--- alias: - Harry W. Shlaudeman category: Intelligence & Government created: 2026-09-21 location: Washington, D.C. summary: Assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs who warned Kissinger of Operation Condor's assassination plans on August 3, 1976, received Landau's cable on the DINA passports, and saw no warning delivered before Letelier died. tags: - Person - HarryShlaudeman - StateDepartment - OperationCondor - HenryKissinger - Chile - OrlandoLetelier updated: 2026-09-21 --- Harry Shlaudeman was assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs under [Henry Kissinger](/people/henry-a-kissinger/) in 1976.[^1] ### The Third World War An intelligence memorandum of June 4, 1976, the day the exiled Bolivian president Juan José Torres was found murdered in Buenos Aires, considered the possible "existence of an intergovernmental assassination program" and concluded that "there is no evidence to support a contention that Southern Cone governments are cooperating in some sort of international Murder Inc." Four days later Kissinger met General [Augusto Pinochet](/people/augusto-pinochet/) in [Santiago](/places/santiago/). On August 3 Shlaudeman sent Kissinger a paper titled "The Third World War and South America," which described the plans of [Operation Condor](/programs/operation-condor/) to kill opponents abroad. He and [William Luers](/people/william-luers/) enlisted the under secretary, Philip Habib, to persuade Kissinger to tell the military governments that the [United States](/places/united-states/) knew of the plans. Kissinger's cable to the ambassadors said the new reports put "Prats in Buenos Aires and Leighton in Rome, in a new and more ominous context." The plan had not been carried through when [Orlando Letelier](/people/orlando-letelier/) was killed in Washington on September 21.[^1] ### The Paraguayan Caper Ambassador [George Landau](/people/george-landau/)'s cable of July 28 on the Paraguayan passports issued to two [DINA](/organizations/dina/) officers reached Shlaudeman's office by way of Kissinger's. After General [Vernon Walters](/people/vernon-walters/) disowned the mission on August 4, Landau wrote to Shlaudeman of "the so-called 'Paraguayan caper'" which "in my view has troublesome aspects." Shlaudeman answered: "If there is still time, and if there is a possibility of turning off this harebrained scheme, you are authorized to go back through [Pappalardo](/people/conrado-pappalardo/) to urge that the Chileans be persuaded not, repeat, not to travel." On November 11 Robert Driscoll of the Chile desk reported to him that two Chileans using the same names had entered the country in August "after Ambassador Landau had ordered the visas revoked and lookouts placed."[^1][^2][^3] ### Horman A memorandum to Shlaudeman of August 25, 1976, on the death of [Charles Horman](/people/charles-horman/) in [Chile](/places/chile/) in 1973, read: "This case remains bothersome. The connotations for the Executive are not good." It concluded that "U.S. intelligence may have played an unfortunate part in Horman's death. At best, it was limited to providing or confirming information that helped motivate his murder by the GOC."[^3] [^1]: Dinges, John. *The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents*. New Press, 2004, pp. 159-166, 171-174, 180, 183. [^2]: Dinges, John, and Saul Landau. *Assassination on Embassy Row*. McGraw-Hill, 1980, pp. 260-261, 383. [^3]: Kornbluh, Peter. *The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability*. New Press, 2003, pp. 269, 343.