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The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/Eugene Propper.md

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Eugene M. Propper
Law Enforcement & Legal
Person
EugenePropper
OrlandoLetelier
DepartmentOfJustice
DINA
MichaelTownley
PrivateSecurity
Federal prosecutor of the Letelier murder, from whom the CIA withheld its 1976 knowledge of the Chilean agents' passports, and who in 1988 formed a counterterrorism consultancy with the FBI men from the case. Washington, D.C. 2026-09-21 2026-10-08
type with start end role fn
represented Peru 1981-10 1988-10 short-form registrant for Lane & Edson, P.C., FARA registration 3286 5
type with start end role fn
represented Jamaica 1989-09 1990-04 short-form registrant for CounterTerrorism Consultants, L.P., FARA registration 4294 7
type with start role fn
employed_by Lane and Edson 1983 attorney, later partner and head of the trial division (as stated in the 1990 resume packet); named on the firm letterhead from 1983 12

Eugene M. Propper was the assistant United States Attorney in Washington assigned in September 1976 to the murder of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt. His deputy was E. Lawrence Barcella, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents were Carter Cornick in Washington and Robert Scherrer, the bureau's representative in Buenos Aires.1

The Investigation

The Central Intelligence Agency began sending him classified files, most of them on Chilean leftists. It "withheld from Propper the information that Deputy Director Vernon Walters, a few weeks before the assassination, had learned about a covert mission to Washington by two Chilean intelligence officers using the names Juan Williams and Armando Fernandez Larios," the subject of Ambassador George Landau's cable from Paraguay, which Director George H.W. Bush "had personally handled." A source with personal knowledge said that Bush, meeting Propper, "made no mention of the mysterious Chilean agents or of his discussions with Walters." On October 21, 1976, Propper sat beside Attorney General Edward Levi when Letelier's widow and her lawyer asked that the CIA be subpoenaed, which Levi declined. The photographs from the Paraguayan passports, which the Department of State had given him in the fall of 1976, were first shown to a witness on July 12, 1977, and identified Michael Townley. Propper obtained Townley's expulsion from Chile in April 1978 and his guilty plea that August.2

Newspaper clippings filed by the defense in 1978 reported that Propper, Assistant Attorney General Stanley Pottinger, and the director of central intelligence, George Bush, had "met to determine to what extent that agency could help in the investigation," and that "a carefully worded agreement placing the Letelier case in a 'national security' status allowed that cooperation." During the trial Townley telephoned Chile from Propper's office, with his consent for calls about the extradition proceedings, and once, on January 30, 1979, without it, a call that was taped at the other end and given to the defense.3

The letter rogatory that carried the investigation to Chile, signed by Chief Judge William B. Bryant and certified by Cyrus Vance and Griffin Bell, asked the Supreme Court of Chile to have "René Riveros" and "Rolando Mosqueira" answer 55 written questions under oath, with Propper present; the foreign ministry's legal adviser, Gustavo Chamorro, advised on March 3, 1978, that the secrecy of the Chilean sumario did not allow his attendance. It stated that "at least one of these men met with one of the persons believed to be responsible" for the murders. The Chilean prosecutor in turn asked for a statement from Vernon Walters; Propper had already noted on June 9 that Walters had retired on July 2, 1976, and "was no longer there at the time either mission to the United States by DINA personnel took place"; he and Barcella sent the FBI's interview of June 14 on June 22.4

Afterward

With the journalist Taylor Branch he wrote Labyrinth (1982), an account of the case. By 1988 he was with the Washington law firm of Lane and Edson and a partner, without title, in Counter Terrorism Consultants, Inc., formed with Cornick, Scherrer, who had "recently retired from the FBI as its records chief," and Barcella. The firm offered governments, airlines, shipping companies, and the sponsors of events such as the Olympic Games "pro-active" plans against attack, the management of kidnappings and hijackings, "in-depth intelligence files," and "liaison programs with national and international law enforcement and intelligence agencies."1

Justice Department registration files list Lane & Edson, P.C., of 2300 M Street NW, Washington, as a registrant under the Foreign Agents Registration Act from October 8, 1981 to November 8, 1988, with the Republic of Peru as its foreign principal until October 8, 1988; the Attorney General's report lists its services as legal work on the recovery of illegally exported pre-Columbian artifacts and on favorable import legislation or regulations, with finances "None Reported." Propper is a short-form registrant under that registration, with the November 8, 1988 termination date.56 Under CounterTerrorism Consultants, L.P. (registration 4294) he is a short-form registrant from September 18, 1989 to October 25, 1990; the registration's only foreign principal was the Government of Jamaica, from September 18, 1989 to April 15, 1990, and it reported $25,000.00 received prior to registration.78

Propper is named among the lawyers on Lane and Edson letterheads printed in congressional hearing records of 1983 and 1984, with Frederic J. Truslow, Jack Feder and others, and on the firm's letter of February 25, 1985 printed in the record of Senate housing authorization hearings.9 The 2009 edition of The Art of M&A describes him as a Lane & Edson partner who had contributed substantially to the due diligence chapter of the original 1989 edition, and as then in private practice in McLean, Virginia.10 The firm's registration for Peru recorded receipts of $19,778.00, $15,513.00, $37,281.71 and $23,758.89 for the twelve-month periods ending October 8 of 1982 to 1985.11

