The military regime that came to power in 1973 made no attempt to hide its intentions to drastically restructure the state. Because of Chile’s historical economic dependence on its copper industry, which had been nationalized at high political and economic cost, many feared that the nationalization process would be reverted and that the gains won against dependency would be lost. The article examines why the efforts to privatize the Chilean National Copper Corporation (CODELCO) were not successful. This failure must be attributed to the country’s long experience with external economic dependence, which produced a deep-seated national awareness of the drawbacks of foreign control, and to the benefits that the industry brings to powerful groups in the regime, above all the Chilean Army.