On the morning of September 21, 1976, Orlando Letelier climbed into his car on Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C., and began his commute to work. He was a former Chilean ambassador and cabinet minister who had survived imprisonment and torture under Augusto Pinochet's regime and had rebuilt his life in exile as one of the most effective critics of the dictatorship. The car bomb that killed him, along with his American colleague Ronni Moffitt, had been planted by agents of Chile's secret police operating freely in the capital of the United States. It was the most audacious act of state-sponsored terrorism ever carried out on American soil, and it was not an improvisation. It was an operation, planned and executed within a framework that connected the intelligence services of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil in a coordinated machinery of transnational repression. That machinery had a name: Operation Condor. For decades, its full dimensions remained obscured, buried in classified archives, suppressed by the governments that had run it, and silenced by the fear of the survivors who had lived through it.
The assassination on Sheridan Circle was only the most visible moment in a hidden history that stretched across a continent and a decade, a history of coordinated kidnappings, torture, disappearances, and assassinations that crossed borders as freely as the diplomats who authorized them. Thousands of people were killed or permanently disappeared. Families were destroyed. Children were stolen. And the governments responsible operated with the knowledge, and in some cases the active support, of powers that preferred stability to justice and found it convenient not to look too closely at what their allies were doing in the dark.
It is precisely this history that Francesca Lessa has spent her career bringing into the light. With the English translation of Operation Condor: The Pact That Terrorized a Continent, Lessa brings this chilling transnational campaign into sharper global focus, combining meticulous archival research with the voices of survivors and perpetrators alike. Her work not only reconstructs a hidden system of repression but raises urgent questions about memory, justice, and accountability that extend far beyond the Southern Cone and far beyond the 1970s.
In the conversation that follows, Lessa guides us into that history and its long aftermath, asking what it means to document atrocity with the care it demands, why impunity so often outlasts the regimes that practiced it, and what justice looks like when the crime was designed, from the beginning, to leave no trace.
Charles Carlini: For readers who may never have heard of Operation Condor, how would you briefly explain what it was and why it matters?
Francesca Lessa: Operation Condor was a secret network that the regimes of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay formally set up in late November 1975 to persecute political opponents living in exile in the Americas and beyond. This network grew over time: Brazil joined in 1976, and Ecuador and Peru joined in 1978. Through my work, I confirmed that there were at least 805 victims of this system of transnational repression in the 1970s. The vast majority were citizens of Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile, who were mostly political activists and members of armed revolutionary groups. Although Condor effectively transformed South America into a borderless area of terror and impunity, it was in Argentina where 70% of the crimes were committed. This is because hundreds of thousands of people had sought refuge there, fleeing the military takeovers in their native countries of Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Chile since the 1960s.
Learning more about what Operation Condor was and how it worked is important because the past always offers insightful lessons for the present. So, whilst Condor is an interesting case in itself for understanding why states would cooperate in repression, we also find many continuities between Condor and contemporary transnational repression. Many of the practices adopted during the Condor years, i.e., the close surveillance of exiles, targeted assassinations, disappearances, harassment of victims’ families, clandestine renditions, and so on, continue nowadays. Today’s leading perpetrators of transnational repression include countries such as China, Turkey, and Russia. So this is a timely topic.
CC: What first made you want to write a book about Operation Condor, and when did you realize this would become such a big, long-term project for you?
FL: In late 2012, a friend of mine who is a survivor of Operation Condor told me that a trial was scheduled to begin in Argentina in March 2013. This proceeding would finally investigate, almost 40 years after the events, the crimes that she had suffered in 1976. Back then, I knew Operation Condor only superficially, as I had written my PhD thesis on the search for truth and justice in Argentina and Uruguay. The trial thus catalyzed my renewed interest in this topic: as a scholar of international relations, Operation Condor presented a paradox. Why would states—so jealous of their national sovereignty—decide to suspend their frontiers and cooperate in repressing opponents beyond borders? This was a puzzle worth unraveling.
The project began with a small research grant meant to enable me to write about the Argentine trial, but grew significantly and unexpectedly over time, not only in size but also in ambition. Beyond the traditional academic publications, and almost 14 years later, this project has also generated innovative forms of collaborations, such as with judicial professionals, human rights activists, artists, and programmers. Two novel and not initially planned outcomes were the creation of the plancondor.org repository—an open-access English- and Spanish-language portal collating resources on Operation Condor, including declassified documents, interactive maps, and timelines—and the illustrated Operation Condor book, which we created with Uruguayan-Argentine artist Sebastián Santana.
CC: Your book mixes historical detail with very personal stories. How did you find and choose the people and cases you decided to focus on?
