office, and his presidency was ratified only after he signed a "Statute of Constitutional Guarantees". This statute was suggested as a means to convince the majority of Christian Democrat senators that favoured Allessandri, as they doubted Allende's allegiance to democracy, or at least the UP's. After signing the statute, members of the Christian Democrat party in the Senate gave their vote in favor of Allende. It has been argued that given that less than the majority of the voters voted for him, Allende did not have a clear "mandate" to embark in the policies put forward on his program; however, it is also true that in the post-World War II period three out of the four previous presidents of Chile had, like Allende, also been elected with less than 50% of the vote, due in part to Chile's multi-party system. Specifically, the winners of the four presidential elections prior to Allende's 1970 election had won with: 56.1% (the 1964 election of Frei), 31.6% (the 1958 election of Alessandri), 46.8% (the 1952 election of Ibáñez) and 40.2% (the 1946 election of Gonzalez Videla). The legality of the 1970 election itself is not in dispute. "The Chilean Way to Socialism" In office, Allende pursued a policy he called "La vía chilena al socialismo" ("The Chilean Way to Socialism"). This included nationalization of certain large-scale industries (notably copper), of the healthcare system, continuation of his predecessor Eduardo Frei Montalva's policies regarding the educational system, a program of free milk for children, and land redistribution. The previous government of Eduardo Frei had already partly nationalised the copper industry by acquiring a 51 percent share in foreign owned mines. The primary U.S. business in Chile at this time was copper mining. The Chilean government sought to fully nationalize U.S. mining operations and the Chilean constitution required "just compensation" to be made according to "minimum international standards." However, the Allende government chose to hold mining companies liable for damages they caused to the state. Subsequently, Chile made significant deductions in computing the amount of compensation due to the North American industries. Such deductions included charges for "loans invested poorly" and "excessive profits" among other reasoning. "Excessive profits" were assessed dating back to the 1950s. Ultimately, deductions for "social and financial malfeasance" when combined with other deductions resulted in the total deductions greatly exceeding the base book values of the mining enterprises. In effect, compensation to three