She was heavily involved in student politics at university, joining the Brigada Universitaria Socialista. Through this group, she met Renato Julio, who she married on the 6th of July, 1967. The relationship only lasted a few months.[5]
Later, she married Cuban diplomat and agent Luis Fernández de Oña (also known as Rodolfo Gallart Grau), whom she met on a trip to Cuba in 1967.[5][6]
Aiding her father
When her father was elected as the president of Chile on 4 September 1970, Beatriz became his closest advisor and collaborator, networking with elements of the Chilean and international Left.[7][8] She attempted throughout his presidency to keep the Chilean left from weakening in its support of him.[9]
Flight from Chile
During Pinochet's coup, Beatriz stayed with her father in La Moneda Presidential Palace, leaving only when President Allende ordered all women and children to evacuate. She was forced into exile with her mother, sisters, husband, and daughter Maya Alejandra Fernández Allende[10] to Cuba. Beatriz was seven months pregnant at the time with her second child, Alejandro Salvador Allende Fernández.[6]
Life in Cuba
While in exile, Beatriz served as executive secretary of an anti-imperialist solidarity committee: the Comité Chileno de Solidaridad Antiimperialista, in La Habana. This position required her to travel extensively to raise awareness about conditions in Chile after the coup. She also managed a global solidarity fund and distributed the proceeds to Chile’s left-wing parties.[9]
In 1977, she separated from Luis.[5] In one of her last remembered conversations from that year, she spoke of "wanting to escape her role as 'Allende's daughter' — not because she didn't love and admire him, but because his status on the Left and in Cuba prohibited her from living a 'normal' life, out of the spotlight."[9]
Death
Four years and one month after her father died in the 1973 Chilean coup, Beatriz Allende died by suicide with a firearm on October 11, 1977.[11] The gun used was an Uzi gifted to her by Fidel Castro in 1971.[5] She was said to have been "deeply scarred by what had happened in Chile, her father's death, and the dictatorship's ongoing repression of her friends. She was also increasingly pessimistic about Chile's future." Moreover, the prior year's car bombing of Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C. had been "a devastating blow to the resistance against Pinochet and a personal loss for Beatriz."[9]
Women members of the Progressive Party of Chile, who call themselves the Tati Allende Progressive Women's Front, held an event to pay tribute to their namesake on October 11, 2018. It was the 41st anniversary of her death. Mónica Berríos composed a commemorative song for the event.[14]
^ abcdeHarmer, Tanya (2020). Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America. Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN978-1-4696-5431-7.
