In 1968, my parents’ new neighbor, Mrs. Townley, learned that I was going to Chile for my honeymoon. She asked if I would deliver a parcel to a friend who would be expecting me at Pudahuel Airport. The parcel, she said, contained toiletries.
My mother, in all her pre-wedding jitters, forgot to give me the package, so when my flight landed in Santiago, I had to tell the young woman who was waiting what had happened. “Don’t worry about it,” she said and gave me a small piece of silver jewelry as a gift.
Several years later, Mrs. Townley’s son was convicted for the 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier, former Chilean ambassador to the U.S. That’s when I started to think about the package.
Although he was an American, Michael Townley was raised in Chile. The family moved back to America in 1967 and settled in South Miami a couple of houses down from my parents. Michael, it turns out, was a longtime operative of the Chilean secret police with CIA dealings. As part of a plea bargain, he served 10 years for the killing of Letelier, but was not extradited for the assassinations in Buenos Aires of a Chilean general and the general’s wife or for the assassinations in Rome of the former Chilean vice president and his wife. Michael Townley is now in a federal witness protection program.
Until, 1976, I thought the package contained Colgate. Now I wonder if there may have been something else.