The Foreign Service Journal, January 2006

had submitted from 1978 to 1980 in my capacity as the regional security officer based in Buenos Aires. Inexplicably, these papers were released without redacting (blacking out) the names of the drafting offi- cers. When the documents were first released, the Washington Post excerp- ted and published some of them in September 2002. Alarmed, I called the office of Under Secretary for Management Grant Green and spoke with a special assistant to protest the release of declassified documents that contained my name. I asked the department to consider what practical steps it should take to ensure there would be no ramifications against offi- cers who had faithfully drafted classi- fied reports. But I received no reply. As of this date, I have not respond- ed to the Argentine inquiry. The only practical effect, I suppose, is that I should not plan on taking a vacation there any time soon! But now the appearance of the book has me con- cerned as to what other “domino effects” I should expect from the department’s decision to release offi- cial reports identifying me as the drafter. Already my name has been sullied as a direct consequence of the release, and I feel abandoned by a department that cavalierly passes me an inquiry from the judiciary of a for- eign country concerning my faithful and official service as a U.S. Foreign Service officer, then leaves me high and dry. A Bill of Particulars Prof. McSherry’s main charges against me can be summarized as fol- lows: • A Chilean named Juan Munoz Alarcon, a defector from the secret police agency known as DINA, in tes- timony given in 1977 to a church vic- ariate in Santiago shortly before being murdered, reportedly identified me as “very important” to Operation Condor in Chile. • A source in Argentine Army intelligence allegedly informed me in advance that several Argentines were about to be abducted in Lima in June 1980 and then transported to Argen- tina for interrogation and eventual liq- uidation. Among them was a Mother of the Plaza de Mayo named Noemi Gianetti de Molfino who was in Lima working with a Peruvian human rights group. Mrs. de Molfino had previ- ously given testimony to a United Nations body concerning the disap- pearance of her son and daughter-in- law. A month later, Mrs. de Molfino’s body was found in Madrid. • In this same conversation, I allegedly briefed my source on the political situation in Bolivia prior to the 1979 coup overthrowing the gov- ernment, clandestinely planned and carried by out by undercover Argen- tine agents as an Operation Condor action in cooperation with a notorious Bolivian drug kingpin. From this McSherry concludes that I was in- volved in the coup plot. • Furthermore, this source also allegedly briefed me on his impend- ing trip to Central America on behalf of Operation Condor. McSherry asserts that my source may have been an army officer named Col. Jorge Osvaldo Ribeiro Rawson, a high-rank- ing Argentine military intelligence officer, who she says was involved in the coup in Bolivia and later com- manded Argentine covert forces in Central America. • In another conversation, I sup- posedly “jokingly asked” my source for details concerning two Monton- eros who had disappeared on a trip from Mexico to Rio, whereupon the source proceeded to tell me how they had been seized at the Rio airport and taken to a secret army jail in Campo de Mayo in Argentina. McSherry claims that these con- versations add further evidence to the testimony provided earlier by the Chilean defector that I was a central figure in a presumed U.S. relationship with Operation Condor. She acknow- ledges having been told by several State Department people she consult- ed that I did nothing outside of my official duties. Yet she rejects this defense and concludes that I consort- ed with Operation Condor either as an “intelligence liaison officer or sim- ply someone trusted by the Condor apparatus.” Beyond that, she faults me for not taking any action when given advance warning of an impend- ing murder, which she concludes is crossing the line into complicity, and for allegedly not having expressed any objection, which is tantamount to “providing a green light.” Embassy Security 101 At this juncture, I need to clarify the role of an embassy security officer and detail what I did in Chile and Argentina as a State Department employee who had no relationship with any of the intelligence services of the United States. My principal func- tions were to provide security for the ambassador and mission personnel, ensure the security of the embassy compound, protect classified docu- 70 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 6 I feel aggrieved that State casually passed along a judicial inquiry based on information I had compiled in the course of my official functions.