1. Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar was a Chilean economist, politician, and diplomat during the presidency of Salvador Allende.
16 Facts About Orlando Letelier
1. 2.
Sergio Orlando Letelier del Solar was born in Temuco, Chile, southwest of Santiago, the youngest child of Orlando Letelier Ruiz and Ines del Solar.
3.
Orlando Letelier did not finish college and never received a university degree.
4.
On 17 December 1955, Orlando Letelier married Isabel Margarita Morel Gumucio and they had four children: Cristian, Jose, Francisco, and Juan Pablo.
5.
In 1959 Orlando Letelier was fired from the Copper Office, ostensibly for having supported Salvador Allende's unsuccessful second presidential campaign.
6.
The Letelier family left for Venezuela, where Orlando Letelier became a copper consultant to the Finance Ministry.
7.
In 1973, Orlando Letelier was recalled to Chile and served successively as Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Interior, and Defense.
8.
Orlando Letelier was held for twelve months in various concentration camps and suffered severe torture: first at the Tacna Regiment, then at the Military Academy.
9.
Orlando Letelier became director of the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute and taught at the School of International Service of the American University in Washington, DC.
10.
Orlando Letelier wrote several articles criticizing the "Chicago Boys", a group of South American economists trained at the University of Chicago by Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger who returned to their home countries to promote and advise leaders on the benefits of a free-market economy.
11.
Orlando Letelier believed that in a resource-driven economy such as Chile, allowing markets to operate freely simply guaranteed the movement of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the monopolists and financial speculators.
12.
Orlando Letelier soon became the leading voice of the Chilean resistance, preventing several loans from being awarded to the Chilean government.
13.
Orlando Letelier was killed by a car bombing on 21 September 1976 in Sheridan Circle in Washington, DC, along with his American secretary and interpreter, Ronni Karpen Moffitt.
14.
Orlando Letelier is free as a participant in the United States Federal Witness Protection Program.
15.
The documents purportedly show Orlando Letelier was working with Eastern Bloc intelligence agencies for a decade and coordinating his activities with the surviving political leadership of the Popular Unity coalition exiled in East Berlin, East Germany.
16.
Documents in the briefcase showed that Orlando Letelier had maintained contact with Salvador Allende's daughter, Beatriz Allende, who was married to Cuban DGI station chief Luis Fernandez Ona.