FIGURE SOUGHT IN LETELIER CASE CALLED U.S. CITIZEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R000600230100-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 24, 2004
• Sequence Number: 100
• Content Type: NSPR

WASHINGTON POST
ATE ' (__-d1
Approved For Release 2004/07/08 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R000600230100-0
Figure Sought
In Letelier Case
Called U. S. Citizen
By John Dinges
Special to The Washington Post
SANTIAGO, Chile-The pro-gov-
ernment newspaper El Mercurio said
yesterday that it had identified the
picture of a man sought by a U.S.
court in connection with the assas-
sination of Chilean exile leader Or-
lando Letelier as a US. citizen who
participated in right.wing commando
actions against the leftist government
of President Salvador Allende in
1973.
The U.S. government has asked
Chile to produce two men for ques-
tioning about the 1976 car-bomb
murder in Washington. El Mercurio
printed wirephotos of the two men
on Saturday after the pictures were
printed by The Washington Star on
Friday.
One of the men pictured in The
Star was identified as Juan Williams
Rose. The U.S. government said Wil-
liams was a member of the Chilean
armed forces.
A Chilean who said he knows the
man pictured in El Mercurio corrobo.
rated the newspaper's account.
This source said he had known the
man in the picture for several years
Letelier Figure Said to Be Amer
CHILE, From Al
as Michael Vernon Townley, an
American living in Chile since at
least 1972 who boasted in conversa-
tions of his involvement in terrorist
activities against Allende and of his
membership in the extreme rightist
group, Fatherland and Liberty.
The source said Townley's strange
behavior and activities made him sus-
pect that Townley was an agent of
the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
El Mercurio's front page carried
pictures side-by-side of the man said
in Washington to be Williams'and the
man identified here as Townley. The
two pictures seem to be of the same
person.
Two weeks ago the State Depart-
ment, in a procedure known as letters
rogatory, asked the Chilean govern-
ment to interrogate, using a list of
sealed questions, two men Identified
as Williams, 28, and Alejandro Ro-
meral Jara, 26.
The government responded that it
would cooperate with the investiga-
tion, but a spokesman said the two
names are not listed as members of
the military, including the secret po-
lice, and there are no records of their
existence in the files of the National
Identification Service.
Reporters' inquiries here so far in-
dicate that the names revealed in
Washington are false.. The U.S. em-
bassy has said that two men using the
names Williams and Romeral traveled
to the United States in August 1976 on
official' Chilean passports and U.S.
visas requested by the Chilean For-
eign Ministry for official business.
El Mercurio, which is a major pillar
of support to the government of Presi-
dent Augusto Pinochet, began last
week to reproduce accounts from U.S.
newspapers explaining the alleged in-
volvement of Chilean officials in the
Letelier murder. An editorial on Sat-
urday called on the government to
give a public explanation of why offi-
cial passports and visa requests were
provided for two men under false
names.
The newspaper's recent coverage of
the case is significantly different from
its earlier reports, which attributed
charges of government involvement in
the murder to an international cam-
paign against the military regime.
Other than to say the men do not
exist in military and civilian files, the
government has declined to coment on
the men's mission to the United States.
U.S. Investigators have said the two
men traveled to the United States at
least twice during 1976 and that one of
them is believed to have made contact
with someone responsible for the mur-
ders of Letelier and an associate, Ronni
Karpen Moffitt, on Sheridan Circle.
The two died when a plastic bomb
exploded under Letelier's car as they
were on their way to work. Investiga-
tors have said they do not know how
the bomb was triggered but they have
speculated that it could have been elec-
tronically.
Townley, according to the source who
knew him, worked during 1974 and 1975
in a Santiago garage as a highly spe-
cialized ignition and . tuneup man. The
source said he once saw Townley's
American passport. Although the pic-
ture was that of his acquaintance, he
said, the passport carried a different
name, which he said he could not re-
call.
The Chilean who knows Townley said
he b
FatitdliAlld'N LitfArq(Qd*i
ticipated in a commando raid on a
television station in the southern port
city of Concepcion in mid-1973 In
which a night watchman was killed.
In that incident the raiders success.
fully disconnected and destroyed an
electronic jamming device that had
been installed by Allende government
officials to prevent the station from
going on the air as part of an opposi-
tion network.
El Mercurio published a picture yes-
terday of the June 9, 1973, front page
of a now defunct newspaper, Puro
Chile, in which Townley's picture ap-
peared with a story accusing him of
being the "Concepcion murderer" and
alleging that he was a CIA agent who
had operated in Chile since 1968. Puro
Chile was known as a sensationalist
newspaper. It was published by mem-
bers of the Communist Party, which
was then a coalition partner in
Allende's government.
Fatherland and Liberty part,.ici-
pated in' an abortive coup attempt
against Allende in conjunction with
a tank regiment of the Chilean army
several months before the successful
Sept. 11, 1973 coup by the three
branches of the armed forces and the
national police.
After the coup, leaders said the
organization had been disbanded, but
there were numerous reports that its
members were recruited by the army
as agents of the secret police, the
Directorate of National Intelligence
(DINA).
Sources In WWJashir-gton have said
Williams a ,.id Nomeral are believed
to have been working as DINA agents
when they went to the United States.
The government later dissolved
DINA and created a substitute or-
ganization. Many DINA agents re-
portedly were fired at that time.
Accordini to the man who said he
knew him, Townley also had talked
about his operating a clandestine ra-
dio transmitter from his car in Octo-
ber 1972 to broadcast against Allende
during a ni-.tional strike. He said he
last saw Tcwnley about seven weeks
ago in Santiago and learned that he
no longer worked at the garage.
"My- imp:?ession has always been
that that gu;i has something to do with
the CIA. H) had two U.S. passports;
he was a foreigner involved in sub-
versive act:.vities In Chile with ex-
treme rightist groups, Everything
about him was mysterious and he
made multiple trips abroad," the
Chilean sail;.
El Mercur.Io quoted a woman who
said she was a good friend of Townley
as saying that she "understood" that
he was co:inected with Fatherland
and Liberty, but that she had not seen
him since he fled Chile by crossing
the Andes mountains in 1973. Some of
the details (if the woman's story con-
tradicted the El Mercurio account
and a description of him given by the
man who knew him.