Progreso Weekly contributor Saul Landau honored with Chile
Editor’s
Note:
On September 21, 1976, a bomb exploded in Washington’s Sheridan
Circle. It had been placed under the car of Orlando Letelier, the
Chilean Ambassador to Washington under the Allende government
(1971-2) and then Minister of Defense. The remote control device
killed Letelier and his colleague Ronni Moffitt. Both worked at the
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). Both were close friends and
colleagues.
IPS
began a parallel investigation to the FBI’s, but also fed the Bureau
all the information that could help it solve the case. IPS insisted
that Pinochet, the military dictator of Chile, and his secret police
DINA, had done the job with the help of anti-Castro Cubans.
The
FBI team, led by Carter Cornick and Robert Scherrer, solved the case
and named the head of DINA, Gen. Manuel Contreras and three more high
DINA officials, in the indictment, along with five right wing Cuban
exiles. The FBI agents and the prosecutor also said in public that
Pinochet had given the order, although he was never indicted.
Saul
Landau wrote a book about the case (with John Dinges), Assassination
on Embassy Row. In the first trial, three Cubans caught by the FBI
were convicted, two (Guillermo Novo and Alvin Ros) for "conspiracy
to assassinate" and the third (Ignacio Novo) for aiding and
abetting. The convictions were reversed for prosecutorial efforts and
in the second trial all three "walked." Guillermo was found
guilty of "perjury" (lying about his knowledge of the
assassination), but had already served his time.
Subsequently,
three FBI agents grabbed Jose Dionisio Suarez and Virgilio Paz (who
pushed the remote control button to detonate the bomb). Both pled
guilty and served seven of a 12 year sentence before getting paroled.
In
Chile, DINA Chief Contreras was tried and convicted in the 1990s and
served seven years. Michael Townley, the U.S.-born DINA agent, who
recruited the Cubans and made the bomb and designed the actual
operation, testified against the others and received 10 years. He
served five. He lives in the Midwest under a pseudonym and does real
estate development.
Each
year, IPS celebrates the fallen colleagues at Sheridan Circle and
then, at a formal event where it gives the Letelier-Moffitt Human
Right award to worthy recipients from Latin America and the United
States. IPS also publishes reports on human rights in Chile and has
never let up in its efforts to help restore full democracy and human
rights to the country whose destiny was altered when President Nixon
and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger decided to foment a
coup there and change the destony of the Chilean people.
SAUL
LANDAU’S ACCEPTANCE SPEECH UPON RECEIVING THE AWARD
On
such an occasion one says thanks to the Ambassador and his wonderful
staff. But where to start? I guess I just need to look around the
room, at my friend and colleague Marc Raskin. On the day of the
assassination of Orlando [Letelier] and Ronni [Moffit], he and
[Institute for Policy Studies] IPS co-founder Dick Barnet made a
courageous decision: not to submit to terrorism. Instead of cowering,
they appointed Isabel Morel, Orlando’s widow, to take his place in
the struggle against Pinochet’s fascism. Isabel proved herself a
formidable opponent, a tireless organizer and speaker, a great woman.
Her four sons follow in that tradition. Wonderful young men. I thank
them for turning out so well.
Marc
and Dick also had the courage to keep the other Chileans on the IPS
payroll, despite pressure from within the Institute to let them go.
Juan Gabriel Valdes, Waldo Fortin and Lilian Montecino stayed with
the IPS for many months after the assassinations. Ann Barnet provided
Dick with strength and moral certitude. She remains a friend and a
source of inspiration. I thank her as well. I thank Bob Borosage who
as IPS director also supported the investigation and publicity we did
around the case. He didn’t complain, although he often had good
reason to. Peter Weiss chaired the board and also never vacillated in
his commitment. Indeed, Cora
and the whole Weiss family merit a super special place in my heart
for their ability to hold together love, firmness and ethics. I know
I also gave all of them cause to worry. Looking back, I can’t say
I’m sorry. And I don’t think they’d want me to.
I
look at my other colleagues, current and past, from IPS, my fellow
Trustees, those who have helped maintain the Institute over the
decades and keep alive its history through the celebration of our
departed friends and colleagues and I feel not only the warm glow of
fraternity, but of gratitude as well. And that feeling extends to the
larger community of people who come each year to Sheridan Circle and
collectively remember the act of terrorism that shook this city, this
nation and much of the world. It’s more than memory. It’s a
ritual in good citizenship, one that transcends the normal processes
of democracy and extends to the world of deep conviction. Eliana
Loveluck and Peter Kornbluh gave of their imaginations and souls.
Phil Brenner and Betsy Veith and Scott Armstrong and Barbara Guss
always came through and of my contemporary colleagues Sarah
and John
stand out as the carriers of the historical thread. I’m thankful to
have you as friends and colleagues.
