DO YOU KNOW MICHAEL VERNON TOWNLEY?

Michael Vernon Townley (born December 5, 1942, in Waterloo, Iowa) is an American-born former agent of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), the secret police of Chile during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

In 1957, Townley moved to Chile with his father, Vernon Townley, who became head of the Ford Motor Company in Chile. He married Mariana Ines Callejas Honores in 1961 at age 19 (she was 27) after meeting her at a party two years earlier. In 1967, he moved to Miami with his family and worked as a mechanic in Miami's Little Havana, where he befriended Cuban anti-Castro exiles.

In 1970, Townley moved back to Chile with his family. He later testified that, before leaving the US, he contacted the CIA to offer his services in Chile; however, Townley later claimed he never worked for the CIA, His father, however, allegedly had ties to the agency. Back in Chile, he ran a clandestine anti-Allende radio station and worked with violent opposition groups. He fled Chile in the months before the 1973 coup which overthrew Salvador Allende. Townley then returned and was recruited by the DINA.

In 1978, Townley plead guilty to the 1976 murders–which occurred in Washington, DC–of Orlando Letelier, former Chilean ambassador to the United States, and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, Letelier's co-worker at the Institute for Policy Studies. He was sentenced to ten years in prison and served 62 months. As part of his plea bargain, Townley provided evidence of the involvement of several Cuban exiles who participated in the Letelier murder. He received immunity from further prosecution; he was not extradited to Argentina to stand trial for the 1974 assassination of Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires.

In 1993, Townley was also convicted in absentia by an Italian court of carrying out the 1975 murder attempt on Bernardo Leighton in Rome. In collaboration with Colonel Gerardo Huber and the DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos, Townley helped produce chemical weapons for DINA which would be used against opponents of the Pinochet regime. He has long maintained status as a protected witness. Townley is now 81 years old and has resided in an undisclosed location since.

In her youth, the Chilean writer Mariana Inés Callejas Honores embraced Socialist Zionism and emigrated to Israel, where she lived on kibbutzim. She and her first husband eventually left for New York in the early 1950s. They had three children, but she felt stifled as a housewife. Callejas had always loved literature and writing, and in New York she attended acting classes. After moving back to Chile in 1960 with her children, she cultivated a group of bohemian friends and achieved national acclaim for her work.

Callejas Honores was a member of the DINA who participated in several terrorist attacks, including the murder of General Carlos Prats and his wife, which she and Townley committed in 1974 in Buenos Aires. She was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison by courts of the first and second instances, though her term was later reduced to five years. She died in 2016 at age 84.

Callejas consistently denied knowledge of any torture or manufacturing of sarin (a deadly nerve agent) in the basement of her hillside mansion in Chile. Her literary salons took place between 1974 and 1978.

“As the literati danced and debated upstairs, Chilean intelligence officers were downstairs torturing dissidents and manufacturing the toxic nerve agent sarin in a secret laboratory.”

“Callejas' salon has lived on in Chilean literature. Chilean-born writer Roberto Bolano ended his celebrated novel "By Night in Chile" with an account of the salon and the story of Callejas and Townley. Bolano imagined the Callejas character, years later, wandering around the empty mansion, shunned by her friends and abandoned by her American husband. "The house already didn't seem the same: All its splendor, a nocturnal and unpunished splendor, had disappeared," Bolano wrote. "Now there was only a house that was too big."

Walking up to the house one night, one attendee recalled, she mistakenly opened an outside door and found a hidden room filled with cots, laboratory equipment and camouflage fabric. "I went up to the salon and didn't say a word," Barros said. "We left after half an hour and we never went back. We also never told anybody what we had seen."



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What motivated Townley to join this cause and engage in torture and murder? Financial compensation appeared to be secondary, but his journey from capable car mechanic to efficient assassin using both his hands and by remote detonator is clouded by unanswered questions.


SCENE: MVT is in the dentist’s chair. A female hygienist and male dentist, both unmasked and gloveless, their faces hovering above his mouth. View entirely from MVT’s perspective, looking up at them. They are both dressed in crisp white uniforms.


DENTIST (D): And how is life treating you? [makes conversation as he prods each tooth with a sharp instrument]


MVT: Anh ang ad.


HYGIENIST (H): “Not so bad,” he says. [turns to DENTIST, acting as translator]


D: The children are doing well in school?


MVT: Gey ah gery izzy.


H: He says they are very busy. [turning to D again]


D: And Mariana is having her parties? What a time we had last month! [turning to Alicia] We sang folk songs, and I played my guitar.


MVT: Gess, hee ih itin ah en.


H: [brightly] He says she is writing again!


D: [placing the sharp instrument on a side table] Wonderful. Michael, are you aware you grind your teeth?


