Letelier had been Chile's Defense Minister when Salvador Allende was overthrown and murdered by the junta generals in September of 1973. The junta generals had gotten into power with the help of the CIA and David Phillips's Track II program.* More than 10,000 were shot or tortured to death in the years following the coup. Letelier was arrested, tortured and shipped to a concentration camp on a barren island in the Straits of Magellan where he was put to work cracking rocks.