Was Townley working for the CIA?
Townley, the son of the American director of Ford Motor’s operations in Chile, became involved with an extreme right-wing Chilean organization. He reportedly approached the CIA, offering to work in Chile on its behalf. The agency claims it did not accept the offer, a standard answer in the case of covert operatives. Whether Townley was acting solely on behalf of the DINA, or was working with the CIA as well, remains an open question. The protection he has received from Washington would suggest the latter. The connections with the CIA do not stop there, however. In carrying out the assassination in Washington, Townley recruited a team that consisted of right-wing anti-Castro exiles who had worked closely with the CIA in carrying out armed attacks on Cuba. They provided the explosives and manpower for the car bombing. A key figure among these Cuban exiles was Guillermo Novo Sampol, who first gained fame with a bazooka attack on the United Nations headquarters in New York City in 1964. He
