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PARTISAN REVIEW
pIe, it spoke of the strike in OlUquicamata by miners who had forced
out the union leader with an overwhelming hiss of disapproval, and it
reported details of the trial in connection with the assassination of
Orlando Letelier that was going-on in Washington. In huge headlines
one magazine reprinted the statement to a U.S. federal judge by
Michael Townley, the agent handed over to Washington by the
Chilean government: "I was a DINA agent. They gave me a mission to
carry out: assassinate Orlando Letelier. " Meanwhile, the Jesuit maga–
zine
Mensaje
came out with a terrifying account of the crimes and
abuses of DINA, the secret police that Pinochet had found himself
obliged to dissolve a year earlier.
On the morning of Leigh's fall , while I was walking in the heart of
Santiago, an acquaintance of long standing said
to
me: "The man who
holds the sword cuts the Gordian knots, " and he blinked, shrugging, as
if it were not necessary or prudent to add anything else. Well , the true
Gordian knot of Olilean politics, during all this time, is the Letelier
case, and the reaction it will finally have in the White House. They say,
correctly, that the real statesmen are those who know exactly when to
cut the Gordian knots; but it is not known how far President Carter
wants to go, or what unexpected measures may be taken by the Chilean
Junta, which up
to
now has weathered the storm with an obstinancy
similar to Franco's during the forties-in a different world, however,
and a different country and without the recent trauma of a genuine civ–
il war. Still, the -Letelier trial is the regime's ordeal by fire, and I for my
part, after spending a month in Chile, have come to the conclusion that
it's best to refrain from making political prophecies.
Translated by Gregory Kolovakos
and Ronald Christ
