U.S. RELATIONS WITH CHILE FACE CHILLY FUTURE

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP99-00498R000100130024-4
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 20, 2016
Document Release Date: 
June 13, 2007
Sequence Number: 
24
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
February 27, 1978
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
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PDF icon CIA-RDP99-00498R000100130024-4.pdf128.83 KB
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Approved For Release 2007/06/14: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100130024-4 ~:TICLE ~pn~~ Trh WAJtilNlilUN J1HK kureen Line) &,v piGE r ---- 27 February 1978 STAT Co-operation in Letelier BOrnbing roe oug . ? Wfth Chk il -Face : C"* h i"I I - futu. re"i By Jeremiah O'Leary . Armando Lopez Estrada, Alvin Ross Diaz and Jose Dionisio Suarez. - Ross and Suarez were cited for contempt for refusing to.answer grand jury questions but only Suarez was sent to jail last April in strategy by Propper that is still not explained. Suarez is con- sidered by those familiar with the case to be. less Wa,bington star Stilt Writer" The United States will adopt a policy of increas- ing coolness toward Chile unless that, country operates in the investigation of the bombing murder here of exiled former Ambassador Orlando Letelier, officials indicated today. Such a response was indicated by several offi- cials as all U.S. ambassadors to Latin America gather here for a three-day meeting. The government of President Augusto Pinochet has been asked by. court officials here to have the Chilean Supreme Court question under oath two men who U.S. investigators believe possess knowl- edge of the 1976 assassination of Letelier and his associate Ronni Moffitt. U.S. Ambassador to Chile George Landau prob- ably left Santiago for Washington before the "let- ters interrogatory" from U.S. Attorney Earl J. Silbert arrived by diplomatic pouch in Santiago. "WE ARE HOLDING their feet `to the fire and they are .damned if they do or damned if they don't," said one official close to the case. The embarrassment for the Chilean government is the the United States knows the two men were issued Chilean diplomatic passports to the United States just before Letelier s- murder in September 1976. The men have been identified as Juan Williams Rose and Alejandro Romeral Jara. Those names are probable aliases. "Everybody knows these were phony names," an official said. The implication is- that the two men were agents of DINA, the former Chilean se- cret police organization.."Either way Chile is in a corner. They can't deny that two men were given official passports under those names, undoubtedly false.: They might brazen it out and insist that they have no record of such people, and that would be true if the names are false, but how can they ex- plain asking us for passports for men who do not exist?" The- passports were issued by. the. U.S. Embassy in Santiago. , ; .zt; Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene Propper; who has handled the Letelier case, is believed to have been in Chile once already. and in Venezuela twice in search of evidence. _.. Chief U.S. District Judge William ' B. Bryant's covering letter asks that Propper be allowed to sit in on the Chilean court's questioning of the.men. t? ? .~. ? Y~.as.?.rKltAw.ba-:cw'.....s.-,Tt.r:.lc IT ISN'T KNOWN whether Propper decided to go ahead with sending the "letters interrogatory''" because his case is nearly complete. against the bombers or whether he is attempting to gain addi- tional information' Obviously,-, Propper has not been able to call "Williams": and "Romeral"-be fore the grand jury. The grand jury has, however,. questioned Chilean consular officer Hector Duran, I .anti-Castro.Cuban exile,leaders, Roberto Carballo,l likely than Ross to cooperate with the prosecutors. Unless Suarez breaks his silence by the time the grand jury completes its term in March, U.S. offi- cials probably will have to charge him or release him. :. _ _ . As reconstructed by some close to the case, the scenario that led to the killings of Letelier and Moffitt is probably something like this: One of the two suspected DINA agents, whose real names are not known but whose photos are. in possession of. investigators, came to Miami in the spring of 1976 to confer with Duran. Some think they were acting on orders of the DINA chief, Col. Manuel Con- treras Sepulveda. IT IS THOUGHT that Duran then arranged for the DINA agent or agents to meet with Cuban exile leaders-in. Miami and that they in turn subcon- tracted the Letelier "hit" to other Cubans in Union., City, N.J. Officials believe there were two trips to the United States from Chile by the DINA agents before the plot was carried out Sept. 21, 1976. Le- 4, h ' l e e as teller's car was blown up at Sheridan Circ drove to work with Moffitt in the front seat and he ' husband, Michael, is the back seat. :: ' .'?. -, officials doubt that two DINA agents S Other U . . in their late 20s would carry out such a plot without-, authorization from their chief. ' would say that the two men acted on their own and.. . . -?--,_.. L:urd Mica... no mention of the Letelier case-on the There is . agenda for the meeting, of U.S. chiefs of mission- .AA.ene insr.nr- row. on the view from the field on human rights_ policies and goals of the Carter administration. J.. t Secr r rn _y -- ----- . e ; field Tu en. Pau arbanes, D-Md.; Assistant Secretary of; State. Terence Todman; Patt Derian, human rights advisor to Vance; and Robert Pastor, the National Security Council expert on Latin America.: Approved For Release 2007/06/14: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100130024-4 STAT