Gunned down by an assassin’s bullet on 1 April 1991, Jaime Guzmán never could develop a legacy as a democratic politician. Dead at the age of 44, Guzmán is remembered as the civilian ideologue for military rule, the father of the military’s constitution, and the founder of the right-wing Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI). Guzmán’s entry into Chilean politics was via various fringe-right groupings. After heading the gremialist opposition to university reform in the mid-1960s, Guzmán emerged as a vociferous opponent of Allende and immediately following the 1973 coup entered the hermetic confines of the military junta and its advisory bodies. Within days of the coup, along with a handful of civilian professors of constitutional law drawn from the Right and Center, Guzmán was appointed to the commission that produced the first draft of the 1980 constitution. Simultaneously, Guzmán became the most influential civilian advisor to Pinochet on constitutional and political...

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