MVT: [raising his eyebrows to indicate denial] Unh, I oo ot.


H: [translating for D] He said he is not doing this.


D: Have you been under any particular stress lately?


MVT: Un uh.


H: He says no.


D: [turning his head slowly to face her, with irritation in his expression and tone] Thank you, Alicia.


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Upon Encountering a Certain Young Lady (no. 2)

Under Somewhat Different Circumstances

MVT is tending bar with an older black man at a large DC fundraiser in a large ballroom on Embassy Row. In a grand ballroom with US generals in military regalia, women wearing full-length dresses, and men in tuxedos mill about a large ballroom adorned with chandeliers and featuring a small orchestra. He works alongside a stoic elderly black man; they exchange few words. Both wear black pants with white jackets and bowties. MVT is drying wine glasses with a linen napkin and placing them below the oak-paneled bar. A young woman wearing a silk, flowing emerald-green maxi dress with a plunge neckline and slingback three-inch gold high-heeled approaches. She awkwardly sets her empty champagne flute on the bar in front of MVT. Her dark brown hair is streaked with auburn and teased high into a tight bun that is slightly unraveling. Two curled tendrils fall at the side of each cheek, and her eye makeup is slightly smudged. Her oversized thin gold hoop earrings swing below her ears.

MVT: Here for a refill?

MONIQUE: [slowly shaking her head] Champagne gives me a headache. Bitter lemon and gin, please [she holds up her index finger].

MVT: Sure. How much gin? [he deftly removes the empty glass and replaces it with a tumbler]

MONIQUE: [smiles] A splash.

MVT: Just a splash [smiling as he pours the gin and then the bitter lemon]. On the rocks?

MONIQUE: [whispering] Please.

MVT: [drops in a few large cubes with a pair of tongs. The older black bartender serving an older white man gives MVT the side eye and slowly shakes his head disapprovingly] Gonna be sweet, I’m warnin’ ya.

MONIQUE: Thank you. [she takes a delicate sip and slowly raises her eyes from her glass to meet his]

MVT: [resumes drying glasses with the linen napkin/rag as he surveys the ballroom] What’s everyone dressed up for?

MONIQUE: [continues to smile] Happy birthday, whoever! [turns halfway around to raise her glass to the room; she is already slightly intoxicated]

MVT: This a birthday party?

MONIQUE: [rolls eyes] No.

MVT: CIA?

MONIQUE: A way to say, “thank you” for putting our fingers into everything.

MVT: [begins placing dry glasses behind the bar with his back to MONIQUE]

MONIQUE: You do this full-time?

MVT: Nah. I just like to people watch.

MONIQUE: [she props her elbows on the bar, supporting her chin with both hands] What’s your day job?

MVT: I work for the government. [Monique raises one eyebrow; MVT smiles] Not as exciting as it sounds.

MONIQUE: They don’t pay you enough?

MVT: It’s fine. I get bored easily.

MONIQUE: Me too [smiles slightly]. What’s your sign?

MVT: I don’t know.

MONIQUE: Well, when’s your birthday, silly?

MVT: December 5.

MONIQUE: [excitedly] Sagittarius!

MVT: This means nothing to me.

MONIQUE: Give me your hand.

MVT: [places the open palm of his right hand in front of her on the bar, and she clasps it with both of hers]

MONIQUE: [begins to slowly trace the lines in his palm with her index finger, studying it intently] I see…an independent man who takes great risks…with a good business sense. Above all else, you pursue what you want at any cost.

MVT: [remaining still and not removing his hand] I used to race cars. And I did try my hand in business.

MONIQUE: [triumphantly] Ah ha! The Sagittarian in you.

MVT: [chuckling] Maybe.

MONIQUE: There you go! Sagittarians are also known for their emotional intelligence, too.

MVT: You could say this about anyone.

MONIQUE: Not at all–it’s an exact science. I’m a Leo, and I’m not like you at all.

MVT: [he looks at her skeptically and removes his hand]

MONIQUE: Your wedding ring.

MVT: [extending his right hand and holding out his fingers to examine the ring]

MONIQUE: It’s on the wrong hand.

MVT: Wrong hand, right finger.

MONIQUE: It should be on your left hand.

MVT: [smiles] I know. My wife put it there on our wedding day.

MONIQUE: The priest should have corrected her.

MVT: [shaking his head] No priest. She did it this way, so I wear it this way. It reminds me she’s close.

MONIQUE: [takes another sip of her drink and looks over her shoulder at the orchestra playing Herb Alpert’s “Bittersweet Samba”] Playing all the hits tonight [sarcastically].

MVT: You don’t like the Tijuana Brass?

