THE LETELIER CASE: MURDER AND DIPLOMACY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R002000100029-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 1, 2004
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: May 21, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2004/07/08 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R002000100029-8
ARTICLE APPEARED 21 May 1978
ON PAGE A-4
TheL~teli~r- Case:
In M, - Diplomacy
By Timothy S. Robinson
WuhinztonPal stall Writs
One of the-first police officers to ar-
rive at ? the scene, of the explosion
watched the ? debris still floating
through the damp air to the ground
like ash from a campfire. He looked- at
his watch and noted the- time: 9:38
a.m. on Sept. 21, 1976. ? ,
Stately Sheridan Circle- on Embassy
Row was soon filled with Investigators
from the D.C. police, the FBI, the Ex=
ecutive Protective Service, which
guards diplomats and embassies here,
and the U.S. Treasury's Alcohol, To--
bacco and Firearms unit, which Inves-
tigates crimes involving explosives. As
smoke continued- to rise from the
mangled Chevelle on the roadway of 1
the circle, the investigators scurried
to collect every possible bit of evi-
dence from the debris around it.
They shook "tiny particles down
from tree leaves, drained a rain pud-1
die and strained Its contents, vacu-
umed debris from the grass, and un-
ceremoniously put ladders up against
embassy walls to search rooftops. By
the end of the gray, rainy day, thou-
sands of tiny plastic bags had been
filled with fragments that were taken
to an FBI laboratory for analysis.
Painstaking work in the laboratory
produced the first 'clues to the nature
of the crime. The bomb had been
strapped with precision above the I-
beam of the Chevelle's -flrame so the
driver would be hit with. the full force
of the blast. The high power of the ex-
pertly constructed explosive was
clearly, intended to kill: And the fact
that it had apparently been detonated
by remote control was further evi-
dence of the sophistication of the
crime.
The next clue was the' Identity of
the target of the crime: Orlando Lete-
lier, a former ambassador to the
United States from the Chilean gov-
ernment of Marxist president Salva-
dor Allende and, an outspoken oppo-
nent in exile of the current Chilean
president, Gen. Augusta Plnochet,
who overthrew Allende in 1973.
-Letelier had been working here at
the Institute for Policy Studies, a lib-
eral "think tank" that gave him a plat-
form for speeches and writings Grit
Two colleagues of Letelier's were in
Cornick is an outgoing man de-
his Chevelle when. it was blown;. apar scended from several generations of
on Sheridan.. Circle.. One of them Virginians who is frequently given to
Ronni Moffett, who was riding along humor-traits not often'-expected is
side Leteller in the front .seat,- died the dry sterotype of FBr agents.
quickly of a severed artery. Her hus- Propper and Cornick, who had
band, Michael,' who was in the- back never met before, would- spend the
seat, was thrown clear of the car and next 18 months on' the 'unusually,
survived_ - painstaking and often frustrating in-,
Leteller's. colleagues at IPS, which vestigation that only last month prod.
itself had been infiltrated and spied uced arrests of a number of suspects
upon by informants for the FBI dur- and word that federal prosecutors
ing the anti-Vietnam war years, imme- here knew the details of the crime
diately decided that. DINA had, mur- and had traced its origins to DINA
dered Letelier to shut him up. And, and the Chilean government. ,:.
because of disclosures of CIA involve- Unknown to 'the victims' friends
ment against Allende in Chile, they) and colleagues at the Institute for
doubted the U.S. government's deter policy Studies, the FBI Investigation
urination to find and bring Letelier's already had turned toward Chile.
killers to justice if it meant embar- Agents in the nation's Cuban exile
rassing the Pinochet government. communities, aware of a. growing of
Their suspicions and anger grew finity between some very militant'
when they discovered that Investiga- anti-Castro Cubans and the rightist
tors, checking out every possible mo- Pinochet government in Chile, began
tive, were asking whether anything in checking Cuban informants.
Letelier's and the Moffitts' private The FBI and the Justice Depart=
lives might be connected to the kill- rniiht soon realized that this part of
ing. the investigation necessarily would in
Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene M. valve -intelligence information here
Propper of the, major crimes division and abroad, so they began laying del{
was sitting in the cafeteria in the fed- 'cate groundwork, Propper. Assistant
eral courthouse here that September Attorney General Stanley Pottincer
morning when the investigation of the and CIA Director George Bush met to
Letelier killing began. Propper had determine to what extent that agency,
just told- friends at the table that two Gould help in theinvestigation. A
police officers with whom he had an- carefully worded agreement placing
appointment could not show up be- the Letelier case in a "national secu-
cause "some ambassador" had, been rity" status allowed that cooperation.
killed when one of Propper's supervi- , The, investigation quickly focused
sors came by and asked him to work on thef? Cuban exile connection after
on the Letelier case..
