Marked forever in the heart of washington, d. C. By this assassination. Hello, everyone. Good, we can hear everyone nicelily. Welcome to busboys and poets. My name is olivia. Im the book Events Coordinator here and im very excited to invite Alan Mcpherson for his book, ghosts of Sheridan Circle. Its an event i was not aware of, honestly, and very excited to read about it in this book and excited for alan to speak about it. Here at busboys we like to have conversations that others arent having and i feel like this is one of nose so im excited for him to speak about it. Im going to give you a little kind of overview. If you have a cell phone, please take photos but dont make the flash happen. We are filming tonight, as you probably can see. Thats a little distracting. We will have the fwoobooks for. We have them for sale currently and if you would like to, i really implore you to look through it and have alan sign it. Hell be signing afterwards as well. We have a wonderful server, aisha in the room. She will be here all night, so please take care of her as she will take care of you. I will now turn it on over to alan for the talk of ghosts of Sheridan Circle. Thank you all. Thanks. [ applause ] thank you very much, olivia. Thank you to busboys and poets for hosting this. I also want to thank my publisher, university of North Carolina press, for putting this together. The few institutions also who, you know, made this book happen in washington. Im so happy to be presenting this in washington, which is, you know, literally the scene of this crime. The institute for policy studies is very important in, you know, letting me interview them and keep the memory of this book alive for 40plus years. Also, the embassy of chile was very helpful. So let me begin with the first words from this book. And these are the people talking. Isabel, i have a surprise for you. Have lunch with me. Today will be difficult. I have work. But you will love the surprise, Orlando Letelier insisted. Come and get me at 12 30 and leave your work for the afternoon. Isabel letelier exceeded. After all her husband was a charmer. Besides, there was no time to argue. It was 9 00 a. M. , time for orlando to go to work at the institute for policy studies in washington, d. C. s dupont circle. Hed been at the leftist think tank for nearly two years, using isp as a platform to undermine general authorization toe pinochet the ironfisted dictator. He had been ambassador to the United States then his mens ter with three portfolios. Now as a private citizen, he exposed pinochets human rights atrocities, incited boycotts and discouraged investment. Two of orlandos colleagues happened to right with him that day. Michael and microsoronni moffit 25 and recently married. Isabel barely had time to kiss him goodbye. Orlando took the wheel of his 1975 chevrolet chevelle malibu classic. Out of gallantry, Micheal Moffitt opened the front door for ronni. In less than an hour orlando and ronni would be dead. Michael would be traumatized for life. This is the actual car after the bombing on Sheridan Circle. I never learned what the surprise was, isabel recalled, when i interviewed her over 40 years after this event. To this day, the killing of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt remains the only assassination of a foreign diplomat on u. S. Soil. Its also the only statesponsored assassination in washington and the most important in history. Still Osama Bin Laden assessed one historian, they constituted the most brazen act of International Terrorism ever committed in the capital of the United States. It is still the only state sponsored such act and the only car bomb. The two decade long resolution of this case would hold implications for chile, the United States, terrorism, human rights, and the fate of democracy everywhere. My book notably argues that it was crucial in taking down the entire pinochet government. But today i want to explore a subtheme of the book. Two opposing forces, fascism on one side and human rights on the other. The clash during these decades and that outlived the communist capitalist ideological struggle of the cold war. These forces are still with us today and letelier assassination brought them into open conflict. And so on the cover you have on top here, youve got the car on the bottom, but on top youve got Orlando Letelier on the right and Ronni Moffitt on the left. The order to assassinate letelier was not simply an overreaction by an anticommunist regime. Although it was that. It was also rooted in the fascism that lurked inside postwar latin american political culture. In chile, that fascism partly came from germany. In the 19th century, southern chile attracted 30,000 settlers from the german states. A military mission from prussia. Filled the ranks of farright parties. They cheered and marched when hitler came to power. The nazis of chile boasted 60,000 members, electing three to the national legislature. In 1938 they attempted a filled after world war ii it became famous destinations for former nazi offices fleeing purse cushion. Persecution. State control of the economy. Hierarcharcical leadership. A love of all things spain, the tradition of catholicism, a rejection of empire and the championing of latin american unity made this among the most potent totalitarianisms in all of latin america. And will contreras, the man on the right here, was the head of the secret police that gave the order to kill letelier. He grew up in the germanized south of chile. After world war ii he admired