A Story for Matias

A Story for Matias
Francisco Letelier

Twenty seven years ago in the mountains of Santa Cruz my friend Jorge Hernandez and I saw something unusual in the blue sky. Jorge the son of migrant workers, had grown up moving with his family from one job to another until they settled in Los Angeles, he had worked his way through an education and was now an architect. I was still an art student at Berkeley. We had met working together on migrant education in the summer of 1979.
At that time, we were both necessarily what you might call controlled and even headed young people. He had bought a home in Santa Cruz and worked in a world where the children of migrant field laborers were not commonplace. He needed to keep it together. I was working my way through college and had quite a regimented and work filled life.
But we were young and regular types I guess, and so had smoked some very strong and green marihuana during our hike.We both had also had experiences with a variety of drugs, including LSD and mushrooms.

Over time, I have ascribed what I saw in the sky on that day to my imagination, my poor eyesight, the effect of drugs and the refraction of the sun. It was, after all the best thing to do. Having had a personal history already filled with the stuff and content of spy novels and historical epochs I was not at that time able to assemble myself in any other manner. I had boarded greyhound bus from the east coast and made my way west to art school. It was hard to find a connection with my peers. My father had been brutally killed on the streets of Washington DC, I was not drawn to people who are fascinated or obsessed with bogeys in the sky. Things right here on earth seem mysterious and complicated enough. Yet I have always believed we are not alone. It seems a rational and logical conclusion when confronted with vastness of the night sky and all its possibilities.

Even then I had the notion that people like to think that they have the answers to everything, But life had shown me that there is always more to discover and more to explore. It was what gave me both political and spiritual solace, an optimism born from believing that there were new worlds both within and without waiting to be discovered.

A few weeks ago, I watched a documentary which showed footage of the earth's atmosphere recorded in the infra red spectrum and using high speed shutters. I recognized something chillingly but incontrovertibly familiar. Caught on tape was the luminous cigar shaped objects I had seen long ago, its edges glowing with precise rods protruding from its sides.

My sixteen year old son, Matias has an old cover of a New York City tabloid framed behind glass in his room.
The sensational bold faced headline, 15 YEAR OLD SHOOTS AT WATERGATE BURGLAR.
The shooter is now grown up and she is my son's mother. She told me her version of the story on the day I met her.

I was both shaken and taken. Taken and smitten by her. Shaken or more appropriately pulled in a variety of directions by the story and the details of her life. The man she had shot at was Frank Sturgis, a CIA operative and former colleague of her mothers. He had called Marita and warned her to not testify about things she had witnessed. Monica obtained a 22 pistol from a friend in her apartment building and waited for Frank to appear, she was afraid for her mother. Frank Sturgis was dangerous. His name is associated with Watergate as one of the burglars sent to break into Democratic Headquarters during Nixon's bid for the Presidency. The Watergate scandal was a 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. by members of President Richard Nixon's administration and the resulting cover-up which led to the resignation of the President. A number of the perpetrators were from the "plumbers unit", originally set up to "plug leaks," and some were former members of the CIA. The name of Sturgis appears in a slew of other events and situations, which although wrapped in mythology, truly did take place and do exist, Things which seem to be following us tenaciously into our futures.

A few weeks ago hundreds of documents relating to the secret activities of US intelligence agencies were declassified by the US government. I have not had an opportunity to study the documents as of yet. Perhaps I will not be surprised by any of the documents, and perhaps nothing too important has been revealed, but I will look for clues so that I can continue to piece together the story of how my son Matias came to exist, not the only story to be sure and perhaps in many ways not really an important one.
His mother and I did not remain together for too long. Yet today, as things stand, he is both the inheritor of lies and deception as well as the brave responses to the intervened and fragmented history all of us share.

When she was 18 my son's maternal grandmother Marita Lorenz, stowed away on an ocean liner. Along the passage to Southern waters from a New York harbor, the ships captain, Heinrich Lorenz Marita's father discovered her.
Her father was German and had married an American singer and performer prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Like most German citizens Marita's Father was conscripted by the Nazis and captained a gunship in the North Seas during the War. In 1944 her mother was accused, correctly, of being a spy. Marita's mother worked for the OSS, the government agency which was the forerunner of the CIA. She and young Marita were thrown into a concentration camp, where they were quartered until the end of the war.

