CIA document on the expansion of Operation Condor.

In this report, the CIA provides an overview of the structure of Operation Condor including 'Condortel', which will manage the communications aspects, and 'Condoreje', which will be responsible for the operational activities. The CIA also comments on Operation Condor's planned activities including the selection of targets for the special teams which will operate in Europe.

This FBI document shares intelligence on the third phase of Operation Condor involving the planned assassination of key political opponents in non-member countries. Target countries identified in Europe include France and Portugal. The FBI states that it has no evidence that Condor plans to undertake activities in the US; however the involvement of Condor in the assassination of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier in Washington is not 'outside the realm of possibility'.

This is a copy obtained by the CIA of the 'text of the agreement by Condor countries regulating their operations against subversive targets'- a detailed planning paper on financing, staffing, logistics, training, and selection of targets for Condor's 'Teseo' death squad operations. The Teseo Operations Centre would be based in Buenos Aires.

The CIA reports that a high-level official of the Ministry of the Interior has claimed that Operation Condor has become ineffective due to a lack of coordination between member countries.

This CIA report claims that a general conference of Condor member countries is scheduled to take place in late February 1977 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Each member country will be represented by a chief of delegation.

Subject: During a Condor conference held in Santiago, in late May 1976, the Condor members proposed the establishment of a special unit codenamed “Teseo” to carry out physical attacks against members and supporters of the JCR. Bolivia later declined to participate in Teseo.

Activities of Operation Condor outside of Condor countries. The document claims that the assassination of the former Chilean Ambassador to the US, Orlando Letelier, had shown the Condor countries that political assassinations of ‘extremists’ abroad had detrimental effects on Condor countries. It warns that such future activities would result in retaliatory measures by the US against the accused country.

Confirmation that the then Director of the Argentine State Secretariat for Intelligence (SIDE), General Carlos Enrique Laidlaw, had been named the new Chief for Operation Condor at the last meeting of Condor representatives in Buenos Aires. The document also reveals the psychological warfare conducted by Operation Condor through the media of member countries.

The CIA reports that Operation Condor has begun to employ a communications system, for which each member country has been assigned a number beginning with Argentina - 1.