Washington bureau chief Evan Thomas told me that executive editor Maynard Parker's response to my article was to accuse me of being "out to get Bush." According to longtime Newsweek's staffers, Parker was regarded as having very close ties to the CIA and to Henry Kissinger who was Secretary of State in 1976.
After my Newsweek story was spiked, it took 12 more years before the CIA admitted that it had paid Contreras as an intelligence asset and consulted with him about the Letelier assassination.
Victim, Not Accomplice
Still, the CIA report issued in 2000 sought to portray the spy agency as more victim than accomplice. According to the report, the CIA was internally critical of Contreras's human rights abuses and skeptical about his credibility. The CIA said its skepticism predated the spy agency's contact with him about the Letelier-Moffitt murders.
"The relationship, while correct, was not cordial and smooth, particularly as evidence of Contreras' role in human rights abuses emerged," the CIA reported. "In December 1974, the CIA concluded that Contreras was not going to improve his human rights performance. "
"By April 1975, intelligence reporting showed that Contreras was the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the Junta, but an inter-agency committee [within Gerald Ford's administration] directed the CIA to continue its relationship with Contreras." (The reference to an "inter-agency" group suggests that Kissinger's State Department would have had a role in the decision.)
The CIA report added that "a one-time payment was given to Contreras" in 1975, a time frame when the CIA was first hearing about Operation Condor, a cross-border program run by South America's military dictatorships to hunt down dissidents living in other countries. The report added:
"CIA sought from Contreras information regarding evidence that emerged in 1975 of a formal Southern Cone cooperative intelligence effort -- "Operation Condor' -- building on informal cooperation in tracking and, in at least a few cases, killing political opponents.
"By October 1976, there was sufficient information that the CIA decided to approach Contreras on the matter. Contreras confirmed Condor's existence as an intelligence-sharing network but denied that it had a role in extra-judicial killings."
Also, in October 1976, the CIA said it "worked out" how it would assist the FBI in its investigation of the Letelier assassination, which had occurred the previous month. The spy agency's report offered no details of what it did, however. The report added only that Contreras was already a murder suspect by fall 1976.
"At that time, Contreras' possible role in the Letelier assassination became an issue," the CIA's report said. "By the end of 1976, contacts with Contreras were very infrequent."
Even though the CIA came to recognize the likelihood that DINA was behind the Letelier assassination, there never was any indication that Bush's CIA sought to correct the false impression created by its leaks to the news media asserting DINA's innocence.
The Carter Break
After Bush left the CIA with Jimmy Carter's inauguration in 1977, the spy agency distanced itself from Contreras, the CIA report said. "During 1977, CIA met with Contreras about half a dozen times; three of those contacts were to request information on the Letelier assassination," the CIA report said.
"On 3 November 1977, Contreras was transferred to a function unrelated to intelligence so the CIA severed all contact with him," the report added. "After a short struggle to retain power, Contreras resigned from the Army in 1978. In the interim, CIA gathered specific, detailed intelligence reporting concerning Contreras' involvement in ordering the Letelier assassination."
Though the CIA report contained the first official admission of a relationship with Contreras, it shed no light on the actions of Bush and his deputy, Walters, in the days before and after the Letelier assassination. It also offered no explanation why Bush's CIA planted false information in the American press clearing Chile's military dictatorship.
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