Lapham's argument went like this, with Bush looking on: The first problem is that every time we've tried to help Justice in the past, they've screwed us. They
always promise us that if we give them this assistance of that assistance, they'll just use it for
background, but the next thing we know, they're trying to make a witness out of our source. They're
trying to put him in court. We can't attract and hold sources if they're afraid they'll get slapped into
court.
"Well, that sounds legitimate to me," said Propper, "but I'm sure we can figure out a way to work
around it."
"That's not all," said Lapham. "We got torn to pieces last year for domeverybody over here is gun-shy about rep]orting on Americans or any activities in this country. Weestic intelligence, so now (^)
can't do it. That's strictly out. The liberals don't like some things we do and the conservatives don't
like others, and the way the rule book is now, we stay clean by keeping out of criminal stuff and
domestic stuff. You've got a murder here in the states. That's both. That makes it tough."
"I see," said Propper. "But I can't believe there's not some way for you to get into this case. There
has to be a way. If somebody comes into the country from overseas and assassinates people here in
Washington, that's got to be your kind of work. They might do it again. Who else will stop it?"
"Sure," said Lapham. "That's a security matter. That's ours. But we don't know this is a securitymatter yet, and we'd have to investigate a crime to find out." [fn 50]
Notice the consummate Aristotelian obfuscation by Lapham, who is propounding a chicken and egg
paradox of law and administration. Apart from such sophists, everyone knew that Pinochet was a
prime suspect. Lapham and Propper finally agreed that they could handle the matter best through aexchange of letters between the CIA Director and Attorney General Levi. George Bush summed up:n (^)
"If you two come up with something that Tony thinks will protect us, we'll be all right." The date
was October 4, 1976.
Contrary to that pledge, Bush and the CIA began actively to sabotage Propper's investigation inpublic as well as behind the scenes. By Saturday the Washington Post was reporting many details of (^)
Propper's arrangement with the CIA. Even more interesting was the following item in the
"Periscope" column of Newsweek magazine of October 11:
After studying FBI and other field investigations, the CIA has concluded that the Chilean secret
police were not involved in the death of Orlando Letelier....The agency reached its decision becausethe bomb was too crude to be the work of experts and because the murder, coming while Chile's
rulers were wooing US support, could only damage the Santiago regime."
According to the New York Times of October 12: *
[Ford Administration] intelligence officials said it appeared that the FBI and the CentralIntelligence Agency had virtually ruled out the idea that Mr. Letelier was killed by agents of the (^)
Chilean military junta....[They] said they understood DINA was firmly under the control of the
government of Gen. Augusto Pincohet and that killing Mr. Letelier could not have served the junta's
purposes....The intelligence officials said a parallel investigation was pursuing the possibility that
Mr. Letelier had been assassinated by ChiStates relations with the military junta. lean left-wing extremists as a means of disrupting United
On November 1. the Washington Post reported a leak from Bush personally:
CIA officials say...they believe that operatives of the present Chilean military junta did not take part
in Letelier's killing. According to informed sources, CIA Director Bush expressed this view in a