Let’s Not Forget CIA Victim Charles Horman

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by Jacob G. Hornberger

While we’re on the subject of criminal prosecutions and congressional investigations for the CIA’s kidnapping, torture, sex abuse, rendition, and disappearance program, is it too late to ask the same for the case of Charles Horman? He was the 31-year-old American journalist who was murdered in 1973 by Chilean military thugs with the support and complicity of the CIA.

What was the precise role that CIA officials played in Horman’s murder? We don’t know. And the reason we don’t know is that the Justice Department has never seen fit to initiate a criminal prosecution against the CIA agents who participated in Horman’s murder and Congress has never seen fit to subpoena the CIA agents who participated in the murder to testify about it in a congressional hearing. And needless to say, the CIA hasn’t volunteered the information.

In 1973, the Chilean military instituted a coup against Salvador Allende, a socialist who had been elected president of the country. Led by military strongman Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean military proceeded to inflict a reign of terror on the country, rounding up tens of thousands of suspected terrorists and traitors, torturing them, sexually abusing them, and executing them. It was all done, of course, in the name of national security. Among those executed was Charles Horman, with the complicity of the CIA ... http://mwcnews.net/content/view/30193/26/

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1. For anyone who hasn't seen the film "Missing," it tells the story of

Horman's conservative father and liberal widow and their search for the truth about his disappearance. Starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. Think I'll put it on Netflix so our kids can see it.

K&R,btw.

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2. It's a reasonably accurate film, too, aside from changing the characters' names

[barbtries]

5. thanks

i'm going to add it to my queue, never did see it.

eta got pool and movies mixed up :silly:

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3. State Department Release on Chile Shows Suspicions of CIA Involvement in .. "Missing" Case

State Department Release on Chile Shows Suspicions of CIA Involvement in Charles Horman "Missing" Case
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/19991008/index.html

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4. Missing: Fact or Fabrication? (TIME 1982)

Missing: Fact or Fabrication?
By Gerald Clarke;Jay Branegan;Elain Dutka Monday, Mar. 08, 1982

... The elder Horman, who has spent the past eight years building up his case, brought suit against eleven Government officials in 1977, claiming, among other things, negligence and wrongful death. Most counts were dismissed on procedural grounds. Horman withdrew the rest since he was unable to get some classified documents that he believed would be conclusive. "They're desperate," he says. "If the real story ever comes out, its implications would be as serious as Watergate's."

He nonetheless has several documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, which require some explanation. One, a cable from Davis to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, is dated Oct. 4, 1973, and recounts neighbors' descriptions of Charles' arrest and an eyewitness's report of his detention by the military. Yet when Edmund Horman arrived in Santiago on Oct. 5, he was told by the U.S. Ambassador that his son was probably in hiding. Other documents raise similar puzzles ...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921138,00.html