NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Orlando Letelier

Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar (April 13, 1932 - September 21, 1976) was a Chilean economist, political figure, diplomat and, later, US-based activist. He was assassinated in Washington, D.C. by DINA agents. His murder caused an international scandal as until 9/11, it was the most infamous act of international terrorism ever to take place in the capital of the United States. April 13 is the 103rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (104th in leap years). ... Year 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... A politician is an individual involved in politics, sometimes this may include political scientists. ... This page is about negotiations; for the board game, see Diplomacy (game). ... Activism, in a general sense, can be described as intentional action to bring about social or political change. ... assassin, see Assassin (disambiguation) Jack Ruby assassinated Lee Harvey Oswald in a very public manner. ... Nickname: DC, The District Motto: Justitia Omnibus (Justice for All) Location of Washington, D.C., in relation to the states Maryland and Virginia Coordinates: Country United States Federal District District of Columbia Government - Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) - City Council Chairperson: Vincent C. Gray (D) Ward 1: Jim Graham (D... DINAs emblem DirecciÃ³n de Inteligencia Nacional (Spanish: National Intelligence Directorate) or DINA was the Chilean secret police in the government of Augusto Pinochet. ...

Background

He was born in the city of Temuco, the youngest child of Orlando Letelier Ruiz and Inés del Solar Rosenberg. He studied at the Instituto Nacional and at the age of sixteen was accepted as a cadet of the Chilean Military Academy, where he completed his secondary studies. Later he abandoned the military life to attend the University of Chile, where he graduated as a lawyer in 1954. 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 retreat to Venezuela, where he became a copper consultant for the Finance Ministry. From there, Letelier made his way to then recently created Inter-American Development Bank, where he eventually became senior economist and director of the loan division. He was also one of the UN consultant responsible for the establishment of the Asian Development Bank. Temuco Temuco, which in the mapudungun language means temu water, herbal tree used by Mapuches to cure diseases, is the capital of the IX regiÃ³n (la AraucanÃa), Chile, and is located 670kms south of Santiago. ... Instituto Nacional (National Institute), officially Liceo Ex A-0 - Instituto Nacional General JosÃ© Miguel Carrera, is Chiles oldest and most prestigious public school. ... Universidad de Chile may refer to: Universidad de Chile (university) Universidad de Chile (football club) This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Logo Codelco (full name in Spanish: CorporaciÃ³n Nacional del Cobre, Chile) is a Chilean 100 percent state-owned company and the largest copper producer in the world. ... Salvador Isabelino del Sagrado CorazÃ³n de JesÃºs Allende Gossens[1] (July 26, 1908 â€“ September 11, 1973) was President of Chile from November 1970 until his removal from power and death on September 11, 1973. ... Politics of Chile Political parties in Chile Elections in Chile: President: 1925 - 1927 - 1931 - 1932 - 1938 - 1941 - 1946 - 1952 - 1958 - 1964 - 1970 - 1989 - 1993 - 1999 - 2005 A presidential election was held in Chile on September 4, 1952. ... The Inter-American Development Bank (preferred abbreviation: IDB; but frequently given as IADB), was established in 1959 to support Latin American and Caribbean economic/social development and regional integration by lending mainly to public institutions. ... The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a multilateral development finance institution dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific. ...

He married Isabel Margarita Morel Gumucio on December 17, 1955, with whom had four children: Christian, Jose, Francisco, and Juan Pablo. December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Political career

His 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 revolutionaries of the time: chiefly among them a sophisticated grasp of the complexities of American politics and an in-depth knowledge of the copper industry. His specific mission was to try to explain to the US government the Chilean nationalization of copper. Year 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Politics of Chile President of Chile Political parties in Chile Elections in Chile: Presidential: 1925 - 1927 - 1931 - 1932 - 1938 - 1941 - 1946 - 1952 - 1958 - 1964 - 1970 - 1989 - 1993 - 1999 - 2005 The Socialist Party of Chile (Spanish: Partido Socialista de Chile, PSC) is a political party in Chile, and part of the... 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday. ... An ambassador, rarely embassador, is a diplomatic official accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization, to serve as the official representative of his or her own country. ... The nationalization of the Chilean copper industry, (Chilenization) during the Salvador Allende government was the espoused basis for a later international boycott, which further isolated Chile from the world economy, worsening the state of political polarization. ...

