Orlando Letelier
1 paper-backed poster with protective plastic. 57 x 44.5 cm. Archive of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights
Photograph of Orlando Letelier with text written by him: "I was born a Chilean, I am Chilean, I will die Chilean. They, the fascists, were born traitors, live as traitors and will be remembered forever as fascist traitors. Orlando Letelier, 10 September, 1976."
Orlando Letelier, 44, was Chile's ambassador to the United States during the government of President Salvador Allende and later served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defense, a position he held on September 11, 1973, the day the military junta, created and financed by the United States, carried out a coup d'état and subsequently established a dictatorship that would kidnap, traffic, torture, murder, and disappear thousands of people.
That same day, he was arrested in his office at the Ministry of Defense and transferred to the Tacna Regiment detention and torture center, then to the Military School detention and torture center. From there, he was taken to the Dawson Island concentration camp. He later spent time in the basement of the Air Force War Academy, a torture center, before being transferred to the Campamento de Ritoque concentration camp. From there, he was released and exiled to Venezuela and then to the United States, where he worked at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.
On September 21, 1976, a previously planted bomb detonated the car in which former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier was traveling with his [USAmerican] colleague at the Institute for Policy Studies, Ronni Moffitt, and her husband, Michael Moffitt. The attack occurred in the Sheridan Circle area, in downtown Washington, D.C. (United States). Orlando died instantly, Ronni died a few minutes later, and her husband, Michael, survived. Letelier had served as a diplomat and minister in Salvador Allende's government. After Augusto Pinochet's military coup, he was imprisoned until September 1974 in various detention and torture centers. Upon his release, he managed to go into exile, first in Caracas and then in Washington. An FBI investigation revealed that the assassination was organized by the Chilean National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) under the direction of Michael Townley, a U.S. citizen and DINA agent. Anti-Castro Cuban exiles had been hired for the operation. The bomb had been attached to the underside of the vehicle two days earlier and was operated by remote control.
Murder of Orlando Letelier. Plan Condor