CHILEAN SLAYING SUSPECT AMERICAN, MARINE SAYS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R002000090062-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2004
• Sequence Number: 62
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2004/10/12 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R002000090062-3
Another Bizarre Turn
Chilean Slaying Suspect
American, M
arine SaYs
By Jeremiah O'Leary the American consulate to obtain the
Washington Star Staff Writer kind of visas used by diplomats.
A former Marine guard at the U.S.
Embassy in Santiago has identified a
photograph of a Chilean government
official called "Juan Williams Rose"
as an American resident of Chile
named Michael Vernon Townley.
Sgt. Edward W. Cannell III, 27, of
Beltsville, who served at the
embassy in Chile between 1970 and
1972, told State Department officials
earlier this week that the picture of
Williams in Friday's Washington
Star unquestionably was the young
American he knew as Mike Townley.
A State Department official, last
night confirmed that Washington now
believes Williams and Townley are
the same person.
This development further compli-
cates the intensifying investigation
by U.S. officials into the bomb-mur-
ders here of former Chilean Ambas-
sador Orlando Letelier and his col-
league, Ronni Moffitt.
The probe took this bizarre turn
after The Star printed photos of Wil-
liams/Townley and "Alejandro
Romeral Jara' and described them
as being Chilean secret policemen
who are believed to have had a role
in arranging the fatal bombing at
Sheridan Circle in September 1976.
COPIES OF THE passport-style
photographs were obtained after U.S.
District Court here sent formal let-
ters to the Chilean Supreme Court
asking that, Williams/Townley and
Romeral be interrogated about the
Letelier murder with Assistant U.S.
Attorney Eugene Propper and FBI
agents taking part in the questioning.
Three days later, the Chilean
newspaper El Mercurio printed the
passport picture of Williams/Town-
ey along with another somewhat
similar photo and contended that Wil- The photos of Williams/Townley
liams was actually an American. and Romeral were included in the
named Michael Townley. package of legal materials sent to the
The newspaper suggested that Chilean Supreme Court by District
Townley was a CIA agent and had Court here.
been active in the Fatherland and Investigators believe the two DINA
against Marxist President Salvador
Allende before he was overthrown in
the military uprising of 1973.
If Cannell's identification of Wil-
liams as Townley is accurate, the
implication is that Townley may
have been recruited by the Chilean
secret police organization known as
DINA. Officials say there is no ques-
tion that the two subjects - of the
photos were representatives of the
THERE REPORTEDLY is no
record in FBI or CIA files of Town-
ley, officials said, but news reports
from Miami quoted J. Vernon Town-
ley as saying his son, Michael, was
living in Chile when the parents last
saw him three years ago. Townley is
a U.S. citizen but had lived in Chile
for several years while his father
worked for the Ford Motor Co. there.
Cannell said Townley spoke fluent
Spanish and was known to the small
Marine guard detachment, to other
young Americans living in Chile in
the early 1970s and also was a casual
acquaintance of Kelly Korry,.daugh-
ter of then-Ambassador Edwin B.
Korry.
"He was a transmission me-
chanic," said Cannell. "He used to
hang around at Marine House. He
had this goatee, and he could pass for
a Latin; you could tell by his finger-
nails that he was a mechanic.
"=I never thought of him as being a
political type. To me he looked like a
hippie or a Peace Corps type. He
liked to go to a place called the Red
Lion where there was sort, of a poets'
club. That kind of turned us off on
him. Besides, we knew the Miriptas
(a leftist activist group) hung around
there so we never were that close."
ASKED IF HE HAD any reason to
believe Townley had any CIA connec-
tions, the former Marine laughed and
said, "No way. If the CIA was hiring
that kind of guy, this country is in
real trouble."
Cannell said he would be inter-
viewed tomorrow by federal investi-
gators in charge of'the Letelier case
about his identification of Williams
official U.S. visas in 1976 and then
made three trips to the United States,
including stops in Miami, Washing-
ton and New York. Investigators be-
lieve they contacted anti-Castro
Cuban exiles and arranged for them
to plant the bomb that destroyed Le-
telier's car on Sept. 21, 1976.
Meanwhile, the Chilean govern-
ment yesterday issued an official
statement through the embassy here
Chilean government since they had indicating it intends to coo erate
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