During the long period of military rule between 1973 and 1990, Chile’s principal security and intelligence apparatus was the feared Dirección National de Inteligencia (DINA), which underwent a name change in 1977 after its personnel were implicated in the assassination in Washington, D.C., of the former ambassador, Orlando
Letelier. The new Centro National de Información (CNI) was dismantled with the restoration of democracy in 1990 and has been replaced by a domestic National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the Dirección de Seguridad Pública e Informaciones (DSPI), which fulfills a coordinating role for the Carabiñeros, the police and antiterrorist squads.