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10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Camilo Valenzuela.md Normal file
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---
category: "Military"
tags:
- Person
- CamiloValenzuela
- Chile
- ProjectFUBELT
- ReneSchneider
- CIA
- CoupPlotting
summary: "Chilean brigadier general to whose group the CIA delivered three submachine guns and pledged 50,000 dollars for the kidnapping of General René Schneider in October 1970."
location: "Santiago, Chile"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
Camilo Valenzuela was a brigadier general on active duty in the [[Chile|Chilean]] army in October 1970 and the leader of the second group of officers, with that of General [[Roberto Viaux]], plotting to remove the army commander, General [[Rene Schneider|René Schneider]], and prevent the inauguration of [[Salvador Allende]].[^1]
The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] dealt with him through the American army attaché, [[Paul Wimert]]. On October 18 the [[Santiago]] station asked headquarters for "three .45 calibre machine guns (grease guns) with 500 rounds of ammo each." Headquarters, shipping them by diplomatic pouch, cabled: "Will continue make effort provide them but find our credulity stretched by Navy officer leading his troops with sterile guns. What is special purpose for these guns? We will try send them whether you can provide explanation or not." Tear gas grenades first meant for Viaux were given to the officers instead, because it was "important that the attache credibility with Armed Forces officers be strengthened." A cable of October 19 set out the plan to abduct Schneider and fly him to [[Argentina]] and recorded 50,000 dollars pledged to the group. The station reported: "Military will not admit involvement in Schneider's abduction which is to be blamed on leftists." Headquarters had written three days earlier of "great and continuing interest in the activities of Tirado, Canales, Valenzuela, et al, and we wish them optimum good fortune."[^1][^2][^3]
Schneider was shot on October 22 by Viaux's men with their own handguns. Wimert recovered the guns and the money and dropped the guns in the sea at [[Viña del Mar]]. A Chilean military court found that Valenzuela and Viaux "had been in contact throughout the coup plotting" and sentenced Valenzuela to three years in exile "for taking part in the conspiracy."[^1][^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders,* interim report, S. Rept. 94-465, November 20, 1975.
[^2]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The CIA and Chile: Anatomy of an Assassination," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 728, October 22, 2020. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2020-10-22/cia-chile-anatomy-assassination
[^3]: Central Intelligence Agency, cable to Santiago station, October 16, 1970. National Security Archive document 23596. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/media/23596/ocr

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10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Frank Teruggi.md Normal file
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---
category: "Other"
tags:
- Person
- FrankTeruggi
- Chile
- ChileanCoup1973
- FBI
- ArmyIntelligence
- StateDepartment
alias:
- Frank Teruggi Jr.
summary: "American student in Santiago, the subject of an FBI subversive file that recorded his Chilean address, who was taken from his house after the 1973 coup and shot at the National Stadium."
died: 1973-09
location: "Santiago, Chile"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
Frank Teruggi was an American student living in [[Santiago]] who was detained by the Chilean military in the days after the coup of September 11, 1973, held at the [[Estadio Nacional (Chile)|National Stadium]], and executed. His case was joined in Chilean and American inquiries with that of [[Charles Horman]].[^1]
### The FBI File
In 1972 the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] opened a "Security Matter Subversive" file on Teruggi after the interception of his correspondence with activists in [[West Germany]] who were assisting [[Resisters Inside the Armed Forces]] and other groups the bureau called "deserter organizations," which supported American soldiers absent without leave from European bases in protest against the war in [[Vietnam]]. [[United States Army Intelligence]] was monitoring those groups with the help of German intelligence. The intercepted letters gave Teruggi's address on Hernán Cortés street in Santiago, and the bureau's summary recorded it. Whether any American agency gave the address to Chilean authorities, before or after the coup, has not been established.[^1]
After four months in [[Chile]] he wrote to his sister Janice: "Being down here is the best thing that could have happened to me as far as my political formation. I'm with revolutionaries from all over the continent and learning theory and practice in a way that is probably not available anywhere in the States."[^1]
### Detention
Teruggi was taken from his house, which was known in the neighborhood for its connection to the [[Revolutionary Left Movement (Chile)|Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria]]. Four others who lived there were active in the party's clandestine work, one of them in its military wing. His housemate [[David Hathaway]] was detained with him, held with him at the stadium, and saw him taken away for interrogation. The junta later told the [[United States]] embassy that both Teruggi and Horman had been killed by leftists wearing stolen army uniforms.[^1]
### The Father
[[Frank Teruggi Sr.]] went to Santiago in February 1974. He told consular officers, among them Vice Consul [[James Anderson (CIA)|James Anderson]], a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] officer under diplomatic cover, that "he was not happy with Embassy action to protect his son," and asked to see "all the files that you have on the case." The interior minister, General [[Oscar Bonilla]], had given him the military's account the day before. Teruggi handed him Hathaway's letter. Bonilla said he had not known the details, promised to reopen the inquiry, and said: "Mr. Teruggi, if your son died in the hands of the Chilean military, I am terribly sorry."[^1]
A [[State Department]] officer, [[Rudy Fimbres]], wrote in 1976 that the department had "'withheld' for almost two years any reference to a Chilean memorandum which accused Teruggi, and Horman, of leftist activities," and had "failed to pursue the basis" for the accusation. The department's internal review that year concluded that the Chilean military had "deliberately killed" both men.[^1]
Judge [[Jorge Zepeda]] found in his 2011 indictment of Navy Captain [[Ray Davis]], former head of the [[United States Military Group]], that Davis had known of the detentions and had not prevented the deaths. Davis died in a Santiago nursing home in 2013. In 2015 Zepeda convicted [[Pedro Espinoza]], who had been in charge of interrogations at the stadium. A review of the 6,976-page court record by the journalist [[John Dinges]] found no evidence that American officials took part in either killing.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "Chile in Their Hearts," National Security Archive, May 7, 2025, with the FBI summary on Teruggi, his letters to Janice Teruggi, and the embassy memorandum of conversation with Frank Teruggi Sr., February 1974; summarizing Dinges, John. *Chile in Their Hearts: The Untold Story of Two Americans Who Went Missing After the Coup*. 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2025-05-07/chile-their-hearts

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10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/George R. Wackenhut.md Normal file
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---
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
tags:
- Person
- GeorgeWackenhut
- Wackenhut
- FBI
- CIA
- PrivateIntelligence
- DossierFiles
- Florida
alias:
- George Wackenhut
summary: "FBI agent from 1951 to 1954 who founded the Wackenhut Corporation, kept files on 2.5 million people, held a CIA covert security approval, and ran Florida's privately financed war on crime in 1967."
