Reno Faces Tough Decisions in Pinochet Case

by Andrew Reding

Unlike the current government of Iran, Pinochet's regime did not just sponsor terrorism abroad. Its secret police--the Directorate of National Security, or DINA--actually carried it out. First came the 1974 assassination of exiled Gen. Carlos Prats and his wife by a car bomb in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Prats, Pinochet's predecessor as head of the armed forces, had angered the latter by his scrupulous adherence to the constitution, choosing to resign rather than take part in a coup against the elected socialist government of President Salvador Allende.

In 1975, Italian neo-fascists working for the DINA tried to kill former Chilean vice president Bernardo Leighton in Rome. They shot him in the head and his wife in the chest. Both survived, and were later able to identify their assailants. Leighton, a Christian Democrat, had been engaged in negotiations with socialists to try to unite the democratic opposition to the dictatorship.

Then, on September 21, 1976, the DINA struck again, this time in our nation's capital. A bomb blew up a car in Sheridan Circle, killing former Chilean foreign minister and ambassador to the U.S. Orlando Letelier. It also killed his assistant, U.S. citizen Ronni Moffit. Michael Townley, the American-born Chilean agent who planted the bomb with the assistance of Cuban exiles, had previously tortured and killed a Spanish diplomat in his home in Santiago.

Under pressure from the United States, the secret police chief at the time, Gen. Manuel Contreras, was convicted of having ordered the Sheridan Circle bombing, and sentenced to seven years in jail. But Gen. Pinochet's fingerprints are all over the case. Just days before the bombing, Pinochet had stripped Letelier of his citizenship, for "having carried out a campaign abroad to isolate Chile politically, economically, and culturally," and for seeking to "influence U.S. foreign policy by demanding a total suspension of military aid to Chile."

Gen. Contreras, furthermore, is now saying he received his orders directly from Gen. Pinochet. Though Pinochet denies the allegations, they are corroborated by Gen. Gustavo Leigh, the former air force chief who served with Pinochet on the military junta that toppled President Allende. Though the DINA in principle reported to the junta, Leigh told the Chilean press, "in practice it reported exclusively to Pinochet," who "met with Gen. Contreras every morning to receive instructions."

With that kind of evidence, a grand jury would be certain to indict Pinochet. Janet Reno, who has proven to be an extremely fair-minded and courageous chief law enforcement official, could hardly conclude otherwise. But this case will not be decided exclusively by law.

Other U.S. government agencies have vested interests in keeping a lid on the case. The State Department wants to maintain good relations with the Chilean government. The Defense Department wants to stay on good terms with the Chilean military. And the CIA is determined to avoid further exposure of its close ties with the DINA.

Those ties, however, are now safely in the past. Their exposure at this point would actually perform a salutary role in a democracy. By informing the public about one of the seamier episodes in U.S. foreign policy, it would make repeat occurrences less likely.

Even more important is the need to weigh embarrassment about the past against the far more compelling need to build a clear, unambiguous legal strategy to confront the plague of international terrorism. Until we do, Iraq's Sadaam Hussein, Libya's Muammar Gadhafi, and the Iranian ayatollahs can rest easy in the knowledge that the United States is still too tied down by its often tawdry Cold War past to be able to mobilize global sentiment in favor of effective legal sanctions against cross-border state terrorism.