Venezuelan authorities informed' the
His supervisors warned hint that United. States that Cuban exile leader
such crimes are among the most diffi- Orlando Bosch-who was being held
cult to solve and 'prosecute and that in that country for the bombing of a
this one seemed particularly likely to Cuban commerical ;airliner -in which
involve unpleasant political pressures. 73 persons died-had implicated "the
But Propper, a nonestablishment pros- Novo brothers" in the Letelier case.
ecutor who had already begun- think- By the end of October 1977, the Novas
ing of leaving the U.S. Attorney's of-. and other Cuban. exiles were being
fice for private practice, agreed to brought before a federal grand jury
take the case anyway. here for questioning.
A few blocks away in the Washing- The Novo brothers--Ignacio Novo
ton field office of the FBI, agent Car- Sampol and Guillermo Novo Sampol
ter Cornick had been waiting for his -were known in the U.S. Cuban tom-
assignment here to take shape after munity and to federal agents as lead-
his recent transfer from Puerto Rico.- ers of the Cuban Nationalist Move.
When the Letelier bombing occurred, ment, a group that wants to regain its
Cornick was selected by FBI agent-in homeland without help "from the
charge Nick F. Starnes for the job be- United States.. .
ical of Pinochet's government and the
{ cause of Cornick's availability, - his In 1964, they had fired a bazooka
Chilean. secret police,A -8 Pdr FZ6le1lbd92(I4+L91 J 8 anQRgs i1
O1R9,8Q
9e a ward the
DINA. gations of other bombings in Puerto
Rico.
 wad speaking .there. They were ar-
rested, but charges against them were,
dropped beeause.th~~yy no, bee
properly informed ofi~s, Or
Ignacio Novo also had been charged
in the early 1970s in New Jersey with
an explosives-related case, according
to court records, And Guillermo Novo
was on probation for a 1974 conviction
in .New Jersey in connection with a
plot to blow up a Cuban ship and
-.other property in Montreal.,
The Cuban. exile movement headed
by the Novos, who had been living in
this country.for nearly two decades,
was considered extreme even by
some. other militant anti-Castro Cu-
bans. They eventually were "adopted"
in a sense by the rightists in the Pino-
chet government. in Chile, according.
to some sources, at a time when anti-
Castro forces here felt betrayed by
the U.S. government's effort at rap-
prochement with the Fidel Castro gov-
ernment.: :4 `
The government's Cuban exile ? In-
formants were reluctant to appear
before grand juries as witnesses. Po-
lice officers and FBI agents who had:
used them. for years. were reluctant to
disclose even to. other. central investiga-
tors the names of persons providing
them, with information in the Letelier
case.
At the same time, in early 1977,
U.S. investigators began checking the
foreign travels of some, of the persons
whom. they believed, based on infor-
mation from the Cuban exile infor-
mants, to be centrally involved in the
murder conspiracy., They 'also were
planning ways to put pressure on
some of those persons so they might
be forced to cooperate.
In early March 1977, while most law
enforcement people here were occu-
pied with 12 Hanafi Muslims barri-
caded in three Washington buildings,
Propper, Carrick and Assistant U. S.
Attorney, ? E. Lawrence Barceila Jr.
were in Venezuela meeting with that
country's secret police.
There they learned that Guillermo
Novo had traveled to . Chile and Ven-
zuela In late 1974-, in. apparent viola-
tion of his.-pyobation in the United
States. They determined to use that
information to try to put pressure on
Guillermo Novo, .
Then, in April 1977, they decided to
grant Immunity from prosecution to
two Cuban exiles,, Jose Dionisio Sua-
rez Esquivel and Alvin Ross Diaz, if
the k would cooperate with investiga-
tors. Suarez refused to testify to the
grand jury, and was sentenced to jail
for an 11-month contempt of court
sentence with the vow that he would
never talk. At a press conference at
the time, Ignacio Novo and Ross ac-
cused the government of : harassing
Cuban exiles. -
In June 1977, prosecutors made
their attempt to have Guillermo
Novo's probation revoked. However,
Novo failed to shoal up for that Tren-
ton, N.J.,. hearing and became a fugi.-
tive for the next 11 months
Then prosecutors learned in the
late. fall of. 1977. that~ two persons
ele 'low gfte(g n`- ih 1 e
United States on official Chilean pass-
ports -and met with Cuban exiles
shortly before Letelier's murder.
