THE CHILEAN CONNECTION

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680025-5
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
July 22, 2010
Sequence Number: 
25
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
November 28, 1981
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
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PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680025-5.pdf139.48 KB
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680025-5 STAT A T I CLE AP1'EAI' D 16~f PAGE THE NATICN 28 November 198 M! APPOINTMENT WITH CONTRERAS incriminating inform crime. The evidenc r r le Cliileaii.. Coniiection SAUL.LANDAU AND JOHN DINGES Letelier case will be Colonel Contreras .us by Kevin Mulcah' working for Wilson-. . Mulcahy's account o by documents drawr the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco .. n the?early summer of 1916; Colt Manuel Contreras,' - and Firearms :. w e were snown. invoices and bills of sale drawn up by one of Wilson and Terpil's companies. The operation to assassinate exiled Chilean leader Orlando'-..'...' purchaser was identified as a.DINA front organization, AL 641"16 WAL1111% - CL few days of~setting+that?plorirr motion,,Contreras made a At the time of the Contreras-Terpil meeting in Washing- sect ervisit to Washington, D.C:;"where he met with officials '.: ton, Mulcahy was president or Inter-Technology ? Inc' -an of the",Central Intelligence Agency and also negotiated the arms trading firm established byWilson.and Terpil. "It was purchaseof illegal weapons and electronic spying equipment Frank's meeting,"Mulcahy recalled, and it took place on with'a-firm run by former C.I.A. officers Edwin Wilson and a rainy Friday' afternoon 'in early July. Terpil directed Frank!Terpil. Mulcahy and another American, 'a former Navy intelligence Wilsorr and Terpil gained notoriety after a- Federal grand officer who was in' charge of Latin American operations for i jury accused them of exporting terrorist goods and services Wilson, to a' nondescript two-story residence on the 1700 to Col.. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, -whose regime is block of R Street in northwest Washington. "It? looked like high on`rhe Reagan Administration's, enemies list [see a typical C .I`A: safe"house," Mulcahy said: Murray Waas's article on page 5681. By- 1978, the Federal" '.-There,-. in a second-floor office, Terpil -- introduced Bureau or-Investigation had established that DINA agents Mulcahy to two Chileans. One of them was a'"heavy-set killed Lete_ller~on U.S. territory.' That evidence, combined man in his-mid-40s with drooping eyelids and a' kind of' with the. newly - revealed materials showing -that former benevolent . look ? on his face"' known as -"Manny" Con- C.I:A: officials cooperated with-other DINA covert opera-'..;..':. treras, Mulcahy recalled. Although he was wearing civilian tion's in the; United States; would seem to compromise the clothes, the DINA chief nevertheless exuded .a- "clearly Administration's =efforts to :'rehabilitate Chile's - military .. aura.". The other Chilean; whose name-Mulcahy. dictatorship as an anti-Communist ally. c has forgotten, served as an interpreter. Mulcahy said that The information about DINA's dealings with the Wilson- Terpil was "deferential" toward Contreras: "I had seen Terpil firm is based on the accounts of one of those present.- .`-Frank slap heads of state on the back, but with this guy he- at the meeting with Contreras in early July-1976, and on :was downright respectful, and kept his voice down." sales documents obtained by Federal investigators. This '=~,?;;'Contreras's. reputation had obviously preceded him. To report will examine DINA's purchase of weapons and so both his enemies :and fellow intelligence officers Contreras phisticated electronic equipment lit that meeting in violation 4" .'was known as-the most efficient and ruthless secret police of a Congressional ban onsuchsales to Chile chief in thi-Americas. He "had,-.`within. the space of two The new; information can be placed with startling results years, .:virtually eliminated political opposition to Chile's into the complex framework of evidence already compiled ?' military dictator, Gen._Augusto Pinochet.= - by the . F: B.I.: in the five year-old Letelier case,'and.it helps Y"Mulcahy.recalled that after Terpil opened the-meeting; explain many_previously unresolved questions?especially ,."we talked with Contreras- about the details of an in those regarding the C.I.A_'s: behavior. Earlier;` evidence of ` tegrated security system (Mulcahy described this to us as a DINA'i operations, supplemented by this new information '- . variety of devices that might be used to secure an embassy or about the three months preceding _Letelier'S- murder on a like. facility.) The system included card readers, pinhole September: 21, 1976, amounts. to a compelling case that the :Z:cameras, telephone tapping: equipment, digital scanners to C.I.A. was involved in arranging .Wilson and Terpil's arms .:,.K monitor. telex traffic and. other -sophisticated electronic! and equipment sales to DINA. Furthermore, involving the .:.gear. Contreras purchased some of this equipment. The pur agency in the violation of U.S. laws may have made it possi- chase orders -shown to us by investigators list ? "trans- ble for DINA? to `,`graymail"-the C.I.A. into withholding rk ceivers," "wireless inductor earphones" and "micro-mini microphones:" Saul Landau,. a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, -The next iten on the agenda was a large quantity of Colt and John Dinges, a Washington, D. C, writer conducted a' Cobras, which Contreras had expressed interest in buying: lengthy investigation. of the.Letelier-Moffitt murders, the The Cobra, a .38-caliber handgun; is used by many police results~of. which appear in-their book,: Assassination on < r agencies because" it is a standardized weapon-with inter- Embassy Roy Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680025-5 Ificient.