Talk:Dan Mitrione

Poor quality

This article is poorly written and deficiently referenced. Nicmart

I don't think so. --Tilman 13:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

The absence of a single reference isn't a clue? The article says, "He is often quoted as having said once: 'The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect,'" but no reference is provided. He is said to have had an "unofficial career of torture expert," but no source confirms that. The article says, "It is assessed that torture was already practiced since the 60s, but Dan Mitrione is reportedly the man who made it routine," but, again, no source. There is no source for anything in this article. Since no assertion is sourced, one can pick at random, but one that particularly sticks out is this about his treatment after capture by guerillas: "They proceeded to interrogate him about his past, without using torture..." Who says they didn't use torture?

Of the roughly 130 words under Personal Life, exactly 8 are actually about his personal life.

This article is severely biased, contains not a single reference, and is little more than a left-wing political screed. It doesn't even have the veneer of factual balance. Two external links are provided, which may or may not have served as the sources for the article. The first link is to an ad for a book which has endorsements by a Who's Who of the extreme left. The second is to the site of a left-wing blogger. One of the See Also links is to a List of United States military history events, as if that informs us in any way about the life of Mitrione.

I don't dispute that Mitrione may have been a torture instructor, but this article does an inadequate job of establishing evidence to support that charge. Nicmart

The article does mention two sources at the end. I looked at one of them, and it does mention Mitrione.

One might make it NPOV by explaining that some experts (e.g. Rumsfeld) think that torture isn't that bad.

This article has been edited and reviewed by about 20 people. But you think it isn't neutral. Maybe it would be better that you send a removal request. --Tilman 10:32, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

You do not dispute, then, the obvious fact that this article has no footnotes. Not a single assertion is documented. After having defended it before, you now say that you have looked at one of the external links and it "does mention Mitrione." This constitutes documentation? You don't say which link, but I presume you mean the blogger's article. It also does not provide sources, so at best this is rumor-mongering, and the accuracy and credibility of the blogger are not established. Your suggestion that the article be made NPOV by quoting (or misquoting) some "experts" who think "torture isn't that bad" is absurd. This is an article about Dan Mitrione, not a debate about the desirability or efficacy or torture. I do not argue that torture is desirable, or that Mitrione may not have trained in torture methods and participated himself in torture; I argue that this article provides nothing like properly footnoted evidence that Mitrione did such things. It is not competently done. There are also other problems, such as the sham Personal Life segment.

That 20 people may have edited and reviewed the article does not make it a good article. It may simply reflect their own biases, or they may not understand or accept the need for proper sourcing for an entry. I think that Dan Mitrione deserves a Wikipedia entry, but that it should be properly written. Two links -- one to an ad for a book and another to a blog without proper sources -- is hardly good scholarship. Is it your contention that footnotes are not required to support the assertions made in the entry? If so, then why are they not?

The only reason that this article might have defenders is that they accept that it is a useful vehicle for criticizing the practices of the U.S. government. I also criticize those practices, but that doesn't mean that I must also condone poor scholarship. One of the Wikipedia Five Pillars requires "authoritative sources whenever possible." If there are no authoritative sources for the claims, charges, and insuations in this article -- and none are provided -- then what is the basis for making them? Nicmart 21:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Finally, something's happening with the first article I created, almost exactly a year ago! I think all the facts mentionned in the article are still from me too, though originally it had just one section. I'll have to remove to US foreign interventions link too, because originally it had some material concerning Mitrione, but it was removed. Also the link to William Blum's book used to lead directly to his chapter on Uruguay, where you can find most, if not all the quotes in this article. I know that source, and the other one, can be considered biased, but I couldn't find anything else on Mitrione at the time on the net. But after a year I'll try to find better sources. Oh and as for the writing, well english isn't my first language so if you want to improve the vocabulary and grammar, you're welcome. -Red Star (Don't just look at the name, it means nothing)

How reliable are your sources at presenting "established facts"? The Mitrione entry says that he was in the FBI, while you have now added a link to a Broward-Palm Beach New Times article which says, "Daniel A. Mitrione Sr. was never an FBI man; he was a small-town Indiana police chief who helped lead a covert war on leftist groups in Latin America." Either the author of the Mitrione entry falsified his FBI affiliation, erred, or there are conflicting sources, one of which must be wrong. That is exactly why there are supposed to be footnotes for assertions made in articles, not just a bunch of links at the bottom.