born: 1919-09-03
died: 2004-12-31
location: "Coral Gables, Florida"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
George R. Wackenhut (September 3, 1919 to December 31, 2004) founded the [[Wackenhut Corporation]]. He was born in [[Philadelphia]], attended the [[University of Pennsylvania]] and [[West Chester University|West Chester State Teachers College]], was drafted in 1941, and was an enlisted man in a combat engineer regiment in [[Hawaii]] during the attack on [[Pearl Harbor]]. He took a degree at the [[University of Hawaii]] and a commission in 1943. After the war he taught at the [[The Haverford School|Haverford School]], played professional soccer briefly, and from 1946 directed physical education and coached at [[Johns Hopkins University]], where he took a master's degree in 1949. He was a special agent of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] in [[Atlanta]] and [[Indianapolis]] from 1951 to 1954, working counterfeiting and bad check cases.[^1][^2]
### The Company
He went to [[Miami]] in 1954 as director of personnel, security, and safety for [[Giffen Industries]], and after six months formed [[Special Agent Investigators]], Inc., with three other former agents. By one account he ended a disagreement over the company's direction by knocking a partner, [[Ed Dubois]], unconscious. He bought the partners out in 1958 and gave the company his name. The law firm of Senator [[George Smathers]] set up a subsidiary supplying only guards, which put it outside the federal statute of 1893 barring detective agencies from government work, and contracts followed at [[Cape Canaveral]] and the [[Nevada Test Site]]. Revenues were 10.8 million dollars in 1964, 23.7 million in 1966, and 48.4 million in 1969. The company opened nineteen offices in 1967 and twenty-one in 1968. In 1971 six executives of Wackenhut, [[Pinkerton]], and [[Burns International|Burns]] were convicted of bribing [[New York City]] policemen for confidential records on airline job applicants.[^1][^3][^4]
### The Files
By 1971 the company held files on 2.5 million individuals. Part of them came from [[Karl Baarslag]], a wartime [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] officer who had been a researcher for Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]], the [[American Legion]], and the [[Church League of America]]. The company published a monthly [[Wackenhut Security Review]]. Its library took its subscriptions to the publications it monitored under the names [[Carol Ascher]] and William Jones. The first twenty-seven folders of its surviving research files, headed "Subversive Activities," contain correspondence with federal intelligence agencies and material on protests against the war in [[Vietnam]]. Others cover the [[NAACP]], the [[Highlander Folk School]], the [[Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy]], the [[John Birch Society]], and the [[Minutemen (anti-Communist organization)|Minutemen]]. After the [[Fair Credit Reporting Act]] the company reduced its holdings to between 225,000 and 250,000 files, and in 1975 it gave many of them to the Church League, which, the archive's note observes, "was not bound by the legislation." The Church League, of [[Wheaton, Illinois]], had been directed since the 1950s by the former [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] intelligence officer [[Edgar Bundy]]. It dissolved in 1984. The files went to [[Liberty University]], which gave them in 1992 to the [[Tamiment Library]] of [[New York University]].[^5]
### The CIA and Florida
The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] opened a file on Wackenhut in May 1960, granted him a covert security approval on November 21, 1961, and used the company to backstop the cover of its officers in Miami. In January 1967 the new governor of [[Florida]], [[Claude Kirk]], hired the company to conduct a "war on crime" that he promised would cost the taxpayers nothing. There were "anguished cries of 'Nazism!' and 'Dictatorship!'" At the end of the year the state owed the firm more than 300,000 dollars, and the legislature created a state law enforcement bureau to replace it. The agency rescinded the approval in April 1967, citing "the notoriety that Mr. Wackenhut had received in connection with his activities in Florida." Its science directorate recorded contract actions with the company from 1970 to 1975.[^6][^7]
### Later Years
The company's directors came to include [[Clarence M. Kelley]], former director of the FBI, for whom a division was named; [[James J. Rowley]], former director of the [[United States Secret Service|Secret Service]]; General [[Paul X. Kelley]], former commandant of the [[United States Marine Corps|Marine Corps]]; General [[Julius W. Becton Jr.]]; General [[Thomas P. Stafford]]; and, from 1993, [[Jorge Mas Canosa]], chairman of the [[Cuban American National Foundation]]. Wackenhut told an interviewer in 1988 that the company guarded American embassies and had taken its first site behind the [[Iron Curtain]], in [[Hungary]]. It moved from [[Coral Gables, Florida|Coral Gables]] to [[Palm Beach Gardens, Florida|Palm Beach Gardens]]. He sold it in 2002 to [[Group 4 Falck]] of [[Denmark]] for 570 million dollars. His son [[Richard Wackenhut]] remained chief executive. He died of heart failure on December 31, 2004.[^1][^2][^8]
### Footnotes
[^1]: The Wackenhut Corporation, biographical sketch of George R. Wackenhut and annual and quarterly reports, 1969 to 1988, scanned company files on archive.org.
[^2]: "Security industry pioneer George Wackenhut dies at 85," *SecurityInfoWatch,* January 2005.
[^3]: Connolly, John. "Inside the Shadow CIA," *Spy,* September 1992, pp. 46-54.
