Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez

Jorge Alessandri, son of the Chilean president Arturo Alessandri, was born on May 19, 1896. More reserved than his father and less drawn to politics, he graduated in 1919 with a degree in civil engineering and at first taught engineering. Also a successful businessman, he held the directorship of the major paper factory in Chile and was vice president of the Bank of South America. In 1957 he was elected to the Chilean Senate, and the next year was elected President of Chile, serving until 1964.

Alessandri attempted to deal with Chile's runaway inflation by instituting a strict austerity program. Between 1958 and 1960 he had some success in stemming the rise in the cost of living and in stabilizing the currency. However, his efforts at economy were halted when devastating earthquakes rocked southern Chile in May 1960. Huge outlays of money to rebuild the territory were required. Alessandri's essentially rightist orientation and his reluctance to attack the pressing problems of agrarian reform, unemployment, and housing resulted in a loss of popularity for the conservative parties.

In 1961, elections to Congress saw massive losses for the Conservatives and Liberals, with the Radicals, alone of the coalition parties, doing well. This forced Alessandri to nominate more Ministers from the Radical Party, which in turned moved his government to the left. This tied in with the more activist foreign development policy pursued by President John F. Kennedy in the wake of the Cuban Revolution of 1959, in the shape of the Alliance for Progress. Together, these unleashed a wave of progressive tax and agricultural reforms. Despite this, distribution of land ownership remained grossly unequal. Alessandri lost the Presidential election in 1964.