Coming back to this article years later I see that Mitrione’s name is misspelled at least twice. Still it is a poor quality entry.

Was the misspelling in the quote from Ambassador Ortiz? Ortiz did misspell the name as "Mitrioni", and as the book is quoted directly, the misspelling would have to be reproduced within the quoted text. AstridRedfern (talk) 20:25, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

The same misspelling occurs in a 1973 New Scientist article, which describes a (possibly nonexistent) torture device named after Mitrioni. The author does not definitively state that the device existed, only that Mitrione's captors may have believed it to. AstridRedfern (talk) 20:42, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Keep and clean

Given the recent renewal of interest in terrorist groups and/or revolutionaries, I think this article is quite relevant. Not to mention all the implications of Mitrione's importance in Uruguayan history, the Tupamaros, US foreign intervention, the Cold War, torture interrogation tactics... The article needs a more objective focus and definitely requires more supporting evidence of its claims, but Dan Mitrione warrants at least a brief article in Wikipedia. I've had several translation texts from different clients sent to me that mention him, which in my book makes him a fairly important addition to Wikipedia.

Relevance is hardly the point. Any article about an historical figure that has no footnotes is incompetently done, relevant or not. Nicmart 15:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the first 'precise pain' quote - it appears further down the article. I'm assuming Klein's source is Cosculluela, and the claim that the phrase was Mitrione's 'motto' is the result of exaggeration somewhere down the line. If Klein has a different source it would be most welcome, if properly referenced. Also, have Cosculluela's credentials as a double agent (as claimed by Blum - haven't read Cosculluela myself) been established? It would be interesting to have some more on him here, not least because he seems to be the only source for the claim that Mitrione was personally involved in torture. Maybe he deserves his own article, too? Edjack (talk) 14:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe one should ask why Nicmart is so diligently trying to defend a person with such bad reputation and with a highly questionable past. Maybe Nicmart thinks that Dan was indeed the hero that some tried to portray and therefore should provide hard evidence for that as well. I am sure many people would wish he were just a nice guy traveling through South America and trying to do good during a bad time as some may try to say waisberg 13:24, 14 February 2009.

References

I added a reference to the book by A.J. Langguth which seems to be a good reference citing Mitrione's role in South America. The article might need some improvemente but defenetely cannot be discarded as only "a left-wing political screed" as one of the contributors would like to have it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.64.85.116 (talk • contribs)

The 'disputed' tag must remain until there is agreement on this page. BlueValour 17:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

The tag was removed. Was that done because agreement was reached, or just because someone chose to remove it? Nicmart 05:24, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know on what basis BlueValour claimed that the "'disputed' tag should have remained until there is agreement," but there has been no agreement and the tab was removed. Is non-removal a Wikipedia rule? If so, why isn't it being enforced in this case? Nicmart 22:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

REMOVE THE NOMINATION FOR DELETION

I think that the dispute refering to neutrality is, at this point, unfounded. The number of sources have been increased. Please, read thoroughly the article and the links, and after that put across your ideas in the discussion.

The new "sources" change nothing: the article is still farcical. There are no specific references for most claims made in the article. The new "sources" are in the category of ideologically biased reading suggestions. No scholar could gain any value from this entry as it doesn't meet even the most rudimentary standard of scholarship. However, it does suit the purpose of leftist ideologues, and that is sufficient to meet Wikipedia standards. How do you reconcile the fact that the entry says that Mitrione was in the FBI, while one of the linked articles says, "Daniel A. Mitrione Sr. was never an FBI man; he was a small-town Indiana police chief who helped lead a covert war on leftist groups in Latin America.." Did you "read thoroughly the article and the links"? Do you understand what footnotes are, and that this article does not have any? Nicmart 05:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

ok, i hadn't read those links before, but still, I think that "killing hope" is a really useful source (a little prosaic perhaps). the "clarin" one is kind of simplified but represents a perfect support for the article (ok it´s in spanish). Perhaps the text hasn't got much information about the guy separated from his latinamerican activities, but it isn't biased, I mean, he really tortured, he really taught how, and this isn't strange in the milieu of the cold war. perhaps not exactly well written (I regret not being able to write in english very well) but not libel stuff.