A June 1990 resume packet of the firm describes Propper as co-founder, advising clients on criminal prosecutions, extradition, expulsion and the formulation of statutes and prosecutorial guidelines. It states that he was an assistant United States attorney in Washington from 1972 to 1979 and an attorney in the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice from 1971 to 1972; that he headed the investigation and prosecution of the terrorists who killed Orlando Letelier; that he was instrumental in the prosecution of Edwin Wilson and Frank Terpil for selling weapons to Libya; that he was chief prosecutor in the bombing of the United States Capitol and of the offices of a foreign airline in Washington; that he heads the trial division at Lane and Edson; that he is a member of the District of Columbia and Massachusetts bars; and that he holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Massachusetts and a law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School.12

Footnotes

  1. "A group of top former FBI agents and federal prosecutors," United Press International, August 2, 1988. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/08/02/A-group-of-top-former-FBI-agents-and-federal/9684730900658/ ↩︎

  2. Dinges, John, and Saul Landau. Assassination on Embassy Row. McGraw-Hill, 1980, pp. 242-243, 252, 297, 309-311. ↩︎

  3. Motion for change of venue, United States v. Contreras Sepulveda et al., Crim. No. 78-367 (D.D.C. 1978), with newspaper clippings attached as exhibits, legible only in fragments, https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-venue.pdf; Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington field office, file 185-425, reports of interviews of Michael Vernon Townley by Special Agents Robert W. Scherrer and L. Carter Cornick, February 6, 8, and 16, 1979, https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Letelier-townley-phone.pdf. ↩︎

  4. 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, letter rogatory, Exp. 20931, and oficio of the Ministry of Foreign Relations, February 27, 1978; Fiscalía Militar Ad-Hoc, Santiago, causa 192-78, as reproduced in Proceso contra Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda y Pedro Espinoza Bravo, tomo 2, scan at https://www.latinamericanstudies.org/MNC/Causa-Contreras-Espinoza-1991-2.pdf. Quotations translated from the Spanish, memoranda of Eugene M. Propper and E. Lawrence Barcella, June 5, 9, and 22, 1978. ↩︎

  5. U.S. Department of Justice, Foreign Agents Registration Act public bulk files, registration 3286 (Lane & Edson, P.C.; foreign principal "Republic of Peru," registered October 8, 1981, terminated October 8, 1988; short form "Propper, Eugene M.," terminated November 8, 1988), https://efile.fara.gov/bulk/zip/FARA_All_Registrants.csv.zip, https://efile.fara.gov/bulk/zip/FARA_All_ForeignPrincipals.csv.zip, https://efile.fara.gov/bulk/zip/FARA_All_ShortForms.csv.zip. ↩︎

  6. U.S. Department of Justice, Report of the Attorney General to the Congress on the Administration of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, calendar years 1988 to 1991, Peru section, entry "Lane & Edson, P.C., #3286 (T88)," https://www.justice.gov/media/910056/dl?inline. ↩︎

  7. Same bulk files, registration 4294 (CounterTerrorism Consultants, L.P.): short form "Propper, Eugene M.," September 18, 1989, terminated October 25, 1990; foreign principal "Government of Jamaica," September 18, 1989 to April 15, 1990. ↩︎

  8. U.S. Department of Justice, Report of the Attorney General to the Congress on the Administration of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, for the Calendar Years 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991, Volume 1, Jamaica section, p. 599, https://www.justice.gov/media/910066/dl?inline. ↩︎

  9. Letterheads of Lane and Edson, P.C., in Governmental Lease Financing Reform Act (1983), https://books.google.com/books?id=L63PFff8BXkC, and Section 8 Rent Adjustments, Elderly Housing, and Other Assisted Housing Issues (1984), https://books.google.com/books?id=HQwRxaYIvskC; letter of February 25, 1985, Senate Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs, Housing, Community Development, and Mass Transportation Authorizations, 1986, https://books.google.com/books?id=pfCKEE1NeD0C. ↩︎

  10. Stanley F. Reed and Lane & Edson, P.C., The Art of M&A (1989), and the 2009 edition, which states that "Lane & Edson Partner Eugene M. Propper (now in private practice in McLean, Virginia) contributed substantially to the due diligence chapter in the original (1989) edition," https://books.google.com/books?id=02XSV9j541EC. ↩︎

  11. U.S. Department of Justice, Reports of the Attorney General to the Congress on the Administration of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, calendar years 1982 to 1985, Peru entries for "Lane and Edson, P.C., #3286," https://www.justice.gov/media/910086/dl, https://www.justice.gov/media/910081/dl, https://www.justice.gov/media/910076/dl, https://www.justice.gov/media/910111/dl. ↩︎

  12. CounterTerrorism Consultants, L.P., "Proudly Presents The Resumes of its Associates," fax copy dated June 20, 1990, page 141 P07, Danny Casolaro papers, folder "Promotional Material," https://archive.org/details/casolaro-notebooks. ↩︎