The New York Times today reports that a State Dept. review found it unlikely that Gen. Pinochet’s Chilean junta would have gone ahead with the 1973 murders of two Americans, Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, without a nod from the CIA. The two were supporters of the overthrown socialist government of Salvador Allende. The Horman family’s search for information on the deaths was dramatized in the 1982 film “Missing” with Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon playing the parents of the missing American.

“At best, (the CIA) was limited to providing or confirming information that helped motivate his murder by the government of Chile. At

worst, U.S. intelligence was aware the government of Chile saw Horman in a rather serious light and U.S. officials did nothing to

discourage the logical outcome of government of Chile paranoia,” the Times report said. Facing pressure from Congress, the State Dept. ordered the review in 1976; it concluded that it was “difficult to believe” that Pinochet would have proceeded with the executions without U.S. encouragement that they would not have serious repercussions to U.S.-Chile relations. President Clinton ordered the declassification of the material after the 1998 arrest of Pinochet in London.The CIA continues to protest its innocence.