Office of Public Safety
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The Office of Public Safety (OPS) was a US government agency, established in 1957 by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower to train foreign police forces [1]. It officially depended of the USAID (US Agency for International Development), and was close to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [1]. Police-training teams were also sent in South Vietnam, Iran, Taiwan, Brazil and Greece [2]. Courses were held in French, Spanish and English [2]. According to a 1973 document revealed in the Family jewels CIA documents, around 700 police officers were trained a year, including in handling of explosives [3]. It was dissolved in 1974.
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[edit] Directed by CIA
Director of the Office of Public Safety was CIA agent Byron Engle[4].
[edit] Creation and dissolution of the OPS
The United States has a long history of providing police aid to Latin American countries. In the 1960s the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Public Safety (OPS) provided Latin American police forces with millions of dollars worth of weapons and trained thousands of Latin American police officers. In the late 1960s, such programs came under media and congressional scrutiny because the U.S.-provided equipment and personnel were linked to cases of torture, murder and "disappearances" in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.
In Washington, D.C., the Office of Public Safety had remained immune to public embarrassment as it went about two of its chief functions: allowing the CIA to plant men with the local police in sensitive places around the world; and after careful observation on their home territory, bringing to the United States prime candidates for enrollment as CIA employees [2]. The OPS's director in Washington, Byron Engle, was close to the CIA [1].
In 1966, US senator J. William Fulbright started criticizing the OPS' methods [5]. Then, informed by Brazilian opposition members, US senator James G. Abourezk set about to disclose the OPS' program [5]. John A. Hannah, head of the USAID and former president of Michigan State University, unsuccessfully tried to support the OPS by sending a letter to deputy Otto Passman [5].
In 1974, Congress banned the provision by the U.S. of training or assistance to foreign police with a statute known as Section 660 of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) [2].
The OPS had formed a million policemen in the Third World [1]. Ten thousands of them had undertook training courses in the US. $150 millions' worth in material had been sent to foreign police forces [1].
Most of the OPS' missions were transferred to others agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, while the US Department of Defense continued to transfer equipment to security forces in foreign countries [1]. OPS officer Jack Goin went on to found a private security firm, Public Safety Services, Inc., in Washington [5].
[edit] Divisions
[edit] International Police Academy
Operated by the OPS, the International Police Academy was instituted in 1963, training police officers from various countries around the World in the United States. Its first class included sixty-eight police officers from seventeen different nations.[6] Until the early 1970s, selected candidates could also receive training from CIA officers at the U.S. Border Patrol academy in Los Fresnos, Texas, including the making of bombs and incendiary devices.[7]
[edit] Operations
The head of the OPS, Byron Engle, sent Los Angeles Police Department officers to Venezuela in 1962 to train local police officers and assist them in repression against the Armed Forces of National Liberation (AFNL) [2].
[edit] Uruguay
The OPS operated in Uruguay since 1964 [8], supplying the police with equipment, arms and training. This involved courses on explosives, assassination weapons, and riot control [1]. Between 1969 and 1973, at least 19 Uruguayan police officers were formed in the CIA and OPS schools in Washington DC and in Los Fresnos, Texas to be taught the handling of explosives [1]. In several occasions, the pupils were not police officers, but members of the Uruguayan right-wing [1]. In 1970, the OPS had formed a thousand police officers in riot control [1].
USAID agent, Dan Mitrione, who had trained the Brazilian police before in interrogation and torture methods, arrived in Uruguay in 1969 to work for the OPS [1]. Although torture was already used by the Uruguayan police, it became systematized under Mitrione's direction. In an interview to a Brazilian newspaper in 1970, the former Uruguayan Chief of Police Intelligence, Alejandro Otero, declared that US officers, in particular Mitrione, had instituted torture as a systemic method [1]. According to A. J. Langguth's Hidden Terrors (Pantheon Books, 1978, p. 286), older police officers were replaced "when the CIA and the U.S. police advisers had turned to harsher measures and sterner men." Under Dan Mitrione's leadership, the United States "introduced a system of nationwide identification cards, like those in Brazil… and torture had become routine at the Montevideo police jefatura." [8]
Otero, who had been formed at the International Police Services in Washington, a front for the CIA, had stopped supporting Mitrione after a friend of his and sympathizer of the Tupamaros had been tortured in Mitrione's presence [1]. He also opposed torture as he thought it led to the radicalization of the conflict.
CIA officer William Cantrell was based in Montevideo as an OPS member. He assisted in the creation, in the 1960s, of the National Directorate of Information and Intelligence (Dirección Nacional de Información e Inteligencia - DNII), to which he supplied equipment, including torture equipment. After the 1971 elections during which the left-wing Frente Amplio was defeated, Montevideo launched in September 1971 a DNII-led joint military and police force in counter-revolutionary operations against the Tupamaros. According to former police officers, death squads were run from the DNII [8].
After being released from prison the leader of the Tupamaros, Raul Sendic, revealed that Mitrione had not been suspected of teaching torture techniques to the police. He had trained police in riot control and was targeted for kidnapping as retaliation for the deaths of student protestors. Cite error 3; Invalid <ref> tag; invalid names, e.g. too many
[edit] See also
- Department of Public Safety
- History of Uruguay
- U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals
- United States-Latin American relations and Foreign relations of Uruguay
- USAID and CIA
- Greek military junta of 1967-1974
- PIDE, Portuguese police force [3]
[edit] External links
- OPS-produced or OPS-funded publications available through USAID's Development Experience System (DEXS)
- William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions since World War II, 2003 (chapter on Uruguay)
- A. J. Langguth's Hidden Terrors (Pantheon Books, 1978)
- Christian, Shirley (June 21), "Uruguayan Clears Up 'State of Siege' Killing", New York Times
[edit] Sources
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions since World War II, 2003 (chapter on Uruguay)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 A. J. Langguth's Hidden Terrors (Pantheon Books, 1978 (Chapter I)
- ↑ Family jewels, pages 600-603
- ↑ A. J. Langguth via Alex Constantine am 03.05.2009: U.S. has a 45-Year History of Torture
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 A. J. Langguth's Hidden Terrors (Pantheon Books, 1978 Extract 5)
- ↑ "International Police School Graduates 68", Washington Post, 1964-08-08.
- ↑ "Police Academy Under Fire for Aiding 'Foreign Dictatorships'", Washington Post, 1974-06-07.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 sNIXON: "BRAZIL HELPED RIG THE URUGUAYAN ELECTIONS," 1971, National Security Archive
This article is based on Wikipedia Office of Public Safety and sofar licensed under GNU-FDL.