[^4]: Hougan, Jim. *Spooks: The Haunting of America: The Private Use of Secret Agents*. William Morrow, 1978.
[^5]: Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University, finding aid to the Church League of America Collection of the Research Files of Counterattack, the Wackenhut Corporation, and Karl Baarslag, TAM 148, series II, boxes 30 to 40. https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/tamwag/tam_148/
[^6]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Wackenhut Corporation, SF# 493 364," memorandum for the record, July 28, 1975, JFK Assassination Records Collection, record 104-10130-10454; McDonald, James H., Director of Logistics, memorandum, 1978, record 104-10135-10200.
[^7]: "Florida: I, Claudius," *Time,* December 15, 1967.
[^8]: The Wackenhut Corporation, Forms 10-K405 and proxy statements, 1994 to 2001, Securities and Exchange Commission, CIK 104030.

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---
category: "Law Enforcement & Legal"
tags:
- Person
- HarryWeyher
- PioneerFund
- WickliffeDraper
- Eugenics
- Segregation
- FairnessInMedia
alias:
- Harry F. Weyher
- Harry Frederick Weyher Jr.
summary: "New York tax lawyer who was Wickliffe Draper's personal attorney from 1955, executor of his will, and president of the Pioneer Fund from 1958 until his death in 2002."
born: 1921
died: 2002
location: "New York, New York"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
Harry F. Weyher (1921 to 2002) was a [[New York City|New York]] corporate tax lawyer who for forty-four years directed the [[Pioneer Fund]] and carried out the private commissions of its founder, [[Wickliffe Draper]]. The historian [[William H. Tucker]] wrote that "all the segregationists' projects intersected on Harry Weyher's desk."[^1][^2]
### Career
Weyher was born in [[North Carolina]], graduated from the [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]], served in Europe in the [[World War II|Second World War]], and graduated from [[Harvard Law School]], where he was note editor of the law review. He joined [[Cravath, Swaine and Moore]]. In 1951 he was senior assistant counsel to the [[New York State Crime Commission]] under [[John Marshall Harlan II]], who had been a director of the Pioneer Fund since 1937. In 1954 he was a founder of the firm of Olwine, Connelly, Chase, O'Donnell and Weyher, where he practiced corporate tax and acquisitions. The next year he became Draper's personal lawyer. In 1958, on the resignation of [[Frederick Osborn]], he joined the fund's board and was elected its president the same day.[^1]
### Draper's Commissions
In March 1960 a reporter for the [[The Capital Times|Capital Times]] of [[Madison, Wisconsin]], asked Weyher about the committee through which Draper was distributing grants for research on race with the help of [[Richard Arens]] of the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]]. Weyher disclosed that there were two committees by referring to Senator [[James Eastland]] as "being connected with 'the other one,'" and said his firm "handles a number of foundations in similar fashion." In 1963 and 1964 Draper's anonymous gifts of stock to the [[Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission]] went through [[Morgan Guaranty Trust]], and when the plan for a permanent national segregationist organization was abandoned in the summer of 1964 the 50,000 dollars Draper had advanced was returned to an escrow account at Weyher's firm. He was an executor of Draper's will in 1972. He personally paid for research by the anatomist [[Wesley Critz George]].[^2][^3][^4]
### Helms and CBS
Two directors who joined the board in 1973, [[Thomas F. Ellis]] and [[Marion Parrott]], were North Carolina lawyers and allies of Senator [[Jesse Helms]]. Parrott, a relative of Weyher's and a paratroop officer captured in Normandy who escaped from a camp in [[Poland]] in 1945, had served two terms in the state legislature. Ellis had run [[Ronald Reagan]]'s 1976 campaign in the state. The fund gave Ellis's [[Coalition for Freedom]] 195,000 dollars between 1983 and 1989. When Ellis's [[Fairness in Media]] tried in 1985 to have conservatives buy control of [[CBS]], Weyher was its lawyer, and the network's countersuit named the Pioneer Fund. Correspondence among Helms, Weyher, and Parrott in the 1990s refers to white Southerners who voted for black candidates as "scalawags."[^1][^2][^5]
### Defense of the Fund
On March 16, 1994, [[Dan Stein]] of the [[Federation for American Immigration Reform]], which had taken 1,289,000 dollars from the fund, sent Weyher a draft public statement in the fund's defense written in Weyher's voice. Weyher refused to appear on the [[ABC News]] report on the fund broadcast on November 22, 1994, which he called "a grotesque distortion." The chairman of the [[University of Delaware]]'s trustees had written to him on July 2, 1990, that whatever the fund's orientation, racism "is perceived as the orientation of the Fund by at least a material number of our faculty, staff and students." He published two articles in its defense, in [[Psychological Reports]] in 1998 and in Intelligence in 1999, the second titled "The Pioneer Fund, the Behavioral Sciences, and the Media's False Stories." He retired from his firm in 1991. [[J. Philippe Rushton]] succeeded him as president.[^1][^6]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Lynn, Richard. *The Science of Human Diversity: A History of the Pioneer Fund*. University Press of America, 2001, preface by Harry F. Weyher and pp. 54-56.
[^2]: Southern Poverty Law Center, "From eugenics to voter ID laws: Thomas Farr's connections to the Pioneer Fund," *Hatewatch.*
[^3]: May, Ron. "Rich New Yorker Trying to Prove Negroes Inferior," *The Capital Times* (Madison, Wis.), March 5, 1960, p. 1.
[^4]: Blackmon, Douglas A. "Silent Partner: How the South's Fight to Uphold Segregation Was Funded Up North," *The Wall Street Journal,* June 11, 1999, p. A1.
[^5]: Edsall, Thomas B., and David A. Vise. "CBS Fight a Litmus Test for Conservatives," *The Washington Post,* March 31, 1985, p. 1.