POV tag

I've added a POV tag. Accusations can not be made factual, as is done here. Intangible2.0 17:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

E.g. the NY Times (1978) reports that

Langguth quotes Uruguayan police sources as having said that Mr. Mitrione helped supply torture equipment, offered the police suggestions on techniques and was present when suspects were tortured. It cites no direct evidence that Mr. Mitrione had taken part in torture, and said that the prisoner's stories about his participation "usually were second-hand accounts repeated to convince a doubter that the Tupamaros had been justified in killing Mitrione."

What evidence has been put forth that Cosculluela was in fact a CIA agent? The NY Times uses scarequotes around him being an agent, which means that his story is doubtful. Intangible2.0 17:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking about rewriting the article from scratch. Mitrione was suggested to be a CIA agent in a 1968 book by Julius Mader, published by communist East Germany. Some have claimed this might have been a factor in the Tupamaros killing of him. Intangible2.0 19:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You shouldnt rewrite anything because you dont know what you are talking about. maybe you should actually read the book instead of some newspaper article about it. The source for the supply of torture equipment was someone actually working undercover within the torture regime, the source for mitrione not only being present but assisting the leading the tortures was the double agent, the catholic church of sao Paulo, actual uruguayan policemen and former cia agent Alejandro otero, and his victims. what story is doubtful? this is a site for the truth and its not always pretty, its not a platform for hooray america. (Billz1936 04:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC))

Jornal do Brasil had to retract the torture story from Alejandro Otero. Intangible2.0 14:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I have seen no evidence of that, though i understand Otero changes his story to suit his conveniences. He did claim Mitrione as a torturer, if now to save his skin his is going back on that fine. but he is not the only one and more evidence exists to prove it, than absolve it. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mitrione was deeply involved in the torture regime and its rise to power as well as its functions, if he personally conducted the torture or not may be a matter of debate and im fine with that as long as the latter point is clear —Preceding unsigned comment added by Billz1936 (talk • contribs) 18:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The POV tag is still needed. The sources for accusations that Mitrione taught torture techniques come from Left Wing critics of US foreign policy, who have an agenda to push, and the accusations mainly come from one single journalist (Luggoth) whose source is a Cuban agent, Hevia, whose testimony Luggoth read second-hand from a book published from Cuba. Walterego (talk) 19:42, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

@Walterego: I agree. The allegations seem to live only within the walled garden of those critics who chose to believe Hevia. To the extent these allegations are covered in reliable secondary sources, they could be mentioned here with proper attribution. Otherwise, much of it needs to be removed via WP:REDFLAG. -Location (talk) 02:32, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I think the article is now reasonably balanced and the POV tag should be remmoved. Nicmart (talk) 02:52, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

On Memorial wall?

On CIA memorial wall Book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CIA_Book_of_Honor_open_enlarge.jpg is date 1970-but no name...Mitrione? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.83.75.141 (talk) 16:50, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Dan Mitrione/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Comment(s)

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Mitrione has been denounced as a torturer by everyone from Cuban Agents to the Catholic Church of Brazil to CIA agents, his victims, and even in the case of Uruguay the torturers themselves. This is what we historians call an established fact. The reason this may be upsetting people more than usual is because it shatters traditional myths held by most americans about their state. 1) see document "torture in brazil" compiled by the arch diocese of sao paolo. 2) primary sources lectures and works by X cia agent don stockwell http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4068.htm 3) william blum author of killing hope 4) Author A.J. Langguth, a former New York Times reporter, wrote a book in 1978 titled Hidden Terrors in which mitrione plays a central role. Any comment that doesn't include a member name is what we readers call anonymous, which is also what most of the claims in the Mitrione article are since they have not been footnoted. Any "established fact" should be specifically referenced within the body of an article. The sort of historian who doesn't know that is long on ideology and short on scholarship. As I stated in the entry's discussion page, I am not disturbed by the accusations made against Mitrione, which I suspect are true. I'm disturbed by the incompetent scholarship of the Wikipedia entry. A list of suggested readings at the end of an article does not constitute proper footnotes for claims made in an article, especially a highly controversial one. Since "There are no negative grades in Wikipedia," it is useless to apply a rating to this rubbish. Like so many articles it stands as a testiment to the failure of Wikipedia as a reference. Nicmart 05:15, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Last edited at 05:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 12:45, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

