CIA:
CUBA ACCUSES
[This document is from a newspaper printed
in Cuba in 1978 in English. It brought some new words into the English
language as the reader will see. The text was copied as it appeared,
spelling, grammar, and vocabulary --- as written.]
CIA: CUBA ACCUSES
Printed by the Cuban National Preparatory Committee of the XI World Festival
of Youth and Students, 1978.
Composition "emplane" and impression: Polygraphic Enterprise Alfredo
Lopez" from Cultural Minister, Habana, July 1978
HOW HAS THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY OBSCURED AND TWISTED
INFORMATION CONCERNING THE ASSASSINATIONS OF POLITICAL LEADERS AND THE DEATH
OF JOHN F. KENNEDY?
_____________________________ The plot to involve Cuba in the assassination
of Kennedy
_____________________________ CUBA REVEALS!
CIA: CUBA ACCUSES
The tenebrous forces that planned, financed and ordered the assassination
of the President of the United states have tried to deceive the US public
and world opinion about the real causes and the real culprits of the Dallas
crime, to affect the growing prestige of the Cuban Revolution and to fabricate
a pretext for an aggression against Cuba.
Lee Harvey Oswald was an agent of the United States Central Intelligence
Agency.
There are many obscure areas of the investigations carried out so far in
the United States.
US intelligence bodies have deliberately and systematically lied and withheld
the information necessary to definitively clarify those responsible for an
implicated in the events of November 22, 1963
In a subtle way, doubts are created and elements are fabricated to confuse
and to divert attention, to maintain the view and the possibility that the
Cuban Revolution had something to do with the assassination of Kennedy.
THE PLOT TO INVOLVE CUBA IN THE ASSASSINATION OF
JOHN F. KENNEDY
September 27, 1963. A man who claims to be Lee Harvey Oswald, a US
citizen, comes to the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City. He ostentatiously
carries a book by Lenin under his arm. He requests a visa to stay in
Cuba for one or two weeks on route to the Soviet Union and presents a document
to accredit him as a member of the Communist Party of the United States and
of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
Less than two months afterwards, Lee Harvey Oswald's name made the front
page in newspapers all over the world. He was arrested on November
22, accused of being directly responsible for the assassination of John F.
Kennedy, President of the United States.
The clash of interests in the high ruling circles of US society led to the
assassination of the main executive figure. But the tenebrous forces
that planned, financed, directed and ordered the Dallas crime, as a way to
solve the internal contradictions of Yankee imperialism for the benefit of
the most reactionary sections of the "turbulent and brutal North" add a further,
insidious, and craven element: a conspiracy to involve the Cuban Revolution
in the assassination of Kennedy and to deceive US and world opinion about
the real causes and the real culprits of the Dallas crime, to try to diminish
Cuba's growing prestige and fabricate a pretext to activate certain plans
to overthrow the Revolutionary Government by force. Oswald, who was
a cog in the wheel, was at the same time, the first effort of those imperialist
sections to involve Cuba in the Dallas crime.
After the events of November 22, 1963, assassination set the propaganda machinery
into motion to try to label Oswald a Marxist and an active sympathizer of
the Cuban Revolution...Later on, it would become clear that the plan also
involved fabricating an alleged relationship between Oswald and Cuban officials,
whereby Oswald was following orders from Cuba when he shot the President
of the United States.
But, actually, who was this man named Oswald?
Lee Harvey Oswald became a CIA agent in the late '50.
On October 24, 1956, he enlisted in the Marine Corps as a private and was
sent to Japan, where he was trained as a radio and telegraph operator.
Between 1957 and 1958, he was recruited by the United States Central Intelligence
Agency.
This has been publicly confirmed by former CIA official James D. Wilcott,
who worked in the Finance Section of the Tokyo CIA Station. Oswald
was trained at the Atsugi Naval Air Station, an operation base used for the
special activities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency center
in Japan.
Oswald was recruited to be infiltrated as a spy in the Soviet Union.
He arrived there on October 16, 1959 and stayed until June 1, 1962.
On June 26, 1962, after his return to the United States, Oswald was asked
by FBI agents John W. Fain and Thomas Carter to infiltrate into various political
groups, especially the Young Socialist Alliance, the Socialist Workers' Party,
and in the Communist Party newspaper The Worker, to give the FBI information
on the members of the Slavic immigrants' community at Fort Worth, to which
his wife Marina Prusakova, belonged.
In August, 1962, Oswald subscribed to The Worker, and offered his services
as a photographer. Around October and November of that year he came
into contact with the Socialist Labor Party and subscribed to the Socialist
Workers' Party publication The Militant. During all that winter he
corresponded with those groups.
In April, 1963, he went to New Orleans to penetrate the groups there that
sympathized with the Cuban Revolution. During his stay in New Orleans
he set up a fake branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and distributed
printed material in favor of the Cuban revolutionary process to gain the
Committee's approval.
On August 9, he got involved in a riot with Cuban counter revolutionaries
who were holding a meeting; this was filmed and shown on TV. Carlos
Bringuier, a delegate of the counterrevolutionary organization who was arrested
with Oswald, stated that the latter tried to infiltrate an anti-Castro
group. The scheme continued and, less than two weeks later, Oswald
appeared on a radio program on Cuba. On August 21, through the microphones
of the WDSU radio station, Oswald, said: "I am a Marxist."
All these steps were directed toward creating an image of him, of making
Oswald a figure known as a fervent sympathizer of the Cuban Revolution.
That would make it easy to relate him, at a given moment, with the revolutionary
government.
In August, 1963, Oswald began to make arrangements to go to the USSR again.
This was also part of the plan. The first arrangements were made by
his wife Marina, the later ones he made himself. He had already told
the Soviet Embassy in June that he wanted a separate visa for his return.
___(photograph of John F. Kennedy)
with caption: Another step towards completion of the fabricated assassination
of Kennedy--a true copy of a letter (now in the hands of Cuban authorities)
through which an attempt was made to implicate Cuba in the assassination
of the President of the United States
___(photograph)
with caption: John F. Kennedy surrounded by leaders of the Pentagon
___document (letter to Lee Harvey Oswald from Jorge)
La Havana
November 14, 1963
Lee Harvey Oswald
Miami, Fla
My friend Lee:
I am writing to you to ask how are you things in the Florida. Here
we have not to much to tell. I would like to tell you that the thing
that you talked to me last time we were in Mexico, would be a perfect plan
that would weak the political "fanfarron" of Kennedy, even though you need
a lot of "prudencia"(care) because you know how are moving the counterrevolutionary
friends that work for the CIA. Well, Lee, remember to send me via Mexico
the thing that you told me and as soon as________________________ go to Houston
to see your family___________________________________________________________
______________________________________________and in relation to the other
thing I hope everything will come out perfect.
Hugs and say Hi
Jorge
Write me to the usual address. Margaret the blond from Flager,
is living with a rebel official that put an apartment for her. I will
send you the spanish books the next.
"Patria o Muerte"
We will conquer
"Viva la Revolucion"
"Abajo el imperialismo"
_________________________________________________________________
On September 25, according to the Warren Commission, he left for Mexico City.
On the 27th an alleged Lee Harvey Oswald went to the Cuban Consulate and
requested a visa to stay in Cuba for one or two weeks on route to the USSR.
But the alleged Oswald could not obtain the visa to travel to Cuba,
so that part of the plan fell through. Otherwise, the instigators would
have had new arguments for the conspiracy against Cuba. On October
2, he returned to Dallas and got a city job at the Texas Book deposit warehouse,
through Mrs. Ruth Paine, also linked to the CIA and at whose house Oswald
was staying.
On November 22 ( Oswald was arrested an charged with Kennedy's assassination.
Immediately, the great campaign to get Cuba involved in the Dallas crime
began to be orchestrated. The man who had killed Kennedy was supposedly
linked to Cuban revolutionaries; they had tried to build up that image.
To prevent the truth from coming out, to prevent discovery of the plot being
framed against Cuba, they had to quickly eliminate Oswald, who must have
naively believed that the masterminds in this crime would keep their promises
and that he would have no problems.
There had to be two possibilities for eliminating Oswald in case the first
one failed. On November 22, after the assassination of Kennedy, an
obscure confrontation between policeman J.P. Tippit and Oswald took place
and Tippit was killed. This caused Oswald's arrest and the possibility
that he would meet newsmen, investigators and other people.
The tenebrous plot of the most reactionary forces in the United States was
in jeopardy. If Oswald talked, all was lost. Oswald could not
be permitted to confess. On November 24, less than 48 hours after the
arrest of the man who had supposedly killed Kennedy, Oswald was shot down
in the cellar of the police station, right before his guards. The new
link in the chain became Jack Ruby, the owner of the Carrousel night club
in Dallas, a man with Mafia connections. No one knows how he got permission
to enter the police station.
The image fabricated for Oswald was weak and, despite the steps taken and
the campaign to relate him with Cuba, the truth made way right from the beginning
and the scheme crumbled.
V.T. Lee, then President of the Fair Play for Cuba National Committee, said
there was no branch of that organization in New Orleans and that there was
no Lee Harvey Oswald that had belonged to the Committee.
The Communist Party of the United States has also said that Oswald never
belonged to that organization.
When the Johnson administration created the Warren Commission to investigate
the assassination of Kennedy in 1963, the CIA submitted a photograph to prove
that Oswald had visited the Cuban consulate in Mexico. The picture,
which was widely publicized, showed the alleged Oswald when he visited the
Cuban offices.
But the person in the photograph was not Oswald. Pressed by public
scandal, the CIA admitted this...but the whole affair has been covered.
This presented new contradictions, because the CIA had the means to prove
whether or not it was Oswald who went to the Cuban consulate in Mexico.
All that time the CIA had a secret espionage center set up to photograph
and keep constant surveillance over the persons who visited the Cuban consulate
and embassy in Mexico, to engage in electronic espionage and monitor the
bugging devices installed by the CIA in the Cuban offices. The CIA
center was it 149-1 Francisco Marquez Street, Colonia Condesa, Mexico, D.F.
across the street from the Cuban embassy.
At the same address there was a point for liaison and communication with
the surveillance team the CIA kept near the Cuban embassy and the Cuban consulate,
to follow persons of interest and to establish a system to watch over and
harass visitors.
The person in charge of this CIA center was Alberto Cesar Augusto Rodriguez
Gallego, of cuban origin, who pretended to be Colombian and who now lives
in Spain and works at the Berlitz Language School at 80 Jose Antonio Street,
Madrid.
If those mechanisms existed, why does the photograph submitted to the Warren
Commission show someone else and not the real Oswald? The CIA can produce
from its files the negatives of all the persons that visited the Cuban consulate
on September 27, 1963. Agent Rodriguez Gallego can provide details
on this.
It can be added that in her statement before the Warren Commission, Mrs.
Silvia Odio said that on September 26, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald an two other
persons visited her house in New Orleans. This contradicts the other
results of the investigation which gave Oswald as traveling by bus from New
Orleans to Mexico City that day.
THE VERY SAME WHO PLOTTED AND CARRIED OUT KENNEDY'S ASSASSINATION ARE ORGANIZING
THE CAMPAIGN TO INVOLVE CUBA IN HIS DEATH AT DALLAS
Why was Mrs. Odio's statement ignored? The Warren Commission was also
reported that the Nicaraguan Gilberto Alvarado Ugarte had reported to the
United States Embassy in Mexico that he had heard some Cuban officials
discussing the assassination of Kennedy and that they had said that Oswald
had received a sum of money from Cuba.
This information was given to the Chief of the CIA Station in Mexico, who
in turn transmitted it to headquarters in the United States. It was
all a gross slander. Shortly after, the Warren Commission under Johnson's
administration, decided it was a fabrication and rejected it.
But, who made up this preposterous lie? Silvia Duran, a Mexican employee
of the Cuban consulate in Mexico City was arrested and they tried to force
her to sign a statement to back up Alvarado Ugarte's version. She refused
to back that lie.
The campaign by Yankee imperialism to try to link Oswald to Cuba reached
scandalous and unprecedented levels in the world reactionary press.
The high point of the fabrication was British newspaper Comers Clark's article
published on July 15, 1967, in which he invents a statement supposedly made
by Fidel Castro admitting that he knew Oswald was planning to kill President
Kennedy.
