United States torturer Dan Mitrione was executed on this date in 1970 by Uruguayan guerrillas. A onetime Indiana beat cop, Dan Mitrione graduated to an agent of empire via a USAID program called the Office of Public Safety. This organ headlined the putatively amicable mission of extending training to foreign police officers, both in their home countries and in the American capital. OPS’s real purpose, according to A.J. Langguth‘s Hidden Terrors: The Truth About U.S. Police Operations in Latin America, was: "allowing the CIA to plant men with the local police in sensitive places around the world; and after careful...