An appalling article

This article has been filled with errors and false attributions since it was created almost 14 years ago, remaining virtually uncorrected until now. Langguth's book Hidden Terrors (HT), unreliable though it might be, is consistently cited for information that is not in the article; some of this information may have actually come from Pasaporte 11333 : ocho años con la CIA (P1), credited to Manuel Hevia Coscullela, the rest is simply error after error. As a first cut, I am removing information that is either cited as coming from Langguth, but does not, or that is flatly contradicted by Langguth. Specific errors I have deleted are as follows:

• Mitrione was an "American U.S. government advisor for the CIA in Latin America". Langguth explicitly DENIES Mitrione worked for the CIA on pp. 138-139 of HT. I have deleted this claim. Putting it back it requires multiple reliable sources.
• Mitrione "joined the FBI in 1959." There is no basis for this statement. HT, in its vague and poorly sourced account of Mitrione's career before he moved to Brazil as a U.S. adviser to Brazilian police, states that Mitrione attended an FBI training program when he was police chief in Richmond, Indiana (p. 27).
• "A. J. Langguth, a former New York Times bureau chief in Saigon, claimed that Mitrione was among the U.S. advisers teaching Brazilian police how much electric shock to apply to prisoners without killing them." This claim was originally added to the article with NO source at all. A different editor then vaguely associated it with Langguth's book. A third editor then put it in a reference with book formatting but no page number. A fourth editor then added 'p. 40' All of this is false. There is no such statement on p. 40 of HT. I have read the whole book, and Langguth does not make this claim about Mitrione.
• "Langguth also claimed that older police officers were replaced 'when the CIA and the U.S. police advisers had turned to harsher measures and sterner men'" (HT 286). This quote is actually Langguth infering the state of mind of Alejandro Otero, Montevideo police commissioner, and is not related to Mitrione.
• "under the new head of the U.S. Public Safety program in Uruguay, Dan Mitrione, the United States 'introduced a system of nationwide identification cards, like those in Brazil… [and] torture had become routine at the Montevideo [police] jefatura'". The original quote is "[Brazilian reporter Artur Aymore] had learned that Dan Mitrione had bestowed technical equipment on the security police; that the United States had introduced a system of nationwide identification cards, like those in Brazil; that torture had become routine at the Montevideo jefatura." Whether this is accurate or not, in presenting the claim that this took place "under the new head of the U.S. Public Safety program" is WP:SYNTHESIS, and "U.S. Public Safety program" doesn't seem to make sense.
• "The OPS had been helping the local police since 1965, providing them with weapons and training. It is claimed that torture had already been practised since the 1960s, but Dan Mitrione was reportedly the man who made it routine." This passage cites HT (285-287), but there is no such passage on these pages. Instead, 286-287 discusses Arturo Aymore's claim to have interviewed Otero. There are serious questions about this claim, but regardless of Aymore's veracity, it is WP:SYNTHESIS to twist Langguth's words like this.
• "As the torture allegations grew and the tensions in Uruguay escalated, Mitrione was eventually kidnapped by the Tupamaros on July 31, 1970. They proceeded to interrogate him about his past and the intervention of the U.S. government in Latin American affairs." This is cited to HT (22), which gives no description of the circumstances or context of Mitrione's kidnapping, offering only a description of a note from Mitrione to his wife which his kidnappers provided. Regarding the content of his interrogation, Mitrione wrote "I have been and am still being interrogated deeply about the AID program and the police." This does not match the description in the article. More important, the circumstances and context of the kidnapping are described in only the vaguest term in the article. This brief mention is flatly inaccurate. Rgr09 (talk) 05:17, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Finally, another error which I have also corrected in this pass through the article is the statement "Mitrione was also in the Dominican Republic after the 1965 U.S. intervention." This is attributed to Wolfgang S. Heinz and Hugo Fruhling, Determinants of gross human rights violations by state and state-sponsored actors in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina, 1960-1990 - Volume 59 of International studies in human rights Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1999, page 121. ISBN 90-411-1202-2, ISBN 978-90-411-1202-6. This source, however, says "Dan A. Mitrione first worked in the Dominican Republic, then in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, and finally in Montevideo." Heinz and Fruhling do not give a source for Mitrione's work in the Dominican Republic, but it is clear that even if it were true, Mitrione must have been there in 1960 or earlier, for in 1960 and after he was in Belo Horizonte.

