Recently declassified US documents revealed that former Chilean General Manuel Contreras, who was head of the Chilean security service DINA, was on the official CIA payroll as an informant at least up to 1977.  

In 1976 there was a terrorist attack in the Du Pont Circle area of Washington DC in which a car bomb killed the Chilean foreign minister and diplomat Orlando Letelier as well as his assistant, an American woman.  Mr. Letelier, an articulate diplomat, was opposed the military government of General Pinochet and maintained his official portfolio as the Chilean Foreign Minister appointed by the elected government of Chile under President Allende. 

The bomb explosion in his car was the work of contract killers recruited from Florida by an American working for General Contreras on what he described as a "free lance" basis.   This American was considered the mastermind behind the bombing, but was not convicted in court because national security was cited as the reason for not providing the court with CIA documents regarding his past. The court convicted the hired guns for these killings. 

These declassified documents and others point directly at General Manuel Contreras as the mastermind and the assassination of Mr. Latelier as an act of state sponsored terrorism. They point to the policy of the Chilean Military Junta to eliminate all opponents of its regime at home and abroad through terrorist means. 

The CIA was questioned about its link to General Contreras and this act of terrorism perpetrated in the capital of the US, as revealed in its declassified document. The official CIA spokesman did not admit any remorse and merely said that the CIA was executing national policy of that time and that the relationship with General Contreras was necessary to "accomplish the CIA's mission" and had the sanction of the policy makers of that time.
 
Background
In September 1973, the military coup got underway by storming the center of government, the Moneda Palace in the capital Santiago in Chile.  President Salvador Allende and many government staff members died defending their office. General Pinochet, as head of the military then ordered the rounding up of thousands of people from all walks of life and imprisoned them in the national soccer stadium in Santiago.
 
Those arrested were students, workers, journalists, teachers, professors, artists, trade union members, small business owners & shop keepers, members of Communist, Socialist & Social Democratic parties, i.e. anyone considered a potential foe of the military coup! Residents of  Santiago were terrorized by the rattle of firing squads operating in the National Stadium around the clock. Curfew confined people to their residences. 
 
The military coup resulted in the deaths of about 10,000 people in Chile (population at that time was approximately 10 Million)   and saw thousands driven into exile.  Many people from other Latin American countries as well as from Europe resident in Chile were also jailed or killed. Recently a mass grave of over 2,000 people was found in the northern Chilean desert. A notable victim of the military coup was Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate, poet Pablo Neruda. Military squads burned his books and looted his house and smashed his art collection. Shortly afterwards Pablo Neruda died, heart broken by what had befallen his beloved Chile!
 
In 1974, as head of the military junta General Pinochet appointed himself as President. In 1990, he got himself appointed Senator for Life to gain immunity from persecution. The Chilean courts recently stripped this immunity and Mr. Pinochet appeared on Chilean TV along  with his wife and daughter pleading that he was forced to act harshly for patriotic reasons and be spared from trial for reason of  ill health. During 17 years of military rule in Chile, General Manuel Contreras, head of the dreaded DINA, was his closest confidant.  

Together they closed down the Chilean Parliament and banned all political and trade union activities. General Pinochet defended his actions as patriotic acts and directed against the threat of Communism, a favoured cold war stance of Nixon and Kissinger!   Other South American dictatorships, principally those of Brazil and Argentina, supported Pinochet’s military regime.   The Brazilian military sent its own security police to Chile to assist with interrogations and torture.
 
During the 1970's many dedicated democratic activists in the Americas uncovered  and reported the terrorist actions taken by the Chilean junta against its people, they uncovered evidence of execution squads and torture, illegal imprisonment and arrests.  Even though documents and witness statements pointing to  the connection between Chilean General Manuel Contreras and the assassins of Orlando Letelier  were presented in US courts, the cover of national security was used to disallow or confuse the issue.
 
This ensured that only the low level trigger men were ever convicted  while the organizers and masterminds escaped justice. US military and economic aid continued to flow to the Chilean military junta throughout  its reign despite flagrant violations of human rights and the rule of law. Phillip Agee in his book, Inside the CIA, documents that the CIA had poured illegal funds into Chile to defeat Salvador Allende's election campaigns even in the 1960's! 
 
History has already heaped opprobrium on the names of such despots.  Recently, marking the 27th anniversary of the military coup, thousands of Chilean people demonstrated against General Pinochet and demanded justice for the fallen.