He opposed the 1973 coup of General Augusto Pinochet, and was imprisoned and subject to torture for several months until his death in 1974 of heart disease while in prison.

In 1940, in military service, he earned a scholarship to the School of Aviation Captain Manuel Avalos Prado, with Gustavo Leigh, by choice of the then commander of the Antiaircraft Artillery Regiment Hill, Colonel Luis Osvaldo Puccio Giesen.

In 1962, under the presidency of Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez, Bachelet was appointed military attache to the Chilean Embassy in Washington D. C., USA.

He was held at the Air War Academy of FACH, and its principal then Colonel Fernando Matthei (Matthei has profusely denied any involvement in his interrogation and death, stating that he was in London during the coup, finishing his work as Air Attache and did not return to Chile until December 1973.

In a letter to his son Albert, who lived in Australia, he reported: They broke me inside, at one point, they morally bursted me – I never knew how to hate anyone – I always thought that the human being is the most wonderful thing in this creation and should be respected as such, but I found FACH comrades that I've known for 20 years, my students, who treated me like a criminal or a dog.