Orlando Letelier

This article is about the biography of Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar. For his assassination, see Letelier case.
This name uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Letelier and the second or maternal family name is del Solar.
Orlando Letelier

Letelier in 1976
Born Sergio Orlando Letelier del Solar
(1932-04-13)April 13, 1932
Temuco, Chile
Died September 21, 1976(1976-09-21) (aged 44)
Sheridan Circle, Washington, DC
Cause of death Car bomb
Nationality Chilean
Known for Letelier case
Spouse(s) Isabel Margarita Morel
Children Cristián, José, Francisco, Juan Pablo
Parent(s) Orlando Letelier Ruiz
Inés del Solar

Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar (April 13, 1932 – September 21, 1976) was a Chilean economist, Socialist politician and diplomat during the presidency of Salvador Allende. As a refugee from the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, Letelier accepted several academic positions in Washington, D.C. He was assassinated by agents of DINA, the Pinochet regime's secret police, in 1976, in collaboration with members of the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations.[1]

Background

Letelier was born in Temuco, Chile, the youngest child of Orlando Letelier Ruiz and Inés del Solar. He studied at the Instituto Nacional and, at the age of sixteen, he was accepted as a cadet of the Chilean Military Academy, where he completed his secondary studies. Later he abandoned the military life. He never finished college and never received a university degree. In 1955, he joined the recently formed Copper Office (Departamento del Cobre, now CODELCO), where he worked until 1959 as a research analyst in the copper industry. In that year, Orlando Letelier was fired for supporting Salvador Allende's unsuccessful second presidential campaign. The Letelier family had to leave for Venezuela, where he became a copper consultant for the Finance Ministry.

Letelier married Isabel Margarita Morel Gumucio on December 17, 1955, with whom he had four children: Cristián, José, Francisco, and Juan Pablo.

Political career

Letelier's first political participations were as a university student, when he became a student representative at the University of Chile's Student Union. In 1959 Letelier joined the Chilean Socialist Party (PS). In 1971 President Allende appointed him ambassador to the United States because he had some unique leadership qualities rare among Latin American socialists of the time: chiefly among them a sophisticated grasp of the complexities of US politics and an in-depth knowledge of the copper industry. His specific mission was to try to defend the Chilean nationalization of copper against the previous private ownership favored by the US government.

During 1973, Letelier was recalled to Chile and served successively as minister of Foreign Affairs, Interior and Defense. In the coup d'état of September 11, 1973, he was the first high-ranking member of the Allende administration seized and arrested, when he arrived at his office at the Ministry of Defense. He was held for twelve months in different concentration camps suffering severe torture: first at the Tacna Regiment, then at the Military Academy; later he was sent for eight months to a political prison on Dawson Island and from there he was transferred to the basement of the Air Force War Academy, and finally to the concentration camp of Ritoque, until international diplomatic pressure, especially from Diego Arria, then Governor of the city of Caracas in Venezuela, resulted in the sudden release of Letelier on the condition that he immediately leave Chile.

After his release in September 1974, he and his family resettled in Caracas, but then Letelier decided to head for Washington D.C., at the proposal of American writer Saul Landau. In 1975 Letelier moved to Washington where he became senior fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS is an independent research institute based in Washington, D.C., devoted to international policy studies), where Landau worked at the time. He also became director of the Transnational Institute (TNI is an independent research institute based in Amsterdam), and taught at the School of International Service of the American University, in Washington, D.C. He plunged into writing, speaking and lobbying the US Congress and European governments against Augusto Pinochet's regime. Letelier wrote several influential papers criticizing the Chicago Boys, a group of South American economists trained at the University of Chicago by Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger, then sent to their home countries to promote and advisor leaders on the free market economy.[2] This was used to great effect in Chile where General Pinochet looked to remove a socialist economic system and replace it will a free market economy. Letelier mistakenly believed that in a resource driven economy such as Chile, allowing markets to operate freely simply guaranteed the shift of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the monopolists and financial speculators.[2] He soon became the leading voice of the Chilean resistance, preventing several loans (especially from Europe) from being awarded to the Chilean government. On September 10, 1976, he was therefore deprived of his Chilean nationality by decree.

Assassination

Memorial on Sheridan Circle, Washington DC

Letelier was killed by a car bomb explosion on September 21, 1976, in Sheridan Circle, along with his US co-worker, Ronni Karpen Moffitt.[3][4] Her husband Michael Moffitt, was injured but survived. Several people were prosecuted and convicted for the murder. Among them were Michael Townley, a U.S. expatriate working for DINA, General Manuel Contreras, former head of the DINA, and Brigadier Pedro Espinoza, also formerly of DINA. Townley was convicted in the United States in 1978 and served 62 months in prison for the murder;[5] he is now free as a participant in the United States Federal Witness Protection Program. Contreras and Espinoza were convicted in Chile in 1993. General Augusto Pinochet, who died on December 10, 2006, was never brought to trial for the murders, despite evidence implicating him as having ordered them. The assignation had deeper significance then many would believe, severing strong relations between the United States and Chile. Following the assassination the United States cut military aid to Chile, and took an stance of 'unobtrusiveness' within the country[6]

Aftermath

Following the death of Pinochet in December 2006, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), for which both Letelier and Moffitt worked, called for the release of all the classified documents related to the Letelier–Moffitt assassination.

