While General Augusto Pinochet was the stern face of repression familiar to the world for 17 years of military rule in Chile, the lesser-known admiral was the unbending backbone of its junta all those traumatic years. Merino was the prime mover in the coup that ousted the world's first democratically elected Marxist president, Salvador Allende, in 1973. Though only second in command of the navy, he undermined his commander-in-chief, Admiral Montero, who was inclined to continue support for Allende and his Popular Unity Party Merino would have none of it. He despatched a note to the army and air force commanders, Generals Pinochet and Leigh, urging them to act They did so with force, bombarding the presidential palace Allende was killed, along with thousands of other Chileans. Many more were to die subsequently at the hands of the regime, kidnapped, tortured and disappeared, adding a new word to state terrorism - the "Desaparecidos". It was a mirror image of the neighbouring Argentina's Dirty War, if not on such a huge scale, though Chile's junta lasted longer and was more vilified internationally, coming in for particularly severe condemnation from the British Labour Party, whose senior members had been personal friends of Allende. No wrong thought ever ventured anywhere near him.Bernard Butts Reiss, medical practitioner: born Welwyn Garden City 8 December 1925; General Practitioner 1959-90; Director of General Practice Studies, Cambridge University 1976-90; Life Fellow, Hughes Hall 1981-96; OBE 1981; married 1958 Margaret Boak (two sons, one daughter, and one son deceased); died Cambridge 2 August 1996..

It saddened them to see the changes in the NHS which made it less personal and more money-minded.Bernard Reiss was right- eous but never self-righteous, open-hearted, invariably unhurried and gentle, lovable and loving. Platt said that, if the positions had been reversed, he couldn't have done it half as well.Reiss's wife Margaret was a social worker and they shared a vision of healthcare - giving and teaching. At the Suez crisis in 1956, he was on the RAF reserve and told me that he hoped to be called up, so that he could refuse and go to prison.I once stood in a queue next to Lord Platt, the former President of the Royal College of Physicians. I said to him, "Your main claim to fame, Sir, is that you've got the finest General Practitioner in the country." He almost burst with enthusiasm and agreed; he said that Reiss would listen patiently to his erroneous self-diagnosis, question him, examine him and disagree He did all this respectfully but firmly.

He was one of the first to think of general practice as a speciality, and pioneered the use of general practice as a setting in which to teach medicine to clinical students.Bernard Reiss's diffidence and slowness of speech concealed a rock-hard integrity and high-mindedness covering all aspects of his life. It hadn't the prestige it enjoys today and most doctors wanted to specialise. While we students lazed away the vacations, Reiss would go and work for nothing in the Peckham Health Centre, that cradle of the NHS, and he took a higher degree, Membership of the Royal College of Physicians, because he wanted to go into general practice well prepared. This was almost unique at that time, and that sort of philosophy was partly responsible for the resurgence of general practice.Reiss was a GP in Cambridge from 1959 until his retirement in 1990.