Page 2: The CIA's Admission Now,
24 years after the Letelier assassination and 12 years after Newsweek
killed the first account of the Contreras-CIA relationship, the CIA has
admitted that it had paid Contreras as an intelligence asset and
consulted with him about the Letelier assassination. Still,
in the sketchy new report, the spy agency seeks to portray itself as
more victim than accomplice. According to the report, the CIA was
internally critical of Contreras’s human rights abuses and skeptical
about his credibility. The CIA said its skepticism predates the spy
agency’s contact with him about the Letelier-Moffitt murders. “The
relationship, while correct, was not cordial and smooth, particularly as
evidence of Contreras’ role in human rights abuses emerged,” the CIA
reported. “In December 1974, the CIA concluded that Contreras was not
going to improve his human rights performance. … “By
April 1975, intelligence reporting showed that Contreras was the
principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the Junta,
but an interagency committee [within the Ford administration] directed
the CIA to continue its relationship with Contreras.” The
CIA report added that “a one-time payment was given to Contreras” in
1975, a time frame when the CIA was first hearing about Operation
Condor, a cross-border program run by South America’s military
dictatorships to hunt down dissidents living in other countries. “CIA
sought from Contreras information regarding evidence that emerged in
1975 of a formal Southern Cone cooperative intelligence effort –
‘Operation Condor’ – building on informal cooperation in tracking
and, in at least a few cases, killing political opponents. By October
1976, there was sufficient information that the CIA decided to approach
Contreras on the matter. Contreras confirmed Condor’s existence as an
intelligence-sharing network but denied that it had a role in
extra-judicial killings.” Also,
in October 1976, the CIA said it “worked out” how it would assist
the FBI in its investigation of the Letelier assassination, which had
occurred the previous month. The spy agency’s report offered no
details of what it did, however. The report added only that Contreras
was already a murder suspect by fall 1976. “At
that time, Contreras’ possible role in the Letelier assassination
became an issue,” the CIA’s new report said. “By the end of 1976,
contacts with Contreras were very infrequent.” Even
though the CIA came to recognize the likelihood that DINA was behind the
Letelier assassination, there never was any indication that Bush’s CIA
sought to correct the false impression created by its leaks to the news
media asserting DINA’s innocence. After
Bush left the CIA with Jimmy Carter’s inauguration in 1977, the spy
agency distanced itself from Contreras, the new report said. “During
1977, CIA met with Contreras about half a dozen times; three of those
contacts were to request information on the Letelier assassination,”
the CIA report said. “On
3 November 1977, Contreras was transferred to a function unrelated to
intelligence so the CIA severed all contact with him,” the report
added. “After a short struggle to retain power, Contreras resigned
from the Army in 1978. In the interim, CIA gathered specific, detailed
intelligence reporting concerning Contreras’ involvement in ordering
the Letelier assassination.” Remaining Mysteries Though
the new CIA report contains the first official admission of a
relationship with Contreras, it sheds no light on the actions of Bush
and his deputy, Walters, in the days before and after the Letelier
assassination. It also offers no explanation why Bush’s CIA planted
false information in the American press clearing Chile’s military
dictatorship. While
providing the 21-page summary on its relationship with Chile’s
military dictatorship, the CIA has refused to release documents from a
quarter century ago on the grounds that the disclosures might jeopardize
the CIA’s “sources and methods.” The refusal comes in the face of
President Clinton’s specific order to release as much information as
possible. The CIA could be playing for time. With
CIA headquarters now officially named the George Bush Center for
Intelligence and with veterans of the Reagan-Bush years still dominating
the CIA’s hierarchy, the spy agency might be hoping that the election
of Texas Gov. George W. Bush will free it from demands to open up
records to the American people. For his part, former President Bush has declared his intent to take a more active role in campaigning for his son’s election. In
Florida on Sept. 22, Bush said he is “absolutely convinced” that if
his son is elected president, “we will restore the respect, honor and
decency that the White House deserves.” [NYT, Sept. 23, 2000] ______ In
the 1980s, Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-contra stories for The
Associated Press and Newsweek.
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