Why the State Department Finally Confirmed Augusto Pinochet’s Role in International Terrorism

In the fall of 1987, Secretary of State George Shultz faced a formidable challenge: to convince President Ronald Reagan that the time had come to jettison his favorite anti-Communist dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and openly align Washington with the forces of democracy in Chile. In September, Shultz sat down with CIA director William Webster, who briefed him on Pinochet’s direct role in the September 21, 1976, car-bombing in Washington, DC, that took the lives of the leading critic of Chile’s military regime, former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier, and his young colleague at the Institute for Policy Studies, Ronni Karpen Moffitt. The CIA had “convincing evidence,” Shultz learned, that “Pinochet personally ordered his intelligence chief to carry out the murders.”
In a secret report titled “Pinochet and the Letelier-Moffitt Murders: Implications for US Policy,” Shultz made his case to the president. “The CIA has never before drawn and presented its conclusion that such strong evidence exists of [Pinochet’s] leadership role in this act of terrorism,” the Secretary of State informed Reagan. “It is not clear whether we can or would want to consider indicting Pinochet,” Shultz advised. “Nevertheless, this is a blatant example of a chief of state’s direct involvement in an act of state terrorism, one that is particularly disturbing both because it occurred in our capital and since his government is generally continue