The Man Who `Knew Too Much

The Man Who `Knew Too Much By Lewis H. Diuguid HEN A free-spirited American The father, Edmund Harman, 70, a W filmmaker disappeared and later businessman who started his search turned up dead In the aftermath of the more content than most with his gov- 1973 Chilean coup, no one could — or ernment, now declares: would — answer why. But the New York family of Charles "Considering the information I have Herman refused to take "We don't been gathering and what I have seen know" for an answer. Their dogged and heard, the only conclusion I can search, along with recent related devel- drawls that the United States fingered opments, have brought the case to a cli- him." max. What has grown into Horman's ad- At the least, it is now clear that the versary proceeding against the State U.S. and Chilean governments knew a Department is gathering supporters. great deal about Herman's fate at the When a 'former Chilean intelligence time they were telling the family they agent declared recently that he was' knew nothing. That was during the full present when a Chilean general or- month when he was "missing," when dered Charles killed "because he knew the father, full of hope, went to the too much," several U.S. congressmen Santiago soccer stadium where demanded a new investigation. hundreds of prisoners were herded and called for his son to come forward. An Enforced Vacation "This is your father," he shouted over N SEPT. 11, 1973, the day of thi the bullhorn. ''You have nothing to O coup that toppled President Salva- fear." dor Allende's experiment in socialism, But Charles had been dead since the Charles Harman was showing an Amer- day after he was taken off by a uni- ican visitor Chile's seaside resort of formed patrol. There is ample evidence Vita del Mar. that Chilean authorities knew this. The coup began in the neighboring Now, evidence is accumulating that the port of Valparaiso, where admirals U.S. government did, too, and that per- later conceded they had been plotting haps It played a role in his death. for months, Down the long shank of Chile, military control was so complete Diuguid is an assistant foreign ed- that, as one officer put it, the takeover itor and former Latin America corre- "was a cup of milk." spondent of The Washington Post. See CHILE, Page CS .4 United Pr.e lalArntilong Santiago's National Stadium was used to hold thousands after the 1973 coup in Chile. A Man Who 'Knew Too Much' CHILE, From Page Cl elusion that Creter was exaggerating One witness said she followed the his importance. The Navy said the job truck to the soccer stadium. Mrs. Hor- As part of that control, internal be did related to repair of fire extin- man says that she was caught down- travel was halted. Horman, 91, and guishers on U.S. surplus ships sold to town by the curfew that evening, re- Terry Simon of New York took up an Chile and his presence at the time of turning the next morning to find the obligatory four-day vacation at the Mir- the coup was coincidence. house empty, ransacked and robbed. amar Hotel, where the Pacific crashes No direct U.S. role in the coup has She reported to the U.S. consulate and onto rocks below a sunny deck and peli- ever been proven, despite later revela- turned to friends for help. Two friends cans flap by in lazy vees. tions of American efforts against Al- said they received calls that day from Horman's wife Joyce had passed up lende. Chilean military intelligence asking the trip and was at home in Santiago, Return and Arrest them to explain why Horman had their normally 90 minutes away. She would names. N SEPT. 15, Horman and Simon not venture out beyond the corner gro- These calls alone were clear indica- 1.._/ rode back to Santiago with Capt. cer's in the curfew of the next four tion that Horman was in the hands of Davis. bead of the U.S. military advi- days- • the military and not, as Chile consist- sory group in Chile. The naval mission At the Miramar, Horman and Simon ently contended, outside the reach of had already helped them by radioing met several other stranded Americans. "the law." Mrs. Horman states that she parents of both, via Panama, that they They received most of their news of the informed the consulate of the calls. were alive and well. coup from Marine Lt. Col. P. J. Ryan, One recipient of the calls did also; the Davis dropped them at the embassy head of the five-man U. S. Naval Group consul later denied this call was re- in Santiago, where the streets were in Valparaiso. Simon quotes Ryan as de- ceived, the Hormans' records show. coming back to life, with a promise to scribing mass arrests then going on in Then came a series of increasingly help if he could in the next days. the capital as "search-and-destroy" mis- tense and rancorous meetings between Simon and Horman returned to the sions a la Vietnam. U.S. officials and Joyce Horman, joined Hormans' rented house on the edge of The general glee of the other Ameri- on Oct. 5 by Edmund Horman, who cans with the coup dismayed Horman downtown, burned some Marxist litera- ture by then known to- be a target of flew down from New York. and Simon, who were enthusiastic sup- The Hormans found most of the offi- porters of Allende. They were further the search squads, and decided that they should leave Chile as soon as possi- cials uncooperative, ill-disposed to act, disconcerted when a friend of Ryan's. evasive and, on occasion, untruthful ble. Arthur P. Creter, who described him- and rude. self as a retired naval engineer based in Joyce Horman remembers destroy- ing all the notes she could find to a Looking back, the Hormans say they Panama, told them: "We came down to are convinced that they were witness- study by her husband that she now do a job, and it's done." ing a coverup. "Why go to elaborate ef- Simon recallS Creter's bearing as feels may have led someone to con- clude that he "knew too much." Or sim- forts to conceal unless there was some- thoroughly conspiratorial and in retro- thing to conceal?" asks the father. spect feels be probably was posturing ply to decide that in the polarization between "them" and "us" that led up to Whatever the cause, there was a for effect. The incident is important for clear failure to communicate. From two reasons: the coup, he was clearly one of "them." Horman had studied the assassina- Ambassador Nathaniel Davis to Consul First, Horman and Simon took the re- Frederick D. Purdy, there seemed to be tion of Chile's army chief, Gen. Rene mark, along with others, to indicate a a disbelief that the generals who threw Schneider, by extreme rightists in a fu- U.S. role in the coup. On return to San- out Allende could also harm an Ameri- tiago they passed It to American jour- tile attempt to prevent Allende from coming to power in 1970. can citizen. nalists who reported it in the same Or, alternatively, that if he was According to Joyce Horman, her hus- vein. harmed, he must have provoked it. For band's study showed a CIA role in the Second, U.S. embassy officials, deny- some in the embassy, to have supported attempted kidnaping that ended in ing the implication absolutely, later Allende was a provocation. A favored Schneider's death. A Senate report sub- used the allegedly false report to ques- conjecture was that Harman was in hid- sequently has shown that the CIA was tion the reliability and motives of Hor- ing. man and Simon. involved, although it was not found to However, U.S. Navy Capt. Ray E. be directly responsible. Exeter and Harvard Davis eventually verified — in a docu- On Monday, Sept. 17, a uniformed pa- ET HOMAN, despite his beard, ment the Horman family obtained un- trol that the neighbors took to be army Y was no far-out revolutionary. His der the Freedom of Information Act - troops stopped near Horman's house, decidedly upper-class education began that Creter did indeed make the quoted asked a merchant some unrelated ques- at the Allen-Stevenson School for boys, statement to the two men. tions, entered the Horman house and two blocks from the family's East 76th The document also supports the con- was seen taking him away. Street apartment. The school has recently established an annual award in his honor. "I followed up his career and was tre- mendously impressed with his charac- ter," said the headmaster, Desmond Cole. "We give the award for the most original thinker at Allen-stevenson. public relations implications of any The citation is `for independence of continuance of the present situation spirit."• where circumstances of the disap- Charles went on to Exeter and was peared remain unexplained." magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa Since a witness had said Korman was in English at Harvard. He filled his taken to the stadium, and since thou- service obligation with six years of sands of other prisoners had been, his weekend duty in the Air National wife pleaded with the embassy to Guard while he worked as a writer, edi- check there. Consul Purdy said there tor and filmmaker.

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