NYTimes.com Article: C.I.A. Says Chilean General in '76 Bombing Was Informer

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C.I.A. Says Chilean General in '76 Bombing Was Informer

September 19, 2000

By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 ? The former chief of Chile's secret police,
convicted of masterminding a lethal car bombing here in 1976, was
an informer for the Central Intelligence Agency when the bombing
occurred, a year after he had received a one- time payment for his
cooperation, newly released documents show.

 The official, Gen. Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, former head of
DINA, the secret police, under the 17- year military dictatorship
in Chile, was enlisted by the C.I.A. beginning in 1974, a year
after Gen. Augusto Pinochet led a coup that toppled the elected
government of President Salvador Allende Gossens, the documents
show.

 The American spy agency maintained its contacts with General
Contreras until 1977, a year after General Contreras and his
deputy, Brig. Gen. Pedro Espinoza Bravo, organized the attack on
Embassy Row in Washington, according to the documents released
today by the agency in a declassified report to Congress.

 The bombing killed Orlando Letelier, Mr. Allende's former
ambassador to the United States, and a 25- year-old American
associate, Ronni Moffitt.

 The spy agency's relationship with General Contreras continued
although "almost immediately after the assassination, rumors began
circulating that the Chilean government was responsible," and "at
that time, Contreras's possible role in the Letelier assassination
became an issue," the report says. It also says the C.I.A. later
received "specific detailed intelligence reporting concerning
Contreras's involvement in ordering the Letelier assassination" but
does not make clear when that information was obtained.

 In 1993 in Chile, Generals Contreras and Espinoza were sentenced
to seven and six years, respectively, in prison for the crime, one
of the worst cases of foreign-sponsored terrorism on American soil.

 "During a period between 1974 and 1977, C.I.A. maintained contact
with Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, who later became notorious for his
involvement in human rights abuses," said the intelligence agency
report.

 The relationship with General Contreras was viewed as "necessary
to accomplish the C.I.A.'s mission, in spite of concerns that this
relationship might lay the C.I.A. open to charges of aiding
internal political repression," the report said.

 Although the C.I.A. said it had warned General Contreras that it
would not support any of his repressive activities, it ultimately
issued a one-time payment to him, even after it had found that
"Contreras was the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights
policy" in the military government.

 The payment, an unspecified amount in 1975, was made in error, the
report said, after leaders of the C.I.A. had overruled their
agents' recommendations to establish a paid relationship with
General Contreras, "citing the U.S. government policy on
clandestine relations with the head of an intelligence service
notorious for human rights abuses."

 Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive,
a nongovernmental clearinghouse for declassified documents, said
the report sheds light on the contacts with forces that toppled a
democratic government and killed thousands of people. "This is in
fact the unraveling of a cover-up of U.S. ties to repression during
the Pinochet dictatorship," Mr. Kornbluh said. "This is the first
step toward a candid disclosure of the truth about that dark era."

 Central Intelligence Agency officials could not be reached for
comment late this evening.

 The spy agency acknowledged in the report that its behavior in
Chile would not meet more rigorous standards in place today.

 "As a result of lessons learned in Chile, Central America and
elsewhere, the C.I.A. now carefully reviews all contacts for
potential involvement in human rights abuses and makes a deliberate
decision balancing the nature and severity of the human rights
abuse against the potential intelligence value of continuing the
relationship," the report said.

 "These standards, established in the mid-1990's, would likely have
altered the amount of contact we had with perpetrators of human
rights violators in Chile had they been in effect at that time," it
said.

 In a similar case in Guatemala in 1996, the CIA acknowledged that
it had maintained a paid relationship with Col. Julio Roberto
Alpirez, during a time in which it concluded that the Guatemalan
officer had been involved in covering up the 1990 murder of an
American citizen, Michael DeVine, and Efra n B maca, a captured
Guatemalan guerrilla.

 The C.I.A. report on Chile, which was required by legislation
written by Representative Maurice D. Hinchey, a New York Democrat,
said the spy agency was "not involved in facilitating Pinochet's
accession to president nor the consolidation of his power as
Supreme Leader."

 But Mr. Hinchey, after studying the report, reached a different
conclusion. "The C.I.A. funneled millions of dollars to strengthen
opposition political parties working against the Allende
government," he said. "That can cover a multitude of sins."

 Mr. Hinchey called the relationship with General Contreras a
mistake. "It just shows the zeal with which the C.I.A. operators at
that time proceeded," he said. "They made league with some very
vicious people."
   


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