CIA AGENT WINNER IN LETELIER CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302320063-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 63
• Publication Date: February 17, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302320063-6
ARTICLE
ONPAGE
WASHINGTON TIMES
1; February 1986
CIA agent winner
in Letelier case
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A former CIA operative has won a
public retraction of allegations he
was involved in the assassinations of
Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier
and President John F. Kennedy.
David Atlee Phillips, former CIA_
chief of Latin American operations,
said the retraction and an undis,,
closed payment from three writers
and the publisher of thg 1980 book
"Death in Washington" had cleared
him of the allegations.
"I certainly am satisfied because
I believe it is a vindication," Mr. Phil-
lips told reporters at a news confer-
ence.
The retraction was filed in the
U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia Friday.
Mr. Letelier and Ronni Karpen
Moffit, who worked with him e the
Institute for Policy Studies, were
killed in a September 1976 car bomb-
ing. Mr. Letelier had served as
Chile's defense minister and was its
ambassador to the United States
when the socialist regime was over-
thrown in 1973.
Mr. Phillips filed the civil lawsuit
seeking more than $90 million in
damages after authors Donald
Freed and Fred Simon Landis, and
journalist John Cummings charged
in a 1980 press conference that Mr.
Phillips and the Association of For-
mer Intelligence Officers, which he
founded, had been involved in a con-
spiracy related to the bombing.
The writers also repeated charges
first made in 1969 alleging that Mr.
Phillips was a CIA case officer for
Lee Harvey Oswald, who was
accused of assassinating President
Kennedy. Mr. Phillips served as a,
CIA operations officer from 1950 un-
til he retired in 1975.
The retraction states that the au-
thors and publisher regret the al-
legations and that "they had no
intention of charging or suggesting
that Mr. Phillips played any role in
the assassination of Orlando
Letelier, that he was an accessory
before or after the fact of that mur-
der, or that he had any connection
with Lee Harvey Oswald."
Mr. Phillips said the filing refutes
the allegations "for those who were
so inclined to think that I might have
been involved in the murder of Or-
lando Letelier and my own pres-
ident."
But he said he was disappointed
by the lack of support from the CIA
in his legal battle.
"I have a feeling that the reaction
of the CIA to former agents who file
lawsuits is that they consider them
something, perhaps, a cut above a
gun smuggler or a narcotics smug-
gler," Mr. Phillips said. "They cer-
tainly did not run forth with open
arms and say, 'What can we do to help
you?'"
Documents found in Mr. Letelier's
briefcase reportedly showed that
the Chilean had been cooperating
with the Cuban DGI intelligence
service while he was associated with
IPS.
At the press conference, Mr. Phil-
lips said he examined photocopies of
the Letelier briefcase documents, al-
though the FBI has claimed none ex-
ist.
"They existed," said Mr. Phillips.
He said he saw the documents
months after stories about them had
appeared in the press.
None of the defendants in the case
could be reached for comment. A
fifth person named in the case, Wil-
liam F. Pepper, "has not been lo-
cated" during the last five years, the
statement said.
"If there's a message in all of this,
the message is to irresponsible crit-
ics, the kind of people who like the /
total nonsense in such publications
as Covert , Action Information Bul-
letin:' Mr. Phillips said.
Until Congress passed a 1983 law
protecting the identities of intelli-
gence officers, the leftist Bulletin
had established a reputation of ex-
posing CIA operatives and for muck-
raking the CIA.
The press conference was held by
Challenge Inc., a legal action fund
made up of former U.S. intelligence
officers and government officials.
Challenge has also supported
other libel suits. Among them are
one involving Mr. Phillips and a Brit-
ish publisher, a suit by three former
U.S. Embassy officials against the
producers of the film "Missing" ?
which alleges that U.S. officials were
involved in the death of an American
journalist during the Chilean coup
? and a suit by a former Agency for
International Development official
accused by two publications of
training Latin terrorists for the CIA.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/04: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302320063-6