--- alias: - Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepulveda - Manuel Contreras Sepulveda category: Intelligence & Government created: 2026-09-21 location: Santiago, Chile summary: Chief of the Chilean secret police DINA, in contact with the CIA from 1974 to 1977 and paid by it once in 1975, who said he had Orlando Letelier killed on Pinochet's orders. tags: - Person - ManuelContreras - DINA - Chile - OperationCondor - CIA - PaidAsset - Letelier updated: 2026-09-21 --- Manuel Contreras Sepulveda was the army officer who organized and commanded [DINA](/organizations/dina/), the secret police of the Chilean junta, after the coup of September 11, 1973. The [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) reported to Congress in 2000 that it "maintained contact" with him "during a period between 1974 and 1977," that the relationship was approved by policy officials "in spite of concerns that this relationship might lay the CIA open to charges of aiding internal political repression," and that it made him one payment. His agents killed the exiled former minister [Orlando Letelier](/people/orlando-letelier/) in Washington on September 21, 1976.[^1] From September 1966 to September 1967 Contreras attended the United States Army career officers school at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. In the middle 1960s he taught strategy and intelligence at the Chilean war college, where [Augusto Pinochet](/people/augusto-pinochet/) was deputy commandant. On November 12, 1973, he presented the intelligence chiefs of the four services with his plan for a national directorate. The American defense attaché reported within weeks of its formation that DINA "is directly subordinate to Junta President Pinochet," and the air attaché learned that Contreras briefed Pinochet every morning at half past seven: "The president issues instructions on DINA; is aware of its activities; and in fact heads it." Its foreign branch, called "Luis Gutierrez" in its communications, was run by Major Raúl Iturriaga Neumann under Contreras's deputy, [Pedro Espinoza](/people/pedro-espinoza/).[^2] ### The CIA Relationship The agency told Contreras at the outset that it would not support activities of his service "which might be construed as 'internal political repression,'" and urged him to follow a Chilean defense ministry circular of January 17, 1974, on the treatment of prisoners under the Geneva Conventions. "By April 1975," its report states, "intelligence reporting showed that Contreras was the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the Junta, but an interagency committee directed the CIA to continue its relationship with Contreras." The American ambassador in [Santiago](/places/santiago/) urged the deputy director of central intelligence, General [Vernon Walters](/people/vernon-walters/), to receive him in Washington "in the interest of maintaining good relations with Pinochet." The meeting took place in August 1975 with interagency approval.[^1] "In May and June 1975," the report continues, "elements within the CIA recommended establishing a paid relationship with Contreras to obtain intelligence based on his unique position and access to Pinochet. This proposal was overruled, citing the US Government policy on clandestine relations with the head of an intelligence service notorious for human rights abuses. However, given miscommunications in the timing of this exchange, a one-time payment was given to Contreras."[^1] General Vernon Walters came to Santiago to confer with Pinochet on the agency's help, and Pinochet told him he had "hand-picked Contreras." The CIA gave Contreras a long lunch with Walters and officers of the Western Hemisphere Division. The State Department's Chile desk noted that "Colonel Manuel Contreras considers himself a bosom buddy of the general." On Saturday, July 5, 1975, the two met secretly at a CIA office at Fort Myer, where Contreras asked how Chile might get American arms despite the congressional ban: "Wonder if there is any way they could get it indirectly via [Spain](/places/spain/), [Brazil](/places/brazil/), or the Republic of Korea." They lunched again at Langley on August 25. On November 4, 1977, Pinochet removed him, with promotion to brigadier general, in favor of General Odlanier Mena. A CIA source said he was "completely shocked," like "a cuckolded husband who is the last to realize his wife was being unfaithful." In 1978 the agency reported that he planned to defend himself by claiming "that Michael Townley and the Cuban exiles implicated were all under CIA control, and that the Agency ordered Letelier's assassination to throw blame on Pinochet," and to implicate Ambassador [George Landau](/people/george-landau/). "While this defense is of course fabricated completely of whole cloth, it could cause us embarrassment."