Dan Mitrione

Daniel A. Mitrione (August 4, 1920 – August 10, 1970) was an Italian-born^[1] American police officer, Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and a United States government advisor for the Central Intelligence Agency in Latin America.

Career

Mitrione was a police officer in Richmond, Indiana, from 1945 to 1947 and joined the FBI in 1959. In 1960 he was assigned to State Department's International Cooperation Administration, going to South American countries to teach "advanced counterinsurgency techniques." A. J. Langguth, a former New York Times bureau chief in Saigon, claimed that Mitrione was among the US advisers teaching Brazilian police how much electric shock to apply to prisoners without killing them^[2] Langguth also claimed that older police officers were replaced "when the CIA and the U.S. police advisers had turned to harsher measures and sterner men."^[3] and that under the new head of the U.S. Public Safety program in Uruguay, Dan Mitrione, the United States "introduced a system of nationwide identification cards, like those in Brazil… [and] torture had become routine at the Montevideo [police] jefatura."^[4]

From 1960 to 1967, Mitrione worked with the Brazilian police, first in Belo Horizonte then in Rio de Janeiro. He returned to the US in 1967 to share his experiences and expertise on "counterguerilla warfare" at the Agency for International Development (USAID), in Washington D.C.. In 1969, Mitrione moved to Uruguay, again under USAID, to oversee the Office of Public Safety.

Mitrione was also in the Dominican Republic after the 1965 US intervention.^[5]

Uruguayan posting and death

In this period the Uruguayan government, led by the Colorado Party, had its hands full with a collapsing economy, labor and student strikes, and the Tupamaros, a left-wing urban guerilla group. On the other hand, Washington feared a possible victory during the elections of the Frente Amplio, a left-wing coalition, on the model of the victory of the Unidad Popular government in Chile, led by Salvador Allende, in 1970.^[4] The OPS had been helping the local police since 1965, providing them with weapons and training. It is claimed that torture had already been practised since the 1960s, but Dan Mitrione was reportedly the man who made it routine.^[6] He is quoted as having said once: "The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect."^[7] Former Uruguayan police officials and CIA operatives claimed Mitrione had taught torture techniques to Uruguayan police in the cellar of his Montevideo home, including the use of electrical shocks delivered to his victims' mouths and genitals.^[8] He also helped train foreign police agents in the United States in the context of the Cold War. It has been alleged that he used homeless people for training purposes, who were allegedly executed once they had served their purpose.^[9]

As the use of torture allegations grew and the tensions in Uruguay escalated, Mitrione was eventually kidnapped by the Tupamaros on July 31, 1970. They proceeded to interrogate him about his past and the intervention of the U.S. government in Latin American affairs. They also demanded the release of 150 political prisoners.^[10]

The Uruguayan government, with U.S. backing, refused, and Mitrione was later found dead in a car, shot twice in the head and with no other visible signs of maltreatment (beyond the fact that, during the kidnapping, Mitrione had been shot in one shoulder—for which he had evidently been treated while in captivity). Tom Golden, a career army intelligence operative detailed to the CIA and assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo was a personal friend of Mitrione. He disputed the torture training allegations in closed door testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee after Mitrione was killed by the Tupamaros. Golden worked closely with Uruguayan officials to try to secure the release of Mitrione and prevent his execution.^[11]

After being released from prison, the leader of the Tupamaros, Raúl Sendic, revealed that they had not suspected Mitrione of teaching torture techniques to the police. He had trained police in riot control and was targeted for kidnapping as retaliation for the deaths of student protestors.^[12] In addition, Mr. Sendic also revealed that Mitrione's death was a misfortune being that The Tupamaro leaders decided to keep Mr. Mitrione alive and hold him indefinitely instead of killing him, should the Government continue to refuse to their demands.

But on August 7, 1970, just a week after the kidnapping, the Uruguayan police raided the house where the tupamaro leadership was staying and captured Mr. Sendic and the others. A short time later, he said, the replacement leadership, which also knew of the plan to keep Mr. Mitrione alive, was also captured.