Cuba's Commander in Chief never granted an interview to Mr. Comer Clark,
who claims to be a journalist and, from the lies he tells, must surely be
serving the lowest interests.
In what proved to be a carefully planned campaign, the reactionary press,
joined the plot against Cuba; the news agencies of the United States and
other Western centers launched a series of lies and distortions.
The latest proofs that there was a carefully prepared plot to involve Cuba
in the assassination of Kennedy through Oswald, a CIA agent, are three letters
that pretend on the eve of the Dallas events; there these officials presumably
gave him instructions on a future action in which he would take part and
for which he would receive pay. These documents were supposedly written
in Havana. Two of them got to the FBI files and were recently declassified.
The other letter was to be sent from Cuba; Cuban authorities have the original
document.
These letters were evidently forged, there is close relation between them,
they are in consonance with the essence of the campaign to involve Cuba in
the assassination of Kennedy and - had there not been obstacles to the plan
that had Oswald as its main figure -they would surely have played an important
role in creating a climate favorable for taking violent measures against
the Cuban Revolution.
James D. Wilcott has said that several agents, including himself, often discussed
the Oswald case. "One of CIA's plans for the Bay of Pigs attack", he
has said, "was to try in some way to make Castro believe that the attack
was coming from Guantanamo and have him counterattack. So it seems
probable that the original plan to assassinate Kennedy was to have Oswald
kill him and then be indicted. As he would be closely linked to Castro,
there would be a pretext for another attempt at invading Cuba".
___document (Consulate of Cuba, Mexico, D.F.)
with caption: The escalation to throw the blame on Cuba for the Dallas events
in 1963 continued. Oswald asked for a visa to travel to Havana.
___document (Consul of Cuba in Mexico)
with caption: On October 15th, 1961, the Cuban foreign Office refused
Lee Harvey Oswald's request for a visa.
The Warren Commission finished its work in 1964 with an obscure thesis on
a "single killer" but it could not or would not face the pressures of certain
political and intelligence interests in the United States and it purposely
did not clarify any alleged Cuban participation in the crime.
It is significant that the CIA and the FBI immediately reached the public
conclusion that Oswald was the only killer. As a consequence of US
public pressure--which led to the appointment of the Senate Select Committee
to Study government Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities--the
Kennedy case was reopened in the United States and the affair was reviewed
in Congress for the first time.
In its report of April 14, 1976, the above mentioned committee, which worked
basically on reviewing statements intended to relate Cuba with the Dallas
crime, a number of contradictions and distortions in the process and admitted.
Among other things, it points out that the Warren Commission did not receive
all the information necessary for its report and that the CIA and the FBI
concealed some things from the members of the Commission. It also states
that the US intelligence bodies did not fulfill their responsibility in establishing
the causes of the assassination.
In its report, the Committee states that "after President Kennedy's death
the inquiries in the FBI and the CIA files proved that Lee Harvey Oswald
was no stranger to the intelligence bodies."
Why hasn't the CIA admitted that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for the Central
Intelligence Agency from 1957-58 on? Why hasn't the CIA admitted that
Oswald carried out missions against USSR?
When they were unable to attain their goal on the basis of CIA fabricated
evidence on the Cuban participation in the Kennedy assassination, the real
culprits tried to keep the image and the suspicion of such preposterous relations.
Once the maneuver of trying to show Oswald as someone close to Cuba was destroyed
by the truth and the weakness of the campaign, new elements were fabricated,
each time the Kennedy case was investigated in the United States. These
elements were subtly expressed, tending to confuse and to maintain the image
that the Cuban Revolution had something to do with the Dallas crime.
the aim has been to leave matters obscure and to thus influence the US and
world public.
They have even intended to establish links between the Cuban Revolution and
the Mafia, which was deeply involved in the assassination of Kennedy.
Such gross lies crumble at the slightest analysis. The Mafia is an
open enemy of the Cuban Revolution. The Cuban revolutionary process,
from its very beginning, attacked the interests the Mafia had in Cuba in
connivance with the Batista tyranny. Men from the underworld
have been used by the CIA in their attempts to kill Fidel Castro.
Following the line of subtly instilling doubt and confusion, the latest investigation
of the Kennedy assassination by the US Senate Select Committee discreetly
inserts, among numerous FBI documents, the alleged existence of a Cuban-American
who crossed the border from Texas to Mexico on November 23, 1963, and took
a regular Cubana de Aviacion flight to Havana on November 27. The FBI
told the Committee that person lives in Cuba. Although it is not expressed
as an accusation, the assertion is plainly diversionist. It is significant
that the FBI gave all the details of the "mysterious" trip of the alleged
Cuban-American without revealing the name of the "suspect."
Another CIA scheme tending to confuse and encourage speculation on the Cuban
Revolution's alleged implication and reprisal against Kennedy, is the kind
of statement made by high-level CIA officials- -and reiterated before the
Select Committee--on the possibility that someone working in Cuba for the
CIA in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro might be a "double agent."
The US Senate Select Committee's Report 94-755 of April, 1976, and the documents
referring to plans to assassinate political leaders of other countries, published
in November 1975, refer to the above-mentioned CIA agent in Cuba by the code
AM/LASH.
Further investigations by Cuban State Security reveal that the AM/LASH referred
to in Committee documents and investigations is no other than Rolando Cubelas
Secades, tried in Havana in Cause 108, 1966 and condemned to 25 years imprisonment
for his participation in a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro.
AM/LASH was a confessed CIA agent. The subtle scheme of the possibility
that he was a "double agent" and therefore a source of information for the
Cuban Revolution is a new element fabricated by the CIA to divert attention
and create confusion and doubt. But the CIA falls into its own trap.
The CIA has had to publicly admits its relation with AM/LASH. The CIA
did not inform the Warren Commission, in 1964, of the existence of operation
AM/LASH. No link was established then between their agent and the Kennedy
assassination. Officials high in the CIA at that time recently told
the Select Committee that there is no evidence of any relation between operation
AM/LASH and the Kennedy assassination.
It must be borne in mind that the President of the United States was assassinated
in 1963 and that, four years later, the CIA came up with the alleged
links between the Dallas crime and a CIA assassination attempt against Fidel
Castro's life.
Operation AM/LASH is, in any case, one more evidence of the criminal essence
of the CIA; of how the CIA deceived Congress and even high government officials.
If he had any relation with the assassination of Kennedy, it is for the CIA
to explain. There are very obscure matters in this case which have
yet not been made clear.
The Senate Select Committee report states that, on October 29, AM/LASH met
in Paris with Desmond Fitzgerald, Chief of the SAS (then the Group in Charge
of Operations Against Cuba) in the CIA. Significantly, AM/LASH
was never mentioned by the CIA until November 22, 1963, the day on which
Kennedy was killed. That day, when the Dallas crime was known, the
CIA officer working with AM/LASH told him that he must temporarily call off
the operation and the contact was also temporarily called off. Only
the CIA can explain this strange coincidence.
In 1964 the CIA again established contact with AM/LASH through its agent
Manuel Artime Buesa, with a cover as head of a counterrevolutionary organization.
The CIA gave Artime the silencer to be used in the operation against Fidel
Castro's life. The CIA can explain why, after 1964, the contacts with
AM/LASH to discuss the operation were established by agent Artime (B-1 according
to the code in the Senate Select Committee report).
The subtle maneuver to make AM/LASH appear as a "double agent", to pretend
that the revolutionary government would know, through that source, of the
plans of the CIA against Commander in Chief Fidel Castro and that the Cuban
Revolution in reprisal decided to assassinate Kennedy, is part of the conspiracy
to maintain the image of Cuba's possible implication in the Dallas crime.
"LEE HARVEY OSWALD WAS A CIA AGENT FROM THE LATE 1950"
The facts have proved that the shameless imperialist campaign has crashed
against an unquestionable truth: the clear conduct of the revolutionary
government of Cuba and of its main leaders, based on deep moral principles
and consistently and systematically expressed in its foreign and domestic
policy for almost twenty years.
It is also clear to any honest person that the real culprits are being deliberately
concealed for fear of the political repercussions if it were to be known
where the plan to assassinate Kennedy originated, who plotted it and pushed
it through . If all this were exposed, the powerful US forces that
represent a threat to world peace would be seriously jeopardized.
___(photograph)
with caption: Photographs of the supposed Oswald which appear in the
Warren Commission Report, taken by a CIA spy center.
It is not by change that, since the tragic events of November 22, 1963, over
100 persons that in one way or another had some relation with the assassination
of Kennedy have died in obscure circumstances.
To assassinate the President of the United States, to orchestrate and finance
an extraordinarily broad campaign with the initial purpose of fabricating
a pretext, that would make it possible to take measures to eliminate the
first and only bulwark of socialism in America, to kill approximately 100
persons linked to the Dallas crime, to prevent the various investigations
carried out in the United States from reaching their logical conclusions,
can only be managed by sectors with great power in the United States.
This is crystal clear.
These forces want to make sure that the crime remains unpunished. Nevertheless,
there are honest voices in the United States that fight so the investigations
are not called off, to clarify everything about the Dallas crime and the
chain of killings that followed it. Shocked at the growing moral decadence
of that society the US public demands that the matter be thoroughly investigated.
And together with them stand the peace-loving peoples and world youth, who
--for basic moral and political principles-- cannot accept crime and political
assassination as an alternative in today's world. Among those peoples
there is Cuba, which for many years has had to fight the plots of the US
Central Intelligence Agency against the life of the Revolution's principal
leaders and that is outraged at the attempts powerful US forces to involve
Cuba in the Dallas crime.
The web in this conspiracy must be untangled, we must demand that the US
intelligence services reveal the details of the Kennedy assassination; all
the obscure points in the investigations must be made clear, the real culprits
must be exposed...It will then be evident that the same people who planned,
financed and ordered the assassination of the US President are the organizers,
instigators and masterminds of the shameless campaign to try to involve the
Cuban Revolution in the Dallas crime; they are those who pay, order an fabricate
the lies and slanders they have tried to use to spread doubt and confusion.
THE "ZORRO" CASE
"Even after the United States Senate investigated and publicly acknowledged
the countless CIA plots to assassinate leaders of the Cuban Revolution and
its dedication to that end for a number of years, the United States government
has given the Cuban government no explanation of those events nor has it
in any way apologized."
"We suspect that the United States government has not given up such practices.
On October 9, only three days after the criminal sabotage in Barbados, a
message sent by the CIA to an agent in Havana was intercepted. That
message, transmitted from the CIA's central headquarters in Langley, Virginia,
says in part: Please inform at earliest opportunity any data concerning
Fidel's attendance at the ceremony for the first anniversary of Angola's
independence, November 11. If he's going, try to g et complete itinerary
for Fidel's visit to other countries on the same trip.
"Another order, dated earlier, says: What is the official and specific
reaction concerning bomb attacks against Cuban offices abroad? What
are they going to do to avoid them and prevent them? Whom do they suspect
is responsible? Will there be reprisals?
"We hope the United States government does not dare deny the truth of these
instructions from the CIA's main offices, and many others sent to the same
person, in flagrant acts of espionage. We have the code, the ciphers
and every proof of authenticity for these messages. In this particular
case, the presumed agent recruited by the CIA has kept the Cuban government
informed from the very beginning and for ten years of all details of every
contact he had with it, the equipment and instructions he received.
The CIA thought the agent had succeeded in placing a modern electronic microtransmitter
given to him for that purpose in no less a place than the office of Comrade
Osmani Cienfuegos, Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Council of
Ministers. Hence the CIA's certainly in assuming it would receive,
in plenty of time, the pertinent information on any trip abroad made by the
Cuban Prime Minister.
"Those who believe the CIA has changed one iota because of the denunciations
its hair-raising actions have caused within United States society itself
are deeply mistaken. Its methods will simply become more subtle and
more perfidious.
"Why did the CIA want to know the exact itinerary of the Prime Minister's
possible trip to Angola and other African countries in honor of November
11? Why did it want to know what measures would be taken to avoid
and prevent terrorist acts?"
These sensational disclosures made by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro on
October 15, 1976, during the memorial meeting for the victims of the Cubana
de Aviacion plane destroyed in flight, meant sacrificing a valuable source
of information for the revolutionary state; but due to its importance and
the light it shed on the CIA's attitude and activities, the advisability
of the revelation was weighed.
