Assassination of Charles Rodney Chandler
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Assassination of Charles Rodney Chandler | |
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| Born | July 23, 1938 |
| Died | October 12, 1968 (aged 30) |
Charles Rodney Chandler (Arcadia, July 23, 1938 – São Paulo, October 12, 1968) was a US Army officer and veteran of the Vietnam War assassinated by members of the Vanguarda Popular Revolucionária (VPR) and the Ação Libertadora Nacional (ALN) in São Paulo, Brazil.[1][2]
Assassination
[edit]On an October morning in 1968, Chandler entered his Chevrolet Impala, backed out of the garage, and was blocked by a Volkswagen Beetle from entering the road.[3] Diógenes José Carvalho de Oliveira unloaded the six rounds of his Taurus .38 caliber revolver on Chandler, then Marquito opened fire on the American veteran with a machine gun.[3][4][5]
According to the report prepared by the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS), or Brazilian political police, organizations resisting the US-backed military dictatorship in Brazil considered him to be a spy of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[6] According to US state sources, he was in Brazil to study Portuguese
The assassins dropped pamphlets with the text:
Criar um, dois, três Vietnãs, eis a palavra de ordem do comandante Che Guevara, que foi cruelmente assassinado na Bolívia por agentes imperialistas do nível deste Chandler, notório criminoso de guerra no Vietnã, e hoje punido e executado pela Justiça Revolucionária.[7]
Create one, two, three Vietnams,[a] these are the words ordered by the commander Che Guevara, who was cruelly assassinated in Bolivia by imperialist agents such as this Chandler, notorious criminal in the War in Vietnam, today punished and executed by the Revolutionary Justice.
According to an article published by Folha da Tarde at the time, the DOPS attributed the assassination to Carlos Marighella and nine other "terrorists": Diogenes José Carvalho, Dulce de Souza, João Carlos Kfouri Quartim de Moraes, João Leonardo da Silva Rocha, Ladislaw Bowbor, Manoelina de Barros, Onofre Pinto, Pedro Lobo de Oliveira, and Marcos Antonio Braz de Oliveira.[6][4] Those who carried out the assassination were Diógenes José Carvalho, of the Vanguarda Popular Revolucionária (VPR) and Marco Antônio Brás de Carvalho, or Marquito, of the Ação Libertadora Nacional (ALN).[6]
Legacy
[edit]The historian Carlos Fico characterizes the assassination of Chandler as having had a major impact on the Brazilian military regime, as he was a "North American captain, with such an aura."[6][8]
Involvement in the planning of the assassination is among the baseless accusations supporters of Jair Bolsonaro spread about Dilma Rousseff.[9]
In popular culture
[edit]The assassination of Charles Rodney Chandler was portrayed in Wagner Moura's 2019 film Marighella.[10]
Notes
[edit]- ^ The actual Guevara quotation is "Create two, three, many Vietnams."
References
[edit]- ^ Department of Defense Intelligence Information Report: Brazil - The case of captain Charles Rodney Chandler, U.S. Army (PDF), 1971-07-23, retrieved 2022-09-11
- ^ "Quem foi Charles Rodney Chandler, militar americano morto pela luta armada citado por Bolsonaro nos EUA". BBC News Brasil (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 2022-09-11.
- ^ a b Magalhães, Mário (2012). Marighella : o guerrilheiro que incendiou o mundo. São Paulo, SP. ISBN 978-85-359-2170-0. OCLC 826658144.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b "Banco de Dados Folha - Acervo de Jornais". almanaque.folha.uol.com.br. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
- ^ "Diógenes Carvalho de Oliveira, parte um lutador do povo". Brasil de Fato - Rio Grande do Sul (in Brazilian Portuguese). 28 October 2022. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
- ^ a b c d "Quem foi Charles Rodney Chandler, militar americano morto pela luta armada citado por Bolsonaro nos EUA". BBC News Brasil. 2019-05-16. Retrieved 2019-05-19.
- ^ "Quem foi Charles Rodney Chandler, militar americano morto pela luta armada citado por Bolsonaro nos EUA". BBC News Brasil (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 2022-09-11.
- ^ Fico, Carlos (2001). Como eles agiam : os subterrâneos da ditadura militar : espionagem e polícia política. Editora Record. ISBN 85-01-05984-6. OCLC 48003473.
- ^ "Bolsonaristas resgatam boato falso sobre participação de Dilma em assaltos a banco e homicídios na ditadura". Estadão Verifica (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 2022-09-30.
- ^ Moura, Wagner (2019). Marighella (Motion picture) (in Portuguese).