Nikita, not afraid to name names

Ah, Nikita, Nikita, poor little hit girl. I don’t know which iteration we’re on of that straight-shootin’ waif, but the one I’m watching, in reruns, with Maggie Q pulling the trigger, definitely tells it like it is, or was. When shocking video of Americans murdering a Chilean politician is released on the Internet, a tough-talkin’ CIA dude says, “I’m not Ollie North and this isn’t the 80’s. We’re getting to the bottom of this!” But, later, it turns out he is Ollie North and it is the 80’s! It was a CIA hit, and, instead of getting to the “bottom,” he’s hard-wiring a cover-up. All they need is a fall guy to take the blame. “Who’s your Lee Harvey Oswald on this one, your Scooter Libby, your, your, who’s that guy who said he was the father of John Edwards’ kid?” growls “Percy,” head of “Division,” the CIA’s off the books wet-works operation, which occasionally kills people even the CIA doesn’t want it to.

Poor Scooter, huh? When he was lying his ass off in the service of Big Dick Cheney, I bet he never thought he’d be mentioned in the same breath with Lee.

Afterwords
I don’t know if Ollie ever murdered anyone, though I can’t say the same thing about President Obama. Ollie may have been too busy baking cakes and selling weapons to Iranian terrorists. What the CIA dude should have said, of course, is “I’m not Henry Kissinger and this isn’t the 70’s,” because the episode is clearly based on the assassination of Orlando Letelier, former Chilean ambassador to the U.S. under Salvador Allende, murdered by a car bomb in Washington, DC on Sept. 26, 1976, planted by agents of General Augusto Pinoche. The U.S. State Department had prepared a letter to be sent to Latin American governments warning against assassinations, but Kissinger prevented the letter from reaching the Chilean government. In 1980, Ronald Reagan told journalist Brian Crozier that “it was a good thing Letelier was bumped off.” Some members of the Allende government took refuge in East Germany and it appears that Letelier was in contact with them. He was also receiving money from Castro’s Cuba. For more on the Letelier case, go here.