"Those captured lost all contact with the others," he said, "and when the deadline came the group that was left with Mitrione did not know what to do. So they decided to carry out the threat."^[12]

In spite of Sendic's memories, told almost 17 years after the events and after being imprisoned for so many years, just a few days after Mitrione's funeral a senior Uruguayan police officer, Alejandro Otero, told the Jornal do Brasil that Mitrione had been employed to teach the police to use "violent techniques of torture and repression".^[13]

Moreover, evidence of his secret activities would later emerge, mostly through Cuban double agent Manuel Hevia Cosculluela. In his book Hevia told that Dan Mitrione had built a soundproofed room in the cellar of his house in Montevideo, in which he assembled selected Uruguayan police officers to observe torture techniques demonstrations.^[14]

In his book Hevia does not say specifically what Mitrione's direct part in those demonstrations was but he later publicly stated that the OPS chief "personally tortured four beggars to death with electric shocks".^[15]

Personal life

Mitrione was married and he had nine children.

Commemoration

The Nixon Administration through spokesman Ron Ziegler affirmed that Mitrione's "devoted service to the cause of peaceful progress in an orderly world will remain as an example for free men everywhere."^[16] His funeral was largely publicised by the U.S. media, and it was attended by, amongst others, David Eisenhower and Richard Nixon's secretary of state William Rogers. Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lewis held a benefit concert for his family in Richmond, Indiana.^[17]

In fiction

The 1973 movie State of Siege by Costa-Gavras is based on the story of Mitrione's kidnapping.

See also

• History of Uruguay
• History of Brazil (1964-1985)
• Office of Public Safety

References

1. ^ American Foreign Service Association: Foreign service journal. American Foreign Service Association, 1969, v. 47
2. ^ Langguth, p. 40
3. ^ Langguth, p. 286
4. ^ ^{a b} Nixon: "Brazil Helped Rig the Uruguayan Elections", 1971, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 71, June 20, 2002
5. ^ S. Heinz, Wolfgang: Determinants of gross human rights violations by state and state-sponsored actors in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina, 1960-1990 - Volume 59 of International studies in human rights Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1999, page 121. ISBN 9041112022, 9789041112026
6. ^ Langguth, pp. 285–7
7. ^ Manuel Hevia Cosculluela, Pasaporte 11333: Ocho Años con la CIA, Havana, 1978, p. 286; see also "Dan Mitrione, un maestro de la tortura", Clarín, September 2, 2001 (Spanish)
8. ^ New Times (Broward-Palm Beach, FL, August 11, 2005)
9. ^ "Dan Mitrione, un maestro de la tortura", Clarín, September 2, 2001 (Spanish) English translation
10. ^ Langguth, p. 22
11. ^ Langguth, p. 256
12. ^ ^{a b} Christian, Shirley (June 21, 1987). "Uruguayan Clears Up 'State of Siege' Killing". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5DD1526E731BC4E53DFB16E958A 
13. ^ Blum, William: Killing hope: US military and CIA interventions since World War II. Zed Books, 2003, page 201. ISBN 1842773690, 9781842773697
14. ^ Hevia Cosculluela, Manuel: Pasaporte 11333: ocho años con la CIA. Presencia Latinoamericana, 1981, page 284.
15. ^ Riding, Alan (August 5, 1978). "Cuban 'Agent' Says U.S. Police Aides Urged Torture; Not Merely Work of an Individual". New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20D1EFD345A11728DDDAC0894D0405B888BF1D3&scp=4&sq=manuel%20hevia&st=cse 
16. ^ Norman, Bob (August 11, 2005). "Forever Missing Part 2". Miami New Times. http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2005-08-11/news/forever-missing-part-2/#prof. Retrieved April 10, 2011. 
17. ^ Otterman, Michael: American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond. Melbourne Univ. Publishing, 2007, page 78. ISBN 0-522-85333-1

Sources

• Langguth, A. J. (1978). Hidden terrors. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-394-73802-0. 

Further reading

• To Save Dan Mitrione Nixon Administration Urged Death Threats for Uruguayan Prisoners, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 324, National Security Archive, August 11, 2010
• The Mitrione Kidnapping in Uruguay 1974 RAND study

External links

• Biography and photo
• Torture's Teachers

Persondata
Name	Mitrione, Dan
Alternative names
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Date of birth	August 4, 1920
Place of birth
Date of death	August 10, 1970
Place of death