CIA HELPED CHILE RECRUIT CUBAN KILLERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000700060095-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2005
• Sequence Number: 95
• Publication Date: February 24, 1980
• Content Type: NSPR

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M4 PAGI;_, .lt._.- 24 February
Africa home in Novemb
Another couple, Chi
leader Bernardo Leight
wife Ana, were seriousli
an unsuccessful assn
attempt in Rome in Octo
The South African g
that controlled BOSS
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e new go
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WASIIiNGTOiY -A'!hit`team. of Cuban terrorists, minister of oliri?
was recruited with Central Intelligence Agency.help seas because it ? may'
for the-secret:police of. South':Africa and. Chile,, a international plot." LeGe
Sunday News Journal investigation has discovered. last week.that he has two
The victims include 'Chilean exile leader. Orlando tors.in London exploring
uncovered a major?government.scandal Spencer ? told the Suni
South Africa's Bureau for State Security (BOSS) and' Journal that BOSS "had a _ the Man natinnais.
its Chilean counterpart; called DINA
began hiring relationship with DINA and would
,
Ths l tht th CIA
eeawyers sayae CIA-trained anti-Castro fanatics in 1973. to carry out exchange favors."- Spencer said
was not repplire., to give them any
.contract.killings. BOSS was disbanded last year and
Sunday News Journal reporters followed a chain of ' reorganized as a -less powerful information not directly related to
evidence that included weapons, gold coins and pass-' National Intelligence Service. the Letelierbombing.
ports :and other document; that linked the contract hit' "I can only tell you that many of Ricardo "Canete, a protected wit
tearri with South Africa's and Chile's secret'police.- the former BOSS officials have gone' ness in the Letelier bombing, told
The News Journal investigation included interviews underground. The murder of the. the Sunday News Journal that Vir-
with secret government witnesses now in hiding under Smits has not been solved. Our gov- gilio Pablo Paz and Dionisio Suarez;
false identities, with current and former South African ernment has no idea of who did it,", the fugitives wanted in the Leteller
and Chilean intelligence agents and with present and Spencer said. filling, had been using CIA-supplied
former officials.of..the-.CIA, the Justice and State CIA spokesman- Dale Peterson counterfeit money and South Afri- I
Departments said that he could not discuss details ! can gold Krugerrands to. live on
These sources say the CIA helped form the hit team of the relationship between the CIA while at large,
by arranging introductions for operatives of BOSS and and other governments.. "Sources Testifying under the name of l.i
DINA to leaders of the Cuban nationalist,movement in and methods are something we just Carlos. Casado,: Canete gave that::
Miami and Union City, N.J. In return; DINA killed at can't talk about, and that's what you, information in secret to a grand
least 17 agents of the Cuban Intelligence Service and are getting into" jury in March 1978, but did not,
BOSS provided information about Communist activi- Juan Prado, press attache at the repeat it at the public trial.
ties in Africa. Chilean embassy in Washington, ? The convicted Cubans defended
FBI and Justice Department officials say the'CIA did said he had no information about themselves by claiming that the
not inform them that Cuban Nationalists-were receiv- ? any links and would not discuss the. Letelier-1loffit killings were a CIA-
ing arms, money or false passports even after the hit matter further on the telephone. operation from the beginning. The
team killed Chilean exile Letelier and an American in a Informed by the Sunday News Justice Department has insisted the
197&:Washington , D.C:, c-ir bombing Journal of the hit team's operations, : murders were plotted by agents of
'4 Tlie FBI has been hunting two Cuban Nationalists for a member of the Senate Select Com the Chilean government.
the Washington ' assassinations: and is looking into how mittee on Intelligence,! charged The. CIA started. working closely
their flight was financed and how-they are linked to with CIA oversight, said last week '.training in 1960with'?anti-Castro Cubans ff
Omega?7-and ZERO, two .Cuban Nationalist Movement "This may have been an:attempt by. them in Miami and G9ate-..
groups claiming credit fora number of terrorist acts, the CIA to -get around..the prohib-;; ?'mala before the Bay of Pis
-including one of the a sassinatinn attemntc ;to
y
ms,-_ id
;^^ ;^
o
n
n assays
ea
s
sion
he
l
usticaDepartment.and-..EBt-officials.sayprivately that they, turned in intelligence
.they.areincensed.:by,the-lack of.-cooperation from. the sources who had been on their pay-.
,CIA. in the continuing probe of -.terrorism and. in the `roll is outrageous." t 4
search for the missing Lc'telier murder suspects The prohibition on assassinations
We have professional killers, trained by one of our came. in a presidential. executive
own government agencies; on:the loose,', said one FBI
d
ft
1975 S
t
b
j
p.,
or
er a
er a
epro
ena
e
.. . ,. :agentfamihar?with the case , '.;i r , between the CIA DINA and the ,
t revealed CIA .involvement . in
.Theknown.victims of-the-hit teanunclude::Forrrrer attempts on the lives of Ioreign Cubans explains why the CIA was
Chilean Gen,, Carlos Pmts and .his wife, Cora, killed in reluctant to help track down Paz
;:an October 1974 bombing in Buenos :Aires;' Chilean reluctant
Suarez, the two Cubans who
Minister of Defense Oscar Boni ~lo :b wn ~u_pp~_w
~ t large.,,
; :`i:,' :.?
4a
other'.people,.in a lll>alz~rili?ciot'~J'_ /01 : CIA-RDP91-00901 80007000
in New.York, Michael Sp(
e
Copyright 1984, Th
New3 Journal Company ?? "It is politically imperat.
. T
CIA a
so played a large
role in the overthrow of the Marxist
Allende government in Chile in.
1973.
FBI' and Justice Department.
sources ' said the ' relationshi
Ronni Kapen Moffit and.Orlando Letelier; whedied ?in
,
"the-September 1976~Wasbington,car, bombing;. and- CoTIE