[^6]: Southern Poverty Law Center, "The FAIR Files," *Intelligence Report.*

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---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
tags:
- Person
- MichaelTownley
- DINA
- OperationCondor
- LetelierAssassination
- CubanNationalistMovement
- Sarin
- WitnessProtection
alias:
- Michael Vernon Townley
- Juan Andres Wilson
- Kenneth Enyart
- Hans Petersen Silva
summary: "American-born assassin for the Chilean secret police who killed Carlos Prats in Buenos Aires and Orlando Letelier in Washington with car bombs, made sarin in his basement, served five years, and lives under witness protection."
location: "United States"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
Michael Vernon Townley is an American electronics specialist who worked from 1974 to 1978 for the [[DINA|Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional]], the secret police of General [[Augusto Pinochet]]. He built and detonated the bombs that killed General [[Carlos Prats]] and his wife in [[Buenos Aires]] in 1974 and [[Orlando Letelier]] and [[Ronni Moffitt]] in Washington in 1976. [[Chile]] expelled him to the [[United States]] on April 8, 1978. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the Letelier case, was sentenced to ten years, was released after about five, and has since lived in the United States under another name in the federal [[Witness Protection Program|witness protection program]].[^1]
### Recruitment
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]
### Prats
In June 1974 Pinochet ordered the DINA director, Colonel [[Manuel Contreras]], to eliminate Prats, his predecessor as army commander, who was living in exile in Buenos Aires under restrictions the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] reported he had "faithfully carried out." The DINA station chief in [[Argentina]], [[Enrique Arancibia Clavel]], failed to arrange it through Argentine paramilitaries, and Contreras's deputy, Colonel [[Pedro Espinoza]], turned to Townley. "It was a patriotic request," Townley told an Argentine judge in 1999. "So, I did it." He and Callejas arrived on September 10, 1974. He followed Prats into a park and decided against shooting him because "there were too many people around." On September 29 he entered the garage of the general's building and fixed two cartridges of C4 to the chassis of his Fiat 125. Four days before the killing the Chilean foreign ministry told its consul that it would be "inconvenient" to issue the couple passports to leave for [[Brazil]]. Prats and [[Sofía Cuthbert]] returned from visiting friends just after midnight on September 30. Callejas pressed the detonator, "but it did not function," Townley said. "I took it from her, pressed it, and it worked."[^2]
The American ambassador, [[David Popper]], cabled that a [[Radio Moscow]] report blaming DINA "makes no sense to us."[^2]
### Rome, Mexico, Paris
DINA gave Townley 30,000 dollars for missions in [[Mexico]] and Europe, with which he bought weapons, explosives, and remote-control devices in [[Miami]] for use against exile leaders meeting in [[Mexico City]]. In Europe he recruited Italian fascists led by [[Stefano delle Chiaie]], who in 1975 shot the [[Christian Democratic Party (Chile)|Christian Democratic]] leader [[Bernardo Leighton]] and his wife on a street in [[Rome]]. Both survived. A friend of the Prats daughters had warned them weeks after their parents' deaths that the regime meant to "celebrate the coup" each September. In December 1976 Townley went to [[Paris]] on an [[Operation Condor]] mission to kill two leaders of the [[Revolutionary Left Movement (Chile)|Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria]], which failed, he wrote, because Argentine agents had leaked it.[^1][^2]
### The Laboratory
Under a project codenamed ANDREA Townley manufactured [[sarin]] in his basement and planned to make soman and tabun. He recorded that it was used to kill a DINA employee who had been arrested for car theft and had talked to the police, and who was taken from custody to the [[Clínica Londres]], a DINA medical facility, where he died "almost instantaneously," and to kill [[René León Zenteno]], a property registrar who had refused to transfer titles illegally to DINA. Townley suggested that the body be exhumed and tested. The Spanish [[United Nations]] official [[Carmelo Soria]] was beaten to death by Mulchén Brigade agents in Townley's front yard.[^1]
### Letelier
Townley wrote that Espinoza's orders were explicit: "Find Letelier's home and workplace and contact the Cuban group to eliminate him, or use SARIN gas, or orchestrate an accident, or in the end by whatever method, but the government of Chile wanted Letelier dead." He first went to [[Paraguay]] for false documents and American visas, which the United States canceled. He entered the United States on September 9, 1976, and met the leaders of the [[Cuban Nationalist Movement]] in a hotel room in [[New Jersey]] the next day: [[Guillermo Novo]], [[Alvin Ross Díaz|Alvin Ross]], [[Virgilio Paz]], and [[José Dionisio Suárez]]. Novo told him the group would cooperate but insisted that Townley take part in person. Townley, Paz, and Suárez assembled the device in Washington, and at midnight on September 18 Townley taped it to the cross member under the driver's seat of Letelier's car. It was detonated by remote control at [[Sheridan Circle]] on September 21.[^1][^3]
### The Insurance File
In March 1978, after the American and Chilean press had named him, Townley wrote a letter to "Don Manuel" under the name J. Andres Wilson. "Once the visas were canceled by the United States the operation should have been totally canceled," he wrote, "with the understanding that the CIA had knowledge of the persons involved." He doubted that Contreras had "let his Excellency know the truth about this case" and recommended a decree controlling the press. On March 14 he wrote three reports, "Confession and Accusation," "History of Activities in DINA," and an account of the Letelier killing, put an inked thumbprint on each, and gave them to Callejas. "If there has been sufficient reason to open this envelope," the first begins, "I accuse the government of Chile of my death." After his expulsion Contreras told the Chilean press that Townley was a CIA agent planted in DINA, a claim the confession anticipates and denies. Callejas gave the papers to American authorities between 1982 and 1990. The [[Department of Justice]] sent them to Chile with its request for the extradition of Contreras and Espinoza. The [[National Security Archive]] published them in 2023.[^1]
### Trials
Novo and Ross were convicted of murder in 1979 and Novo's brother Ignacio of lying to the grand jury. The [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|court of appeals]] reversed all three convictions in 1980, because the government had used the testimony of jailhouse informants, one of whom said Ross had told him he was involved in the murder "together with generals in DINA." At the retrial in May 1981 Townley, "now serving 3½ to 10 years," admitted on the stand that he had lied to a Chilean military investigator and given a false statement of innocence to [[El Mercurio]]. In 1983 the Prats daughters came to Washington to support an Argentine request for his extradition. A federal judge ruled that his plea agreement barred it. The Argentine judge [[María Servini de Cubría|María Servini]] deposed him in the United States in 1999. Chilean courts convicted Contreras and Espinoza of the Letelier murder in 1993 and of the Prats murders in June 2010. Arancibia Clavel was imprisoned in Argentina for almost two decades.[^1][^2][^3][^4]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The Pinochet Dictatorship Declassified: Confessions of a DINA Hit Man," National Security Archive, November 22, 2023. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2023-11-22/pinochet-dictatorship-declassified-confessions-dina-hit-man
[^2]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The Pinochet Regime at 50: The Assassination of General Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert," National Security Archive, October 1, 2024. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2024-10-01/pinochet-regime-50-assassination-general-carlos-prats-and-sofia
[^3]: United States v. Novo Sampol, 636 F.2d 621 (D.C. Cir. 1980).