Nearly a million persons, gathered in Revolution Square, listened to the
details of the CIA's direct participation in the criminal sabotage of Cubana's
plane at Barbados and learned about the alleged enemy agent.
The US government, of course, couldn't deny the accuracy of Fidel Castro's
disclosures. Once again the CIA was exposed to world opinion.
But who was the alleged CIA agent Fidel mentioned? How did he entered
the United States' Central Intelligence Agency? Was he a Cuban Security
agent? What was his purpose in joining the CIA? When did he do
so? What tasks did the sinister US intelligence agency give him?
For the first time since Fidel Castro made those important disclosures, the
story is told, in all its details.
Like all our Cuban State Security men, Nicolas Sirgado Ros is a simple modest,
calm person. You would find it hard to believe that he was the alleged
CIA agent mentioned by the leader of the Cuban Revolution on October 15,
1976.
This officer of Cuba's Security organization, infiltrated in the ranks of
the United States Central Intelligence Agency for ten years, kept the revolutionary
government minutely informed about CIA and US governmental plans and intentions
concerning Cuba, its Revolution and its leaders.
In this interview with the Cuban press, Sirgado Ros explains to our people
and the world, the background and most important aspects of the self-sacrificing
and anonymous work he did for a decade.
When and how did your work for Cuban State Security begin, and how were you
able to infiltrate the CIA?
I started working with the state security bodies at the beginning of the
Revolution. It was my task during that period to associate with counterrevolutionary
organizations and individuals that have since left the country.
In 1962, while I was carrying out these tasks, I was or ordered to start
infiltrating the Central Intelligence Agency itself because of what Cuban
Security already knew about CIA plots to assassinate the Commander in Chief.
It was necessary to know what the enemy would do at that time--not only the
counterrevolutionary organizations that might ultimately be the executors,
but the CIA itself, from within that main center of direction of all the
infamous "dirty tricks"...how, who, what and when had to be answered with
respect to the plot to assassinate Fidel. And that became the object
of my mission from the end of 1962 on. The actual direct contact with
the CIA was achieved at the end of 1966, after years of patient preparatory
work, as you can understand.
When the CIA recruited me in London in 1966, my cover work in Cuba was as
general director of supplies for the Ministry of Construction headed at that
time by Comrade Osmani Cienfuegos.
So the question of infiltrating the CIA was a meticulous, careful long-term
concept right from the beginning, based on known information about plans
for aggression against our country and concrete CIA plots to assassinate
Commander in Chief Fidel Castro and, of course, on the Cuban Revolution's
need to protect the people, their leaders and socialism
How were you recruited in London?
While I was on a trip to London for the Ministry of Construction at the end
of 1966, I received a call from the alleged executive of a business firm
we traded with asking for an interview with me to discuss "trade questions."
The interview took place in a London hotel. A man who called
himself Harold Bensen met me, said he was passing through London and that
he was an Army Colonel who was in the CIA. Shortly after the conversation
began, he showed me a photo of my children, to prove that he had contacts
with individuals I knew who were connected with counterrevolutionary organizations
in Cuba.
We had a long conversation and he openly and specifically asked me to collaborate
with the CIA in the work it was doing against the Revolution. He offered
me a salary to be paid in dollars and deposited in a checking account in
the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York. He also assured me that, after
a reasonable period of working for the CIA, I would have "the chance" to
move to the United States.
Several others interviews followed this first one in London. In addition
to outlining the intelligence interests they wanted me to undertake in my
work for them, these interviews were used to train me in various aspects
and techniques of espionage work.
___(Photograph) Kissinger
with caption: "Frank arrived and said a summary of the information
I had sent him would go straight to Kissinger's desk".
___(Photograph) Nicolas Sirgado Ros
Can you elaborate on the training you got from the CIA?
First they trained me in secret writing, a method the CIA at times
considered to be safer than radio transmissions. That method includes
the use of a white paper, similar to a sheet of regular bond, but chemically
treated. It acts like carbon paper in the sense that it retains the
letters written on it. The techniques involves writing a regular letter,
such as you might send to a friend or relative, as what they call the open
text. On top of that letter or open text, you write the secret message
using the chemically treated paper I mentioned. This message, is, of
course, invisible. It can only be read when developed by special chemicals
that are used for this type of paper.
During these training sessions, I was given instructions in how to use a
camera to photograph documents, maps, plans and places and objectives that
might be of interest to the CIA because of the installations they had.
The training included preparing microfilm to send these photos abroad and
much more advanced photographic espionage method known as microdots whereby
the photo is reduced to almost nothing so it can be hidden under the dot
of an i in the text of a letter or post card sent through the regular mail,
or in any king of technical publications that might easily be sent from abroad.
I also received training in radio reception, in order to be able to receive
and decode messages. In the first stage, music that had been predetermined
with the agent was used to identify the real message. In this case
I remember the song was, "You are Always in My Heart." When there was
no real message, they immediately played "Pomp and Circumstance."
That training continued throughout the years in various meetings with CIA
officials and I also given instructions in other more complex techniques.
I was taught how to collect information, how to provide the characteristics
of the leaders of the Revolution, surveillance and countersurveillance...
Did they ever use a lie detector on you?
Yes, they used a lot of security measures. They used the lie detector
three times. Sometimes there were lie detector sessions that were more
than two and a half hours long.
Clearly, the CIA's aim in using this method is not so much to find out whether
or not you're lying as to break you down, humiliate you, impose machine over
mind. Whether or not it's effective, the method really seeks to humiliate
and denigrate. It's a reflection of this espionage organization, built
upon mistrust and of the lack of moral values to support its activities.
They offered me a salary to be paid in dollars and deposited in New
York bank.
I passed every test. Instead of humiliating me they only succeeded
in increasing my scorn for their methods.
They also used surveillance techniques in my hotel rooms abroad: constant
surveillance that we easily detected, and some other measures as well.
I believe that both my training and the fact that I successfully passed their
surveillance--thus destroying the CIA's "super- techniques"--helped lengthen
and protect the CIA infiltration for ten years, at the same time that it
strengthened their confidence in the alleged agent.
What intelligence interests did the CIA raise with you?
The enemy always proposed concrete tasks in terms of its information interests.
Because of the importance the enemy attached to it, my task with respect
to Commander in Chief Fidel Castro can be considered of primary significance.
The CIA was interested in all the particulars concerning the First Secretary
of our Party: his health and the doctors responsible for it, his state
of mind, the moves he made and the routes he took, what worries he might
have, where and when he might be traveling, etc. The whole question
was made clear in the last message from the CIA read by Fidel in Revolution
Square on October 15, 1976.
Enemy intelligence interests included constant requests for information on
revolutionary leaders, particularly those I had access to, such as Comrade
Osmani Cienfuegos. There were also frequent requests for information
about Dorticos, Almeida, Hart, Carlos Rafael, Montane and a growing list
of comrades who are leaders of our Revolution. There was great interest
in Comrade Osmani Cienfuegos, because of his responsibilities as Secretary
of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers and, therefore, his
inside knowledge of important government questions. Such was the interest
that, on one occasion Mike Ackerman, a US CIA officer I sometimes worked
for, told me that if I managed to get closer to Osmani Cienfuegos I'd get
a pay raise that would accordingly swell the bank account the CIA had opened
for me abroad.
Another highly important intelligence interest involved information on Cuba's
relation with Central American, South American and Caribbean countries.
They were very concerned with what they called "exporting the Revolution,"
and sought, by every means possible, to prove that Cubans directly and materially
promote subversion in this continent. They asked about the general
opinion among revolutionary leaders concerning other heads of government
in Latin America and the Caribbean. I remember when General Omar Torrijos'
visit to Cuba was announced that they wanted to find out what the leaders
of the Revolution thought about him
CIA intelligence interests with regard to Latin America and the Caribbean
have been extremely diverse during these ten years.
The CIA is doing everything possible to eliminate Cuba's participation in
the Movement of Non-aligned Countries
For instance, they showed special interest in the Chilean process, Cuba's
links with Allende, aid to Chilean refugees; and they wanted to know whether
it was possible to determine or at least assume that Chilean refugees were
being trained for infiltration into Chile.
They also asked for economic information. For instance, what contracts,
what agreements, what relationships had been established or were being
planned for the future. I remember that when the Latin American Economic
System (SELA) and the Caribbean Multinational Shipping Company (NAMUCAR)
were set up they were constantly inquiring about the role of Cuba and other
countries.
During a 1976 work session with a number of CIA officers, I told them that
my duties as a Cuban government official would probably take me to a number
of Latin-American and Caribbean countries. They assured me that was
no problem, that the CIA would help me during the trip, since it had stations
in some of those countries that could maintain contact with me.
Evidently, Latin America has always been high on the enemy's list of intelligence
priorities and they hoped to use me in that work. They were also interested
in our role in Africa, particularly in the internationalist aid that had
been given to Angola, and in Cuba's participation in the Movement of Non-Aligned
Countries, and what kinds of secret agreements, if any, Cuba had made within
that body. Without the slightest respect, these gentlemen referred
to the "subversive" nature of this organization. They also showed special
interest in Cuba's relations with the African countries members of the UAO,
within the framework of the Movement of Non- Aligned Countries. They
wanted information on bilateral and other agreements, and technical or military
assistance the Cuban government might be offering. As early as 1961
and 1970, the CIA asked its alleged agent for first-hand information that
they said would be used to formulate a US policy on Africa designed to frustrate
any revolutionary or even progressive movement.
They were also interested in knowing whether some leaders or popular sectors
were attracted to the political line followed by the ruling Chinese clique.
From the continuous interest the CIA showed in this matter from the very
beginning of the decade it is clear that, even then, they were planning to
play Peking Off against socialism, the Soviet Union, our country and even
such African countries as Angola and Ethiopia that have attained their independence.
They have shown a similar interest in obtaining information about our internal
affairs: development, domestic policy, social problems, etc.
They constantly asked for data on economic plans, short and medium term investments,
agreements, participation in the CMEA and a number of specific economic questions.
They were particularly interested in information about both sugar an nickel--anything
that could be obtained on those two items. The area planted, investments
in the sugar-cane industry and agriculture, total volume of harvests, destination
of exports, sugar prices subject to specific agreements...I remember very
well that Mike, the CIA officer I mentioned before, once said that the US
government had to exert its influence on the sugar market, to make prices
drop. Realizing the importance of sugar in our economy, they thought
a price decrease would be another blow to the Cuban Revolution. According
to Mike this was another form of fighting communism, especially Castro communism.
There were constantly all kinds of questions about nickel: development plans,
organizational measures, investments aimed at increasing production and exports,
markets, concrete projects for the mining area of northern Oriente, in short...
many different aspects.
There was persistent interest in the organization of the Cuban Communist
Party, the process and development of the Party Congress, agreements adopted,
opinions on the feasibility of the agreements being fulfilled and other questions.
They asked for details on state organization, the process of institutionalization,
the creation of enterprises, the new system of economic management, the organization
of People's Power, elections...
From the time I was recruited in London up to end of 1976, the CIA showed
persistent interest in obtaining military information, especially about our
missile strength.
When Fidel unveiled your work as an alleged CIA agent, he specifically mentioned
the task the US intelligence services had given you to place a micro-transmitter
in Comrade Osmani Cienfuegos' office. Could you explain in detail how
that mission was accomplished?
It was clearly in the 1974, in Italy during a CAI work session, that I was
assigned the task of installing a highly sophisticated microtransmitter in
Comrade Osmani Cienfuegos' office. I was told how important and significant
that mission was for the US government, the CIA, especially for the CIA officers
working with me at that time: in short, that this mission was of special
significance for the organization and direction of US policy toward Cuba.
___(photograph)
with caption: Mr. Allan G. Morrill Jr.
My instructions were simply to check out Osmani Cienfuegos' office in order
to decide where I thought this microtransmitter should be placed and let
them know.
After my return to Cuba, we made a careful study of the building where these
offices were located and of the surrounding buildings, including a description
of height and existing equipment in the neighborhood that might interfere
with the microtransmitter broadcast. We made draft drawings of the
furniture in Comrade Osmani's office, and provided a description of the wood
it was made of and the color...: an exact microlocation of the office,
with each door and window indicated and, of course, also the spot where I
recommended installing the microtransmitter, and the direction in which it
should be oriented.
