Indeed, the CIA was so concerned about what Warren called the “adverse political ramifications for the Agency should Condor engage in assassinations” that it took proactive steps to preempt Condor operations in Europe. A declassified US Senate study, based on Top Secret-Sensitive CIA reports, stated that “the CIA warned the governments of the countries in which the assassinations were likely to occur—France and Portugal—which in turn warned the possible targets.”
CIA officials also conferred with State Department officers on how to dissuade the Condor nations from their assassination operations. In mid-August, 1976, Warren informed his superiors that the CIA had agreed to “an EXDIS [Exclusive Distribution] message from the Department of State to the US Ambassadors in Buenos Aires, Santiago and Montevideo instructing them to approach the highest levels of their host governments and express the serious concern of the US Government to the alleged assassination plans envisioned within ‘Operation Condor.’” Several courageous State Department officers, among them Hewson Ryan, William Luers, and Assistant Secretary for Latin America Harry Shlaudeman, successfully lobbied Secretary of State Kissinger to approve the diplomatic démarche, but the US ambassadors in Santiago and Montevideo both opposed delivering it. On September 16, 1976, Kissinger overruled Shlaudeman’s recommendation that he order them to proceed, and “instructed that no further action be taken on this matter.” On September 20, Shlaudeman sent a memo to Luers telling him to “instruct the [US] ambassadors to take no further action noting that there have been no [intelligence] reports in some weeks indicating an intention to activate the Condor scheme.”
But the CIA had failed to detect that an assassination scheme had indeed been activated. The very next morning a car bomb exploded in the Embassy Row district of Washington, DC, killing the leading international opponent of the Pinochet regime, former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier, and his 25-year-old associate, Ronni Moffitt. To safeguard the secrecy of this audacious plot, General Pinochet—the CIA concluded he “personally ordered” the assassination of Letelier—and Colonel Contreras avoided the Teseo structure but utilized Condor’s collaboration. “I was informed that there was an intelligence service group that was running the ‘Condor Network,’” according to the confession of DINA assassin, Michael Townley, “and that it included Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, and that the Paraguayans were going to give us official passports and obtain official visas to enter the USA.” Condor made its contribution to one of the most egregious acts of international terrorism ever committed in the capital city of the United States.