Propper, Cornick and others de-
cided to make one more attempt to
shake loose information on the case in
February 1978. The term of the-origi-
nal grand jury in the case was expir-
ing soon, and investigators felt it was
time to 'go public with some of what
they knew. The procedure took the
form of "letter rogatory," a legal ma-
neuver in which the court of one
country asks the court of another
country for help.
The United States used .that. ap-
proach to ask Chile to produce for
questioning the two persons who had
traveled here with the official Chilean
passports and met with Cuban sus-
pects -in the.,Letelier Investigation.
That highly- irregular move left the
clear implication that someone in the
Chilean government was involved in
the murder.,-
Within a-week, photographs of the
two men had been leaked to Washing-
ton Star reporter Jeremiah .O'Leary
and published here and in' Santiago.
Almost Immediately, sources in Chile
identified one of the men: as an Amer-,
?ican-born DINAlagent, Michael Ver-
hon Townley.
Townley, 35, is a soft-spoken and in-
Iieved to be Involved in the Letelierl
case: Guillermo Novo Sampol, who 11
980PH9tp(g_8klled to show up
a is probation hearing, and Alvin
Ross Diaz, once granted immunity but
now considered a suspect in the mur-
der. They had been caught with co-
caine and weapons, apparently in the
midst of a plot to sell drugs and._flee
the country.
Once Townley's cooperation became.
known publicly, FBI and prosecutors
worked swiftly to begin rounding up
others whom they suspect partici-
pated In the bombing. They had hoped
to catch Ignacio Novo, Jose Dionisio
Suarez Esquivel (freed from prison
when the term of the first grand jury
probing the.Letelier case expired) and
Virgilio?Paz Romero, all in the same
night. However, after a lengthy stake-
out in northern New- Jersey, only Ig-.
nacio Novo was apprehended. .
In the hopes that Paz and Suarez
will be caught and.a trial could be
held by autumn, prosecutors have be-
gun putting together a'case that fo-
cuses on a Chilean-ordered Leteller ,
murder plot carried out by Cuban ex-
,
iles.
Although details remain sketchy be-
cause of the government's desire to
withhold the amount of its knowledge
from unareested suspects, the follow-
ing outline of the government's case
has emerged from various sources:.
About a month before Letelier and
Moffitt were killed, two Chilean se-
cret police agents, Townley and Chi-
lean Army Capt. Armando Fernandez
Larios, were sent to the U n I t e d
States to find someone to kill Orlando
Letelier. Townley met with Cubans in
tensely articulate man who has made
Chile his home- for the past 20 years
after his father headed a large Ameri
'can automotive operation there.
As he Is described by people who
know him,,Townley is an acknowl-
edged electronic technician with the
capability of building devices to deto-
nate bombs by remote control. He had
been active in commando raids
against former President Allende. He
had been charged with murder in a
raid in which a night watchman was
killed, but the charges were dropped
when Pinochet came to power in late
1973 and Townley became a DINA
Diplomatic sources reportedly-made
It clear without making specific
'threats that Washington was ready to
sever relations- with Chile if Townley
were ' allowed to stay there. Evi-
dently for that reason, Chile turned
Townley over to the United States.
Faced with possible prosecution for
murder in the Letelier case and possi-
ble assassination himself because of
his knowledge of numerous other In-
ternational terrorist activities, Town-
ley made a deal with prosecutors
here. He would enter a guilty plea to
a less serious charge and cooperate
with the Letelier investigation. But he
would not-be asked to provide infor
mation on anything else.
While Townley was deciding to coo-
perate, FBI agents in. Miami had also
struck paydirt. In mid-April, they had
discovered-with the help of Miami
area polict--two .other; persons, be-.
Miami with whom he had become ac---l
quainted when he lived there in the
early 1970s, and with Cubans in north
ern New Tersey. _. . I'll 1. 1 r
Over the neat 10 days the bomb-
was planted in Letelier's car and
plans were made to blow it up with
him In it. The date of the blast hap-
pened to coincide with ' a major 1865
event in Chilean military history,
when a vice admiral named Juan Wil-
liam t ::ohc through A. Spanish naval.
blockade off the coast of Chile anal be-.,
came a Chilean Naval hero. Juan Wll-"
liams also was the fake name under."
which. Townley had.- entered _ -the
United, States. a
Approved For Release 2004/07/08 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R002000100029-8