I remember that it was also necessary to draw a smell-scale map of the area
around Comrade Osmani's office indicating the streets, avenues and nearest
government buildings. Above all, the CIA asked me to indicate what
embassies were located near where the microtransmitter would be placed.
After all these drafts and plans had been drawn up in Cuba, according to
CIA specifics, I handed them over to US Central Intelligence Agency officials.
Later, at a meeting with some of the CIA officers I had been working with
for several years, I was introduced to one named Dick who had been especially
assigned to this mission to build the microtransmitter. It was Dick
who directed all the training I was given at that time in how to use. and
later install the microtransmitter in Comrade Osmani's offices.
Dick remained with me and other CIA officers until he thought I was ready
to undertake the mission. I remember that when we were going over some
of the details of the operation I told Dick -on purpose- that I could never
enter Cuba with that equipment and that I also thought it would be pretty
hard for them to get it to me in Havana. Then Dick said something so
arrogant I'll never forget it: He said, "Don't worry. In the
CIA we have a slogan: the difficult we do right away; the impossible
takes a little longer!" They couldn't imagine how that operation would
wind up.
He shoed me a rock in which the microtransmitter would be hidden to be sent
to me in Cuba, and told me they'd let me know by radio exactly where it would
be left.
___(photograph)
with caption: A CIA officer, Allan G. Morrill, Jr., walking the streets
of Madrid.
Shortly after my return to Havana following that meeting with the CIA officers,
I received a message containing a detailed description of the exact spot
where the rock containing the microtransmitter had been left, along with
instructions to go to Cacahual, outside Havana, where it had been placed.
I was to pick it up as soon as possible and set it up in Comrade Osmani's
office, as planned.
Did you make any late trips abroad that allowed you to make contact with
the CIA?
In 1976 I had one final meeting with the CIA officers I had been in contact
with during my ten years of work in the Central Intelligence Agency.
That was when I was introduced another Army Colonel Frank, a high CIA official
who, I was told had come from Washington especially for this interview.
Colonel Frank is a Chicano who lost his right eye --as he will proudly tell
you-- in the US war against the Vietnamese people. He told me genially
not to call him Colonel Frank, that he preferred to be called Francisco,
or Pancho since he was Latin too.
When he began to talk, the other officers kept quiet. He stood up and,
in a very conceited manner, explained that he had come to meet me and personally
congratulate me. He conveyed the compliments of CIA headquarters in
Virginia for the work I had done and the risks I had taken through all these
years and, above all, for the contribution I had made to preserving the so-called
"free world". He also brought a personal letter from Mr. Henry Kissinger
congratulating me for my ten years of work on behalf of the United States.
Kissinger's letter said that, in his opinion, the information that had been
provided to the United States for its policy against our country, and even
against other countries, had been very valuable.
After delivering Kissinger's message, Colonel Frank ordered several bottles
opened and ceremoniously offered toasts to the success that had been achieved
and the future of our work. In that atmosphere of expectation, Frank
presented me with a box containing a Rolex watch which he said was a personal
gift from Henry Kissinger and the CIA leadership for the work I had done
over so many years.
Was the equipment actually used for broadcasts to the CIA?
I shouldn't reveal details about technical matters that might show our hand.
I can tell you that shortly after I informed the enemy that the microtransmitter
was installed, I made a final trip abroad, which was when that meeting with
the CIA officers and the interview with Colonel Frank took place and I was
congratulated for my work and presented with a watch from Kissinger.
That makes it perfectly clear that what our Cuban State Security planned
and carried out was just what was needed to pull the rug out from under the
US intelligence services.
Did the microtransmitter require some auxiliary equipment in order to work?
My mission for the CIA consisted in making the studies I mentioned, selecting
the spot where the microtransmitter was to be installed and, finally, placing
it there.
Since they never told me, I don't know whether the microtransmitter
required some kind of auxiliary equipment to activate it.
However, the messages could be picked up by equipment other than the CIA
apparatus, but they couldn't be understood because they were scrambled and
required a special device to received it, reconvert it and produce the actual
message, as I explained earlier.
How was the equipment run?
The equipment was turned on and off by remote control from outside.
What kind of technical equipment did the CIA give you during those ten years
to carry out your alleged espionage work against Cuba?
At first they gave a machine that was used at that time to record messages
from the CIA center and decode them later. Once they gave me some ordinary
loud speakers that are used with record players or recorders, in which they
had hidden Cuban money that I was to use in my espionage activities in Cuba.
They provided me with a microscope built by the CIA's technical services
department to read the microdots the Agency might decide to send. They
also gave me a high-frequency radio-recorder with four bands on which I could
receive and record messages simultaneously.
Earlier I explained that I was trained in photography. The CIA gave
me an Asahi Pentax camera with all attachments and some Ansco color film,
apparently ordinary film that can be purchased anywhere abroad. Actually,
only the first part of the roll was regular film, in order to hide what followed,
which was a special microdot microfilm worked up by the CIA.
During the meetings with CIA officers abroad, they gave me code pads with
which to decipher the messages they sent.
The first time, in London, they gave me a Grundig high-frequency radio-receiver
made in the RFA with several bands. I used this equipment at the beginning
to receive radio messages.
And as I said, they also sent me the sophisticated microtransmitter equipment
that was placed in Comrade Osmani Cienfuegos' offices.
This apparatus included long-lasting remote control batteries, the microphone
and the broadcasting mechanism set up to mix signals that is to receive the
conversation, mix it and send it in such a way that it was difficult or impossible
for any radio listener who might be turned into that band to understand the
transmission. They called this method scrambling. When the message
was received on the CIA monitoring equipment, it reconverted the conversation
by unscrambling it.
Does the fact that certain equipment, such as the sophisticated microtransmitter,
has been smuggled into Cuba in special devices and placed in certain spots
by third persons mean that there are other CIA agents in Cuba?
TO TAKE A STAND AGAINST THE CIA IS TO OPPOSE CRIME, CORRUPTION AND INJUSTICE.
It's very hard to imagine that a clandestine agent could be used in this
king of an operation in Cuba. It would have to be either an agent sent
in specifically for such an operation or a foreign intelligence agent based
in our country.
HOW MANY CIA OFFICERS DID YOU HAVE CONTACT WITH DURING THE COURSE OF COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE
WORK?
I worked with some 13 CIA officers, all US citizens, while I was infiltrated
in the Agency. Sometimes the relationship was quite close, sometimes
less so --as in the case of Colonel Frank, apparently an important CIA official
at that time. Other officers would see me directly and systematically.
Some limited their relationship to training and technical preparation sessions.
The CIA officer I worked longest with and with whom I established the closest
relationship was Mike Ackerman, a US citizen of Russian-Jewish extraction,
ambitious, very reactionary, with Zionist tendencies, and an expert in security
measures. He was openly anti-Cuban and had very close ties with counter
revolutionaries in Miami.
Mike Ackerman was a CIA lieutenant colonel when we worked together, carried
out missions against the Soviet Union, against countries in the Middle East
and, especially, against Cuba. Now, he has apparently been dismissed
from the CIA. Toward the end, he was dabbling in US politics and working
in US colleges and universities, which we all know are regular CIA recruiting
sources; so we assume from this that he still maintains his ties with the
Central Intelligence Agency.
I also knew a CIA lieutenant colonel who called himself David, and substituted
for Mike when the latter, apparently, left the Agency. David was cunning,
crafty fellow, very revolting, who openly hated the Cuban Revolution and
our people. He was a specialist in Latin- American affairs and economic
matters.
My work in the CIA was also linked to Allan G. Morrill, Jr., one of the heads
of the Agency's center in Spain. This gentleman, known as an expert
on Cuba, was born on January 2, 1930, and speaks Spanish. We know he
went to work for the State Department in 1966, was sent to Caracas, Venezuela,
with an R-5 rating (one of the classifications for US diplomatic officials)
and, in November of that year, he became a political officer in the Embassy.
In May, 1971 he was promoted to R-4 rank and returned to the CIA in the United
States. In December, 1973, he was sent to Spain, where he remained
till late 1976. It was he who promoted and organized the meetings I
had there with CIA officers.
During all these years, Allan Morrill has used his State Department cover
for implementing his action against Cuba. In Spain, Morrill headed
the anti-Cuba section of the CIA Station.
Francis Sherry III and Joseph Said Cybulski were among Morrill's underlings.
Sherry, who was born on May 7, 1927, speaks both French and Spanish, and
earlier worked for the FBI. He was an economic officer in Saigon between
1953 and 1960 when he became US Vice Council in the city that now bears the
name of the beloved Ho Chi Minh. He worked in the US consular office
in Mexico in 1966, in France in 1969, in Spain as attache to the Political
Section from 1973 to 1976; and from 1966 to 1976 he carried on intensive
work against Cuba.
We learned that Cybulski was in Madrid in 1961; in Mexico, Argentina and
Spain between 1962 and 1974; he worked in the Spanish capital between 1975
and 1977, supposedly for the Salisport firm, on Lopez de Hoyos Street.
Cybulski last address in Madrid was 51, Avenida Generalisimo; his phone number:
456-1460
These, as we have said, are the most noteworthy.
What guarantee did the CIA offer you in case you were detected by the Cuban
State Security Department?
The CIA offered me no guarantee and I believe it is unable to do so in any
case. They trained me in certain self-protection measures, but beyond
that there was no guarantee whatsoever.
At one point you said Mr. Henry Kissinger sent a letter through Colonel Frank
indicating that the information you had provided would serve to formulate
anti Cuban policy...
Not only the supposedly true information I provided, but, in general, any
information gathered by US intelligence is used by imperialism to work out
its aggressive line against Cuba and other socialist countries, and even
against the progressive countries of the Non-Aligned Movement.
However, in the case of the information I provided to the enemy, this was
done according to a perfectly worked out plan based on the need to misinform
the CIA and serve our own infiltration work as well. But in every case,
the information provided served the interests of the Revolution and the peoples
of Latin America and the world.
Frank even went so far as to tell me that the synopsis of the information
I sent went straight to Kissinger's desk. This is explained by a series
of coincidental circumstances in 1975 and 1976: Cuba's internationalist
help to Angola, the possibility of Fidel's trip to Africa, and so on.
All were matters of the highest interest to Kissinger, who was, at the time,
Secretary of State, presidential adviser on national security problems, chairman
of the Forty Committee and head of the whole intelligence community.
Within the strategy drawn up by Cuban counter-intelligence, what was the
significance of the last message you sent to the CIA?
Late in 1976, terrorist activity from abroad --led and encouraged by the
CIA-- had increased against our country. The CORU counterrevolutionary
group had been formed. There was an attempt to blow up a Cuban plane
in Jamaica, pirate attacks, bombings against Cubana de Aviacion offices in
Colombia and Panama, against the Cuban diplomatic mission in Portugal
and the Cuban consulate in Mexico, the assassination of a comrade from the
fishing industry, in Merida, and the attempt to kidnap the Cuban Consul,
the kidnaping of two Cuban comrades in Argentina, who were obviously assassinated...
In the United States, a traditionally difficult stage was coming to a close:
the end of one presidential period and the beginning of another.
Thus, when the last message arrived (precisely three days after the criminal
sabotage of a Cuban civilian plane in Barbados causing the death of 73 persons
--Cubans, Guyanese and Koreans-- there was a clear indication that a new
plot was being hatched to assassinate the Commander in Chief. This
was corroborated by the next of the message itself. They thought Fidel
would visit Angola on November 11, so they asked for data in relation to
that.
In that context, in the midst of the criminal offensive against Cuba, what
was behind that request? What was the CIA's interest in finding out
the exact itinerary of Fidel's alleged trip?
The revelations made by Fidel to the Cuban people and world public opinion,
were a solid denunciation of the CIA's activities; they ridiculed the machinery
of US intelligence and enabled the fulfillment of very important objectives.
How do you feel after having infiltrated the CIA for ten years>
I feel really satisfied to have carried out such a mission for the Revolution.