The ship, the HSS Bremmer, stopped in Cuba. It was February 1959, The early days after the bearded men had come in from the mountains and jungles and defeated Mafia crony and US friend General Fulgencio Batista. Fidel Castro would board the ships which came to the island, welcoming travelers and winning them over with his flamboyant charm, wit and good looks.
Marita tells the story of how young Fidel squeezed her hand under the table and in effect sealed her fate.
Marita left the island on the ship only to return a few weeks later at Fidel's request. She moved in to the Havana Hilton and became Fidel's mistress.
In those early days of the Cuban revolution, my father, Orlando Letelier also visited Cuba as part of a delegation of Latin American economists led by future Chilean president Salvador Allende. Perhaps the trip did not seal his fate, but it did color the way some would view and consider him. Years later we learned that after that trip the FBI first opened a file on him and our family.
Us intelligence was, to say the least interested in Fidel's Cuba and anyone who had any dealings with the fledgling government.
While Marita lived her young dreams of romance with the dashing Fidel, in the company of historical figures such as Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, she became pregnant with Fidel's child

Things get murky here, the place in the story where things become as problematic as sighting a glowing object in the sky, for now Marita's world becomes the stuff of spy thrillers and classified documents.

She was in her final months of pregnancy when somebody slipped a drug into her milk. In her words 'Everything was a blur; I remember extreme pain. I was in a dark room and I was hemorrhaging.' When she came round, she says, a comrade of Castro's told her that she had been through an induced labor. The baby was alive, he said, but she would have to go back to America."
There were those who were unhappy with Fidel's choice of company. The half German half American young girl was not good for the image of the revolution.
Marita says that when she returned to the United States they were waiting for her, her mother June along with her intelligence contacts in the CIA. Her confused state in the hospital where she was treated for blood poisoning was exploited, Over time she was adopted by a shadowy group of agents known as Operation 40, Lorenz was kept isolated, underfed and prescribed a diet of addictive 'vitamins'. She was led to believe that her baby had been killed, and that Castro had ordered it. When they felt that she harbored enough hatred for her ex-lover, her 'friends' presented a plan: one that, as a bonus, would help protect the American way. 'They gave her two tablets, botulism toxins. The CIA had decided that poisoning was a ladylike way to kill him.'

Operation 40 members had been recruited by the CIA from the Anti- communist Brigade an organization started by Frank Sturgis and financed by what he called, ' dispossessed hotel and gambling owners" and who most of the rest of us usually call the Mafia or organized crime.
Marita's re encounter with Fidel in Havana as she has narrated, is the stuff of legend. They met in the same hotel room they had shared in the past. Fidel unclipped his gun from his belt and said, They sent you here to kill me." He handed her the gun and said, "Go ahead.
They looked at one another and again a smoldering decision was reached and they fell into each others arms.

Marita returned to the US and although she had sorely botched her mission it was decided she was still useful, so they furthered her training. She trained with the men who would be key figures in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. And who continue to turn up in the most likely, unlikely places in history in the future
Around here is where the stories from my son's mothers side of the family and stories from my side begin to interweave, a parallel convergence from opposite sides of the tracks and from this dance, the future looms up as it often does, from tragic but sufficiently buffered and ridiculed places to be almost quaint.

George Bush senior was involved in the planning of Operation 40, it was one of his first tasks as a young CIA operative. Among the men that Marita claims to have met at that time were Luis Posada Carriles, Felix Rodriguez, Orlando Bosch, Guillermo Novo Sampol, Ignacio Novo Sampol and, Virgilio Gonzalez, Eugenio Martinez and E. Howard Hunt and Lee Harvey Oswald. Later Operation 40 would come under the direct supervision of Richard Nixon. At least two of these men The Novo brothers would, years later be involved in the assassination of my father in Washington DC. but mange to elude justice. Another one of these would go on to earn the label of Grandfather of Terrorism. and would work closely with Oliver North during the Iran Contra operations . Lee Harvey Oswald would pass in one version of history as the sole gunman who killed John F Kennedy.

