"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 domestic intelligence, so now
everybody over here is gun-shy about rep]orting on Americans or any activities in this country.
We 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 security
matter 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 an exchange of letters between the CIA Director and
Attorney General Levi. George Bush summed up: "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 in public 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
because the 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 Central
Intelligence 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 Chilean left-wing extremists as a means of
disrupting United States relations with the military junta.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 conversation last week with Secretary of State Kissinger, the sources said. What evidence the
CIA has obtained to support this initial conclusion was not disclosed. *