But we don't work for glory. None of us is an exceptional hero; we
just try to defend our homeland. While I felt honored on hearing our
beloved Commander in Chief himself mention the case publicly. I do
understand that it is essentially due to the circumstances that made the
revelation advisable. I think especially of the working people, those
who day by day carry out production feats, of the workers and peasants, the
militia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the revolutionary vanguard, all
those that constitute the unconquerable bulwark of the Revolution.
With or without CIA penetration, they are the ones who have made, are making
or will make the imperialist enemy bite the dust.. I think of the combatants
of the Ministry of the Interior, the comrades who have done much more than
I have been able to do, men who have even fallen in the line of duty and
whose names, for reasons of security, cannot even be made public yet; I think
of the comrades who are carrying out their work in the midst of the enemy
itself, under the most difficult condition, and are selflessly and devotedly
serving in this anonymous task of defending our people. I always think
of that and of the modesty, the sense of doing our duty with simplicity which
is a condition in the training of the men in Security.
This interview will be made public at the 11th World Festival of Youth and
Students. Do you wish to add anything to the youth of the world who
will meet in Havana?
___(photograph)
with caption: Equipment and money remitted from the United States to
its supposed agent. Also seen is a watch given by Henry Kissinger in
recognition of ten years "valuable work".
Yes, something which is very important. Certain CIA circles have expressed
the belief --and have already sketched it out as a philosophy-- that it is
necessary to stress the work of penetrating the youth. This is because
of the fact that every young person is a potential revolutionary and should
therefore be detoured from youth's rightful path; and, secondly, because
today's youth is tomorrow's man, tomorrow's technician, politician, statesman.
The enemy's work methods have shifted. More subtle methods have been
introduced: diversionism, espionage, corruption, especially among youth.
Part of the imperialist enemy's main effort is directed against youth.
Every young person should be on the alert against this and should build a
solid moral and revolutionary barrier against which all the efforts of the
CIA and its western homologue will be smashed.
To be against the CIA is to oppose crime, moral corruption, injustice; it
is to struggle against the lack of decency and the absence of human dignity.
INFILTRATED IN MIAMI
The boat cut through the Straits of Florida toward Cuba. On board were
five members of ALPHA-66, a counterrevolutionary organization, who were to
fulfill a crucial mission: infiltrating two agents whose task was to
kill Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro. Hours later, near the Bahamas,
a mechanical failure frustrated the landing attempt. This mishap, however,
saved the two terrorists from being captured in Cuba because, instead of
a reception committee, Coast Guard troops ready for combat were to greet
them. Many thought that the Hope was carrying seven counter revolutionaries.
Really, there were only six. The seventh, the head of the infiltration
operation, was a revolutionary -- Jose Gregorio Fernandez Santos, who spent
seven years in the counter- revolutionary organization in Miami.
From 1969 to 1976 Fernandez Santos carried out a thorough investigation of
activities directed against the Cuban Revolution, right in the bosom of the
insidious exile groups located in Miami, many of which had been trained by
the CIA and operated with impunity from US territory. During this period,
Fernandez Santos kept close ties with the main counterrevolutionary organizations
and became captain in charge of the ALPHA-66 "Navy", until he returned to
Cuba.
Thanks to the patient work of the Cuban forces, much as accomplished prior
to Fernandez Santos' departure for Miami, and many of his activities outside
Cuba were also facilitated. The sensational account of counterrevolutionary
activities, backed up by documentary and photographic evidence, established
new information as to how numerous groups and bands of Cuban emigres become
instruments of the Agency that zealously tries to destabilize the Cuban Revolution
with its systematic campaign of aggression against our people.
"Ever since I arrived in Miami, after secretly leaving Cuba, my aim was to
work among the CIA agents who formed part of the operation unit against our
country and had been working directly in numerous counterrevolutionary bands,
in some cases using other groups as covers for carrying out clandestine operations
against Cuba.
"Besides my supposed counterrevolutionary militancy, my navigational skills
and knowledge of the waters around Cuba helped me to infiltrate. At
first, the fact that I had a photo studio and a boat, both of which I was
supposedly contributing to the activities against Cuba, helped. This
way I was directly recruited by Andres Nazario Sargent, head of ALPHA-66,
and trained in the Everglades, near Miami, with weapons used by the US army
and with the implicit consent of the Florida authorities, who knew the nature
and objective of our activities.
"Soon after, I learned through CIA agent Juan B. Marquez Hernandez, that
many supposed fishing boats that sailed the Miami river were really going
to spy on Cuban fishing vessels in the waters near the Bahamas."
"Marquez, who headed a group made up of Juan Manuel Perdomo, alias El Flaco
(Skinny); Nelson Lopez, alias El Nino (Kid); Jesus Torres Gomez and Reybaldo
Gonzalez Martin, told me of his participation in an operation in Baracoa
during which the Team, headed by counterrevolutionary Vicente Mendez, managed
to infiltrate. In April, 1970, that team was captured while landing
in Cuba.
"Marquez himself told me how 11 Cuban fishermen were kidnaped in May, 1970,
and were then abandoned on a key south of Andros island. This operation
smacked of being a CIA operation, since it was attributed to ALPHA-66, although
that organization hadn't really hatched it. Furthermore, the fact that
the second-in-charge of this operation, Ramon Orozco Crespo, was a known
agent and not a member of any of the counterrevolutionary organizations,
serves to bolster this theory.
"I found out that Francisco Guzman Pastrana, another individual with well-known
links who belonged to the so-called Torriente Plan, was receiving direct
instructions from Angel Moises Hernandez Rojo, the chief agent, entrusted
by the CIA to coordinate the individuals that the Agency kept active in the
Miami area. Hernandez Rojo had been recruited in 1959 in the US where
he was sent to study by tyrant Batista's Navy. He held a top post in
the YMCA, a social and athletic organization, that he used to cover up his
directorship of operations in which his principal men in Miami took part.
He was in charge of supervising the delivery of combat equipment to the Torriente
Plan for its attack against Cuba, and he participated in the preparation
of the Boca Sama attack, staged on October 12, 1971.
"In order to carry out this cowardly aggression that killed two and wounded
four --among them two young girls, Angela and Nancy Pavon-- Hernandez Rojo
supplied the military task force of the Torriente Plan with US Army
weapons and two boats equipped with artillery and radar that were tied up
at a dock used by the CIA, at SW 12th Street, Miami, Florida. They
also had use a port in Haiti and a boat belonging to the counterrevolutionary
Babun brothers which was used as the mother ship. there is another
interesting story surrounding these boats. An individual known as Papo,
who owned a repair shop on 34th Street and 7th Avenue SW and whose mechanical
skills were often used, told me that he had helped to finish equipping these
boats, and that they had been tested in combat in a fishing village in some
African country. This provide further proof that these especially built
boats, came from the CIA.
"About the Torriente Plan, which boasted a highly touted unity among Cuban
emigres of all sorts in Florida, I learned, through Guzman Pastrana himself,
that Jose E. de la Torriente was a fictitious character invented and backed
by the CIA in order to divert the Cuban people's attention from the efforts
they had been investing in the 1970 sugar harvest."
"By widening my contacts I met Juan Gonzalez, head of the so-called National
Liberation Front of Cuba (FLNC), a band that carried on a lot of terrorist
activity against interests, its offices abroad and against Cuban interests,
its offices abroad, and against Cuban fishing vessels in international waters.
Among the most notorious terrorist operations of the FLNC was the burning
of a fishing boat and the murder of one of its crew, Robert Tornes, by the
above- mentioned and well-known Ramon Orozco Crespo, who acted as the second-in-command
of the operation. The counterrevolutionary Gonzalez reported that Crespo
fired the automatic rifle on the defenseless Tornes when the latter affirmed
that he was a Communist.
___(Photograph)
with caption: Jose Gregorio Fernandez Santos who, during seven years
tunning, knew the inside of the count-revolutionary groups of Cuban origin
based in Miami and their dependence on the CIA. He is seen here together
with Nazario Sargent.
___(Photograph)
with caption: The counter-revolutionary Luis Lovaina was one of the
many who took part in the lucrative business of hiring wigs to later take
this photo outside Miami. Later, he showed it as proof of his "heroic
Stay" in Cuba as a fighter for the freedom of Cuba.
"Juan Gonzalez maintained close ties with members of the Fascist Chilean
Junta and especially with Julio Solorzano Gicelure, an official of the DINA
(the Chilean Intelligence Agency). Solorzano request the support of
counterrevolutionary groups for the Chilean Junta in exchange for supplying
them with materials for terrorist activities against Cuba. While in
Miami, Solorzano lived in Gonzalez own home. I myself participated
in two meetings with this individual, representing the Alpha-6 organization,
of which I was one of the leaders. I also had two personal conversations
with Solorzano, and came to know that his father, whose name was the same,
was colonel and a top official of the DINA.
"It is publicly known that the FLNC is one of the terrorist bands that later
formed the so-called United Revolutionary Organizations Command (CORU), head
by the notorious terrorist Orlando Bosch Avila, who is now in jail in Venezuela
for his participation in the plot that blew up the Cubana passenger plane
in Barbados.
"In mid-- 1974 the counter revolutionaries Luis Lobaina, Aristides Marquez
(a resident of 30 NE and 1st Avenue), and Jose Amparo Ortega joined Alpha-66.
The latter was known to have ties with the CIA and had infiltrated in the
area of Baracoa in an unsuccessful attempt to spark peasant uprisings.
He used the Naval Base at Guantanamo as his escape route from the country.
These two, unconnected with Alpha-66, arranged with its head, Andres Nazario
Sargent, to use the organization's name the support of some of its members
to infiltrate Lobaina and Marquez through northern Oriente, in another attempt
to assassinate our Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro.
___(Photograph)
with caption: Jose Gregorio Fernandez Santos and the counter revolutionaries
Hugo Gascon and Ramon Cala during training in Florida.
"Ortega had the use of M-16 rifles, a 28 foot speedboat called Hope (fol.
FL. 9104FS) maps of the area, and information on maritime movements in former
Oriente province for the operations. Since at that time I was head
of what they called Alpha-66 "Navy," the chiefs of the organization entrusted
me to direct the infiltration operation as captain of the boat.
"An engine failure caused the boat to hit land at Great Inagua, in the Bahamas,
where the authorities searched the boat and confiscated the weapons.
Of course, once in jail, Lobaina and Marquez bemoaned their bad luck at having
been captured and thus prevented from fulfilling their infiltration objective.
I though they had been very lucky because they would have been greeted by
our Coast Guard in Cuba.
"Back in Miami, where we were secretly taken, we were met at the airport
by John F. Butcher, an FBI officer who, far from harassing or arresting
us for our activities, told us that we would not be brought to trial and
gave us new "parolee" cards (a document that is given to Cubans who lack
identification papers), just as if we had arrived for the first time is US
territory.
"These events took place in October, 1974, and in the following months Nazario
Sargent pushed the idea of using a secret farm in Mexico to give military
training to some of the members of the organization. His insistence
was in part due to my negative reaction to the proposal, since it was my
objective to remain infiltrated in the Alpha nucleus located in Miami, and
especially to keep an eye on Nazario Sargent.
"In April of the following year, when the arrest at Great Inagua had been
practically forgotten, a strange and unusual piece of news reached us about
the capture of six Cuban emigre's who were trying to penetrate Cuban territory.
Immediately, the FBI came to me house in order to take me to court
to be charged with the rest of those involved. Nazario took advantage
of this strange occurrence to insist that I be taken to Mexico to avoid being
sent to jail. He then gave me the necessary contacts to make in Mexico.
"I lived in Mexico for some time, keeping in touch with various heads of
counterrevolutionary groups located in Miami. Nazario Sargent told
me to seek the support of Patricio Sanchez, the Alpha- 66 representative
in Mexico. I also had long-distance conversations with Julio Solarzano
and his father in Chile. They offered me their house to live in and
told me to go to El Salvador and see the Chilean consul there who would have
precise instructions on how to get me to Chile. Even Though I went
to El Salvador and made the appropriate arrangements at the Chilean consulate,
I never went to Santiago de Chile because I had to investigate some signs
indicating that another attempt on the Commander in Chief's life was in the
works.
