U.S. ENVOY'S TESTIMONY PUTS CIA TWIST IN LETELIER CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000700060100-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2005
• Sequence Number: 100
• Publication Date: February 9, 1979
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2005/07/01: CIA-RPA~- i0
?i.R~IGZ>i, _ ??l WPS INGTON ST-IT
FEB
oil PAC-r-, , 9 IRu lu 1979
Defense Seeks to Establish Link
In Is
U.S.,. Envoy's Testhony Puts
CIA Twist in Letelier -Case
By Jeremiah O'Leary
Washington Star Stuit W rtter
A high U.S. diplomat has told the
Orlando.Letelier murder trial that the
CIA's deputy director was in Paraguay
shortly before special U.S. visas were
sought for two Chilean. secret police-
men- .. .
U.S. Ambassador to Chile George
Landau. testified yesterday that the
former?deputydirector of the CIA,
Vernon Walters. had been in Para-
guay shortly before the U.S. Consulate'
in Asuncion was asked by a high. Para.
guayaa official to issue the special
visas to two Chilean officers who had
been given Paraguayan passports.
Defense lawyers for three anti-Cas-
tro Cuban exiles being tried in the-
case are- attempting to establish that
the CIA was responsible for the car-
bomb murder of Letelier, a former
Chilean diplomat.
Landau, who was ambassador to
'Paraguay in 1976, said Walters had
met with Conrado Papelardo, chief of
protocol to-Paraguayan President
Alfredo Stroessner, during his visit.
Landau said that in July 1976, after
Walters, had left, he had_a "bizarre
'. ? h P I. do The
ar
ported that Landau told FBI investiga-
tors he was informed that Gen.
Augusto Pinochet, head of the Chi-
lean .. government, personally
requested Paraguay to provide false
passports.
. (According to both government
and legal sources familiar with the
case, Landau told the FBI a top official
in the Paraguyan government had
told him that Pinochet called Stroess-.
ner requesting the false passports for
the two Chilean agents... ..
(Several persons who have seen the I
summary of the FBI interview with
Landau said that in.it he quoted Papa-
lardo as saying the request had come-{
directly from Pinochet..
(SOURCES SAID it was at Landau's
request that lawyers for both the de-
fense and the prosecution yesterday
refrained from pressing him to repeat
in public his earlier statement to the
FBI, The Times concluded.)
Landau said he tried to call Walters
without success and theta permitted
the U.S. visas to be issued. But he said
he took the precaution of sending the
passport photos used by the two Chi-..I
lean agents to Washington and then
sent Walters a full written report on
conversation wit ape
the incident
official, he said, told Landau that the On July 27 or 1-8, 1976, Landau said,
Chilean government wanted to send he received _a message from CIA that
two army officers to the United States Walters was no longer.with CIA. and
and they- would. carry Paraguayan that Director George Bush had re-
documents to be-less conspicuous. .
ceived the report from the U.S.
EARLIER TESTIMONY has claimed Embassy. Landau said, he heard from
agents iTalters on Aug. 4 that be knew nosh-,
these- Chileans were, DINA
Michael V. ?Townley;'the chief prose- lug of the natter. and did not want to
pet involved in it. At that, Landau said
to a 1 ? ser esargee in ns the case, d eaand and ? he revoked the visas and demanded.
Caapt. Armando arg Fernandez: '' : .. that the passports be returned to him.
C
"Papelardo told me the Paraguayan ` WHEN THE-PASSPORTS were re-
government had decided. to give them ceived, Landau noted that the photos
the passports'and that he had told of the Chilean agents had- been re-
them to contact Walters in the U.S. He moved from the passports. But Lan-
said that would give Walters full con- dau added that he had previously had
trol over their visit," Landau testified. the passport photos copied and they
fit (The New Yorrtr Times today re- were-in the State Department's files.
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ARTICLE A ,ZAE Z)
ON PAGs .
NEN YORK Tr., M,
9 FEBRUARY 19T9
PO ocnet Is Said to Have -Sought Passports for a .e
Tay DAVID BURNHAM-
Special to Ti> Ne,v Yuck rimes
WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 - A senior
United States diplomat has told investi-
gators he was informed that President
Augusto Pinochet of Chile had personally
requested Paraguay to provide false
passports for two men later charged with
the murder of Orlando Letelier, a high of-
ficial in the Government of the late Chi-
lean President, Salvador Allende Gos-
seas: -
According to Government and legal
sources familiar with-the investigation
into the assassination, the senior Arheri-
can diplomat, George W. Landau, in-
formed the Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion that a top aide in the Paraguayan
Government had told him that President
Pinochet called Alfredo Stroessner, the
Paraguayan President, requesting false.
passports for the two Chilean agents. Mr.
