Friedman and his colleague Arnold Harberger traveled to Chile for six days in March 1975, during which they delivered a series of public lectures evaluating its economic and po liti cal policies and on one occasion met personally with its military dictator, Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet had entrusted economic policy to a group of radical economists, many of whom had attended the University of Chicago between 1956 and 1964 under the auspices of a program sponsored by the Agency for International Development. At the time of Friedman’s visit they were in the midst of implementing a rapid series of freemarket reforms, including deregulation, privatization, elimination of price controls, cuts in government spending, and an expansion of free trade. Critics have argued that the implementation of the economic policies that Friedman advocated required the use of the junta’s repressive mea sures, and have strongly implied the existence of sinister motives on the part of Friedman and his colleagues. They have raised enduring questions about the human costs of the “shock treatment” Friedman recommended and the wisdom of providing personal advice to terroristic regimes. But Friedman was also severely critical of the Chilean government’s repressive mea sures before, during, and after his visit, and refused receipt of two honorary degrees in order to avoid an implicit endorsement he did not want to bestow.

Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, loc. 516