During 1973, Letelier was recalled to Chile and served successively as Minister of Foreign Relations, then Interior Minister and finally Defense Minister. In the coup d'etat of September 11, 1973, he was the first high-ranking member of the Allende administration seized and arrested, when he arrived to 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 8 months to a political prison in 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 Carracus resulted in the sudden release of Letelier on the condition that he immediately leave Chile. 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile is the administrative office in charge of planning, directing, coordinating, executing, controlling and informing the foreign policy formulated by the President of Chile. ... Prisoners outside the La Moneda Palace after their surrender during the coup (1973). ... This article is about the date September 11 in general. ... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... Torture is defined by the United Nations Convention Against Torture as any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he... A political prisoner is anyone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, because their ideas or image either challenge or pose a real or potential threat to the state. ... Strait of Magellan with Dawson Island highlighted in red Dawson Island (Lat: 53. ... Born Diego Arria Salicetti is Venezuelan diplomat, former venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations. ...

After his release in September of 1974, him and his family resettled in Caracas, but then Orlando 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 Services 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, and soon became the leading voice of the Chilean resistance, preventing several loans (specially from Europe) from being awarded to the military government. On September 10, 1976, he was deprived of his Chilean nationality by decree. Nickname: La Sultana del Avila (English:The Avilas Sultan) La Sucursal del Cielo (English:Branch of Heaven) Motto: Ave MarÃa SantÃsima, sin pecado concebida, en el primer instante de su ser natural. ... Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, DC. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the United... Saul Landau is Director of Digital Media Programs and Hugh O. Bounty Chair of Applied Interdisciplinary Knowledge at Cal Poly Pomona. ... Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is an American lobby for progressive or leftist causes based in Washington, DC. The organization was founded in 1963 with a stated mandate to provide an independent center of research and education on public policy problems in Washington. ... For other universities known as American University, see American University (disambiguation). ... Augusto JosÃ© RamÃ³n Pinochet Ugarte[1] (November 25, 1915â€“December 10, 2006) was a general and President of Chile. ... September 10 is the 253rd day of the year (254th in leap years). ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ...

Assassination

Letelier was killed by a car bomb explosion on September 21, 1976, in Sheridan Circle, along with his American assistant, Ronni Karpen Moffitt; her husband Michael Moffitt was injured but survived. Several people were prosecuted and convicted for the murder. Among them were Michael Townley, a DINA U.S. expatriate who had once worked for the CIA; General Manuel Contreras, former head of the DINA; and Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo, also formerly of DINA. Townley was convicted in the United States in 1978; 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, although Townley implicated him as being responsible for them. Letelier case (September 21, 1976) refers to the murder of Orlando Letelier, a Chilean political figure and, later, United States-based activist, who was assassinated in Washington, D.C. along with his American assistant, Ronni Moffitt, by Chilean agents of the DINA, the DirecciÃ³n de Inteligencia Nacional (National Intelligence... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 Ã— 594 pixel Image in higher resolution (1628 Ã— 1209 pixel, file size: 479 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Orlando Letelier Metadata... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 800 Ã— 594 pixel Image in higher resolution (1628 Ã— 1209 pixel, file size: 479 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Orlando Letelier Metadata... Car bomb in Iraq, made from a number of concealed artillery shells in the back of a pickup truck. ... September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... Sheridan Circle is part of the Washington, D.C. area known as Embassy Row. ... Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of law that regulates governmental sanctions (such as imprisonment and/or fines) as retaliation for crimes against the social order. ... Michael Townley, a U.S. expatriate, first worked for the CIA before working for the DINA, Chilean secret police under Augusto Pinochets dictatorship, where he participated in operation Condor. ... DINAs emblem DirecciÃ³n de Inteligencia Nacional (Spanish: National Intelligence Directorate) or DINA was the Chilean secret police in the government of Augusto Pinochet. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... General Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda (born May 4, 1929) was the head of Augusto Pinochets National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and one of the most powerful men in Chile during Pinochets rule. ... Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo was a Chilean Army officer and member of the DINA, the secret police which operated during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). ... Augusto JosÃ© RamÃ³n Pinochet Ugarte[1] (November 25, 1915â€“December 10, 2006) was a general and President of Chile. ... December 10 is the 344th day (345th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, 21 days before the next year. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...

The Briefcase Affair

During the FBI investigation into Letelier's assassination, the contents of the briefcase he had with him were copied and leaked to Rowland Evans and Robert Novak of the Washington Times before being returned to his widow. The documents show that Letelier was in constant contact with the surviving political leadership of the various parties that made up the Popular Unity coalition exiled in East Berlin, been given refuge and supported by the East German Government during their stay. The FBI suspected that these individuals had been recruited by the Stasi. ^[1]Documents in the briefcase showed that Letelier had maintained contact with Salvador Allende’s daughter, Beatriz Allende who was married to Cuban DGI station chief Luis Fernandez Ona. ^[2] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a Federal police force which is the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... Rowland Evans (?? - 2001) is an American journalist. ... Robert David Sanders Novak (born February 26, 1931) is a conservative political commentator and political figure. ... The Washington Times is a daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C.. It was founded in 1982 as a conservative alternative to the Washington Post by members of the controversial Unification Church. ... East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. ... GDR redirects here. ... Logo of East Germanys Ministerium fÃ¼r Staatssicherheit (MfS or Stasi) / Ministry for State Security This article is about Stasi, the secret police of East Germany. ... The Cuban General Intelligence Directorate (Dirección General de Inteligencia), or DGI, was established under the Cuban Ministry of the Interior in late 1961 shortly after Fidel Castro took power in 1959. ...