Landau, who is now Ambassador to Chile',
was Ambassador to Paraguay at the time
of the reported passport incident.
Mr. Landau testified today during the
trial of three Cuban exiles charged in con-
nection with the Letelier murder. He said
only that he had been informed that the
request for speedy action on the pass-
ports had come from a "high level" of the
Chilean Government.
cret police officials and members of -a.-
small anti-Castro organization, based in.
New Jersey and Florida, the Cuban Na-
tionalist Movement.
The prosecution's major witness in the
case against the three Cubans now on
trial is Michael Vernon Townley, a self-
taught American electronics agent, who
said he killed Mr. Letelier on the direct
orders of the Chilean secret police. In re-
turn for testifying, Mr. Townley was al-
lowed to plead guilty to the reduced
charge of conspiring to kill a foreign offi- graphic copy of the documents to Cen-
cial and could be released from prison in I tral Intelligence Agency headquarters.
about three years.
Unsuccessful Trip to Paraguay
According to both the indictment and
the testimony of Mir. Townley, he and
Capt. Armando Fernandez Larios, an of-
ficial in the Chilean secret police, flew to
Paraguay on July 20,1976, in what proved
to be an abortive attempt to obtain Para-
guayan passports under the aliases Ale-
jandro Romeral and Juan Rose Williams.
In today's testimony, Mr. Landau said
that Mr. Papalardo had informed him
.Mr. Landau said that in it, he had quoted'
Conrado Papalardo, a key adviser to
President Stroessner, as saying the re-
quest had come directly from General
Pinochet.
An Agreement Between Lawyers
Sources here said that at Mr. Landau's
request lawyers for both the defense and
the prosecution refrained today from
pressing him to repeat in public his
earlier statement to the F.B.I.
Mr.' Letelier, who served in major
Cabinet ministries and as Ambassador to
Washington under Dr. Allende's Marzlst. -
Government. was killed in Washington in
September 19,76 when a bomb e..rploded in
the car he was driving. Ronni Moffitt, an
assistant, also died. - .
Charged in the killing was Gen. Manuel
Contreras Sepulveda, the head of the Chi-'
lean secret police, two other Chilean se - . ' .
Gen. Augusto Pinochet
that the two men were career army offi-1
cers whom the Chilean Government
wanted to send to the United States to in-
vestigate whether several corporations
established by the Allende regime might
be used for "anti-Chilean purposes or ter-
rorist purposes."
Mr. Landau said that after Paraguay
had issued the requested false passports
to the two men, he had become suspicious
of the entire transaction and sent photo.
On Aug. 4, 1976, Mr. Landau testified,
he received a message from Lieut. Geri.
Vernon A. Walters, the now retired
deputy director of the C.I.A , saying that
the agency was unaware of the two men.
"I called Mr. Paoalardo and told him to
get the passports back.-- that the visas
were revoked," Mr. Landau said.
Further aliases Used..
When the visas were not forthcoming, I
Mr. Townley had testified earlier, he and I
Captain Fernandez returned to Chile. On
Aug. 26, Captain Fernandez allegedly
traveled to the United States under a
false Chilean passport in the name of Ar-
mando Faundez Lyon to begin surveil.
lance of Mr. Letelier. On Sent. 9, Mr.
Townley testified, he followed Captain
Fernandez to the United States under the
alias of Hans Peterson Silva.
In his opening statement two weeks.
ago, the prosecutor, Eugene M. Propper,
said he would prove that both the Govern-
ment of Chile and its secret police were
directly involved in the murder of Mr.
Letelier.
Though Ambassador Landau was on
the prosecution's proposed witness list, it
was Paul Goldberger and Lawrence
Dubin, the defense lawyers, who, called
him to testify in the case, apparently in
the hope that Mr. Landau's message
from General Walters might link Mr.
Townley with the C.I.A. The defense
charges that the-C.1.A., not the Cuban
exiles, were responsible for 'the death of
Mr. Letelier. -
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