"It had become known that some counter revolutionaries in Miami, headed by
Antonio Calatayud Rivera, had asked Manuel Camargo, a counterrevolutionary
and ex-mercenary member of Brigade 2506 who lived in Mexico, to make a thorough
study of the airport and other places of interest in Mexico such as Independence
Square on the grounds that Commander in Chief Fidel Castro was supposed to
visit that country.
"Consequently, weapons were transferred to Mexico City. Once I was
able to determine the real possibilities and objectives of this plan I was
told to return to Cuba.
"I have no doubt in my mind that counterrevolutionary leaders received both
the direct and indirect support of the CIA in the unsuccessful attempts to
assassinate our Commander in Chief. Already I had learned from Nazario
himself about the attempt made in Chile, when Fidel visited that country
at the invitation of the constitutionally elected government of Salvador
Allende. That attempt was made directly by Jesus Dominguez Benitez
and Marcos Rodriguez, under the leadership of Antonio Veciana, a man recruited
by the CIA and whom the US press the assassination of President Kennedy.
"Today in our country, I have satisfaction of feeling that all the attempts
to destroy the Cuban Revolution, carried out by these anti-patriotic counter
revolutionaries with CIA support power of a steadfast and brave people that
unconditionally supports its Revolution."
CIA: CRIMES AND ASSAULTS
The veil that covers many of the unscrupulous operations orchestrated by
the CIA is lifting. Thus we know that plans or actual attempts to assassinate
political leaders, as in the case of the leaders of the Cuban Revolution
and other heads of State, represent one of the CIA's courses of action.
Men such as Patrice Lumumba, Ben Barka, Rene Schneider and Orlando Letelier,
among others were struck down by the workings of this shady organization.
The US Senate Select Committee, headed by Senator Frank Church, appointed
to investigate intelligence activities publicly recognized the innumerable
plans to assassinate political leaders of various countries. But, during
the course of the investigators, the CIA hid many of its activities and withheld
information from the Senate Committee, offering incomplete and falsified
information, deliberately lying in order to confuse the American public and
world opinion.
Nevertheless, in its conclusions, the Senate Committee declared that:"...it
has received evidence that high government officials discussed and perhaps
authorized the establishment within the CIA of an assassination task force."
And the report continued, "...the cases of Castro and Lumumba are examples
of the plot conceived by US officials to assassinate leaders of other countries."
(Vol.I, B-8; B-13, Spanish edition).
___(Photograph)
with caption: The place from which CIA agents planed to shoot Commander
Fidel Castro.
___(Photograph)
with caption: Arms which to be used to assault on leaders of the Cuban
Revolution while Fidel was speaking from the north wing of the former Presidential
Palace.
Lumumba must die
The murder of Patrice Lumumba, leader of the Congolese people, instigated
and inspired by the CIA, remains inscribed in the annals of history as a
flagrant violation of human rights. The CIA, with supreme cynicism,
confessed in the Senate Committee report its attempts to eliminate the Congolese
leader but denies having participated in the actual events that took his
life. However, the facts indicate otherwise.
The same Senate report admits that Lumumba "...was considered a threat
to US interests in the new African nations."
Bronson Tweedy, Chief of the Africa Division told the Senate Committee that
he had spoken with Richard Bissell, CIA deputy director in charge of planning
secret operations, and that Bissell told him that, Lumumba's "...assassination
was included among the possible means of elimination."
Lumumba, deposed in a coup led by Joseph Kasavubu, sought protection from
the UN forces in the Congo. With this new development the CIA rechanneled
its assassination plans. this gave rise to plan proposed by Michael
Mulroney, as the Senate Committee was told, a plan to make Lumumba leave
the area where he was protected by UN troops. So he could be kidnaped
and handed over to Mobotu Sese Seko.
On November 27, 1960, Lumumba left the UN guard and on December 1, he was
arrested by Mobutu's troops. Two months later he was murdered.
The imprisonment and murder of Lumumba coincides exactly with the final CIA
plan for eliminating him. Besides the CIA's shameless behavior in this
murder is a blatant example of intervention in the internal affairs of other
countries.
Eloquent example
After Allende's election in September 1970, sectors of the CIA in coordination
with the US transnational monopoly ITT thought that Allende could still be
prevented from taking office. But one of the main obstacles in this
was the Commander in Chief of the Army, Rene Schneider, who refused to permit
any intervention in the democratic and constitutional process.
The Senate Committee investigating CIA activities states in its conclusions:
"All the coup plots that were developed within the Chilean armed forces proposed
the elimination of General Schneider one way or another...US officials continued
to encourage these plans once it was known that the first step would be to
kidnap General Schneider.
After two aborted attempts to kidnap this General, the CIA gave Chilean officials
three sub-machine guns and ammunition in order to carry out the operation.
Up to here the Senate Committee confirms having found sufficient evidence
that the CIA directed, organized, and founded with ten million dollars the
plan to prevent the Popular Unity government from taking office, in order
to then carry out a military coup. Nevertheless, it could not prove
that the weapons given to CIA- directed groups two days before the third
and last kidnap attempt were the ones actually used to kill Schneider.
The CIA has tried to claim that the operation was carried out by a group
that had nothing to do with them
Who is the CIA Kidding?
The above-mentioned Senate report states that in August of 1975 Commander
Fidel Castro gave Senator McGovern a list of 24 aborted attempts to assassinate
him. He stated that the CIA was involved in these. The Committee
sent that list to the CIA and asked for a response to the charges.
The 14-paged CIA response concluded: "...In summary, the review of
the archives shows that, of the incidents described in Castro's report, the
CIA had no participation in 15, never had contact with the persons mentioned,
and had no contact with them when the stated incidents occurred."
"As for the other nine cases, the CIA had operative relations with some of
the persons mentioned but not for the purpose of assassination...in the cases
reviewed we found nothing that sustains the accusations that the CIA ordered
its agents to assassinate Fidel Castro..."
The report adds: "...The Committee has found no proof whatsoever that
the CIA was involved in the attempts on his life that Castro listed and gave
to Senator McGovern."
The CIA blatantly lied to the Senate: in all the cases included in
that report Cuban Security has irrefutable proof that, indeed, the CIA participated
directly and indirectly in them.
Could one possible think that an organization like the CIA, built on lies,
specializing in bribery and crime, would tell the truth? Impossible.
To their discredit we will briefly expose some of the plots against the leader
of the Cuban Revolution, some of which were told to McGovern, where the direct
participation of the CIA has been proved.
A criminal plot
In mid October 1961, via CIA agent Antonio Veciana Blanck (Tony) -- who as
leader of a counterrevolutionary organization was able to hide his espionage
activities-- a very careful operation was prepared to kill Commander Fidel
Castro and other revolutionary leaders. The plotters built a fake roof
in a building located at 29 Misiones Street, 8th floor, apartment 8-A, in
front of the old Presidential Palace, where they hid weapons given to them
by the CIA to carry out the assassination attempt.
From this apartment they intended to fire a bazooka at the rostrum that would
be installed on the north terrace of the old palace for an event that Fidel
Castro and other revolutionary leaders were to attend.
Simultaneously, several grenades would be hurled on the public gathered there,
in order to create panic and facilitate the plotters' escape after the savage
massacre.
Another attempt
On September 18, 1963, Cuban Security discovered another plot to kill Commander
Fidel Castro and other revolutionary leaders during the commemorative act
on the 3rd Anniversary of the CDR'S.
On this occasion, the CIA's agent was Pierre Owen Diez de Ure, a French citizen
recruited to carry out this assassination attempt and other espionage activities.
The plan of action was to place 60 pounds of C-4 plastic explosives in the
sewer pipes underneath the spot where the platform was to be set up from
which Fidel would address the public on this important occasion.
Cuba's Department of State Security was able to discover this plot in time
and arrest the perpetrators.
Both these plots to kill Castro formed part of a general CIA plan to eliminate
several leaders of the Revolution at the same time.
___(photograph)
with caption: Weapons of the CIA agents infiltrated in Monte Barreto
with the objective to attempt to kill the leaders of the Revolution.
___(Photograph)
with caption: More arms planned to be used by CIA agents infiltrated
in Monte Barreto.
Proof of this was the message transmitted to the station in Havana on July
21, 1960: "Possible elimination of three principal leaders under serious
consideration by head quarters." The weapons and plastic explosives
that were to be used in these respective attempts, and also the confessions
of the principal accused, are undeniable proof of the CIA's machinations.
An agent and a gun
In the fall of 1963, Abel Hayder, CIA agent and national coordinator of the
MRR, received an order from the Agency to go to the US for special training
in subversion.
He arrived in the US clandestinely, and after a two-day stay at the CIA base
in Opa Locka, was sent to a house in Miami suburb where various experts gave
him a special 45 days course in techniques of demolition, sabotage and cyanide
poisoning.
After the training they began preparations to return Hayder to Cuba.
He was supplied with C-4 plastic explosives with detonators, automatic weapons
and a jar of 100 potassium cyanide tablets. The CIA also entrusted
him with the delivery of a Magnum Special with a telescopic viewer to give
to an expert who would use it to murder Commander Fidel Castro.
The infiltration in Cuba, scheduled for mid-December 1963, was successful.
Thus the promise to send the weapon to be used in this assassination before
January 2, 1964, --date set for the attempt on Castro's life-- was kept.
Abel Hayder landed at a beach near Havana and there he buried the weapons
he was carrying. Afterwards he walked to the road, got on a bus and
went straight to the house of his principal contact in the capital city:
the official of the Cuban Department of State Security who had aided him
since he began to infiltrate counterrevolutionary groups. Abel informed
him of the details of his landing and went straight to the point: the
agent who had been specially trained to murder Commander Fidel Castro had
to be caught.
This too the CIA hid from the Senate. But, can it deny that Abel Hayder
was one of its supposed agents, trained in one of its terrorist technique
schools in Miami? Can it also deny that it gave him a powerful rifle
to be used to kill the leader of the Cuban Revolution? It should be
pointed out that this case was not included in the list of abortive assassination
attempts on our leaders that was given to senator McGovern.
Deadly milk shakes
The agency devised a macabre plan to poison Fidel Castro. In order
to put it into effect it used one of the networks that had already been organized
in Cuba, directed by Ramon and Leopoldina Grau Alsina, Polita. The
CIA supplied a jar of poisonous capsules, and the Graus chose Santos de la
Caridad Perez, an employee of the Havana Libre Hotel, to do the poisoning.
Perez was in possession of one of the capsules when he was arrested.
Of all the CIA plans to kill Prime Minister Fidel Castro, this is the only
one that the Agency admitted before the Senate, had gone beyond the preparation
phase. (See Volume I, Insert F, Report of the Senate Select Committee
to investigate intelligence activities). Obviously its participation
goes much further, again showing the CIA's dishonesty with the Committee.
It was also discovered that these pills were brought into Cuba by diplomatic
pouch from a capitalist country. Cuba has clear proof of this.
Action in Monte Barreto
On May 28, 1966, two counterrevolutionary CIA agents from the US landed illegally
at Monte Barreto in the Miramar district.
Revolutionary forces surprised them and a battle ensued in which artillery
pieces began to fire on the enemy transport that had brought them.
Consequently, Antonio Cuesta Valle, chief of the infiltration group and Eugenio
Enrique Saldivar, both residents of Miami, were arrested and seriously wounded.
Agents Armando Romero Martinez and Sandalio Herminio Diaz Garcia were killed
while attempting to invade our territory. They were involved in smuggling
in weapons to assassinate Commander Fidel Castro.
Herminio Diaz was a known gangster linked to Mafia types such as Santos Trafficante,
with whom he had shared the same table at the Riviera Hotel in Havana in
1959.
The CIA admitted to the Senate Committee that it had used Santos Trafficante
and other underworld figures in the assassination attempts on Castro.
However, the Agency has made numerous attempts to demonstrate that those
plans in which the Mafia and Trafficante were involved, never went beyond
the planning stage.
False! Herminio Diaz, a Mafia type hired by Trafficante and recruited
by him to work in the CIA, carried this plan to the stage of execution when
he landed in Cuban territory with powerful arms to try to kill Fidel Castro.
Other information shows that Antonio Veciana, an agent who was involved in
several different attempts to assassinate the leader of the Cuban Revolution,
also participated in the preparations to infiltrate through Monte Barreto.
