PUBLISHING: THE LETELIER CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680048-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: July 18, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680048-0
NON YORK TIMES
18 July 1980
STAT
Agency on the ground of national
e-
curity. ormer secretary of State
Trenry 'A: Kissinger declined to talk ,I
ORKING independently, with them. Mr. Dinges maintains that
two- authors discovered warnings from the C. I. A. and Ameri-
bassy Row" by John Dinges and Saul for " Assassination. on Embassy Row,'
cided to team up. - never-.+written., The authors decided
The result is "Assassination on Em-7.- that Pantheon was.the.proper publisher -
terested in pursuing the- case- to its of Pantheon Books, had been discuss--, ''
killing him and an American colleague, .-see that as sufficiently serious to pun-
Ronni Karpen Moffitt. Instead of trying, ` ish his regime. General Pinochet got
same story -the assassi ica about a plot to kill Mr. Letelier had
nation in Washington of Orlando Letel- been sent to Mr. Kissinger's office in
_ier, former Chilean Foreign Minister .--Washington.
and Ambassador to the United States in "The Augusto Pinochet, Government
the Government of Salvador Allende... in Chile perpetrated a terrorist attack
Gossens. On Sept. 21, 1976, a bomb was on United States soil," the authors say,
? set and exploded in Mr- Letelier's car,- _=T "but the Carter Administration did not
more than five years for Time maga
zine, The, Washington Post and -ABC
radio, now-works-on The. Washington
Post's foreign desk. Mr. Landau, who
has written documentary films, is a fel-
- low of the Institute for Policy Studies in
I Washington. He worked with Ambassa-
dor Letelier at the institute. z; ;-..:The book attempts to reconstruct the-
chain of events that led to the assassi-,
nation,:the inquiry by- the Federal Bu-
reau of Investigation and ' the" subse-
quest trial,- which ended. with the-con---
viction.-of. three. Cuban exiles and Mi-
ichael V:-Townley; an American:-agent
of Dina-,:the Chilean secret police, who
recruited the Cubans. Mr. Townley; a
witness for the. prosecution as part of a
plea-bargaiing,; > arrangement; _ was
givema sentence of up to 10 years, but
wiltbeeligible.for parole at the end of.
neXt year a`~n4 r
Mr-~Landau says: that he pursued the
story in- Washington while Mr. Dinges-
returned to Chile for more information.-
In ;separate interviews, ther'authors
said that= all: their requests-er the-
m o Information Act had been-
turn down the State Department,
..;
the ; _ana Central Intelligence
ase
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680048-0