Twenty years ago, the Central Intelligence Agency -- and possibly the French government -- colluded to save the life of the infamous terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal.

Carlos, who was turned over to the French last week by Sudanese authorities, became one of the world's most infamous terrorists, responsible for a string of incidents in the 1970s. French officials have accused him of murdering 15 people and wounding 200 others in France alone, while Carlos himself has boasted of killing 83 people during his reign of terror.

The incredible affair -- details of which lie buried in the CIA's own highly classified files -- took place before Carlos had committed his most spectacular and murderous deeds.

A very brief account of the episode also is contained in a 1979 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report, which was never released. The report, based largely on CIA files made available to the committee, was an untitled preliminary study of "the operations conducted in the United States by six foreign countries' intelligence services directed at the harassment, intimidation and monitoring of United States residents." The report also covered many espionage operations abroad as they related to those six countries.

Requests by journalists for a copy of the report have been denied routinely since 1979 (the committee is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act), but a copy was obtained by our associate Dale Van Atta several years ago.

First, some background on Carlos the Jackal, whose real name is Illich Ramirez Sanchez, is necessary:

Born in Venezuela in 1949 to a Marxist lawyer, young Carlos began training in Fidel Castro's guerrilla camps by the age of 17. At that tender age, Carlos learned the terrorist's art from Victor Simenov of the Soviet KGB. By 1969, Carlos had migrated to Moscow, where he later was expelled from Patrice Lumumba University. During his stay in Moscow, he developed a fast friendship with a Marxist Palestinian commando named Mohammed Boudia.

Four years later, in 1973, an Israeli hit team assassinated Boudia, and Carlos took over Palestinian terrorist operations in Europe. In December 1973, Carlos committed his first known act of terrorism when he shot Edward Sieff, a British millionaire, in London. Sieff survived the shooting. Nine months later, Carlos bombed a Paris drug store.

This is where the CIA came in. By September 1974, Carlos had gotten on the wrong side of several South American regimes for miscellaneous murders. An international hit team was dispatched to assassinate him.

According to the Senate report, the hit team was part of "Operation Condor," an ultra-secret consortium of intelligence services from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

According to the report, "A highly secret dimension of Operation Condor -- the so-called 'phase three' operation -- involves the formation of special teams from member countries assigned to travel anywhere in the world to non-member countries to carry out 'sanctions,' including assassination, against Condor enemies."

The report goes on to explain how these sanctions would be carried out: A first Condor team identifies an enemy, after which a second Condor team is sent to locate and observe the target. A third team is then dispatched to carry out the actual sanction.

"Such a 'phase three' operation was planned in 1974 following the assassinations of the Bolivian ambassador in Paris, a Chilean official in the Middle East and a Uruguayan attache in Paris," the report continues. "Condor thereupon planned an operation aimed at assassinating three well-known European leftists, one of whom was the notorious Carlos.

"The plot was foiled, however, when, during the first team's search for the three targets, it was discovered by the CIA. The CIA warned the governments of the countries in which the assassinations were likely to occur -- France and Portugal -- which in turn warned possible targets (the CIA was aware of the identity only of Carlos) and called in representatives of Condor countries to warn them to call off the action. They did -- after denying that it had ever been planned."

Although the CIA could hardly have known it at the time, its intervention in Operation Condor bore fateful consequences. By sparing the life of Carlos the Jackal, the CIA inadvertently opened the door for one of the greatest one-man international crime waves in history. For it was after the CIA's intervention that Carlos committed his most despicable acts.