Without guts to act
During Commander Fidel Castro's visit to Chile in 1971, the CIA elaborated
a plan to assassinate him using Cuban born counter revolutionaries Jesus
Dominguez Benitez (El Isleno), and Marcos Rodriguez, acting as "cameramen"
for Venezuelan TV Channel 4.
Both these men, briefed and directed by Antonio Veciana, who carried out
explicit orders, received a year's training in the use of rifles with telescopic
viewers at the camp in Florida. They were also given a press course
and training to make them professional TV cameramen.
Then they were put to work with Channel 4 of the Venezuelan TV via the well-known
terrorist and CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles (who later participated in the
preparation of the criminal sabotage of the Cubana plane in Barbados).
As journalists, they obtained permission to cover the leader of the Cuban
Revolution's travels in Chile. For this purpose, Antonio Veciana provided
them with a special TV camera that had an automatic pistol embedded in it.
These individuals were to use the pretext of filming scenes of Castro's trip
to kill him with the weapon they had so cleverly concealed. But they
lacked the guts to follow through since, as they later explained, there was
no sure way of "saving their own necks" once the deed was done.
The CIA tried very carefully to make these acts seem to be the work of Antonio
Veciana, so that the "work" would become the responsibility of Cuban exiles,
the traditional plot used by the CIA to cover up its aggressions against
Cuba.
Obvious conclusions
The details exposed here are but a few of the many that the Cuban Security
bodies possess. Nonetheless, they show concealment and falsification
of information given to Senator Frank Church's Senate Committee regarding
the participation of the CIA in attempts to kill Commander Fidel Castro.
The CIA told the Senate of its participation in assassination plans between
1960-1965. Nothing is mentioned thereafter, to make it seem that from
then on, it stopped preparing "dirty tricks." However, Cuban Security
has proof that, indeed, the CIA has continued its unscrupulous criminal activity
to this date.
No other political leader has had to face, so many and such varied attempts
on his life as Commander Fidel Castro. Of course, due to the revolutionary
vigilance of the people and the timely actions of Cuban State Security, none
has come to fruition.
The CIA, however, is just one tool of US foreign policy. The people
of the United States and the youth of the world demand that the US Government
take the necessary measures to prevent this Agency from continuing its relentless
terror and from using assassination as an instrument of US foreign policy.
Another page of CIA criminal activities against Cuba
Banditry
It was with indignation that the people learned of the new crime committed
by the counterrevolutionary bands organized by the US Central Intelligence
Agency. On January 5, 1961 Conrado Benitez, a young voluntary teacher
was assassinated. He had been teaching peasants in the Escambray Mountains
in the central part of the country to read and write.
Bandits ruthlessly took the life of this young man, whose only weapons were
his books. This horrible crime was intended to frighten the first literacy
campaign teachers who brought knowledge to confront the legacy of the past.
This crime was also a manifestation of the bitter class struggle taking place
in Cuba with the profound revolutionary process that was standing up to injustice,
privileges, ignorance and exploitation. As Fidel Castro leader of the
Cuban Revolution, has pointed out: "Conrado Benitez was killed because
he was poor, because he was young, because he was black, because he was a
teacher."
However, that was neither the first nor the last murder recorded in the history
of counterrevolutionary banditry.
The crimes perpetrated by counterrevolutionary bands, organized, financed,
equipped and encouraged by the US Central Intelligence Agency, as part of
the plan to crush the Cuban Revolution, include a long list of assassinations,
sabotage, attacks upon defenseless towns, buses trains and other forms of
public transportation, arson in schools, rural stores and other centers,
etc., etc.
First, it should be understood that banditry, one of the methods used by
US imperialism against the Cuban revolutionary process, was part of the US
government's plan to create favorable conditions for the overthrow of the
revolutionary government through sabotage inside the country and armed invasion
from abroad. The CIA was to implement these plans.
The first incidence of banditry took place in 1959, when the counterrevolutionary
organization "La Rosa Blanca (The White Rose), made up of fugitives from
revolutionary justice, former members of the tyranny's armed forces, traditional
petty politicians and landowners linked with Dominican dictator, Trujillo,
along with the CIA, tried to launch an invasion from Santo Domingo.
The invasion flopped. This failure at first upset the organization
but some of its members managed to reunite and get to penetrate the Escambray
mountains.
From then on new counterrevolutionary bands sprang up fostered by organizations
led, subsidized and armed by the CIA. At the same time, the Cuban revolutionary
process was becoming more radical and the interests of the big exploiters,
particularly those of the large landowners were severely threatened.
During the second half of 1960, there were uprisings in various parts of
the Escambray. At that time, the ringleader Benito Campos, known as
Campito, began to operate in the northeastern part of Las Villas province,
in the municipalities of Sagua la Grande and Corralillo. He was inspired
by the Movimiento de Recuperacion Revolucionaria, organization closely linked
to the Agency from its founding in 1959. Among its tasks was the creation
of counterrevolutionary bands, and the Escambray became the target of this
CIA mission.
The counterrevolutionary bands received their supplies from abroad and were
organized inside the country through underground networks. At first,
small contingents of the Rebel Army pursued the bandits. Later on a
larger number of soldiers and militia were mobilized.
Imperialism placed particular emphasis on organizing and enlarging the bands
in the Escambray mountains, as part of a plan to divide the Island in two.
Therefore, banditry in Las Villas became the focus of enemy activity.
However strange it may seem, the leadership of the Escambray Mountain bandits
fell to Jose Ramon Ruiz Sanchez, or Major Augusto, a resident of Siboney,
a suburban sector of Havana. He broadcast orders to the bandits from
his home. Through this agent, the CIA was able to make a large scale
drop of weapons in the Escambray.
___(photograph)
with caption: One hundred thousand workers of the peoples _____ were
mobilized in the regions of centra Cuba to squash the bandits financed and
armed by the CIA of the United States.
The Escambray bandits were much more aggressive than those in the rest of
the country. Undoubtedly, they had the topography of the area in their
favor. For example, in Pinar del Rio, they were wiped out fairly quickly
and, although they committed crimes, they were not as active as the bands
in Las Villas. In Havana and in Matanzas, there were also some groups
that managed to commit a number of murders, but they were rapidly cut down
there and in Oriente as well.
On November 29, 1960, the revolutionary leadership decided to set in motion
what was popularly known as La Limpia (The clean up) of the Escambray).
More than 60,000 militia: workers, students and peasants, organized
into combat battalions, joined the contingents of the Rebel Army operating
against the bandits, and began a strong offensive aimed at wiping out banditry.
The Escambray was turned into a huge operations ground and the bandit groups
had no peace. The militia, led by officers of the Rebel Army, kept
the bandits in check. Some were compelled to surrender, others escaped
abroad or scattered to different areas. Workers, peasants, and students
firmly confronted those who attempted to hinder the Revolution. The
militia was able to return home by the end of March 1961.
This was the prevailing situation at the time of the invasion at Playa Giron,
an area near the Escambray. Immediately, bandit activity flared up.
With the hope for a successful invasion by the mercenary army frustrated,
imperialism once again gave top importance to banditry and reorganized the
small group of refugees left in the Escambray. Osvaldo Ramirez then
became the ringleader supported by the CIA.
The bandits planned to increase the number of groups but reduce the number
of members in each one so as to give them more mobility. New bands
sprang up, increasing villainy and terrorism.
The many crimes perpetrated against the population and the cruelty that characterized
the bands culminated in the assassination of Manuel Ascunce Domenech, a young
member of the Literacy Brigade and his pupil, Pedro Lantigua, a peasant.
As a result, the Revolutionary Government passed Law no. 988 which instituted
the death penalty for band chieftains and assassins and the confiscation
of collaborationists' property. This law was the legal basis for revolutionary
action against the bandits.
___(photograph)
with Caption: The worker-militia captures a counter-revolutionary in
the services of the CIA.
___(photograph)
with caption: Yet another bandit surrenders to the Revolutionary Army
Forces.
Later, Lucha Contra Bandidos (LCB), the anti-bandit section of the Army was
created. This military body grew out of actual combat, and as it fought
it became more organized and experienced. The creation of the LCB made
it possible to reduce military personnel. Those who remained were mainly
peasants from that area who were familiar with the terrain and accustomed
to mountain climbing. The local LCB troops were the most successful
weapons for annihilating banditry.
The Second Agrarian Reform Law, enacted on October 3, 1963, dealt a severe
blow to the bandits. It eradicated the rural bourgeoisie which was
an important economic mainstay of banditry.
Throughout those years, major operations and heroic, anonymous State Security
actions against banditry were carried out. This was the case of The
man from Maisinicu (Alberto Delgado), a Cuban State Security officer who
infiltrated into the counterrevolutionary bands and dealt severe blows to
the criminals. On December 29, 1963 the State Security bodies began
an operation to cut off the important underground supply line to the bandits
known as Rat Line, led by the CIA. This was the final blow to the bandits
who still remained in the Escambray.
The continuous combined operations of State Security and the LCB, plus the
complete support of the people for the Revolution, and the internal contradictions
produced by the bandits' lack of ideals, the ambition of their ringleaders
and the criminal nature of their activity, all contributed to eliminating
banditry.
Towards the end of 1965, Luis Vargas and Jose Rebozo were the only bandits
remaining in the Escambray. Luis Vargas was arrested on December 1,
and Jose Rebozo on October 1, 1966..
Thus ended another chapter in imperialism's criminal action against Cuba,
perpetrated by the CIA.
The struggle against the bands that imperialism tried to establish in the
mountains areas of the Island was won at the cost of effort and lives of
our people. Dozens of peasants, women, teachers and soldiers were assassinated
by the bandits; over 240 fighters lost their lives in combat or on duty.
The country had to divert huge quantities of all kinds of resources to foil
the CIA's plan of setting up centers of banditry to promote terror in rural
areas. But the end result --the smashing victory of the people over
the forces of reaction-- was inevitable.
This reality did not, however, make the CIA abandon its policy of promoting
banditry. Years later, through the infiltration of agents from abroad,
the enemy attempted to revive banditry. But in every single case it
was annihilated before it could accomplish its subversive and criminal mission.
The blow to the "Rat Line"
Almost fifteen years have passed since the important underground CIA network
known as Rat Line, used to supply and inform counterrevolutionary bands operating
in the northern region of the Escambray, was completely liquidated by the
Cuban State Security.
For the first time Alberto Miranda Toledo, a Cuban Security agent who was
able to infiltrate this network and even became its second- in-command, spoke
publicly of this rude blow to banditry and to the US Central Intelligence
Agency.
"The CIA wanted to make the northern part of the Escambray a stronghold for
bandit activity for it was the ideal place for agents to infiltrate from
abroad. There were several bands already operating in that territory,
among them the one headed by Campito.
"I had penetrated some of the counterrevolutionary organizations in Las Villas
as early as 1959 and had created an image as an active counterrevolutionary
element. In 1962, when Cuban Security headquarters, was informed of
the existence of an important supply and information network for counterrevolutionary
bands, I was assigned the mission of penetrating this network.
"I was known that the network was directed by Leonardo Prieto, but his whereabouts
was not known. After establishing links with individuals in Santa Clara
who were disenchanted with the Revolution, I made contact with Mr. Mariano
Pinto, who had been administrator of a tax office and a political boss during
the Batista dictatorship.
"I won his confidence to carry out counterrevolutionary activity. He
turned out to be the CIA's main agent in the Rat Line network. Later,
he even suggested to the CIA that I become deputy director CIA that network;
he sent my biography to the CIA Operation Unit in Miami. Mariano Pinto
and Leonardo Prieto, wanted by Cuban Security, were one and the same.
"Pinto, who communicated with the CIA through a Western embassy official
in Cuba, also checked on other CIA agents, their operations, etc. The
network he directed was made up of some two hundred men, mainly in Las Villas,
and also in Havana that kept in touch with counterrevolutionary organizations
and CIA agents in the capital city. The Rat Line supplied bands in
the northern part of the Escambray with money, weapons, ammunition and communications
equipment. It also gave the CIA economic, social and military information
on the country. The CIA got the weapons to the bands by dropping them
from planes at a place, date and time previously agreed upon through the
Rat Line. They supplied the money as follows: they turned US
dollars over to a given person abroad, and this person would guarantee that
someone else would give the network the equivalent amount in national currency.
