| Summary/Abstract |
On September 21, 1976, a bomb taped to the bottom of the car of Chilean exile and former ambassador and minister Orlando Letelier exploded as he drove into Sheridan Circle in Washington, DC. The Chilean died within minutes. Ronni Moffitt, Letelier’s co-worker and a U.S. citizen, sat in the passenger’s seat and also died. Letelier had been an outspoken opponent of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whose military junta had overthrown Marxist president Salvador Allende in 1973 and thrown Letelier, then Minister of Defense, in a prison camp for a year without charges. The investigation that followed pointed to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the Chilean secret police, as the culprit, helped by an American-Chilean and a handful of Cuban-Americans; criminal and civil cases to bring the guilty to justice swallowed up the next few decades.
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