The CIA was busy in other places as well, and these men appear all over the map of the Americas, In Guatemala, In Venezuela, In Chile and other places, sometimes as advisors hidden behind powerful protectors, at other times with alias identities but always leaving a trail where history and mystery where death and lies converge.

On her next mission Marita's cover was as a stewardess, the mark was Marcos Perez Jimenez former dictator of Venezuela. This time she was successful but no killing was involved. She romanced the general and became his live in mistress in his Miami compound. Marita says that at that time she fell in love with Marcos, and perhaps she did, she also claims that she was looking for someone powerful who might protect her from her CIA and intelligence handlers. Around that time my family moved to Venezuela from Chile, my father had lost his job because of his support for Allende a socialist candidate for the presidency. Having helped those who escaped the Perez Jimenez regime in the 50's my father now had friends who had returned to Venezuela who were instrumental in building a new country.
Perez Jimenez had escaped with millions. Marita became pregnant and Monica was born.
They lived with Marcos until he was arrested and deported. The US could not continue to deny the Venezuelan government request of extradition. Around that time my family moved to Washington DC, The US released Perez Jimenez to Spain where he was given asylum by fascist dictator Francisco Franco. On the plane to Spain there was a meeting by US intelligence figures and Perez Jimenez, they would let him keep his money but he would stay silent about US support of his regime. And by the way, they told him, "Marita?" She was one of ours."
Neither Marita or Monica, left behind in the US ever saw the General again.

On the 18 of November 1963, Marita claims, Frank Sturgis, gathered the troops in Miami. Two cars, loaded with rifles and handguns, set forth towards an undisclosed destination. As was often the case, Lorenz was brought along as a decoy, in case any local police needed to be sweet-talked. 'The trip was difficult,' she says. By the time they got to a hotel in Dallas, Marita continues, 'I was really bitching. I had my period, if you want to know the truth. And I wanted to get back to my daughter. Then this hood comes into the hotel and says, "Who's this broad? What is she doing here?" That's when I left, and thank God I did.' A few days later, flying to visit her mother in New Jersey, Marita heard the pilot announce that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. Not long after that she watched the live coverage of Ozzy being led away in handcuffs, and recognized Jack Ruby, the man who shot Oswald, as the hood from the hotel.


Last September we marked the thirty year anniversary of my fathers assassination in Washington DC. I was at Sheridan circle on Embassy row where the first known act of international terrorism in the nations capital occurred. My trip coincided with demonstrations to push for the extradition of Luis Posada Carrilles the grandfather of terrorism in the Americas held in Texas pending a series of immigration hearings. He is a man that Marita had known in the early days of her career.
George Bush senior is known to still be friends with some of Marita's other colleagues. Orlando Bosch and Felix Rodriguez. Felix Rodriguez was in 1967 the head of the team that tracked down and killed Che Guevara in Bolivia and along with Luis Posada Carriles a key figure in Iran Contra. They report directly to Oliver North.

In 1976, Bush senior is appointed Director of the CIA, and all anti Castro groups are united into one organization CORU or Commanders of United Revolutionary Organizations. However in 1976 Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch are caught for blowing up a Cuban airliner killing 73 passengers over the island of Barbados and are imprisoned with lifetime penalties by Venezuelan authorities.
That same year my families movements are being watched by men in cars in the quiet cul de sac of our home in Bethesda Maryland just outside of Washington DC.
Chilean secret police agents along with members of CORU and Operation 40 classmate Guillermo Novo Sampol plant a bomb in the family car. The bomb is detonated and the car explodes severing my fathers legs and killing Ronnie Karpen Moffitt a 27 year old co-worker who chokes to death on an embassy row sidewalk with a piece of shrapnel in her throat. Novo and co conspirator Alvin Ross are arrested and found guilty of conspiring to murder my father, but In 1981 they obtain a retrial and are acquitted on a technicality. ...

