Charles Horman was a 30-year-old American free-lance journalist in Chile during the 1973 coup. He had inadvertently been given sensitive information about U.S. involvement in the coup while chatting with a U.S. Navy engineer, which apparently led to his secret arrest and execution. The efforts of his family to find him were met with foot-dragging or worse at the U.S. embassy in Santiago.
In 1982 the movie "Missing," directed by Costa-Gavras and starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, was released by Universal based on Houser's book. Nathaniel Davis, U.S. ambassador to Chile from 1971-73, filed a $150 million libel suit against the studio, even though he wasn't named directly in the movie. The book, however, uses real names throughout and is even more convincing than this excellent movie.