John O’Leary, April 2, 2005

Published in The Guardian on May 19, 2005, by David Sugarman:

Working towards justice for Pinochet’s victims

John O’Leary, who has died aged 58, made an exceptional contribution to United States-Chilean relations and to the struggle to bring General Pinochet to justice. As US ambassador to Chile from 1998 to 2001, he brought goodness and a powerful intellect to the office, and worked to redress the effects of Washington’s part in the consolidation of the Pinochet regime. He also played a leading role in initiating a free trade agreement between the US and Chile, the first of its kind.

The US role in Chile had been controversial. Under the Nixon administration, the CIA had attempted to thwart the election of President Salvador Allende in 1970. It was complicit in the overthrow of the Allende government in 1973 and the rise of the Pinochet dictatorship, despite US knowledge of his massive violations of human rights. The failure of the embassy to protect its own citizens, and its misinformation regarding the coup and its aftermath, were depicted in the Oscar-winning film Missing (1982).

People who hitherto had regarded the US ambassador to Chile with suspicion were delighted to discover in O’Leary a compassionate figure prepared to listen. He was an ally of those working to secure justice for Pinochet’s victims. He backed a nuanced, rather than a hostile, US policy towards the arrest and detention of Pinochet in Britain during 1998-2000 – one that sought to combine “significant respect” for Chile’s democracy and non-interference in the Pinochet case with the principles of accountability, justice and the rule of law.

O’Leary also supported the landmark decision of the Clinton administration to release more than 23,000 US classified documents illuminating human rights abuses. He suggested that the state department should post the documents on its website, but stopped short of advocating an explicit apology. None the less, a document release provided evidence that could be used in legal proceedings against Pinochet and others. O’Leary encouraged the families of American citizens killed in Chile to ask the Chilean courts to investigate these deaths.

He pressured the US administration to carry through its longstanding investigation of Pinochet’s involvement in the 1976 car-bomb murder in Washington DC of former Allende minister Orlando Letelier and US citizen Ronni Karpen Moffitt, by agents of Pinochet’s secret police.

The US administration was pressured by O’Leary’s public statements that it would pursue these murders to the end, despite the fact that it had not so committed itself. His experience as a trial lawyer and his detailed knowledge of the case convinced him that there was sufficient evidence for the issue to go to a grand jury – a view that he thought was shared by the US attorney general. He was disappointed when this did not occur.

O ‘Leary was born in Portland, Maine. He graduated from Yale University in 1969, where a freshman class had kindled an interest in Chile. It was also at Yale that he met the woman who would become his wife, Colombian-born Patricia Cepeda, goddaughter and translator of Nobel laureate author Gabriel García Márquez.

O’Leary was a Mellon fellow at Clare College, Cambridge, where he studied English literature and was awarded a master’s degree in 1971. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1974 and became a successful trial lawyer with a Portland law firm. He was active in the Democratic party in Maine, serving on the Portland city council from 1975 to 1982, and was mayor in 1980 and 1981. In 1982 he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for congress. He served on the governing councils of the American Bar Association, the Inter-American Bar Association and was a member of the Inter-American Commercial Arbitration Commission.

In March 1997, O’Leary organised and chaired a conference in Argentina on development, the environment, and dispute resolution in the Americas, the first such American Bar Association conference to be convened in Latin America. He also served on a three-member US team appointed by Vice President Al Gore to advise the Bolivian government on economic development and environmental protection. This initiative culminated in the Santa Cruz hemispheric summit on sustainable development. President Clinton, a classmate at Yale, offered O’Leary the ambassadorship to Chile after the two had a conversation in a Costa Rican rainforest.

Returning to Washington in 2001, when the Bush administration took power, O’Leary became a principal of O’Leary & Barclay, a company that focused on business opportunities between the US and Latin America. He served as president of the Chilean-American Chamber of Commerce. The Chilean government awarded him the Bernardo O’Higgins medal, the highest honour it bestows on a foreign citizen.

During the last year of O’Leary’s life, as he fought the initial effects of Lou Gehrig’s disease, he worked with Goldman Sachs of New York and the Wildlife Conservation Society to create a conservation reserve in Tierra del Fuego, near the southern tip of South America.

When I last met John, in June 2004, he was anxious to explore the relevance of the Pinochet precedent to attempts to render US officials accountable for human rights violations in Iraq.

He was an exemplary diplomat whose commitment revealed the US to be capable of sensitive relations with its smaller, less powerful neighbours, and the constructive promotion of international human rights.

His wife and their two daughters survive him.

Published in Washington Post on April 3, 2005, by Joe Holley:

John O’Leary Dies; Mayor, Ambassador to Chile

John O’Leary, 58, a Portland, Maine, lawyer and mayor who served as ambassador to Chile during the Clinton administration, died April 2 at his home in Washington. He had complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

During his tenure in Santiago from 1998 to 2001, Ambassador O’Leary pressed the Chilean government to reinvestigate the deaths of three U.S. citizens during the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. He took the initiative in opening to public scrutiny 23,000 documents in the U.S. archives addressing human rights abuses, political violence and terrorism in Chile from 1968 to 1991.

He also helped launch negotiations that led to the U.S.-Chile free-trade agreement — the first such agreement between the United States and a South American country. It went into effect Jan. 1, 2004.

Ambassador O’Leary was born in Portland. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University in 1969 and was a Mellon Fellow at Clare College, Cambridge University, where he received a master’s degree in 1971.

He graduated from Yale’s law school in 1974 and became a trial lawyer with Pierce Atwood, a Portland law firm.

A Democrat, he served on the Portland City Council from 1975 to 1982 and was mayor in 1980 and 1981. He lost a bid for Congress in 1982.

As mayor, he was instrumental in securing city and community support to build the Portland Museum of Art and a new Portland Public Library.

He held leadership positions in the American Bar Association and the Inter-American Bar Association and served on the Inter-American Commercial Arbitration Commission. He also served on a three-member U.S. team formed by Vice President Al Gore to advise the government of Bolivia on economic development and environmental protection. The effort led to the Santa Cruz hemispheric summit on sustainable development.

In 1997, he organized a bar association conference in Argentina called “Development, the Environment and Dispute Resolution.”

A freshman class at Yale had sparked an interest in Chile. Clinton, a classmate at Yale law school, offered him the ambassadorship to Chile after the two had a rain-soaked talk in a Costa Rican rainforest.

Returning to Washington in 2001, Ambassador O’Leary became a principal of O’Leary & Barclay, a company with offices in Washington and Santiago that focused on cross-border business opportunities between the United States and Chile and in the rest of the Americas. The company also specializes in negotiating, developing, promoting and implementing free-trade agreements with the United States.

He was a recipient of the Bernardo O’Higgins medal, the highest honor Chile bestows on a foreign citizen.

During the last year of his life, as he fought off the initial effects of Lou Gehrig’s disease, he worked with Goldman Sachs of New York and the Wildlife Conservation Society to create a conservation reserve in Tierra del Fuego, near the southern tip of South America.

He served as president of the Chilean American Chamber of Commerce and as a board member of the Council of American Ambassadors.

Survivors include his wife of 27 years, Patricia Cepeda of the District and Little Diamond, Maine; two daughters, Alejandra Cepeda O’Leary of New Haven, Conn., and Gabriela Cepeda O’Leary of Providence, R.I.; four brothers; and one sister.

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