In 1985 Luis Posada Carriles known as "Bambi" escapes and in a matter of days, he pops up in El Salvador at the side of his mate Felix Rodriguez, to assist him with an operation, now known as Iran-Contra. For convenience they are now Ramon Medina and Max Gomez. At the Llopango airstrip, they are unloading planes with weapons, sending them back to the States with cocaine. Orlando Bosch has to wait a little longer, but he too is released in 1987 as a result of diplomatic pressure from Jeb Bush. Back in Miami, Bosch receives a Presidential pardon, shortly after George Bush climbs to the highest office
In 2000 Luis Posada along with Guillermo Novo and two others are discovered with 200 pounds of explosives in Panama City and arrested for plotting the assassination of Castro, who was visiting the country. But in 2004 Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso a close ally of the United Sates, grants them a pardon. Novo and others arrive in Miami on a US plane to a heroes welcome. Posada Carriles is dropped off in Honduras and from there makes his way North and sneaks into the US aboard a shrimp boat that lands in Florida in March 2005.

Posada is picked up by immigration authorities and although wanted for acts of international terrorism by several countries, he is tried for immigration fraud. Following a series of hearings in a ruling Tuesday May 8 in El Paso, Texas, US District judge Kathleen Cardone, dismissed immigration fraud charges against the Cuban-Venezuelan exile, citing a remarkably mundane reason -- the government's translator had botched the English-Spanish interpretation of Posada's naturalization interview in 2005.
Posada, 79, returned to his home in Miami as a hero of that city's anti-Castro right wing, despite the U.S. government documents made public recently that tied him to terrorist acts.

Marita lives a quiet life now in Queens, New York,

Perez Jimenez died in Spain in 2001, he never returned to Venezuela.

General Augusto Pinochet the former dictator of Chile who ordered my fathers murder and who's head of intelligence Manuel Contreras served a few years for carrying out the order, eluded justice.
On Sunday December 10 General Augusto Pinochet died in Santiago. No State funeral or state mourning was authorized by the government.

My father was first buried in Venezuela with State honors, an offer by his friends who he had met and helped when they were running from my sons grandfather Marcos Perez Jimenez.
When Pinochet was elected out of power in 1990. plans were made to move my fathers remains from Venezuela to the national cemetery in Santiago. The family had decided he would be brought back to Chile only when democracy had been restored.
In 1992 a State funeral was planned. My brother Jose flew to Venezuela on a Chilean plane to supervise the exhumation of his remains. Venezuelan State officials met him at the airport and they drove to the cemetery on a Caracas hillside. A new casket was arranged for the State funeral in Santiago, after all his remains had been in the ground for 16 years The grave was uncovered. Cemetery workers brought up the old casket and brushed the dirt aside. They carefully pried open the box. My brother Jose relates that my fathers body had not decomposed. It looked the same as it had in 1976. His face and hands looked the same.
The workers lifted the body out and put it into its new casket. It was light as air. There was a breeze blowing on the hilltop overlooking Caracas, the city of Bolivar.

There is a large black stone in the Cemetery in Santiago, a stones throw from the grave of Salvador Allende. It which marks the place of my fathers remains, One side is rough the other polished and inscribed with words. I was born a Chilean, I am a Chilean, I will die a Chilean.
The words he pronounced at a rally, two weeks before his assassination, when he was informed that the military had deprived him of his nationality and declared him a traitor to his nation.

What is a nation? What is heroism? What is a traitor today? What is a patriot?
History turns in on itself, nothing is inscribed in stone other than the words of those who are no longer here with us.

Matias my son has currents of history within him, both his grandfathers were Andinos, men from the Andes, and it could be said that Marita his maternal grandmother is a woman who's life was stretched into the stuff of legend by the unknown powers of these currents.

I recently told him about my epiphany regarding things in the sky which are yet unidentified.
He didn't bat an eye,
Ufo's? hmmmm. That's nothing Pop.

Francisco Letelier 2007