All of these false claims, most of which have been there for over 10 years, some for 14 years. The failure here to do even minimal checking or editing is dismal; it would have been preferable if the article had been deleted in 2007, as was originally proposed. Rgr09 (talk) 05:17, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Amen. This article has long been propaganda masquerading as information. Nicmart (talk) 14:05, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

The article says, "It has been alleged that he used homeless people for training purposes, who were executed once they had served their purpose." The footnote provided links to a Clarin article (https://www.clarin.com/ediciones-anteriores/dan-mitrione-maestro-tortura_0_ryHedXwe0Yl.html), which quotes John Stockwell's book "The Praetorian Guard". The provided quote mentions experimentation on beggars, but it doesn't say anything about executing them. If Stockwell is the source of the allegations, shouldn't his book be in the footnote? And if an allegation of executing beggars was made, by whom, and where?

Section on "continuing controversy"

The article now has a one sentence section on "continuing controversy" over Mitrione's murder, which reads as follows:

The Mitrione case continued to reverberate within U.S.-Uruguayan relations in 2008, with U.S. Ambassador to Uruguay Frank E. Baxter being involved in high level exchanges about Uruguayan investigations into other crimes committed during the country's civilian-military dictatorship from 1973 until 1985, to which linkages were allegedly perceived.

The source is an anonymous post in the Spanish-language blog El Muerto which discusses several U.S.-Uruguayan diplomatic cables published on wikileaks. The reliability of El Muerto is questionable, and the passage itself is incoherent as it stands. An RS source for the cables and their relevance to Mitrione's murder is needed for this section. Otherwise it should be removed. Rgr09 (talk) 23:58, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

References

paragraph on "Tom Golden"

The article originally contained the following paragraph:

Tom Golden, a career army intelligence operative detailed to the CIA and assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo, was a personal friend of Mitrione who worked closely with Uruguayan officials to try to secure the release of Mitrione and prevent his execution. After Mitrione's death, Golden disputed the torture-training allegations in closed-door testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

This was sourced to Langguth, p. 256, but in fact no "Tom Golden" is mentioned anywhere in Langguth. Since the paragraph is unsourced, I have removed it. Whoops, forgot to sign. Rgr09 (talk) 09:23, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

An anonymous edit dated Feb 3 2021 restored the deleted text, and positioned it in such a way that an existing citation seemed instead to be a source for the Golden claim.

I have placed a "Citation Needed" on the text referring to Golden, and on closer inspection, I suspect page 256 of Langguth was originally cited/intended to be cited in support of the July 31 2021 kidnapping date. Certainly pages 254-256 of the book are a source for that being the date of the abduction. I've amended accordingly.

I would also like to note that I've searched for a source that would confirm the existence of a Tom or Thomas Golden who knew Mitrione and testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee. All I've been able to find are dubious blogs which may be promoting conspiracy theories. I can't find a citable source and I personally believe that no such person ever existed. AstridRedfern (talk) 20:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Inconsistentcy

One source says, "...Mitrione was later found dead in a car, shot twice in the head and with no other visible signs of maltreatment.” Another says, "But poor Mitrione--they tied him up, tortured him and finally killed him.” It is unlikely that both of those can be true. Nicmart (talk) 21:13, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

I've cited the Langguth book in support of "Mitrione was later found dead in a car, shot twice in the head". However, the relevant page says nothing about there being "no other visible signs of maltreatment". As far as you know, is this stated anywhere in Hidden Terrors?

lead language

The lead was edited to say Mitrione was "captured and executed". This is a wildly POV description that might have been written by the Tupamaros fifty years ago. Revised to "kidnapped and murdered". Rgr09 (talk) 09:23, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

2022 and still missing important footnotes

The lack of citations are noted in the article. It's shameful that important assertions still have no sources. Nicmart (talk) 02:44, 19 December 2022 (UTC)