Assassination on US Soil: the Long Blowback of Support for Pinochet’s Chile
About this Event
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Fifty years ago, agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet carried out a car bombing in Washington, D.C., killing Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt.
Letelier had served as Chile’s ambassador to the United States and as a cabinet minister in the government of democratically elected President Salvador Allende before the 1973 military coup. Moffitt, a 25-year-old American, was his colleague at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Over the next half-century, their former colleagues, family members, human rights lawyers, and activists transformed this political assassination into a sustained international pursuit of justice. Their efforts helped lead to the 1998 arrest of Pinochet in London—a landmark case that changed the global struggle to hold dictators accountable.
That pursuit continues. In June 2026, a Chilean judge convicted three former secret police agents in connection with Moffitt’s M**der.
Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies will trace this history and examine the long consequences of U.S. support for the Pinochet regime. What can the Letelier–Moffitt case teach us about political violence, state power, U.S. foreign policy, and the continuing struggle for human rights and accountability?
The evening will also feature a display of four Chilean arpilleras from the Institute for Policy Studies’ exhibit collection.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The program begins at 7:00 p.m.
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The Windham World Affairs Council was founded in 1961 to bring the world to Windham County. It is the smallest of the World Affairs Councils of America and has an all-volunteer board. It hosts lectures, films, and other events on global topics, as well as a monthly Members’ Salon, where members and their guests gather informally to discuss topics of the day. For further information about future events, or if you would like to consider joining the board, visit https://windhamworldaffairscouncil.org/.
Agenda
🕑: 06:30 PM
Doors Open
🕑: 07:00 PM
Event Commences
Host: Sarah Anderson
🕑: 08:00 PM
Q&A
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 0.00 to USD 12.51
