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10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Michael Townley.md
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@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ Michael Vernon Townley is an American electronics specialist who worked from 197
Townley had collaborated with the paramilitary [[Patria y Libertad]] in operations against the government of [[Salvador Allende]]. By his own written account he was recruited by senior DINA officers in 1974, given a mansion in the [[Lo Curro]] district of [[Santiago]], told to build a chemical laboratory in its basement, and put in charge of the [[Agrupación Avispa]], the Wasp Group, a unit of DINA's [[Mulchén Brigade]] "dedicated to elimination." He used the names Juan Andres Wilson, Hans Petersen Silva, Kenneth William Enyart, and Pablo Andres Simpon Valle. His wife, [[Mariana Callejas]], was also a DINA agent.[^1][^2]
He was born in Waterloo, [[Iowa]], first worked in Chile in the early 1960s as an encyclopedia salesman, and lived from 1967 in [[Miami]], where he came to know the Cuban exiles. In December 1970 he offered himself to the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] as an agent against the Allende government. The operations directorate asked for "preliminary security approval to use Mr. Townley in an operational capacity," and on December 21, 1971, told the Office of Security that the station had cancelled its interest. In March 1973, during a raid by Patria y Libertad on a jamming station at [[Concepción]], he gagged and bound a homeless man sheltering there, who was found dead of asphyxiation the next day. The American consul in Santiago, [[Frederick Purdy]], later gave him a new passport in his own name. An embassy officer, [[Jeffrey Davidow]], wrote in June 1974 that Townley was an "AMCIT with rather unsavory past with crypto-fascist Chilean groups" and suggested "keeping him at arms length."[^3]
He was born in Waterloo, [[Iowa]], first worked in Chile in the early 1960s as an encyclopedia salesman, and lived from 1967 in [[Miami]], where he came to know the Cuban exiles. In December 1970 he offered himself to the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] as an agent against the Allende government. The operations directorate asked for "preliminary security approval to use Mr. Townley in an operational capacity," and on December 21, 1971, told the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]] that the station had cancelled its interest. In March 1973, during a raid by Patria y Libertad on a jamming station at [[Concepción]], he gagged and bound a homeless man sheltering there, who was found dead of asphyxiation the next day. The American consul in Santiago, [[Frederick Purdy]], later gave him a new passport in his own name. An embassy officer, [[Jeffrey Davidow]], wrote in June 1974 that Townley was an "AMCIT with rather unsavory past with crypto-fascist Chilean groups" and suggested "keeping him at arms length."[^3]
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