disinfozone/The_Info_Web
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull requests Projects Releases Packages Wiki Activity Actions

vault backup: 2026-09-21 23:37:10

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
disinfo.zone 2026-09-21 23:37:10 -04:00
parent 698f6427f6
commit a697678725
No known key found for this signature in database
49 changed files with 603 additions and 294 deletions
Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

7
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PARAMILITARY/Cuban Nationalist Movement.md
View file

@ -29,11 +29,13 @@ Michael Townley testified that in the summer of 1976 DINA assigned him to go to
Townley told the Chilean prosecutor in 1978 that early in 1975 DINA had asked him about Bosch, Novo, and Suárez and he had advised against contact, and that at a meeting with the movement's directorate in September 1976, at which he believed Alvin Ross was present, "they asked some specific questions, such as: 'What can you give us in Chile.' We need a quiet place, preferably in the countryside, to have our 'sick' people, to train. Weapons or war material were not discussed at all. I did not commit to anything and only offered to pass the request up through regular channels."[^5]
[[Raúl Iturriaga Neumann]], head of DINA's exterior department, testified in 1978 that a group linked to the movement had presented him in Santiago with "a well-drafted, printed and illustrated pamphlet containing a kind of draft proposal for future relations between them and Chile," including "a headquarters in Chile and Chile's recognition of the Cuban Government in exile," which "did not materialize." A memorandum to Contreras, apparently from Washington and written after the second Carter-Ford debate of October 1976, reported that "some friends from over there tell me again that the FBI reached the conclusion that the perpetrators of the attack on Letelier were 4 members of Brigade 2506," naming Roberto Carvallo, Carlos Pascual, Vicente Vásquez, and Guillermo Novo, who "would have been deceived and paid by a Castro agent."[^6]
### Trials
Novo and Ross were convicted in 1979 of murder, murder of a foreign official, and conspiracy, and Novo's brother [[Ignacio Novo]] of lying to the grand jury. Part of the evidence came from jailhouse informants working with the government. One of them, [[Sherman Kaminsky]], testified that Ross "told me that he was involved in the murder of Orlando Letelier together with generals in DINA, Sepulveda, Michael Townley, and other members of the Cuban Nationalist Movement in this country." In 1980 the Supreme Court held such testimony inadmissible in [[United States v. Henry]], and the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|court of appeals]] reversed the convictions of Novo and Ross and ordered a new trial. It reversed Ignacio Novo's for the failure to try him separately.[^1]
At the retrial in May 1981 the defense undertook to prove "that Townley and DINA alone plotted to kill Letelier." Townley, the government's witness, admitted that he had lied to a Chilean military investigator and had given [[El Mercurio]] a false statement that he had nothing to do with the killing. Paz and Suárez were not tried with them.[^6]
At the retrial in May 1981 the defense undertook to prove "that Townley and DINA alone plotted to kill Letelier." Townley, the government's witness, admitted that he had lied to a Chilean military investigator and had given [[El Mercurio]] a false statement that he had nothing to do with the killing. Paz and Suárez were not tried with them.[^7]
### Footnotes
@ -42,4 +44,5 @@ At the retrial in May 1981 the defense undertook to prove "that Townley and DINA
[^3]: Dinges, John, and Saul Landau. *Assassination on Embassy Row*. McGraw-Hill, 1980, pp. 147-151, 240.
[^4]: Marina, Gloria. "Citan a Felipe Rivero en el caso Letelier," *El Miami Herald,* May 3, 1977, scan at latinamericanstudies.org/belligerence/Rivero-Letelier.pdf
[^5]: Fiscalía Militar Ad-Hoc, Santiago, causa 192-78 (fiscal Héctor Orozco), as reproduced in *Proceso contra Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda y Pedro Espinoza Bravo,* ministro instructor Adolfo Bañados, tomo 1, scan at https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Causa-Contreras-Espinoza-1991.pdf. Quotations translated from the Spanish, declaración of Michael Vernon Townley Welch, March 29, 1978.
[^6]: Kiernan, Laura A. "Townley Admits Lying to Chilean Questioners," *The Washington Post,* May 17, 1981, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00552R000606730006-5.
[^6]: Fiscalía Militar Ad-Hoc, Santiago, causa 192-78, as reproduced in *Proceso contra Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda y Pedro Espinoza Bravo,* ministro instructor Adolfo Bañados, tomo 1, scan at https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Causa-Contreras-Espinoza-1991.pdf. Quotations translated from the Spanish, declaración of Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, April 1, 1978; memorandum "Caso Letelier" to Colonel Manuel Contreras, signature read as Gregorio Amunátegui, undated, with reference to the second Carter-Ford debate.
[^7]: Kiernan, Laura A. "Townley Admits Lying to Chilean Questioners," *The Washington Post,* May 17, 1981, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00552R000606730006-5.