FL: The unique opportunity I had to monitor the Argentine Operation Condor trial between 2013 and 2016, attending 74 hearings, undoubtedly shaped the way I approach the topic. Listening to the survivors and victims’ relatives recount their stories profoundly shaped the way in which I write about Operation Condor. As part of my academic work, I also built a dataset, available too on plancondor.org, that compiles data on 805 victims. Through that, I wanted to get a sense of the extent and breadth of Condor’s transnational repression. But I then focused on the personal stories. I listened to some of those cases during the Argentine trial, and I then interviewed some of the survivors and relatives during my trips to Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Italy, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The cases I chose were the ones that stayed with me after listening to the individual stories. At the same time, I made an effort to include cases that also exemplified the broader patterns of transnational repression (i.e., the monitoring of exiles, their illegal detention and torture, clandestine rendition, and the victims’ final fate) that we find in numerous cases. In the illustrated book, we dedicate a whole chapter (chapter 6) to the case of five victims, three Argentines (José Luis Nell, Dora Marta Landi, Alejandro Logoluso) and two Uruguayans (Gustavo Inzaurralde and Nelson Santan), who were apprehended in Paraguay’s capital, Asunción, in March 1977 as they were trying to flee to Brazil and secure refugee status. After suffering weeks of inhumane treatment and torture in Paraguay, they were flown to Buenos Aires in May 1977, where they disappeared. With Sebastián, we decided to focus on this case because of its illustrative power, as it speaks to many similar cases of Condor. But we also wanted to include the story of a woman, Dora Marta Landi, as women’s experiences are often left out and marginalized from mainstream narratives.
CC: You spent a lot of time listening to survivors and families of victims. What was it like, on a human level, to work so closely with such painful memories?
FL: I will not lie. It was very hard at times. I remember one day in the courtroom in late 2015, when, together with a Uruguayan human rights activist, we listened to the public prosecutor detail the case of Chilean victim Cristina Carreño. She was a militant of the Chilean Communist Party who disappeared in Argentina in May 1978. Her case is also one of the seven cases at the heart of the original lawsuit filed back in November 1999, which gave rise to this historic trial in Argentina, as we narrate in chapter 12. After the prosecutors finished talking, the judges called for a short break. With Patricia, we went to grab coffee, and we both felt physically overwhelmed by what we heard. The brutality of what Cristina suffered, recounted in such painstaking detail in the trial, felt like an actual weight on our bodies.
Despite this, seeing the resilience and unwavering commitment of the survivors and victims always gave me the strength to go on in the lowest moments. If they could keep up such a difficult struggle to seek answers and demand justice for decades, the minimum I could do was to use my work to try to amplify their voices.
CC: The Letelier murder in Washington, D.C., is one of the best-known cases linked to Condor. What does this one story reveal about the reach and ambition of the network?
FL: The Letelier murder of September 1976 was both Condor’s most audacious operation and the start of its demise. On the one hand, the murder of former Allende’s minister in the US capital unmistakably showed that Condor’s agents could effectively operate well beyond South America. Until 9/11, the Letelier assassination remained the only act of postwar state-sponsored international terrorism in the US. On the other hand, the audacity of this operation spelled the beginning of the end. Whilst the US was willing to turn a blind eye regarding the atrocities committed by Condor operatives in South America, the same did not apply to such acts taking place on US soil. As a result of US pressure on Chile throughout 1977 and other regional dynamics, Condor effectively began to unravel and stopped operating as such in 1978.
Through Condor, and especially its Theseus Unit, to conduct operations outside South America, we can see how military and intelligence officers considered themselves to be like Greek heroes, believing they had been tasked with a duty to eliminate any forms of subversion throughout the world in defense of the values and lifestyle of the West and Christianity.
But in Greek mythology, another concept exists: “hubris,” which is especially fitting for this period. Hubris, meaning fatal pride, was the downfall of many Greek heroes and a very dangerous shortcoming; it was an act of arrogance, often when the hero attempted to assume a godlike status. The gods of Greek mythology did not look favorably on mortals who overstepped this limit. Thus, hubris was a fatal flaw that brought tragedy upon heroes and commonly led to their death: the punishment for hubris was often a shocking reminder of human limitations and mortality.
The reverberations from the Letelier murder were, in my view, the result of the hubris that Operation Condor and its agents had incurred.
CC: Many of the crimes you describe happened decades ago, yet court cases and trials are still going on. What have been the most important steps toward justice so far?
FL: Since 1976, with the first prosecutions occurring in the US for the murder of Letelier and his colleague Ronni Moffit, 50 criminal proceedings have taken place in nine countries across the globe—primarily in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Italy. Over 100 military and civilian officials have been sentenced in these proceedings, which I call the Condor Trials.
