You bring up a good point. Pinochet was not known as a dictator or "military freak" when the US backed him instead of the communist. And then of course there are many different views of what happened.
Chile: Two Visions
Wall Street Journal
"From all indications, Chileans themselves have mixed feelings. Many condemn the brutality used to suppress the left after the military seized power in 1973. But many also recognize that Gen. Pinochet ultimately delivered economic freedom and democratic institutional renewal. Few in Chile regret that the general crushed Marxism and that they do not live like Cubans under vile repression. This generalized view is but a glimpse of the complexities that the country now faces in resolving the case. While there is an unwillingness to overlook torture if it is proved, there is a tacit acceptance on the part of many that had the military not fought hard, the outcome might have been devastatingly different.
A critical piece of the case led by international socialists against the general has always been an insistence that Chile's president in 1973, Salvador Allende, was a social democrat who was victimized by the CIA and Chile's military. He has been canonized as a martyr of the left and it is now part of legend that he was murdered, even though his doctor told a reporter for this newspaper, just after his death, that he committed suicide.
But here in Chile it's not so easy to sell revisionist history. The facts about the Allende years, which led to the military coup -- a coup requested by members of the Chilean congress, including the left-of-center Christian Democrats -- have lived on and new information is constantly being uncovered.
. (December 1999) Pinochet: the other side of the story
(December 1999) Pinochet: the other side of the story. While all eyes are on Britain's struggle to decide whether general Pinochet should be extradited to Spain as a criminal or returned to his homeland as an ex ruler, something historical is happening in Chile. Since 1973, when Pinochet killed the democratically-elected communist president Allende and seized power, the world has heard only one version of the facts: Pinochet was an evil man, a little Hitler of the impoverished south, who made thousands of opponents "disappear" and ruled brutally over poor Chileans.
The story is quite different, and is finally being told, of all people, by Pinochet's own enemies: the Socialist Party, which hopes to win the next elections thanks to its revisionist attitudes. Although it does not promote Pinochet among angels, the new version of the facts shows that blame was not all on one side, and that many Chileans were more than pleased by the infamous coup.
...
Ricardo Lagos, the socialist candidate to president, has admitted that Allende made several mistakes which sent Chile's economy plunging into a free fall. He has admitted that Allende's government was "experimenting" beyond the constitutional law, by allowing communist-inspired abuses against private property. He clearly blamed Allende for the country's hyperinflation, shortages and financial collapse that were mentioned by Pinochet as the very reasons for seizing power. Nunez Munoz in person, the elderly president of the Socialist Party, criticized those who think that the CIA was responsible for the coup. While the United States obviously did not feel too sorry, it was Allende's own debacle.
The truth is that Pinochet's coup against Allende was welcomed by many, as any visitor to Chile in those years can report. The Christian Democrats, the largest party in Chile, approved the coup, albeit with reservations.
..."
There's always more to the story than what the anti-Americans want you to believe.
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