[^4]: Kiernan, Laura A. "Townley Admits Lying to Chilean Questioners," *The Washington Post,* May 17, 1981, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00552R000606730006-5.

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10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Mordecai Vanunu.md
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@ -4,51 +4,83 @@ tags:
- Person
- Nuclear
- Israel
- MordechaiVanunu
- Dimona
- Mossad
- RobertMaxwell
- SundayMirror
- SundayTimes
- MargaretThatcher
summary: "Vanunu began working as a technician at Dimona in August 1977 and spent much of the next eight years assigned to various tasks inside the reprocessing plant, formally known as Machon 2 and informally as the Tunnel."
born: 1954-10-14
location: "Marrakech, Morocco"
updated: 2026-09-21
---
[[Mordecai Vanunu]] was a former technician at a nuclear facility near [[Dimona]], [[Israel]], who became a whistleblower, exposing details of [[Israel|Israel's]] nuclear program to the _London Sunday Times_ in 1986.[^1][^2]
[[Mordecai Vanunu]] was a former technician at a nuclear facility near [[Dimona]], [[Israel]], who became a whistleblower, exposing details of Israel's nuclear program to the _London Sunday Times_ in 1986.[^1][^2]
### Background and Early Career
[[Mordecai Vanunu|Vanunu]] was born in [[Morocco]] to a right-wing Jewish family that migrated to [[Israel]] in the early 1960s. He grew up in [[Beersheba]] and was drafted into the military, where he was trained as a technician at the [[Dimona]]. After his military service, he continued to work there as a civilian. He began sympathizing with the Palestinian cause and was horrified by [[Israel|Israel's]] nuclear capabilities.[^1]
Vanunu was born in [[Morocco]] to a right-wing Jewish family that migrated to Israel in the early 1960s. He grew up in [[Beersheba]] and was drafted into the military, where he was trained as a technician at the Dimona. After his military service, he continued to work there as a civilian. He began sympathizing with the Palestinian cause and was horrified by Israel's nuclear capabilities.[^1]
### Work at Dimona and Security Breach
Vanunu began working as a technician at [[Dimona]] in August 1977 and spent much of the next eight years assigned to various tasks inside the reprocessing plant, formally known as Machon 2 and informally as the Tunnel. This plant, handling highly radioactive materials, was the most sensitive area at [[Dimona]], with only 150 of Dimona's 2,700 employees working there. A special pass was required for entry, and all movement was theoretically closely monitored. However, Vanunu found that the stringent security existed only in theory.[^2]
Vanunu began working as a technician at Dimona in August 1977 and spent much of the next eight years assigned to various tasks inside the reprocessing plant, formally known as Machon 2 and informally as the Tunnel. This plant, handling highly radioactive materials, was the most sensitive area at Dimona, with only 150 of Dimona's 2,700 employees working there. A special pass was required for entry, and all movement was theoretically closely monitored. However, Vanunu found that the stringent security existed only in theory.[^2]
Constantly in trouble for his public pro-Arab views, Vanunu was laid off in mid-1985 as part of a government-wide cutback. He appealed through his union and won back his job. It was at this point that he smuggled a camera into the reprocessing plant during an overnight shift and wandered around undetected for some forty minutes, taking fifty-seven color photographs. A few weeks later, he was fired after calling for the formation of a Palestinian state during an Arab rally. Even then, with union help, Vanunu negotiated a settlement from Dimona's management, receiving severance pay and a letter attesting to his good record.[^2]
### Exile and Attempts to Share Information
A combination of factors - disenchantment with his life, distress at the treatment of Arabs in [[Israel]], and what he had learned inside [[Dimona]] - drove him to exile in [[Australia]] and eventually to the _London Sunday Times_. [[Mordecai Vanunu|Vanunu]] first traveled to [[Thailand]] and [[Nepal]], where he converted to [[Buddhism]]. He carried with him photographs and undeveloped film of the inside of the [[Israel|Israeli]] nuclear facility. In [[Nepal]], he contacted the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] Embassy in [[Kathmandu]] and offered them the photographs, but received little in return.[^1][^2]
A combination of factors - disenchantment with his life, distress at the treatment of Arabs in Israel, and what he had learned inside Dimona - drove him to exile in [[Australia]] and eventually to the _London Sunday Times_. Vanunu first traveled to [[Thailand]] and [[Nepal]], where he converted to [[Buddhism]]. He carried with him photographs and undeveloped film of the inside of the Israeli nuclear facility. In Nepal, he contacted the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] Embassy in [[Kathmandu]] and offered them the photographs, but received little in return.[^1][^2]
[[Mordecai Vanunu|Vanunu]] later traveled to [[Australia]], where he preached about the evils of nuclear power and shared his top-secret photos with a church prayer group. He converted to [[Christianity]] and worked as a part-time taxi driver. [[Oscar Guerrero]], a freelance journalist, saw the photographs and proposed publishing them for a fee.[^1]
Vanunu later traveled to Australia, where he preached about the evils of nuclear power and shared his top-secret photos with a church prayer group. He converted to [[Christianity]] and worked as a part-time taxi driver. [[Oscar Guerrero]], a freelance journalist, saw the photographs and proposed publishing them for a fee.[^1]
### Mossad Operation and Capture
[[Israel|Israeli]] intelligence learned of [[Mordecai Vanunu|Vanunu's]] activities and sought to stop him. Copies of some of Vanunu's sensational photographs were made available in [[London]] - before publication of the _Sunday Times_ story - to an Israeli intelligence agent masquerading as an American newspaper reporter. The photographs were sent by courier to the office of Prime Minister [[Shimon Peres]], who ordered [[Mossad]] to get Vanunu out of [[London]] and into Israeli custody. [[Cindy Hanin Bentov]], a [[Mossad]] agent, enticed Vanunu to leave for [[Rome]] a few days before publication. Once in [[Rome]], Vanunu was drugged and returned to [[Israel]] by ship to stand trial. He was sentenced in March 1988 to eighteen years in a maximum-security prison for espionage and treason.[^1][^2]
