Letelier Case - The Briefcase Affair

The Briefcase Affair

Allegedly during the FBI investigation into Letelier's assassination, the contents of the briefcase he had with him were copied and leaked to op-ed columnists Rowland Evans and TV-host Robert Novak of the Washington Post before being returned to his widow. Allegedly the documents show that Letelier was in contact with the surviving political leadership of the various parties that made up the Popular Unity coalition exiled in East Berlin, who had been given refuge and supported by the East German Government during their stay. Evans and Novak suspected that these individuals had been recruited by the Stasi. Evans and Novak claim documents in the briefcase showed that Letelier had maintained contact with Salvador Allende’s daughter, Beatriz Allende, who was married to Cuban DGI station chief Luis Fernandez Ona.

According to the Novak and Evans, Letelier was able to receive funding of $5,000 a month from the Cuban government and under the supervision of Beatriz Allende, he used his contacts within the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and western human rights groups to organize a campaign within the United Nations as well as the US Congress to isolate the new Chilean government. This organized pressure on Pinochet’s government was thought to have been closely coordinated by the Cuban and Soviet governments, using individuals like Letelier to implement these efforts. Letelier's briefcase also allegedly contained his address book which contained the names of dozens of known and suspected Eastern Bloc intelligence agents. All correspondence between Letelier and individuals in Cuba was supposedly handled via Julian Rizo, who used his diplomatic status to hide his activities.

Fellow IPS member and friend Saul Landau described Evans and Novak as part of an “organized right wing attack”. In 1980, Letelier's widow, Isabel, wrote in the New York Times that the money sent to her late husband from Cuba was from western sources, and that Cuba had simply acted as an intermediary.