman was endorsing were not the economic
measures under discussion but the horrific and oppressive
political measures Pinochet used (e.g., torture, killings).
The letter btw is readily available online
http://wwww.naomiklein.org/files/resources/pdfs/friedman-pinochet-letters.pdf
so only willfulness can explain ignorance of the context.
(Pinochet's response is appended at that URL, so one can see
that *he* understood the "many measures" to involve economic
policy.)  In short, Andrew's interpretation find no support in
the text of Friedman's letter nor in Pinochet's response.
And to close on Sam's original point -- which remains relevant on
a HET list where we'd expect those who speak about Friedman to
have some sense of his writings -- it would be **surprising** to
discover that Friedman approved of Pinochet's oppressive policies.

Alan Isaac