EX-AMBASSADOR ALLEGES LIBEL IN BOOK, MOVIE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201460005-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: January 11, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201460005-5
A71ICLE APPEARED WASHINGTON POST
ON PAGE I /- 11 January 1983
Ex-Ambassador
Alleges Libel
In Book, Movie
By Philip Smith
Wa3hington Pon Staff Writer
Former U.S. ambassador to Chile
Nathaniel Davis and two ex-embassy
aides filed a $150 million libel suit
yesterday against the makers of a
controversial book and film they said
portray them as ordering the death
of an American free-lance writer
during the 1973 Chilean military
coup.
The complaint, filed in federal
court, said statements in the film, 11
"Missing," starring Jack Lemmon.
and Sissy Spacek, and the book on
which it was based, "The Execution
of Charles Horman: An American
Sacrifice," are "false, unfair, inaccu-
rate and defamatory."
The 30-year-old Homan disap-
peared days after the coup that over-
threw Chilean President Salvador
Allende Gossens, allegedly because
he had stumbled on covert American
assistance to the coup plotters.
"Missing" details a character, based
on Horman, who is slain by the new
junta, allegedly with U.S. Embassy
involvement or approval, in order to
silence him.
Allegations" of complicity by the
embassy and of a later cover-up de-
signed to prevent Norman's father
from learning the truth about his
son's death have been hotly denied
by. Davis and the two men who
joined in filing the suit, former U.S.
consul Frederick D. Purdy and re-
STAT
thaniel Davis early last year at, the time
"Missing" was released, calling department
efforts to locate Horman "intensive and
comprehensive."
Investigators found "no evidence of any
involvement.by any United States govern-
ment personnel in the disappearance and
death of Charles Horman," an official state-
ment said. '
A body with fingerprints matching Hor-
man's was discovered about five weeks after
he disappeared from the Santiago home he
occupied with his wife, Joyce.
Norman's widow quoted neighbors as
-saying her husband was led- from the house
in the company of several men, in civilian
clothes.
Davis' complaint, filed in _U.S. District
Court in Alexandria, specified numerous
bits of film dialogue it said were designed
to show the plaintiffs "ordered or approved
the order for the murder of Charles Hor-
man.11
'I have reason.to believe that my son was.
killed by the military," the elder Homan,
portrayed by Lemmon, says in the movie.
"Where did hoar that?" inquires Rav
Tower, the U.S. military aide allegedly rep-
resenting Navy Capt. Davis.
"I do not think that they Ithe Chileans]
would dare do a thing like that unless an
American official cosigned a kill order,"
Horman responds.
In another scene, the elder Homan con-
fronts the U.S. ambassador.'
"What is your role here besides endorsing
a regime that murders thousands of human
beings?" Horman demands.
Ambassador. "Let's level with each other,
sir... This -mission is pledged to protect
American interests, our interests, Mr. Hor-
man "
Horman: `''They're not mine."
Ambassador "There are over 3,000 U.S.
firms doing business down here and those
are. 'American interests. In other words;..
your interests. I am concerned with the pre-
servation of a way of life.".
:"To put that in the mouth of a United
States ambassador is pretty appalling," Na-
thaniel Davis said yesterday. "I. know very
well I never said those words. It doesn't .
renrocont on..thinn. I believe,." .
The State llonartmont. -defended Na-
pact, its accurate."
?Horman is not named* as a -party in the
complaint filed yesterday and declined to
comment on it.
tired Navy Capt. Ray E. Davis, former head
of the U.S. Military Group in Santiago.
"I feel it's a very bad thing - and bad
for the United States government, the For-
eign Service and the military service - to
have it, open season on making allegations
of awful malfeasance," Nathaniel Davis said
yesterday in a telephone interview from
Newport, R.I. "The people's confidence in
their government has suffered a certain
amount of buffeting as a result. of this book
and'movie."
. Named as defendants were "Missing"
director Constantin Costa-Gavras; Univer-
sal City Studios Inc. and its corporate par-
ent,. MCA Inc.; New York lawyer and au-
thor Thomas Hauser; Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich Inc., publishers'of the hard-cov-
er book, and the Hearst Corp., whose Avon
,Books division published the paperback
version under the title "Missing."
"I can't say [the lawsuit] comes as a com-
plete surprise," said Universal attorney
Sheldon Mittleman. "We stand by the pic-
ture. We don't believe it's defamatory and
we will defend it viaorousiv."
"Missing" begins with a declaration-that
some names in the film have been changed
"to protect the innocent and also to protect
the film" but adds that the film is based on
a true story with "incidents and facts 'doc-
umented."?-_
"That's almost the opposite of a dis-
claimer," Mittleman said. "The film is an
accurate description of events, with legit-
imate public. comment. We're entitled to
fair comment on U.S. government activities
in South America."
That view was echoed yesterday by Hor-
. man's father, Edmund Horman,. a New
York City industrial designer who met with
Nathaniel'-Davis in Chile during attempts
to learn of his son's fate.
"The movie has accomplished a great
deal of what we hoped to accomplish," Hor-
man said in a telephone interview. "It's
good, as far as it goes. There's a lot more
'that could be said. But the movie has im=
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201460005-5