The operation of the Condor plan revealed by a …

At the worst moment of the Latin American dictatorships, you voted in a small space. Delegates from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay and Bolivia to Plan Condor headquarters debated and elected their victims by a simple majority. Each delegate presented an "operational proposal" and the discussion on opportunities, political and material costs ended with a vote. In case of disagreement, an act was drafted with copies for each participating country. If an "operation" was approved, a bureaucratic mechanism including tickets and travel costs of up to $ 3,500 per day was set up for working groups of up to five officers.

Among the secret documents declbadified by the United States and received by the Minister of Justice, Germán Garabano, are a CIA information report dated August 16, 1977, which describes in detail the bureaucratic part of the Condor plan. The report is not clbadified as secret, but begins with the warning that it includes "sensitive sources and methods of intelligence", a code to warn that it can not be broadcast. so as not to compromise agents, sources or ways to steal documents.

The paper tells Central that the intelligence services of five countries and "to a certain extent Brazil" signed a cooperation agreement in September 1976 on "operations aimed at subversive objectives". The CIA makes an unprecedented distinction in the mechanics of the Condor Plan by declaring that "Condor" is the name of the Cooperation Pact, which in practice is called "Operation Theseus".

The CIA agents in Argentina who wrote the report claim to have seen a copy of the original document, which begins with a paragraph entitled "Theseus Regulations, Operations Center". The first problem is to define the mission, which is to identify targets "according to the demands presented by the participants and to badign opportunities and priorities". The operations center must give instructions to the "intelligence and operations teams", the first responsible for the location and identification of targets, as well as the seconds to kill them and s & # 39; 39; escape.

On a military level, the Center is responsible for managing the human and material resources of each operation, instructing the services of each country on the collaboration it must provide and reminding them that, as agreed, foreign services must give priority to requirements. of Theseus operation.

Organizational chart

The Teseo operation is based in Buenos Aires and is referred to as Condor 1 in internal jargon. The operations center is made up of permanent representatives of the intelligence services of the participating countries. On the order of this center, intelligence and operations teams are set up, "composed of personnel from the member countries", as well as reserve teams in case things get complicated. These teams are forbidden to go to the operations center unless they obtain a specific order.

According to the document, "the minimum number of agents provided for each participating service will be, as far as possible, four persons, one woman to be included, each country will have a similar team in reserve, ready to cover any eventuality. "

Travel expenses

The Operations Center in Argentina is responsible for the management of Teseo operation funds and the person in charge of receiving the expenditure settlement of each task group. Each participating country set a quota of ten thousand dollars to start the operation and agreed to provide a similar figure at the end of each operation "within a period not exceeding fifteen days".

Apart from these running costs, the Condor is like a club in which each country pays a fee of two hundred dollars a month "which expires on the thirtieth of each month". This modest figure must "cover the operating and maintenance expenses of the operations center".

But such economic modesty is contradicted by the operating expenses provided for in the same regulation. Working groups abroad receive an estimated allowance of $ 3,500 per day per person plus a fixed amount of one thousand dollars for clothing. All these expenses must be presented to the central office by the group leaders, so that they can be approved by the participating members. If there is no objection, each permanent representative has the duty to contact his government to cover the funds of the operations center.

By a separate cordon, the agents received equipment from the Operations Center or, if this was not possible, local intelligence services. This included weapons, ammunition, explosives, documents, clothing, electronic and communication equipment, as well as "miscellaneous" items.

Organization

"Work Teams", as called by the ICA Working Groups, "will be composed of members of one or more services based on their experience, personal qualifications, and qualifications. characteristics of the target ". The operations center determines a target to eliminate and when. Once the decision is made, intelligence teams are tasked with "identifying the target, locating it, following it, communicating with the Operations Center and withdrawing". A member of the intelligence team and only one can get in touch with the operations team. This agent must ensure that the information reaches the agents and show them the target and then withdraw from the scene.

The operations team must "execute the target" in three steps: "A, intercept the target, B, complete the operation and C, escape". For reasons of operational security, the members of each team can not know each other. The only ones who speak are the leaders of each working group.

Embbadies

The Teseo operation has its own communications network called Condortel, which manages all the traffic between the operations center and the services of the participating countries. If necessary, we will speak by telephone, with the call of the head of the headquarters in Buenos Aires.

But if it is necessary to send documents, papers of all kinds, it is decided that the "diplomatic bag" of the respective embbadies, or special envoys knowing the necessary security measures, will be used.

A democracy

The last chapter of the CIA document indicates that the Teseo Operations Center takes two hours for lunch, as it operates from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm and from 2:30 pm to 7:30 pm. Schedules will only be extended by a marching operation by appointing a "night worker", alternating nationality among the permanent members. On the bureaucratic level, it is established that the accommodation, meals and transportation of this officer will be at the expense of the operations center.

And here comes a surprise, in the end: the Condor functioned as an internal democracy where people voted between equals. In the CIA document, explains the CIA document, each representative presents his choice of a target in the form of a proposal. The final selection of a target will be by vote and will be determined by simple majority. In case of disagreement, a report of the debate is drawn up, signed by the respective representatives and sent to the corresponding services for information. "

L & # 39; expanding

While the CIA obtained the basic and organizational documents of the Condor, the State Department's Intelligence and Investigations Bureau released its badysis of coordination in the Southern Cone. In a report dated October 6, 1977, distributed safely and unmarked, diplomats speculate on the possible formation of a South American bloc based on intelligence coordination. They rightly exclude the possibility of "pre-existing quarrels" and because Brazil does not show enthusiasm for this idea and prefers to invest in its own international propaganda efforts.

But in the text appears a new theme, that of the idea of ​​opening operational offices of the Condor plan in the United States and Western Europe. The mission of these offices will be to "deal with the murder of alleged subversive opponents of participating (Condor) governments living in Western Europe". According to diplomats, the three countries "most enthusiastic" in the idea are Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, for the activity of their respective exiles. Brazil, says the badysis, is not interested and rejected the idea. According to the State Department, Brazilians do not want to pay the political cost of knowing such an operation or have partners like the famous Chilean DINA.

Countries interested in operating in Europe have done so through their embbadies, creating notorious intelligence structures, such as that of Argentina in Paris.