the spanish dictator franco. When pinochet and his allies overthrew the government, contreras was in on it. On september 7th, contreras looked at him and smiled, dont worry, youre not going to school tomorrow. Right after the coup, pinochet made contreras the International Head of the intelligence dire directorate known as d. N. A. He answered only to pinochet. D. I. N. A. Dominated all other intelligence agencies. Its 9,300 employees could raid homes and jail suspects without charges and its 20,000 to 30,000 informants spread fear. Its logo featuring an iron kblov, d. I. N. Was was responsible for about 1,200 of the 3,200 executions under pinoche it. The associations between d. I. N. A. And fascism were legion. It was alleged that its employees engaged in the use of her addressed each other as farrows, priests and slaves, denoting their status within the hierarchy. Kraers even allied with former nazi Paul Schaffer of colony of dignity infamy by using schaffers enslave as a detention and torture center. The u. S. Department of defense compared d. I. N. A. To hitlers gestapo. Contreras took a plane full of officers along. Franco supportered lined up on the avenue from the airport and gave the chileans motorcade the stiffarmed fascist salute. In my book i call contreras the himler of the andes. On september 11th, Orlando Letelier served as chiles minister of defense when she showed up to his ministry after hearing rumors of a coup, plotters took him prisoner and shipped him to dawson island, a nazistyle concentration camp in the deep south of chile. Someone luckily took a photo of him being arrested by his own men. There and other Detention Centers he he would remain for a year. Never charged with a crime, phycologically tortured and emaciated before the government secured his freedom. Told in no uncertain words general pinochet does not and will not tolerate activities against his government. Still he ended up working for pinochet in washington. A golden age of human rights activism in the 1970s. More than 200 groups in the United States worked on human rights. Over 50 lobbied congress and about 15 concentrated on latin america. Civil rights icon patricia became the First Assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor under the jimmy carter administration. Mark snider, her deputy worked for senator Edward Kennedy of massachusetts on everything u. S. latin american issues. In congress, representative dawn frazier chaired the first congressional hearings on human rights in 1973. Helping him were among others top harken, michael harrington, toy moffitt, George Miller in the house and kennedy and George Mcgovern in the senate. These were all democrats. Which cut off aid to any government that grossly violated human rights unless the president determined that such aid would directly benefit the needy. The following year, Teddy Kennedy directly targeted chile, marking the first time the congress ended military aid to another government because of human rights. One chilean magazine called kennedy the most dangerous foreign adversary of the pinochet regime. Letelier worked in this environment at the institute for policy studies, one of the most influential human rights organizations in the country. He met with Top State Department officials. He taught at american university. He lunched with senators. Angela davis once came to his house. Joan baez was a friend. Most important, letelier became a unifying for chilean exiles numbering in the hundreds of thousands worldwide. He also convinced hollands Dock Workers Federation to boycott the handling of chilean goods and therefore won the cancellation of a planned 62 million Mining Investment in chile. These two things seemed to have convinced pinochet to order leteliers assassination. Roughly from 1975 to 1983, contreras and his south American Allies killed several hundred people outside chile. At looking away from such brutalities, National Security adviser and secretary of state Henry Kissinger became an expert. One month before letelier was killed, kissingers state department prepared a memo signed by kissinger that instructed Southern Cone abtds to express to south american dictators washingtons, quote, deep concern over their plans for the assassinations of subversives, politicians and prominent figures within the National Borders of southern countries and abroad. In other words, the state department was supposed to tell south american dictators not to kill people outside of south america. But for one month none of the ambassadors who received this cable from washington did anything about it. Which is very rare in diplomacy. Usually when youre given an order, you do it. The ambassador to uruguay feared for his life if he wagged his finger at the generals. The enjoy to chile worried that pinochet, quote, might well take as an insult any inference that he was connected with such assassination plots. Five days before the letelier assassination, kissinger ordered, quote, that no further action be taken on this matter. Back in chile in the same summer of 1976, contreras acting through his chief of operations Pedro Espinosa entrusted the hit on letelier on Michael Townley, a local chilean explosives expert. This is Michael Townley with his wife. Townley worked with proto fascist youth shock troupes called fatherland and freedom. Recruits received training in coding and code breaking, weapons handling, explodives and martial arts with nunchucks. Review them with his right arm crossed against his chest. Remember, these are teenagers, right . Theyre not soldiers. They wore black uniforms with white armbands adorned with a swastikalike insignia that united chain links and resembled a spider. Hitlers brown shirts would have approved. His followers a bunch of fascists paid by the cia. And it turns out they were correct. Rodriguez their leader denied accepting cia funding, but the truth is that in fall 1970 kissinger requested and receives 38,000 for covert support of fatherland and freedom, this fascist organization. Others in the group admitted receiving those funds and added that an extra 5,000 per month filtered in. So back to townley, the bomb maker, he embraced the rhetoric and the actions of fatherland and freedom and started making bombs for them. The masses are not ready to govern themselves, he said. Democracy leads to only mass government ruled by the herd. Power should be reserved for the qualified few, the intellectuals, the philosopher kings. In the United States, townley connected with about five cuban americans, also protofascists. They call themselves the Cuban Nationalist Movement headquartered in a new jersey newly cubanized since Fidel Castros revolution. They were disenchanted with the u. S. Government which had dropped them as assets against castro. Heres a picture of a few of them in their headquarters in new jersey along with their logo, which has the island of cuba with the number 3, which means sort of a not communist and not capitalism but a third way and a Lightning Strike against capitalism, which essentially meant violence against cuba. Like contreras, these cuban americans had decided to kill opponents throughout the world. Soon bombs exploded in new york, montreal, lima, madrid, london and paris. Between 1974 and 1976, u. S. Authorities tied 202 major bombings in 23 countries to cuban exiles. One every five days on average. And 113 of them in the United States. In 1974 cuban exiles accounted for 45 of all terrorist bombings on the planet. The Cuban Nationalist Movements motto, cuba before all, recalled nazi germanys deutschland centered on a capitalism akin to those of mussolini, hitler, franco and chiles fatherland and freedom. One cuban member of a more mainstream organization dismissed the cnm as rightwing extremists and fascists. One of these cubans once asked Michael Townley and his wife during a dinner, what do you think about the world jewish conspiracy . Now, remember, theyre trying to fight communism. I beg your pardon, the what, said townleys wife. The jewish conspiracy is going to destroy the world if we dont fight it. Before we do anything else, we must destroy the jews. Fast row is too difficult to target so youve chosen a perennial target, the jews. Naturally its easier to fight the jews than the cubans. Still they helped townley build the car bomb and install it under leteliers car. One cuban drove behind him while another pushed the button on the detonator. So for washington the challenge that the letelier assassination posed was clarifying the divisions between those such as kissinger who enabled fascism to infiltrate the chilean government. Those such as Teddy Kennedy who championed human rights and the vast majority in the middle who needed the car bombing to prompt them to care enough. Early on, mainstream u. S. Observers tended toward absolving the chilean regime. The New York Times editors concluded, quote, it is hard to believe even as hamhanded as a regime of chiles he would order a murder of such an opponent of mr. Lett lowelier in the United States. The National Security council right on the day of the assassination admitted, quote, rightwing chileans are the obvious candidates, but they seem to be too obvious. Thankfully investigation was not up to the nsc, it was the job of the fbi and the attorney generals office. These men led by eugene proper were anticommunists but also gifted technocrats dedicated to solving the investigation wherever it took them. For almost 18 months the fbi had no solid lead on this case. It heard of a mysterious gringo amongst chileans, turns out it was Michael Townley. Resumes from cuban americans a grand jury subpoenaed them but they kept mum. And the investigation kept getting threats. Just as orlando and isabel had before the assassination. Ill give you a few examples of these threats. On october 4, an unknown male called Orlando Leteliers aunt maria del solar. Maria, maria, maria, he said condescendingly, talking to the fbi wont help you. Your legs will be spread in washington, d. C. Just like orlandos. Then he hung up. In early november standing at Kennedy Airport rifling through her purse for her key to an American Airlines office. Suddenly a man grabbed her arm and yanked her around. You until your little friend larry watt to keep his fucking noise out of chiles business or you wont be so pretty anymore, boom, boom, you know what i mean . This kind of thing happened over and over again in the investigation. To the fbi, to the judges, to the lawyers and, of course, anybody who talked to the fbi. If they can do this and get away with it under the nose of the cia and the fbi said president elect jimmy carter in november 1976, then no president can govern. He was talking about the letelier assassination. On one hand, carter meant that such a brazen attack on the chilean dissident on u. S. Soil was unacceptable to the u. S. Policymaking apparatus, whether republican or democrat. It made the United States look unable to police its own borders. It made the cold war seem out of control. On the other hand, Foreign Policy ma