For more information contact:
Tamara Feinstein
(202) 994-7219 / tfeins7i@gwu.edu

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Update

May 10, 2001:  The National Security Archive recently received responses to FOIA requests we sent out earlier this year on Vladimiro Montesinos. Included below are a selection of documents focusing on Montesinos’ early career and links with the United States in the 1970s. These documents deal with the unauthorized trip to the United States that Montesinos made in September 1976 and his later arrest, detention and cashiering from the army in 1977.

(There are more documents in the Peru collection available at our offices. For further information, please contact Tamara Feinstein, Research Associate for the Peru Project, at (202) 994-7219 or tfeins7i@gwu.edu.)
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Document 1:
U.S. Embassy (Lima) Cable, FY-76 IV Nomination, January 8, 1976, Unclassified, 3 pp.
The U.S. Embassy in Lima formally nominates Vladimiro Montesinos for an International Visitors’ Leader Grant, and lists his qualifications, past positions in government and the army, educational background and proposed itinerary for trip to the United States. Montesinos was originally recommended to the Ambassador by Yale Professor Alfred Stepan, “who considered him most theoretically sophisticated of young military officers in national security doctrine.” The Embassy describes Montesinos as “bright,” “articulate,” and of “considerable leadership potential,” and affirms belief that his visit to the United States will “greatly increase Montesinos’ appreciation of U.S. realities and will serve our objectives for IV Program.” Montesinos had been nominated for this travel grant since 1974. He later travels under this grant to the United States in September of 1976, but fails to receive permission from his superiors.
Document 2:
U.S. Embassy (Lima) Cable, Detention of Vladimiro Montesinos, April 4, 1977, Secret, 4 pp.
This cable, signed by U.S. Ambassador Robert W. Dean, describes the events leading up to the detention of “valued Embassy contact” Vladimiro Montesinos by the Peruvian Investigations Police Seguridad del Estado Unit.  It describes that Montesinos was arrested, tried and cashiered from the army after returning from a trip to the United States, for which he failed to receive permission. He was apprehended after his final charges by the police and continues to be held incommunicado. Montesinos asks (via his lawyer) that Ambassador Dean intervene on his behalf. He also asks his family to write various persons in the U.S., including State Department official Luigi Einaudi. On March 31, 1977, Ambassador Dean brings up the issue with Foreign Minister de la Puente and receives a reaction of disbelief. Dean later comments that the “case” against Montesinos goes far beyond infractions of international travel regulations. Dean notes that Montesinos was in key sensitive positions, is probably in possession of a great deal of inside information, and has obviously made personal and ideological enemies.
Document 3:
U.S. Embassy (Lima) Cable, Detention of Vladimiro Montesinos, April 7, 1977, Secret, 2 pp.
This cable reports that Montesinos is no longer being held incommunicado and has access to his family and lawyer. Montesinos claims that Army Chief of Staff General Pedro Richter authored a report listing him as a liaison between high Peruvian government officials and the U.S. State Department and passed information “prejudicial to state security” to the State Deparment. U.S. Ambassador Dean comments that Montesinos has been in contact with the Embassy for four to five years and that “the embassy assumed during that time that Montesinos must have been acting at least partially on behalf and with the knowledge of his superiors including Agricultural Minister Gallegos and Prime Minister Fernandez Maldonado.”
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