According to the documents, Letelier was able to receive funding of $5,000 a month from the Cuban government and under the supervision of Beatriz Allende, he used his contacts within the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and western human rights groups to organize a campaign within the United Nations as well as the US Congress to isolate the new Chilean government, also know as Operation TOUCAN. ^[3] This organized pressure on Pinochet’s government was thought to have been closely coordinated by the Cuban and Soviet governments, using individuals like Letelier to implement these efforts. Letelier's briefcase also contained his address book which contained the names of dozens of known and suspected East Block intelligence agents. All correspondence between Letelier and individuals in Cuba had been handled via Julian Rizo, who used his diplomatic status to hide his activities. ^[4]^[5] Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is an American lobby for progressive or leftist causes based in Washington, DC. The organization was founded in 1963 with a stated mandate to provide an independent center of research and education on public policy problems in Washington. ... The foundation of the U.N. The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. ... Operation TOUCAN was a KGB/DGI public relations and disinformation campaign directed at the military government of Chile led by Augusto Pinochet. ... The Whitney Block The Whitney Block is an important provincial office building located in Toronto, Ontario. ...

Fellow IPS member and friend Saul Landau described Evans and Novak as part of an “organized right wing attack”. In 1980, Letelier's widow, Isabel, wrote in the New York Times that the money sent to her late husband from Cuba was from western sources, and that Cuba had simply acted as an intermediary, ^[6] although Novak and Evans point out that the document from Beatriz Allende were very clear on the source of the money. ^[7] Saul Landau is Director of Digital Media Programs and Hugh O. Bounty Chair of Applied Interdisciplinary Knowledge at Cal Poly Pomona. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...

Although potentially explosive, the supposed contents of the briefcase proved not to be damaging to the reputations of either Letelier or of the Institute for Policy Studies. Opponents of Letelier and the IPS complained that leading news media in the United States, including the New York Times and the Washington Post refused to cover the story and even rejected paid advertisements referring to the matter. Supporters of Letelier and the IPS feared that public knowledge the contents of the briefcase might turn the assassination into merely a case of spy vs. spy. The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... ...

The Letelier Briefcase Affair was fictionalized in a bestselling novel by Newsweek national correspondent Arnaud de Borgrave, The Spike. The title refers to the unethical journalistic practice of deliberately spiking or killing a legitimate news story. The affair remains a source of bitter contention among journalists and media critics. The Spike is the name of two books: The Spike (1980) - novel by Arnaud de Borchgrave and Robert Moss The Spike (1997) - nonfiction book by Damien Broderick It is also the name of an essay The Spike (essay) by George Orwell. ...

Unfinished Business

Following the death of Pinochet in December of 2006, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), for which both Letelier and Moffitt worked, is calling for the release of all the classified documents related to the Letelier-Moffitt assassination. Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is an American lobby for progressive or leftist causes based in Washington, DC. The organization was founded in 1963 with a stated mandate to provide an independent center of research and education on public policy problems in Washington. ...

According 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.

Although a draft indictment of Pinochet was reportedly prepared, the Bush Administration failed to take action. The 'family members of Orlando and Ronni deserve the full truth about this horrible act', IPS Fellow Sarah Anderson said. 'Releasing the documents is the very least the Bush Administration could do for these victims of international terrorism'.^{[citation needed]}

Notes

Robert David Sanders Novak (born February 26, 1931) is a conservative political commentator and political figure. ... ... Robert David Sanders Novak (born February 26, 1931) is a conservative political commentator and political figure. ... ... Robert David Sanders Novak (born February 26, 1931) is a conservative political commentator and political figure. ... This 130-year old evening newspaper ended publication in 1999 and was at one time had the largest circulation in the state of Indiana and was the oldest Indianapolis newspaper in existance. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... Robert David Sanders Novak (born February 26, 1931) is a conservative political commentator and political figure. ... ...

Additional information

Contents

Background

Political career

Assassination

The Briefcase Affair

Unfinished Business

Notes

Additional information

See also

Bibliography

External links

Contents

Background GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Political career

Assassination

The Briefcase Affair

Unfinished Business

Notes

Additional information

See also

Bibliography

External links

Background