American Notes ASSASSINATIONS

After a remote-control bomb killed Chilean exile leader Orlando Letelier and an American aide as they drove through Washington's Embassy Row in 1976, U.S. officials charged that henchmen of Chile's then ruling General Augusto Pinochet had plotted the murders. Four men indicted for the slayings escaped capture or were untouchable in Chile.

Last week the FBI finally caught up with Jose Suarez, 51, who is suspected by federal prosecutors of following Letelier in a car from which the bomb was detonated. The Cuban American was arrested in St. Petersburg, where he had been living under his real name for at least two years. A local policewoman identified Suarez and tipped off the FBI. U.S. officials now hope that the elected government of Patricio Aylwin will extradite or prosecute Manuel Contreras and Pedro Espinoza, two high-ranking secret-police officers accused of masterminding the assassination. If so, the U.S. might resume military aid to Chile.