According to the IPS, the Clinton administration de-classified more than 16,000 documents related to Chile, but withheld documents related to the Letelier-Moffitt assassination in Washington on the grounds that they were associated with an ongoing investigation. The IPS says that the Clinton administration did re-activate the investigation into the Letelier-Moffitt murders and sent agents to Chile to gather additional evidence that Pinochet had authorized the crime. The former Chilean Secret Police Chief, Manuel Contreras, who, as previously mentioned, was convicted for his role in the crime in 1993 and later pointed the finger at his boss, claimed that all his orders came from Pinochet.

There are rumors that a draft indictment of Pinochet was prepared, but they were not confirmed by the George W. Bush administration.

Recent disclosure

A US State Department document made available by the National Security Archive on 10 April 2010 reveals that a démarche protesting Pinochet's Operation Condor assassination program was proposed and sent on 23 August 1976 to US diplomatic missions in Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile to be delivered to their host governments but later rescinded on 16 September 1976 by Henry Kissinger, following concerns raised by US ambassadors assigned there of both personal safety and a likely diplomatic contretemps. Five days later the assassination took place.[7]

Documents released in 2015 revealed a CIA report dated April 28, 1978, which showed that the agency by then had knowledge that Pinochet ordered the murders.[8] The report stated “Contreras told a confidant he authorized the assassination of Letelier on orders from Pinochet."[8] A State Department document also referred to eight separate CIA reports from around the same date, each sourced to “extremely sensitive informants” who provided evidence of Pinochet’s direct involvement in ordering the assassination and in directing the subsequent cover-up.[8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lettieri, Mike (1 June 2007). "Posada Carriles, Bush's Child of Scorn". Washington Report on the Hemisphere. 27 (7/8).
  2. 1 2 Letelier, Orlando. "The Chicago Boys in Chile: Economic Freedom’s Awful Toll." The Nation 223, no. 28 (1976): 137-42.
  3. ↑ "Cable Ties Kissinger to Chile Scandal". Associated Press in the New York Times. April 10, 2010. Retrieved 2010-04-10. The next day, on Sept. 21, 1976, agents of Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet planted a car bomb and exploded it on a Washington, D.C., street, killing both former Ambassador Orlando Letelier, and an American colleague, Ronni Karpen Moffitt. Letelier was one of the most outspoken critics of the Pinochet government.
  4. ↑ Associated Press "Cable Ties Kissinger to Chile Scandal", Blog Cella, 10 de abril de 2010. Retrieved 2011-09-21.
  5. ↑ Freudenheim, Milt and Roberts, Katherine "Chilean Admits Role in '76 Murder" The New York Times, February 8, 1987. Retrieved 2011-09-20.
  6. ↑ Constable, Pamela; Valenzuela, Arturo (1988). Chile's Return to Democracy. Council on Foreign Relations. p. 186 – via JSTOR.
  7. ↑ "New Docs Show Kissinger Rescinded Warning on Assassinations Days Before Letelier Bombing in DC". [A senior analyst at the National Security Archive, Peter Kornbluh, noted] Then you have the US ambassador in Chile saying, basically, well, Pinochet's feelings will be hurt and he'll be insulted if I tell him...that we think that he's involved in international assassinations. I think that that's not a very good idea...give me further instructions. And you had our ambassador--these are some other documents that we've recently obtained through the FOIA--our ambassador in Uruguay, Ernest Siracusa, writes back and says: I'm worried that my life will be in danger if I actually raise this subject here. Why don't you take the security risk in Washington. On 16 September 1976, Henry Kissinger rescinded the démarche order to his staff, and on 20 September 1976 US diplomats were duly informed of the revised directive. The next day, 21 September 1976, Letelier and Moffit were killed in the bomb blast.
  8. 1 2 3 http://www.newsweek.com/2015/10/30/bombshell-pinochets-guilt-delivered-too-late-383121.html

Bibliography

Political offices
Preceded by
Clodomiro Almeyda		 Minister of Foreign Affairs
1973 		Succeeded by
Clodomiro Almeyda
Preceded by
Carlos Briones		 Minister of the Interior
1973 		Succeeded by
Carlos Briones
Preceded by
Carlos Prats		 Minister of Defense
1973 		Succeeded by
Patricio Carvajal
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