Assassination Trail

It has been more than 10 years since a shocking assassination caused severe strains in the relationship between the United States and Chile. The passage of time had dimmed the memory, but a new revelation in the case may well put new stress on this country’s difficult dealings with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

In an unexpected turn of events, Armando Fernandez Larios, a former official of Pinochet’s secret police, has fled to the United States and, in exchange for U.S. government protection, confessed his role in the murder of a Chilean diplomat killed by a car bomb in Washington in 1976. The victim, Orlando Letelier, had been Chile’s ambassador to the United States for President Salvador Allende, who was overthrown in a military coup led by Gen. Pinochet.

A respected diplomat, Letelier was one of the most visible critics of the Pinochet regime. Government investigators determined that he was murdered by Chilean government operatives in order to silence him. But when the U.S. government demanded the extradition of three Chilean officials, including Fernandez, suspected of involvement in the Letelier assassination, the Pinochet government said no.

Now Fernandez is saying that he has wanted to surrender to U.S. authorities for some time, but was not allowed to do so by his government superiors. Fernandez claims that he did no more than conduct surveillance of Letelier’s activities in the United States and turn over the information to other Chilean agents. Only when he heard of Letelier’s violent death did he realize that he had been part of an assassination plot. Fernandez told a U.S. federal court this week that he has been filled with remorse ever since, but never made his feelings public because of pressure from superiors, including Pinochet himself, who reportedly told Fernandez “to be a good soldier, tough it out and this problem will have a happy end.” If Fernandez’ story is true, it provides further proof that Letelier was indeed murdered by the Pinochet government, possibly with the knowledge and connivance of the Chilean dictator himself.

There may be little that the U.S. government can do about this except to express further outrage at the terrible act and to renew its demand that other Chilean suspects wanted in the Leteleir case be turned over--something that Pinochet is unlikely to do. Because of many past disagreements with the Pinochet government, this country sends relatively little foreign aid to Chile that could be used for diplomatic leverage.

To its credit, the Reagan Administration keeps Pinochet at a distance, and has made its disapproval of his dictatorship known on several occasions. This displeases some of Reagan’s most conservative supporters, like Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), who thinks that Pinochet is one of the best friends that this country has in Latin America. The new revelations about the Letelier murder are good cause, if any more were needed, for the United States to publicly condemn Pinochet’s heavy-handed rule and to continue pushing for a return to democracy in Chile. By doing at least that much, the U.S. government can help ensure that Orlando Letelier did not die in vain.