Roberto Souper

Lt. Colonel Roberto Federico Souper Onfray (May 2, 1927 in Angol, Chile – August 24, 2015 in Santiago of Chile) was a Chilean military officer who launched an unsuccessful coup d'état against the Allende administration, surrounding the presidential palace with a tank regiment. Twenty-two civilians were killed during the brief coup attempt, including Leonardo Henrichsen, a Swedish-Argentine news photographer filming the events.

Souper was married to María Eugenia Wilshaw. He attended the Chilean military academy following his attendance at the Jesuit-run secondary school, "San Ignacio" in Santiago. After being commissioned as an Army officer he rose through the ranks and served with units including the "Húsares" of Angol, and the "Granaderos" of Iquique. Souper's family was characterised as being of a "military caste" following the entry of the first Souper on the Chilean historical scene, when colonel Robert Souper Howard (born in Harwich, Britain) played a prominent role in the 1879 War of the Pacific.

The aforementioned attempted coup, known as the Tanquetazo, took place on June 29, 1973 and was widely reported in international wire and news media. At the time, Souper was the commander of the "Regimiento Blindado Nº2" Chilean Army tank force in the Santiago region. Souper's failure is considered significant in that it provided the military with a valuable lesson as to what conditions were necessary for a coup to succeed. There is no reliable evidence that the US actively assisted or even approved of Souper's tanquetazo and given the absurdly uncoordinated nature of the event, and the lack of support for it within the rest of the Chilean military, such a connection is considered unlikely. However, there is considerable published information about the Chilean organisation "Patria y Libertad" that did promote the coup attempt and members of that group notoriously took refuge in the embassy of Ecuador when the coup's failure was made clear. Souper's cousin, Carlos Souper Quinteros, along with Roberto's brothers Jaime and Patricio, were active members of "Patria y Libertad."

Souper, detained under the Allende administration and under prosecution for sedition in a military court, was released following the successful coup on September 11, 1973. He then became an agent for the Santiago regional intelligences services (División de Inteligencia Regional de la División de Inteligencia Metropolitana). Though declassified CIA documents do not identify any American involvement in the tanquetazo, Souper was named by the CIA as early as August 1971 as one of eight known officers predisposed to oppose the government of Salvador Allende.

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