[^2] Contreras gave his own account of the beginning. "In the year 1974, in the month of March, the president sent me to the United States. I met with Vernon Walters about how to do national intelligence. So the CIA promised to help us," he said, and "he sent us eight high-level CIA agents to organize courses or seminars here in Chile, which lasted until the middle of August of 1974." He named Stewart Burton, the station chief, as the officer he dealt with. The disappeared numbered seventeen in June of that year, forty-six in July, forty-nine in August, and forty in September. On May 20, 1974, the agency ordered a "covert name trace" on him, a step that precedes a close and often paid relationship with a source. The agency's statement was that it "made clear to Contreras that no training or support which could aid internal repression could be given," but did "brief Contreras on the fundamentals of intelligence organization and management." A former DINA agent said: "I thought Contreras was some kind of genius to have built up such a large, complicated apparatus in such a short time."[^3] Of the 1975 visit he told a Chilean reporter: "Vernon Walters proposed that we take on a lobby of North American senators, to get them to stop harassing Chile in the international arena," five senators of both parties "who would be paid $2 million a year so that they will act in favor of Chile." The memorandum of the August 25 conversation says only that Walters "took the opportunity to express concern over the human rights situation in Chile." Contreras said he had refused an offer from Walters to station CIA officers inside DINA. He testified in court that [Robert Scherrer](/people/robert-scherrer/) of the [FBI](/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation/) was in "permanent contact" with Condor's representative in Buenos Aires "and received the information that he asked for." Scherrer said he learned that the CIA had provided DINA with the computer systems and training he presumed were used for the Condor data bank.[^3] An American intelligence officer described him: "Contreras is mild-mannered and polite. When you talk to him he seems gentle and disarming." As a young officer he was known as a beato. His military specialty was engineering.[^3] ### Condor Within a year of the coup the agency knew of cooperation among the security services of the region "to track the activities of and, in at least a few cases, kill political opponents." [Operation Condor](/programs/operation-condor/), the formal arrangement among [Chile](/places/chile/), [Argentina](/places/argentina/), Brazil, [Paraguay](/places/paraguay/), and [Uruguay](/places/uruguay/), was established in 1975. "By October 1976 there was sufficient information that the CIA decided to approach Contreras on the matter. Contreras confirmed Condor's existence as an intelligence-sharing network but denied that it had a role in extra-judicial killings."[^1] ### Letelier In the summer of 1976 two DINA officers obtained American visas in Asuncion on Paraguayan passports, telling Ambassador George W. Landau that their trip was known to the CIA. Landau sent photographs of the passports to Washington. Walters replied that the agency had no connection with the men. The bomb that killed Letelier and [Ronni Moffitt](/people/ronni-moffitt/) was placed by the DINA agent [Michael Townley](/people/michael-townley/), an American.[^4][^5] The agency's first report naming Contreras in connection with the murder is dated October 6, 1976. "During 1977, CIA met with Contreras about half a dozen times; three of those contacts were to request information on the Letelier assassination. On 3 November 1977, Contreras was transferred to a function unrelated to intelligence so CIA severed all contact with him." Chile refused to extradite him. A [State Department](/organizations/state-department/) cable of January 22, 1987, quotes him as saying he "authorized the assassination of Letelier on orders from Pinochet." The CIA's assessment of May 1, 1987, concluded that Augusto Pinochet personally ordered the killing and afterward considered having Contreras eliminated to keep him silent.[^1][^6] [^1]: Central Intelligence Agency, "CIA Activities in Chile," report to Congress (Hinchey Report), September 18, 2000. [^2]: Kornbluh, Peter. *The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability*. New Press, 2003, pp. 158-167, 172, 213-215, 401-402. [^3]: Dinges, John. *The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents*. New Press, 2004, pp. 63-70, 103-104, 121-124. [^4]: Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, "'The First Terrorist Attack in the U.S.': The Letelier-Moffitt Assassinations," oral history of Ambassador George W. Landau. https://adst.org/2014/02/the-first-terrorist-attack-in-the-u-s-the-letelier-moffitt-assassinations/ [^5]: "Interview with Dinges and Landau," Radio TV Reports transcript, June 30, 1980, CIA Reading Room document 05535911. [^6]: Kornbluh, Peter, ed. "CIA: 'Pinochet personally ordered' Letelier bombing," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 560, September 23, 2016; "The Pinochet File: U.S. Declassifies Missing Documents in the Letelier-Moffitt Case," Electronic Briefing Book No. 532, October 8, 2015.