Israeli intelligence learned of Vanunu's activities and sought to stop him. Copies of some of Vanunu's sensational photographs were made available in [[London]] - before publication of the _Sunday Times_ story - to an Israeli intelligence agent masquerading as an American newspaper reporter. The photographs were sent by courier to the office of Prime Minister [[Shimon Peres]], who ordered [[Mossad]] to get Vanunu out of London and into Israeli custody. [[Cindy Hanin Bentov]], a Mossad agent, enticed Vanunu to leave for [[Rome]] a few days before publication. Once in Rome, Vanunu was drugged and returned to Israel by ship to stand trial. He was sentenced in March 1988 to eighteen years in a maximum-security prison for espionage and treason.[^1][^2]
### Impact on American Intelligence
Vanunu's _Times_ interview and his photographs of many of the production units in the Tunnel, or Machon 2, provided the American intelligence community with the first extensive evidence of Israeli capability to manufacture fusion, or thermonuclear, weapons. American intelligence also obtained copies of many of the _Sunday Times_'s interview notes with Vanunu, which provided more specific detail of the inner workings of [[Dimona]]. Senior American officials and nuclear experts uniformly agreed that the unpublished Vanunu notes are highly credible, with one official describing the scope of the operation as "much more extensive than we thought."[^2]
Vanunu's _Times_ interview and his photographs of many of the production units in the Tunnel, or Machon 2, provided the American intelligence community with the first extensive evidence of Israeli capability to manufacture fusion, or thermonuclear, weapons. American intelligence also obtained copies of many of the _Sunday Times_'s interview notes with Vanunu, which provided more specific detail of the inner workings of Dimona. Senior American officials and nuclear experts uniformly agreed that the unpublished Vanunu notes are highly credible, with one official describing the scope of the operation as "much more extensive than we thought."[^2]
The most exhaustive analysis of the Vanunu statements and photographs was conducted by the Z Division, a special intelligence unit at the [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory|Livermore Laboratories]]. While Z Division's only debate was over the numbers, as Vanunu claimed [[Israel]]'s nuclear stockpile totaled over two hundred warheads (a number significantly higher than [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] and [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]] estimates), American nonproliferation experts independently learned of a boost in [[Dimona]]'s cooling capacity, further evidence of Vanunu's credibility.[^2]
The most exhaustive analysis of the Vanunu statements and photographs was conducted by the Z Division, a special intelligence unit at the [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory|Livermore Laboratories]]. While Z Division's only debate was over the numbers, as Vanunu claimed Israel's nuclear stockpile totaled over two hundred warheads (a number significantly higher than [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] and [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]] estimates), American nonproliferation experts independently learned of a boost in Dimona's cooling capacity, further evidence of Vanunu's credibility.[^2]
### Nuclear Program Timeline and Capabilities
Vanunu's revelations helped American intelligence experts date the progress of the Israeli nuclear arsenal. He revealed that Unit 92 in the Tunnel had been painstakingly removing tritium from heavy water since the 1960s, indicating that physicists at [[Dimona]] had been attempting to manufacture "boosted" fission weapons from the earliest days of production. In 1980, he was assigned to work at a new production plant for lithium 6, another essential element of the hydrogen bomb. In 1984, a new facility (Unit 93) for large-scale production of tritium was opened, suggesting that full-scale production of neutron weapons began then.[^2]
Vanunu's revelations helped American intelligence experts date the progress of the Israeli nuclear arsenal. He revealed that Unit 92 in the Tunnel had been painstakingly removing tritium from heavy water since the 1960s, indicating that physicists at Dimona had been attempting to manufacture "boosted" fission weapons from the earliest days of production. In 1980, he was assigned to work at a new production plant for lithium 6, another essential element of the hydrogen bomb. In 1984, a new facility (Unit 93) for large-scale production of tritium was opened, suggesting that full-scale production of neutron weapons began then.[^2]
### Dimona Facility Structure
As described by Vanunu, [[Dimona]] includes the reactor (Machon 1) and at least eight other buildings, or Machons, with Machon 2 (the chemical reprocessing plant) being the most essential. Machon 1 is the large silver-domed reactor, sixty feet in diameter, where uranium fuel rods remain for three months and are cooled by heavy water. The steam created is vented into the atmosphere, creating a radioactive cloud. Machon 3 converts lithium 6 into a solid for insertion into a nuclear warhead and processes natural uranium for the reactor. Machon 4 contains a waste treatment plant for radioactive residue from Machon 2. Machon 5 coats uranium rods with aluminum for consumption in the reactor. Machon 6 provides basic services and power. Machon 8 contains a laboratory for testing samples and experimenting on new manufacturing processes, and is also the site of Special Unit 840, where Israeli scientists developed a gas centrifuge method of enriching uranium. Machon 9 houses a laser-isotope-reprocessing facility for uranium enrichment. Depleted uranium is chemically isolated in Machon 10 for shipment to the Israeli Defense Force or sale to arms manufacturers.[^2]