I
also thank Carter Cornick who, as the FBI Special Agent in charge of
the investigation, showed up at Sheridan Circle amidst the blood and
glass and wreckage and stuck with the case until he had collected
enough evidence to convict the scoundrels. I admit I was suspicious
after the FBI had sent in 70-plus informers into IPS in the years
prior to the murders. But Carter told me on the first day: “I’m a
criminal investigator and I’m going to solve this case.” And,
unlike some of my colleagues who thought I was naïve, I believed
him. And thank God I was right. Thanks Carter also for teaching me
the limits of ideology. He said, “Killers kill. That’s what they
do,” when I tried to spin some highly theoretical scenarios to him.
Absent is his partner in crime-solving, Bob Scherrer, whose insights
played a key role in breaking open the case. May he rest in peace!
Sometimes I think it’s the only case the Bureau really solved.
(It’s a joke Carter). Seriously, when honest officials do their job
despite pressure not to do it — I think of Judge Juan Guzman in
Chile — it makes them special. Often in government, it’s more
comfortable — except for your conscience — not to do the right
thing. We have lots of examples of that.
Also
meriting thanks is former Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Barcella who,
with Gene Propper, vigorously prosecuted the culprits — and wrote in
the Washington Post a letter that pushed some honest people in the
Administration not to drop the ball of justice. He too merits my
thanks.
Mark
Schneider
never let up. Relentlessly, he used his positions inside government
to keep the pressure on the criminals, to persuade Senators of the
need to cut aid to the criminal government. Thank you, Mark, for your
un-swaying commitment.
Sam
Buffone and Mike Tigar did brilliant legal work, but went beyond the
law in their efforts to secure some justice for their clients. Sam,
you deserve special thanks for keeping the civil case and thus the
State Department interest in it alive during some very dour times.
John
Dinges collaborated with me on telling the story in print in
Assassination
on Embassy Row.
Writing a book pushes you to make sense out of facts, to question
untested assumptions, to force the brain to go to places it didn’t
want to go. The cooperative effort, with John, taught me on several
levels, and the more I learned about the case and the nasty people
who perpetrated the deed, the more committed I felt to pursuing them
so as to achieve what ultimately all the pursuers of Pinochet’s
crimes have achieved — a small measure of justice.
I
want to thank President [Michelle] Bachelet, who I remember fondly
from the days her mom volunteered at IPS and she would drop by after
school and lick envelopes with her mother, for the campaign to
restore human rights and democracy in Chile. That’s a wonderful
fact for her biography, part of her clean and noble path to the
presidency.
Absent
is the man who did most to bring about the slow and steady decline of
criminal en jefe as he called him. Juan Garces did what none of the
rest of us could do. He got Pinochet arrested and held for more than
a year in England. His legal brilliance and his refusal to accept
“reality” as the rest of us defined it, allowed him to push the
legal system to its logical straining point. This indefatigable
battler for justice and human rights deserves more than thanks. He is
a model.
My
wife Rebecca stood by me in my craziest most frenetic and paranoid
hours. She even occasionally humored me, as I made jokes about the
wicked anti-Castro Cubans who swore to kill me. I didn’t entirely
discount their threats. She deserves a special and very long term
thank you for the countless words and deeds that went into the
decades-long process that ensued from the act of terror on September
21, 1976.
In
this room so many good people helped in so many ways, with a hug, a
nod, a check, by showing up to an event, by offering help, knowledge,
and insight. I thank you all. I feel deeply grateful for this honor.
Pinochet
is dead, the Al Capone of the Southern Cone. He killed, tortured and
oppressed his people for 17 years. But we should not forget who made
Pinochet’s long reign possible. At a secret meeting in the White
House a few men — Nixon, Kissinger and their CIA servant Richard
Helms — decided to alter the destiny of the Chilean people.
Yes,
unfinished business remains. But think for a moment on the changes.
In the bad, old days we gathered across the street in Sheridan Circle
and shook our fists at this very building where we now stand proudly.
Since the transition to civilian government, Chilean Ambassadors have
begun to join us in memory of Orlando and Ronni. Ambassador [Mariano]
Fernandez has strengthened the ties.
When
President Bachelet made her first trip to Washington and chose to lay
a wreath at Sheridan Circle — before she met with President Bush —
we were deeply moved. My presence here is one more sign of how
dramatically things have changed in Chile.
So,
I thank the government of Chile for this award and for moving
steadily away from the military fascism of the Pinochet years and
towards a government that shows respect for human rights. Some of its
officials remember all too well what torture feels like and all
remember the death of friends and family members at the hands of
Pinochet’s thugs.
I
think that all who worked for the restoration of human rights will
remember the origin of the evil that began in Washington and took so
many lives and found its way back to Washington to kill two more —
our friends and colleagues — in Sheridan Circle.
****************
Note:
In 2000 Novo and three colleagues, Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar
Jiménez and Pedro Remón, were arrested and imprisoned
after trying to assassinate Fidel Castro at the University of
Panama.
In
August, 2004, President Mireyas Moscoso, of Panama, pardoned Novo,
Posada, Jiménez and Remón for their role in attempting
to assassinate Castro. Bush welcomed them home to Florida.
Suarez
and Paz live in the Miami area after the US government rejected
appeals from the INS to deport them as undesirable aliens.
