On this day, Sept. 21, in 1976, a car bomb exploded on Massachusetts Avenue in Northwest Washington, killing political figure Orlando Letelier and his assistant. Letelier worked for the Institute for Policy Studies, taught at American University and became the leading voice of the Chilean resistance against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Letelier, his assistant Ronni Moffitt, 25, and her husband, Michael, were driving to work on Sheridan Circle in Embassy Row when an explosion erupted under the car. Letelier and Ronni Moffitt died.
Several people were convicted in the assassination, including Michael Townley, a Chilean secret police agent and U.S. expatriate who had once worked for the CIA.
Today, a small memorial to Letelier and Moffitt sits across from the site of the bombing on Sheridan Circle.
— Scott McCabe
