Swent: At this point were you paying discriminatory rates?
Haldeman: Yes. We were at 65 or 70 percent, and of course they can diddle
you all the ways they want --exchange and everything.
You negotiate that and get an agreement with the president,
and then the president sends it to the Congress and says, "Take
it or leave it. Don't negotiate and start to change commas and
this and that," which they will do a little bit, but it's a
package deal.
We went over and talked to the president and told him what
we had in mind.
Presenting the Plan to President Alessandri
Swent:
Did you talk directly with the president?
Haldeman:
Oh, yes. Mr. Milliken, Michaelson, and myself. Milliken didn't
speak any Spanish, and Michaelson said, "You talk to him, Bob."
Swent:
You weren't speaking with his representatives?
speaking directly with the president?
Haldeman:
We went directly to him, and he congratulated us on our bold
plan. He was an engineer himself, and he realized it was a bold
plan. At the time, 1956, we estimated the cost at $200 million.
If you take inflation and put it in present value, as the
economists do, that's about a $1.2 billion investment.
The president appointed the minister of finance,
Mr. Figueroa, to strike a deal with us. Well, '57 passed, '58
passed, '59 passed. We just couldn't seem to come to an
agreement. What really was behind it was that Mr. Alessandri
didn't feel he wanted to take that package to the Congress.
I refer you to a book, [Frederick B.] Pike's Chile and U.S.
Relations, 1880-1962, Notre Dame, 1963. This tells you why the
Chilean leading class doesn't like the United States, by names.
It's very understandable. American "gunboat diplomacy" ? Baltimore became the flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron on 24 May 1890, and, from 15-23 August,
conveyed the remains of the late Captain John Ericsson from New York City to Stockholm, Sweden. After cruising in European and Mediterranean waters,
she arrived at Valparaíso, Chile on 7 April 1891 to join the South Pacific Station. She protected American citizens during the
Chilean revolution, landing men at Valparaíso on 28 August. The events around this became known as the Baltimore Crisis.
(click image for larger view)
Don't forget that Chile at that time
was an agricultural country. All of the gentry had big farms,
were absentee landlords, and paid miserable wages to the people.
They left the mining to the foreigners, the gringos. Of course,
anything that upset their apple cart, they had to tax the
gringos. Remember President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress,
which ended in Frei's expropriation of large farms. Index to Haldeman Interview
Chilean President Jorge Alessandri
I started to know the political leaders of the country--, all
political, economic, social, banking, et ceteraand I mixed
them up. Mario Illanes was a wonderful diplomat; he knew how to
handle them. Of course, the first lunches were just as dry as
could be. They were waiting for me to ask for what I wanted,
and nothing happened. I just asked a couple of questions, "What
do you think about this?" and so on. Word got around that these
were just social lunches, and they had good food, the best
liquors you could imagine, nice cigars, there were a lot of
enjoyable people, and Haldeman didn't want anything; he just
wanted to know.
It got to be that Mario had a waiting list to be invited.
The guys would stay around until 5:30 and 6:00 and booze. The
radicals were the biggest bon vivants of the lunches. I got to
know people who to this day are still my friends. That's why I
was able to open doors,
I could even call up ministers and so on . . . 
Kennecott President Frank R Milliken
I talked it over with Grant, as I was very enthused about
the idea of becoming a bit more modern and bringing ourselves up
to date. Mr. Grant accepted the job. Of course, I was in
Santiago, and he, being in Coya, had the day-to-day business
with the seven or eight thousand people involved. I was in the
political arena with the government authorities and the likes,
trying to get our image corrected in the country. Maybe two
times a month we'd get together and plan out what we wanted to
do.
We decided at that time to incept all of the new tools that
were out on the market- -wage and salary administration, job
evaluation, reorganization, warehouse controls, training
programs. We started to plan on how we would send our
supervisors, superintendents, and second-in-lines abroad to get
some training and mix with the rest of the world that was
spinning around above us. We were too far away. 
Santiago view 1
Mario Illanes
Swent: You had to do all your allying yourself?
Haldeman: There was a man working in the office, a Chilean named Mario
Illanes, who had been in the diplomatic service in the Chilean
consulate in San Francisco and in Washington for several years.
Turton had hired him to stay in Santiago and handle the
politicians and so on, because Turton wouldn't work in Santiago;
he wanted to live out in Coya in his nice house with a garden.
So I got Mario Illanes, and I said, "Mario, I have to get to
know the senators, representatives, ministers, the president,
and all the businessmen in the National Manufacturing Society.
I've got to get myself into the Chilean business and political
whirl."
Swent: Was there a Chilean Mining Society?
Haldeman: Yes, but it was only mining engineers, and most of them were
small miners.
Santiago view 2
Swent: Your job was to get to know the Chileans, and about eight months
of the year you were in Santiago?
Haldeman: For about eight months of the year everybody was in Santiago.
The other four months December, January, February, and
March people started vacations, and Congress and the courts
shut down. I said, "Every month, I'd like to have a lunch at
the office." That was in the apartment they had built on the
top floor of a five-story building in Santiago for Turton to
live in. 
Swent: To this day most mining companies don't send all of their
executives in the same plane. 