As described by Vanunu, Dimona includes the reactor (Machon 1) and at least eight other buildings, or Machons, with Machon 2 (the chemical reprocessing plant) being the most essential. Machon 1 is the large silver-domed reactor, sixty feet in diameter, where uranium fuel rods remain for three months and are cooled by heavy water. The steam created is vented into the atmosphere, creating a radioactive cloud. Machon 3 converts lithium 6 into a solid for insertion into a nuclear warhead and processes natural uranium for the reactor. Machon 4 contains a waste treatment plant for radioactive residue from Machon 2. Machon 5 coats uranium rods with aluminum for consumption in the reactor. Machon 6 provides basic services and power. Machon 8 contains a laboratory for testing samples and experimenting on new manufacturing processes, and is also the site of Special Unit 840, where Israeli scientists developed a gas centrifuge method of enriching uranium. Machon 9 houses a laser-isotope-reprocessing facility for uranium enrichment. Depleted uranium is chemically isolated in Machon 10 for shipment to the Israeli Defense Force or sale to arms manufacturers.[^2]
### Production Capacity
The Tunnel (Machon 2) remained in operation around the clock for thirty-four weeks a year, producing a weekly average of 1.2 kilograms of pure plutonium, enough for four to a dozen or more bombs annually, depending on warhead design. This production rate suggests the reactor operates at about 120 to 150 megawatts, more than five times its officially stated output, consuming nearly one hundred tons of uranium ore a year. The precision involved in machining plutonium hemispheres and placing them around gases for boosted nuclear weapons was achieved through advancements in robotics, a field in which [[Aharon Katzir]] was world-renowned for his research at the [[Weizmann Institute of Science]].[^2]
### The Sunday Mirror
Oscar Guerrero, a Colombian who had attached himself to Vanunu in [[Sydney]], offered the story to the [[The Sunday Mirror|Sunday Mirror]] while [[The Sunday Times]] was still checking it. Two Mirror reporters, [[Tony Frost]] and [[Mark Souster]], argued that the photographs looked genuine and should lead the paper. The editor, [[Michael Malloy]], overruled them and wanted none of the photographs printed. On the Thursday before publication he ordered Frost and Souster to take the photographs and data to the Israeli embassy in London. His deputy, [[John Parker (journalist)|John Parker]], understood that [[Robert Maxwell]] had given the order. Malloy said later: "I told Bob about it because of his involvement with Israel. He does have powerful friends there and close links." Of the embassy visit he said: "I think he probably said, 'Oh, let the Israelis have a look at it,' and that's how it came about. It wasn't as if we were handing them to a foreign enemy."[^2]
The paper ran two pages on September 28, 1986, headed "The Strange Case of Israel and the Nuclear Con Man," which quoted the Israeli press attache as saying that Vanunu had been a junior technician. Parker said: "The Sunday Mirror had the biggest story in the world at that time and it collapsed because of the line they took. It was a classic exercise by the Israelis in disinformation." The news editor, [[Peter Miller (journalist)|Peter Miller]], said the line "cost the Sunday Mirror a world-beating exclusive." Frost said: "I was hoping one day that the full story would come out on this." Maxwell dismissed Miller in November 1990. The [[Daily Mirror]] dismissed its foreign editor, [[Nicholas Davies]], on October 29, 1991, for denying that he had been in [[Ohio]] in 1985 at the home of an arms dealer, after a rival paper printed a photograph of him there. Maxwell died a week later.[^2][^3]
[[Peter Hounam]] of the Sunday Times met [[Seymour Hersh]] and [[Ari Ben-Menashe]] three times in one day when Hersh's book was offered for serialization. He found that Ben-Menashe's statement that the Mirror's photograph of Vanunu had been flown in from Israel was false, since Hounam had taken it himself in Australia and given Guerrero a copy. The Sunday Times did not serialize the book.[^4]
### Peres and Thatcher
On September 21, 1986, after a meeting with [[Yitzhak Shamir]] and [[Yitzhak Rabin]], Prime Minister Shimon Peres reportedly telephoned [[Margaret Thatcher]] about what Vanunu was telling the press. Cheryl Bentov had arrived in London the day before. Vanunu flew with her to Rome on September 30 on [[British Airways]] flight 504. Israel confirmed on November 9 that he was in custody, denied that he had been kidnapped on English soil, and said there was "no basis for the report that Mr. Peres contacted Mrs. Thatcher in order to tell her something that did not happen." Israeli officials then told British correspondents privately about the call.[^4]
In the Commons the Conservative members [[Dennis Walters]] and [[Anthony Beaumont-Dark]] called for an inquiry. Asked by [[Dale Campbell-Savours]] whether she had discussed Vanunu with Peres or any Israeli official before his departure, Thatcher answered: "No." Asked whether any Israeli official had communicated with her office to procure his return, she answered: "No, he was not returned to Israel from [[United Kingdom|Britain]]; he was returned from another country." Before the full debate Peres telephoned her again, and said afterward: "It was a very friendly conversation and I think that our misunderstanding has been cleared up." The British ambassador to Israel, [[Clifford Squire]], was told by Peres's aide [[Yossi Beilin]] that Israel had nothing to add. No British inquiry was held.[^4]
### Rome
The Roman magistrate [[Domenico Sica]] traced a van hired by the Israeli embassy on the day of the abduction whose mileage matched a journey to [[La Spezia]], and an Israeli cargo ship that had declared a false itinerary. Vanunu's brother [[Meir Vanunu|Meir]], who had learned the details by speaking Moroccan Arabic to him in prison, testified twice. An Israeli court issued a warrant for Meir's arrest, and the [[Home Office|British Home Office]] refused him asylum on the ground that he "faced prosecution, not persecution." An official of the Israeli foreign ministry said: "If Dr. Sica comes it would be very, very embarrassing for our government." Sica closed the inquiry in June 1988 with the finding that Vanunu had been working with the Mossad and that "the whole affair had been a disinformation exercise." He reasoned that no one could be found who had seen Vanunu arrive in Rome, that professionals would not have used a flat in a crowded district, that the message Vanunu wrote on his palm was in better English than he commanded, and that the photographs showed no staff. Meir Vanunu replied: "If this is a disinformation exercise, release my brother."[^4]