MONIQUE: I love music. This–it’s horseshit my parents listen to.

MVT: Not very sentimental, are you?

MONIQUE: [shrugs] Who is anymore?

MVT: [smiling] How old are you? Twenty-five?

MONIQUE: Twenty-six.

MVT: You here with your father? [playfully]

MONIQUE: [indignantly] No, my fiance.

MVT: And who is he?

MONIQUE: You mean, what does he do? He’s a lawyer. For the government.

MVT: All the money’s in private practice.

MONIQUE: He doesn’t need money, his parents are rich. He wants power.

MVT: You’re too young to be cynical. Go to some real parties. Have fun.

MONIQUE: I need to get married.

MVT: Does he know that?

MONIQUE: Of course–he wants that, too. [defensively]

MVT: But you’re in love?

MONIQUE: I will be. Maybe I won’t. But it’s time. [she gulps her drink]

MVT: If there’s no love, what’s the point?

MONIQUE: Did you marry for love?

MVT: I did. I was 17 when I met my wife at a party. Not fancy like this. At someone’s house.

MONIQUE: You were so young.

MVT: I was. She already had kids.

MONIQUE: How old was she?

MVT: Twenty-five [smiling].

MONIQUE: Good Lord!

MVT: Our parents didn’t come to the wedding.

MONIQUE: How old were you?

MVT: Nineteen. She didn’t want to date me, but I persisted.

MONIQUE: No man ever wanted me that badly.

MVT: You’re pretty enough. You can have any man you want. Wait a while—you’ll see.

MONIQUE: I can’t wait any longer. My mother was 21 when she had me. It’s almost too late.

MVT: Which one’s your man?

MONIQUE: [leaning in to whisper] He’s at two o’clock, with the ambassador.

MVT: At two o’clock, with you at midnight?

MONIQUE: [laughs] Yes.

MVT: Why don’t you ask him to dance?

MONIQUE: [shaking her head quickly] He doesn’t dance.

MVT: When we danced for the first time, I knew. I’ve been chasing her ever since.

MONIQUE: You knew?

MVT: [stops drying glasses] I did.

MONIQUE: [sips her drink].

MVT: She said yes.

MONIQUE: Obviously [smiling].

MVT: My wife has lived…everywhere. She writes stories people want to read. She has always supported me in my work. After she traveled the world, she figured out where she belonged. She had a long journey to get to me. Get somewhere first, on your terms. Don’t wait for anyone to find you.

MONIQUE: [changing the subject] Shit, my hair is falling down [feels the back of her head].

MVT: [laughs] What do you mean?

MONIQUE: The combs are slipping.

MVT: Let me help.

MONIQUE: [laughing] What do you know about girls’ hair?

MVT: I have a daughter. Allow me [formally].

MONIQUE: [shrugs and removes the two large tortoiseshell combs. Her long hair falls softly around her shoulders]

MVT: Turn around. [she swivels on the barstool with her back facing him. He stares for a moment at the hair flowing down her upper back and gently pushes it to the side over her shoulder, revealing the graceful neck of a dancer. He gazes longingly and inhales sharply and suddenly. She slowly turns her head over her shoulder to shyly steal a glance at him. He takes one comb and sweeps her hair upward, holding the loose bun with one hand and attempting to do the same with the other comb] You sure you don’t want braids? This is really hard.

MONIQUE: [giggling] I’m sure.

MVT: OK…Voila!

MONIQUE: [pulls out a small green and gold compact, flips it open and turns her head left and right]: I think…I’ll wear it down [she slowly removes the combs and places them in her clutch before running her fingers through her hair] How do I look?

MVT: [picturing the exposed base of her neck and staring at her with moderate intensity]

MONIQUE: [staring at him intently over her empty drink, with her palms under her chin and leaning forward] What I wouldn’t do...to have one dance with you [seductively but wistfully. She slowly traces the rim of her glass with her index finger. The band begins to play Herb Alpert’s “Tangerine,” a melancholy, nostalgic song].

MVT: And what would your fiance have to say about that?

MONIQUE: [her alluring expression collapses] I should go find him [she pushes herself away from the bar and swivels to survey the ballroom].

MVT: He’s still at two o’clock.

MONIQUE: My name is Monique. Who are you?

MVT: Go to him, Monique. [when she remains seated, he stares her down] Go! [insistently]

[she leaves her empty glass with bitter lemon dregs, twirls her tendrils, and gently pats the delicate skin below her eyes with a linen napkin on the bar]

[MVT watches her leave as he vigorously wipes down the bar. She walks slowly, somewhat unsteadily, across the ballroom. He sees her firmly place her hand on her fiance’s arm as he converses with a general. She gently pulls him toward the dance floor.]