There have been several important steps throughout this period, but I will highlight two. First, it is important to note how survivors and victims’ relatives pioneeringly began to denounce these atrocities—despite not knowing the actual name of Operation Condor until a few years later—at the same time they were occurring. In chapter 5, for example, we tell the story of Uruguayan journalist Enrique Rodríguez Larreta, who, after suffering illegal detention, torture, and a clandestine rendition from Argentina to Uruguay between July and December 1976, bravely testified about the ordeal endured in London before Amnesty International in March 1977. He did so at great personal risk, since his family still lived in Uruguay under a dictatorship.
Second, fast forwarding to 2016, the verdict in the Argentine trial was historic: it recognized how Operation Condor had indeed amounted to a transnational criminal conspiracy to perpetrate human rights violations beyond borders, with the South American generals using state resources for such purpose.
CC: Your research also shows how governments outside Latin America reacted to Condor. What do you think readers should understand about the international dimension of this story?
FL: The international dimension of this story is multifaceted. A country’s approach is not always purely black and white—though it can be in some cases. For instance, let’s look at the United States' response, as evidenced by dozens of declassified government documents from the CIA, FBI, and State Department. Many of these documents show that these agencies often possessed very detailed knowledge about what Condor was and how it operated. In some cases, these documents also seem to indicate a connection between the US and Condor. For example, a State Department cable dated October 13, 1978, reporting on a conversation between US Ambassador to Paraguay Robert White and General Alejandro Fretes Davalos, chief of staff of Paraguay's armed forces, discusses how the South American intelligence chiefs involved in Condor kept "in touch with one another through a U.S. communications installation in the Panama Canal Zone which covers all of Latin America." In other US documents, we find quite vocal messages from ambassadors across South America, seeking to draw attention and raise awareness of the atrocities committed.
European countries were also interested in Operation Condor. A CIA Cable from April 7, 1978, discusses how representatives of West German, British, and French intelligence allegedly visited the Condor organization's secretariat in Buenos Aires in late 1977 to discuss establishing an anti-subversive organization similar to Condor. This information remains to be fully confirmed, and hopefully, new research will shed light on the role and interests of European countries in Operation Condor.
CC: This is now your book’s first English edition. What do you hope English‑language readers, especially those far from Latin America, will take away from it?
FL: In an age of misinformation, such as the one we are living through, narratives that attempt to deny or downplay the crimes committed in South America are thriving—championed by politicians such as Argentine president Javier Milei, amongst others. I hope English-language readers will use this book to learn about Operation Condor, confident that the information in its pages is reliable, verified, and backed by over a decade of meticulous academic research. It is written in an accessible way so that all readers can easily engage with the book. Moreover, Sebastián’s haunting yet beautiful illustrations will help the readers connect with this topic and generate lasting memories. Only through knowing our past can we ensure that such atrocities will not be repeated in the future. The book contributes to the “Never Again” commitment.
CC: While writing, was there a particular moment, document, or testimony that completely changed how you understood Operation Condor?
FL: Researching and writing about Operation Condor has been like doing a jigsaw puzzle. Often, it was a long, incremental process, where each piece of the puzzle helped me better understand the complexity of this transnational terror network.
If I had to pick one moment, I would say: the testimony by Carlos Osorio, the Director of the Southern Cone Documentation Project of the National Security Archive NGO, at the trial in Argentina in March 2015. I still remember, well over ten years later, listening to Carlos speak for over 11 hours, across a Friday and a Saturday, as he helped the judges and the trial parties navigate 100 documents from the over 900 he had brought from Washington to Buenos Aires.
I listened to Carlos spellbound for the entire time and realized how the archival documents, adequately and appropriately analyzed, complemented the powerful and moving stories that survivors and their relatives had brought to the court. The documents revealed the bureaucratic nature of the repressive apparatus and how the Condor system operated in practice.
CC: Finally, what does it mean to you personally to see this English edition published now, and what conversations do you hope it will spark among new readers?
FL: From the start, Sebastián and I were keen that the illustrated book would circulate as widely as possible to raise awareness about what Operation Condor was. We believed that, by combining solid academic research with the tools of the arts, we could reach new audiences. We worked hard to have the book published first in Uruguay, then two years later in Chile and Argentina, and now, finally, with this English edition three years on. I was absolutely delighted when Casa Carlini took up this challenge of making the book available to the English-speaking public.
This illustrated-book format is crucial for attracting new readers to a complex subject such as Operation Condor. We know this book will be of special interest to younger readers and to those with no prior knowledge of this topic. We hope it will trigger discussions about the extent of transnational terror across the Americas and the enduring efforts of survivors and relatives in achieving justice. Lastly, whilst Condor is a historical case of transnational repression, this phenomenon has not gone away. New research by Freedom House has, in fact, recently shown how, between 2014 and 2025, there have been 1,375 cases of repression against exiles, refugees, and diaspora groups—many of these occurred throughout the Americas. Looking back at Operation Condor also helps us better understand our present.
Photo by Nadia Angelucci
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