### Bentov
[[Cheryl Hanin]] was born in [[Orlando, Florida]], in 1960, went to Israel in the late 1970s, served in a [[Nahal]] unit, and in March 1985 married [[Ofer Bentov]], a major in military intelligence and a general's son. Hounam and [[David Connett]], who had seen her with Vanunu in London, found her at an address in [[Netanya]] in July 1987. She asked, "Are you going to publish this?" and then said: "I deny this, I deny everything." A family friend recalled her telling her mother that "there were other things that I did for the Israeli government which were even more pertinent and involved than this." The CIA and the FBI examined her records at [[Edgewater High School]] in Orlando, and the CIA's London station asked the British services whether Israel had given warning of the operation. The Sunday Times photographed her in [[Florida]] in January 1998.[^4]
### The 1988 Expulsions
In April 1987 British police found an arms cache kept by [[Ismail Sowan]], a Palestinian working for Israeli intelligence inside the [[Palestine Liberation Organization]] in Britain. The Mossad had known of it for a month and had not told the British. Thatcher wrote personally to Shamir. After Sowan was sentenced to eleven years in June 1988, the government expelled [[Arie Regev]], the Mossad's liaison with [[MI5]] and [[MI6]], and other Israeli officers, on the initiative of the [[Foreign and Commonwealth Office|Foreign Office]] and MI5 and over the objection of MI6. [[Abba Eban]] came secretly to London to see Thatcher for forty-five minutes. Intelligence sharing resumed by December.[^4]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. _Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network_. TrineDay, 1992. [^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 15.
[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. _Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network_. TrineDay, 1992.
[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Faber and Faber, 1991, pp. 313-314.
[^3]: United Press International, report on the dismissal of Nicholas Davies, October 29, 1991.
[^4]: Cohen, Yoel. *The Whistleblower of Dimona: Israel, Vanunu, and the Bomb*. 2003. https://archive.org/details/the-whistleblower-of-dimona-israel-vanunu-and-the-bomb

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---
category: "Military"
tags:
- Person
- RobertoViaux
- Chile
- ProjectFUBELT
- ReneSchneider
- CIA
- CoupPlotting
alias:
- Roberto Viaux Marambio
summary: "Retired Chilean general whom the CIA paid and encouraged in October 1970 through officers posing as third country nationals, and whose men shot General René Schneider."
location: "Santiago, Chile"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-21
---
Roberto Viaux Marambio was a retired [[Chile|Chilean]] army general who in October 1970 headed one of the two groups of officers plotting to keep [[Salvador Allende]] from the presidency. A briefing book of declassified cables calls him "a general without an army."[^1]
### Contact
The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] station in [[Santiago]] told the American army attaché on October 5, 1970, not to deal with Viaux himself "because of the high risk involved." On October 6 a foreign attaché relayed Viaux's request for "several hundred paralyzing gas grenades" for a coup on October 9. Headquarters refused, calling a "mini-coup at this juncture" counterproductive, and told the station to encourage him "in a suitable manner to maintain his posture so that he may join larger movement later." Agency officers "who posed as third country nationals" then took over the contact. "We wish to encourage Viaux to expand and refine his coup planning," headquarters cabled on October 10. "Gain some influence over his actions." On October 13 it authorized 20,000 dollars in cash and a promise of 250,000 dollars in life insurance "as a demonstration of U.S. support," and asked: "What is to keep Schneider from making statement in early hours which will freeze those military leaders who might otherwise join Viaux?" The station answered the same day that "Viaux intends to kidnap Generals Schneider and Prats within the next 48 hours in order to precipitate a coup."[^2]
On October 15 [[Thomas Karamessines]] described Viaux's plans to [[Henry A. Kissinger|Henry Kissinger]] and [[Alexander Haig]]. They put his chances at no more than "one chance in twenty" and decided to send him a warning against acting alone. Kissinger later testified that he had turned the plotting off at this meeting. The cable that went to Santiago the next day said it was "firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup." A CIA officer identified in the Senate's report as "[[Sarno (CIA)|Mr. Sarno]]" testified that Viaux's people told him of the first kidnapping attempt in advance: "They indicated it was going to be at some sort of a banquet which the General (Schneider) would be attending." After that attempt failed on October 19 the station reported: "General Viaux knowledgeable of above operation but not directly involved."[^1][^2]
### The Shooting
General [[Rene Schneider|René Schneider]] was shot on the morning of October 22 by Viaux's men, who used handguns. The submachine guns the agency had sent by diplomatic pouch had gone to the group of General [[Camilo Valenzuela]]. A Chilean military court found that the two generals "had been in contact throughout the coup plotting." It sentenced Viaux to twenty years as "intellectual author" of the kidnapping and Valenzuela to three years of exile. The agency later paid Viaux's representatives 35,000 dollars, in the words of its report to the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence|House Intelligence Committee]], "in an effort to keep previous contact secret, maintain the good will of the group and for humanitarian reasons." They had asked for 250,000.[^1][^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "The CIA and Chile: Anatomy of an Assassination," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 728, October 22, 2020. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile/2020-10-22/cia-chile-anatomy-assassination
[^2]: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, *Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders,* interim report, S. Rept. 94-465, November 20, 1975.