Ghosts of Sheridan Circle: How a Washington Assassination Brought Pinochet's Terror State to Justice

by Alan McPherson

Overview

On September 21, 1976, a car bomb killed Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean ambassador to the United States, along with his colleague Ronni Moffitt. The murder shocked the world, especially because of its setting—Sheridan Circle, in the heart of Washington, D.C. Letelier's widow and her allies immediately suspected the secret police of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who eliminated opponents around the world. Because U.S. political leaders saw the tyrant as a Cold War ally, they failed to warn him against assassinating Letelier and hesitated to blame him afterward. Government investigators and diplomats, however, pledged to find the killers, defying a monstrous, secretive regime. Was justice attainable? Finding out would take nearly two decades.

With interviews from three continents, never-before-used documents, and recently declassified sources that conclude that Pinochet himself ordered the hit and then covered it up, Alan McPherson has produced the definitive history of one of the Cold War's most consequential assassinations. The Letelier car bomb forever changed counterterrorism, human rights, and democracy. This page-turning real-life political thriller combines a police investigation, diplomatic intrigue, courtroom drama, and survivors' tales of sorrow and tenacity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469669298
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	02/01/2022
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

Alan McPherson is professor of history at Temple University and the author of The Invaded: How Latin Americans and their Allies Fought and Ended U.S. Occupations.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Alan McPherson has produced the most compelling account of the Letelier assassination and the long quest for justice that followed. Anyone interested in human rights has to read this book.—Ricardo Lagos, former president of Chile



McPherson has written an engrossing book about a particularly important moment in the Cold War—one that had a tremendous impact on U.S.-Chilean relations, as well as human rights law more generally.—Gregory Weeks, University of North Carolina, Charlotte



Finally we have a definitive account of one of the most spectacular assassinations ever committed on American soil. Characters come vividly alive against the background of international intrigue and murder plotted at the highest levels of government. Ghosts of Sheridan Circle is a political thriller that illuminates a horrific crime, the sinister plot behind it, and the relentless detective work that identified the killers.—Stephen Kinzer, former New York Times correspondent and author of Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq

Editorial Reviews

The book re-explores the Letelier-Moffitt case with new interview-based evidence. It also paints a vivid picture of Chilean-U.S. relations during the Cold War, of Chile's brutal dictatorship, and highlights some of the workings of Operation Condor, the international surveillance and assassination ring that Pinochet created via the DINA in order to eliminate leftist rivals abroad. Not least, however, Ghosts also highlights the human dimensions of an infamous crime that affected not only the families of the victims, but their colleagues, defenders, and opponents, as well as the prospects for Chile's future as a democracy."—H-Diplo



This painful, exciting, and moving tale. . . . pays moving homage to a profound tragedy and to the resilience of a band of people who, over the course of decades, fought and helped to win a measure of justice for their loved ones and for tens of thousands of victims. It is a story that will likely linger with you for a long time.—North American Congress on Latin America – Report on the Americas



An important book about the role of Augusto Pinochet's military government in the 1976 assassination of prominent Chilean opposition leader Orlando Letelier in Washington, DC. . . . A very well-organized and documented account.—CHOICE



McPherson leaves no stone unturned to uncover every turn and twist in the unavoidably complicated plot that leads from the explosion to Pinochet.—Heythrop Journal



Justice, and the many obstacles to its attainment, is the unstated theme of Alan McPherson's Ghosts of Sheridan Circle, a history of a great political crime and its aftermath. . . . To tell this story, Alan McPherson . . . has tempered the dry precision of academic history with stylistic elements borrowed from the true-crime genre: nonfiction storytelling that generates horror, sympathy and suspense.—Foreign Service Journal



McPherson's narrative talent and dramatic material make his book as gripping a read as a good novelist's murder mystery.—Human Rights Quarterly



Highly readable and entirely accessible even if you have no background knowledge of Chile or the general context at all. It is a case of slow-moving justice against petty and murderous terrorists.—Two Weeks Notice



Retraces the many twists and turns of the lengthy joint U.S.-Chilean investigation to identify and prosecute the perpetrators. The brazen violation of American national sovereignty, McPherson argues, as much as the violation of human rights, shook the U.S. government.—Foreign Affairs



"Provide[s] important insights into the trials of those charged with the crimes, as well as carrying the cases up to the present day.—Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books



McPherson has produced a remarkable book. It engages broad themes of human rights, terrorism, and democracy. Yet the essence of the story is a human quest for justice." —Journal of American History

From the Publisher