Assassination of Orlando Letelier

Date: September 21, 1976 • Location: Adams Morgan, United States

Orlando Letelier is assassinated in Washington, D.C. by Michael Townley, linked to the National Intelligence Directorate of Chile.

Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar was a Chilean Marxist and diplomat during the presidency of Salvador Allende. A member of the Socialist Party of Chile, he fled from the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, and accepted several academic positions in Washington D.C. after his exile from Chile. In 1976, agents of Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), the Pinochet regime's secret police, killed him in Washington by a car bomb. The agents had been working in collaboration with members of the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, an anti-Castro militant group.