In her absence, when he went: From 2012 testimony by Alicia Urrutia to Judge Mario Carroza after being summoned to answer questions about Neruda’s health during the investigation of Neruda’s death. Quoted in Montes, Rocío. “El último amor de Neruda: La voz de Alicia,” Caras, December 29, 2014, http://www.caras.cl/libros/el-ultimo-amor-de-neruda-la-voz-de-alicia/.
Alicia was struck: Ibid.
Dr. Velasco remembers: Velasco, Neruda: El gran amigo, 124–125.
“The era of those classical names”: Letter dated February 27, 1973, APNF.
“I’ve never been given”: Letter dated March 14, 1973; copy provided to the author by Turner.
“Unfortunately, I must seriously protest”: Letter dated August 8, 1973, APNF.
“The whole cultural movement”: Jara, Joan. Victor: An Unfinished Song (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1984), 211–212.
On August 31, 1973, Neruda wrote: APNF and OC, 5:1020.
“I send my best wishes”: Letter dated September 4, 1973, APNF.
Allende shot himself: There has been controversy over the circumstances of Allende’s death ever since it happened. Despite some circumstantial accounts, many insisted he would never have killed himself, but rather that he went down fighting and was shot by the military storming the building. But in 2011, the Chilean justice system investigated Allende’s death, one of more than seven hundred criminal inquiries into the deaths and disappearances that took place during the dictatorship. An international forensics team conducted an autopsy. With the help of ballistics experts, the unanimous conclusion was that he had indeed shot himself. Among various sources: López, Andrés, and Javier Canales. “Informe del Servicio Médico Legal confirma la tesis del suicidio de ex presidente Allende,” La Tercera (Santiago), July 19, 2011, http://www.latercera.com/noticia/informe-del-servicio-medico-legal-confirma-la-tesis-del-suicidio-de-ex-presidente-allende/.
“quiet; mild-mannered”: Kornbluh, Pinochet File, 155.
Yet by late October, a fact sheet: Ibid., 154.
Instead, he seemed broken: Urrutia, Mi vida junto a Pablo Neruda, 7–9
“Look all you want”: Edwards, Adiós, poeta, 303–304.
As Arévalo recalled the visit: Author interview with Hugo Arévalo, July 2003.
Neruda in a state of madness: Matilde’s recounting is from an interview she gave in Bizzarro, Pablo Neruda, 155–156.
As Matilde wrote in her memoir: Urrutia, My Life with Pablo Neruda, 15–16.
Homero Arce asked Inés: Author interview with Inés Valenzuela, 2008.
“We knew what we could do”: Ibid.
“We were afraid”: Author interview with Roser Bru, 2003.
EPILOGUE
“coalesce in the realm of paradox”: O’Daly, William. Introduction to The Book of Questions, by Pablo Neruda (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2001), vii.
“Returning”: “Regresando,” in Neruda, Pablo. The Sea and the Bells, trans. William O’Daly (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2002).
“Winter Garden”: “Jardín de invierno,” in Neruda, Pablo. Winter Garden, trans. William O’Daly (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2002).
“When I went back to Chile”: Author interview with Ariel Dorfman, 2004.
He said the Catholic Church: Suro, Robert. “Pope, on Latin Trip, Attacks Pinochet Regime,” New York Times, April 1, 1987.
The pope reportedly advised: O’Connor, Garry. Universal Father: A Life of Pope John Paul II (New York: Bloomsbury, 2005).
Under his dictatorship: Here using much of Peter Kornbluh’s phrasing for the reporting of the numbers, which came from The Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation (Pinochet File, 154).
Their vast grassroots: National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, Chile’s Transition to Democracy: The 1988 Presidential Plebiscite, Washington, D.C., 1988; and Kornbluh, Pinochet File.
“there was a sense”: Author interview with Rodrigo Rojas, November 21, 2015.
The CIA, for instance: Kornbluh, Pinochet File, 431–432.
“Compañeros, bury me at Isla Negra”: “Disposiciones” [“Dispositions”], Canto general.
“the victory of poetry”: Boletín de la Fundacíon Pablo Neruda, no. 15 (Summer 1993): 23.
“It was very moving”: Author interview with Francisco Velasco, 2008.
“Neruda was feverish”: Matilde mentions none of this in her memoir, just that Neruda had called her at Isla Negra because he had finally learned about the realities of the coup through his friends and was in a completely agitated state.
That injection: There was an injection that day, which Neruda’s doctor said was Dipirona, and the forensic examinations showed there had been Dipirona in Neruda’s system. As explained by the Mexican journalist Mario Casasús—who at first was one of the main proponents of the allegations but has come to doubt Araya—in 1974 Matilde told a newspaper that the injection was Dolopirona. There are some differences between Dipirona and Dolopirona, and if Neruda needed Dolopirona and they gave him Dipirona, then that could cause an allergic reaction, but it wouldn’t kill him. Also, according to Casasús, the medicine given to Neruda was something that the hospital already had on hand (author correspondence with Mario Casasús, February 1, 2017).
“evil ordered by”: Note that Araya never actually saw the injection take place. Unless otherwise indicated, Araya’s testimony is from an interview by Francisco Marín, published in “Neruda fue asesinado,” Proceso (Mexico), May 12, 2011, http://www.proceso.com.mx/269909/269909-neruda-fue-asesinado.
it wasn’t until 2004: Confirmed in Witt, Emily. “The Body Politic: The Battle Over Pablo Neruda’s Corpse,” Harper’s, January 2015.
the regime did not begin: Taylor Branch and Eugene M. Propper wrote about the sarin attacks (Project Andrea) taking place in 1976 in their coauthored Labyrinth: The Sensational Story of International Intrigue in the Search for the Assassins of Orlando Letelier (New York: Viking, 1982). Actual supporting documents are found in Kornbluh, Pinochet File, 178–179, 201. Further insight was provided through author interview and correspondence with John Dinges, former Washington Post foreign news editor and author of The Condor Years, among other books on Pinochet, January 2017.
the press and others ran with it: Wills, Santiago. “Pablo Neruda May Have Been Killed by a CIA Double Agent,” ABC News, June 6, 2013, http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/pablo-neruda-killed-cia-double-agent/story?id=19332813. Through previous research on Townley for his role in a 1976 assassination (ordered by the Pinochet regime and carried out in Washington, D.C.), John Dinges, along with fellow coinvestigators, has a paper trail—including all of Townley’s passports (and their stamps) and some personal letters he sent from Miami at the time—showing he could not have been in Santiago for the murder (“US Experts: Documents Place Michael Townley in Florida During Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda Death,” Associated Press, June 3, 2013, and author correspondence with Dinges, January 2017). It has also been shown that while Townley did work for Chile’s secret police, he never
