Frank Teruggi

Frank Teruggi was an American student living in Santiago who was detained by the Chilean military in the days after the coup of September 11, 1973, held at the National Stadium, and executed. His case was joined in Chilean and American inquiries with that of Charles Horman.¹

The FBI File

In 1972 the FBI opened a "Security Matter Subversive" file on Teruggi after the interception of his correspondence with activists in West Germany who were assisting Resisters Inside the Armed Forces and other groups the bureau called "deserter organizations," which supported American soldiers absent without leave from European bases in protest against the war in Vietnam. United States Army Intelligence was monitoring those groups with the help of German intelligence. The intercepted letters gave Teruggi's address on Hernán Cortés street in Santiago, and the bureau's summary recorded it. Whether any American agency gave the address to Chilean authorities, before or after the coup, has not been established.¹

After four months in Chile he wrote to his sister Janice: "Being down here is the best thing that could have happened to me as far as my political formation. I'm with revolutionaries from all over the continent and learning theory and practice in a way that is probably not available anywhere in the States."¹

Detention

Teruggi was taken from his house, which was known in the neighborhood for its connection to the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria. Four others who lived there were active in the party's clandestine work, one of them in its military wing. His housemate David Hathaway was detained with him, held with him at the stadium, and saw him taken away for interrogation. The junta later told the United States embassy that both Teruggi and Horman had been killed by leftists wearing stolen army uniforms.¹

The Father

Frank Teruggi Sr. went to Santiago in February 1974. He told consular officers, among them Vice Consul James Anderson, a CIA officer under diplomatic cover, that "he was not happy with Embassy action to protect his son," and asked to see "all the files that you have on the case." The interior minister, General Oscar Bonilla, had given him the military's account the day before. Teruggi handed him Hathaway's letter. Bonilla said he had not known the details, promised to reopen the inquiry, and said: "Mr. Teruggi, if your son died in the hands of the Chilean military, I am terribly sorry."¹

A State Department officer, Rudy Fimbres, wrote in 1976 that the department had "'withheld' for almost two years any reference to a Chilean memorandum which accused Teruggi, and Horman, of leftist activities," and had "failed to pursue the basis" for the accusation. The department's internal review that year concluded that the Chilean military had "deliberately killed" both men.¹

Judge Jorge Zepeda found in his 2011 indictment of Navy Captain Ray Davis, former head of the United States Military Group, that Davis had known of the detentions and had not prevented the deaths. Davis died in a Santiago nursing home in 2013. In 2015 Zepeda convicted Pedro Espinoza, who had been in charge of interrogations at the stadium. A review of the 6,976-page court record by the journalist John Dinges found no evidence that American officials took part in either killing.¹