"By that time, this was the only network left to supply bands, for the CIA
had received many blows from Cuban Security. So the Rate Line grouped
all the various elements that opposed the Revolution and, at the same time,
received special support from the CIA.
"The members of the Rat Line were basically from the middle level and petite
bourgeoisie, people linked to the Batista tyranny, ex- politicians, etc.
"The CIA's orders to the bands, who were strongly harassed by the Revolutionary
National Militias and the Revolutionary Armed Forces, were to regroup and
stay in the Escambray at all costs. They wanted to keep the northern
region in order to control the Escambray, divide the Island in two and, as
soon as conditions permitted, organize a provisional governments, as though
it were an internal movement, and to have this provisional government request
the aid and intervention of the United States.
"On December 29, 1963, Pinto and the other members of the CIA Rat Line network
were captured and a decisive blow was deal to the bandits and to the United
States Central Intelligence Agency's plans."
___(photograph)
with caption: Alberto Miranda
John Stockwell and Holden Roberto met again in early November, 1975, in an
improvised lookout a few meters off the highway that links Caxito with Quifandongo.
The moment for striking the final blow was approaching, for attacking Luanda
before the 11th, to install a puppet government on the piles of corpses and
then chop up the country: one third would be taken over by Zaire to
satisfy Mobutu's expansionist ambitions; the biggest stretch would belong
completely to the corporations interested in the iron, cooper, diamonds,
kaolin, feldspar, marble, black granite urunium and, of course, the oil as
well.
The two men posed for photos 32 kms. from Luanda. At the moment,
Holden Roberto, CIA agent recruited in 1961 at $10,000 a year, awaited victory
with confidence, reassured by the plans dreamed up in Washington that included
an air lift for supplying abundant weapons from US bases, logistics support
from NATO and the recruitment of mercenaries, as in the period of the Crusades,
to carry out
The CIAs' sinister program in Angola
Once again it was the Central Intelligence Agency, playing its role as the
operational arm of the United States Government's policy of acting as international
gendarme. The CIA, with its worn-out schemes and formulas used on so
many other occasions, well known in Guatemala, in 1954; in Playa Giron, in
1961; in Vietnam and Laos, for nearly two decades; in the Dominican Republic,
in 1965; in Chile in 1973.
According to an apparently unbreakable golden rule, operations begin by placing
on target any movement, government or individual that might potentially become
a counter force to the system of imperialist exploitation, domination or
interference and against those forces or currents of national dignity, progress
and revolutionary change, it unleashes an arsenal of conspiracies that often
evolve into coups d'etat, assassination attempts, fratricidal wars, secession
and genocide, in order to confront, diminish and discredit "international
communism, according to the directive of the US National Security Council
of 1947.
The cover-up of the operations is a must in the ABC's of the Agency, as is
evident from such abominable expedients as the use of subsidiary regimes,
troops of local puppets and alleged "liberation movements". Thus, the
United States contributes with arms and dollars, and the rest with cannon
fodder.
Because Angola
was no exception to the modus operandi of the CIA in Third World countries.
Angola turned out to be too big, too rich and too strategic a territory for
a movement such as the MPLA --with real national roots, whose founding group
projected progressive thinking-- to consolidate itself as the popular vanguard
first in the anticolonialist struggle and then in the struggle for independence.
That popular force which had begun the first national liberation war
against Portuguese colonialism in 1961, had to be counteracted and, from
then on, the CIA took charge of financing the internal counterrevolution
embodied in the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA, formerly
the UPA and GPRAE) and its agent-chief Holden Roberto. Fort that purpose,
it immediately had the unconditional collaboration of Mobutu, who was also
to be placed in power as president with CIA complicity, thus establishing
Zaire as the subsidiary regime for its schemes and Kinshasa as the main launching
pad for its intervention in Angola.
On the military plane, NATO provided the support for Portugal in its war
against the insurgent MPLA forces.
Nevertheless, none of the wise experts or their US espionage computers could
predict that the very dynamics of the liberation war in the colonies would
bring about the downfall of fascism in the metropolis and that, when that
happened, a process of decolonization would be precipitated that, this time,
would not have to answer to the typical neocolonialist procedures that France
and England had applied on the African continent on other occasions.
The existence of a political situation that was not controlled by the colonial
powers led the CIA into one of its biggest, dirtiest and costliest operations
against the free will of any people according to the no less extensive accumulation
of confessions and revelations formulated by some of the instigators and
executors of the so-called.
Program for Angola
A report of the US Senate Security Committee revealed that the CIA's secret
operations against Angola began before November, 1974, from its Kinshasa
Station.
___(photograph)
with caption: ; John Stockwell, together with Holden Roberto. Their
defeat by the revolutionary forces of the MPLA was fast approaching.
John Stockwell and Jonas Savimbi in Angola.
A total of 18 Agency officers, some of them with prior experience in Vietnam
and Laos, were accredited in the capital of Zaire for the mission of making
contacts and providing supplies to the FNLA and UNITA groups. The team
of operative and telecommunications officers from the CIA that worked in
Kinshasa, mainly under diplomatic cover, included Stuart E. Methven, Samuel
L. Martin, Roberto Benedetti, Nancy R. Buss, Peter T. Hanson, Bruce Brett,
Jeffrey Panitt, Victoria Viger, Bruce Barnard, Robert W. Carmen, Peter W.
Comar, Wilfred Gagnon, William Harner, Richard J. Harrinson, Martin McFarlane,
David S. Markey, Thomas T. Mix and Nick E. Unger.
When the cease-fire between Portugal and the Angolan organization occurred
in November, 1974, the FNLA entered Luanda with considerable military forces
whose purpose it was to wipe out the MPLA or throw them out of the transitional
government that was to be established in Luanda a month later, following
the signing of the Alvor Accords. With CIA training, the FNLA dedicated
its efforts to a bloody wave of kidnapping, torture, murder and the virtual
massacre of MPLA members and sympathizers. The so-called "people's
houses" that sprang up in some sectors of Luanda were centers of terror in
which even cannibalism was practiced, as many of the accredited correspondents
in Luanda were able to confirm.
___(photograph)
with caption: The agent Holden Roberto in company with Chinese advisors.
John Stockwell, former head of the CIA Task Force for Angola has pointed
out that the FNLA attacks on the MPLA began in February, 1975, after the
Forty Committee had approved the designation of $300,000, for the elimination
of the only legitimate representative of the Angolan people.
Stockwell adds that CIA intervention was undertaken through the so called
"Program for Angola", submitted to President Ford and approved by him in
his Presidential Findings which were then discussed by the Forty Committee
in January, June and July of 1975. On July 14, the Agency was requested
to draw up a covert plan of action for Operation Angola. This plan
was elaborated by the CIA's Africa Division and presented on July 16.
That same day, it was approved by President Ford, who also authorized a budget
of $6 million. On July 27, Ford authorized and additional $8
million for the project.
At the same time, CIA director William Colby told the National Security Council
that the Agency would really need to invest $100 million to ensure that it
would win in Angola; but since a program of that financial magnitude was
too difficult to keep secret, the final sum was $31 million.
The CIA program also included support for Jonas Savimbi, leader of
UNITA, one of the organizations that Portuguese colonialism had adopted in
1966 to fight against the MPLA guerrillas and which provided an eventual
reserve for a neocolonialist changeover. In August, 1975 Stockwell
met in Zaire with UNITA's Minister of Foreign Affairs who then accompanied
him to Silva Porto for an interview with Savimbi.
This contact mission was carried out with the approval of Colby, Kissinger
and the White House itself.
Arms, dollars and mercenaries
In his book In Search of Enemies John Stockwell states that the program was
launched when the first C-141 plane carrying arms left on July 29, 1975,
with two additional high priority flights in preparation. The arms
came from CIA warehouses in Texas and the cargo was prepared in South Carolina.
The Logistics Office was chiefly responsible for coordinating the US part
of the program, while the CIA Africa Division, together with the Special
Operations Group and liaison from the Air Forces, took charge of the composition
of the cargo and sent the formal memo to the Pentagon requesting the plane.
The station in Monrovia, Liberia, was in charge of refueling in the Robertsfield
Base and Kinshasa was responsible for unloading the goods. The US Navy
also contributed to implementing the "Program" by shipping arms to Zaire
on its transport ship The American Champion.
But all these arms failed to shake the resistance of the MPLA, and since
the FNLA-UNITA coalition had no popular support whatsoever, it withdrew from
the transitional government, relying more on the results of a foreign intervention
than on its own forces.
The CIA program then entered its most active and, to a certain extent, desperate
phase. Its primary objective was to seize Luanda at all costs before
November 11, the date set by the Alvor Accords for Portugal's withdrawal.
Among its desperate actions, the CIA roused the Portuguese who were still
in Luanda to kidnap planes with arms for the MPLA and fly them to Kinshasa,
for $30,000 per flight. Meanwhile, the Navy was to intercept ships
traveling between Luanda and Cabinda and support infantry actions on shore.
For this project, various types of ships were acquired and equipped with
artillery. Later they were turned over to the Zaireans and to Portuguese
mercenaries.
Meanwhile, commando battalions of Mobutu's army were flown in
C-130's to Ambriz, where the so-called government of Holden Roberto had been
set up. The brothers-in-law had decided that the occupation of Luanda,
before November 11, would be the first step toward converting Angola and
Zaire into a single state or a federation.
With the Zairean troops and the Portuguese mercenaries, what Col-by referred
to as "intelligence compilers" came to Angola. The latter were nothing
more or less than CIA experts who were supposed to direct, advise and train
FNLA and UNITA forces in Angola territory.
During this period, the CIA also established coordination with the French
Service for Foreign Documentation and Counterespionage (SDECE), after taking
into account France's economic interests in Angola. Major French oil
companies had created the FLEC to promote the recession of Cabinda, and on
the military level, France was acting as a bridge for supplying a substantial
portion of the weapons projected for the program.
The SDECE received intelligence reports from the CIA in Paris and, in August
1975, CIA deputy director Vernon Walters promised that organization $250,500
to recruit mercenaries. Bob Denard, a longtime mercenary who had fought
for Mobutu in the Congo, was in charge of recruitment while the SDECE was
to provide passports and visas and solve any legal problem that arose.
South Africa, a friend of the CIA
The former head of the Task Force for Angola says that some time before the
invasion by the South African Army, the head of the CIA Africa Division,
Potts was in favor of South Africa's participation. The heads of the
CIA stations in Kinshasa, Pretoria and Lusaka agreed with Potts and expressed
their support for direct participation by the South Africans. "CIA
ties with South Africa's Bureau of State Security (BOSS) go back to the 60s
when they worked in close coordination in recruiting mercenaries for the
civil war in the Congo", according to the magazine Counter Spy.
"Later", the magazine continues, "the United States went all out in developing
the operational capacities of South African intelligence, especially in the
realm of the strategic center of sea routes around the Cape, monitoring places
that allowed them to look both north and south, in order to spy on the governments
and liberation movements of Africa."
Thus, the Pretoria station maintained close links with the leadership of
BOSS. CIA officers in the Kinshasa station and representatives of BOSS
received two C-130 planes in Ndjilli and supervised the transfer of their
cargos to a CIA c-141 that would carry the arms to Silva Porto, on October
20, 1975, following orientations from CIA general headquarters.
It is known that the director of BOSS made two personal visits to Washington
for secret meetings with the head of the CIA's Africa Division.
After the 11th
Midnight of November 10, 1975 came to Luanda, without the FNLA- UNITA, without
mercenaries, Zaireans and South Africans; without Holden Roberto being able
to go beyond his improvised lookout -- from which he would no longer look
to the south.
The FAPLA victory in Quifandongo, and those in Quibala and Gavela, which
stopped the South African blitzkrieg short, had saved Angola's independence
and its future. The course of the war had been virtually determined.
But that didn't stop the CIA's interventionist activity. Supplies of
arms were stepped up between Kinshasa and Carmona, where the focal point
of the FNLA was located then, and the recruiting of mercenaries was reactivated,
now with the limited objective of achieving the division of the country.
CIA efforts to use mercenaries in Angola increased at the end of 1975 and
continued thereafter, even following the December 17, 1975, US Senate vote,
by an overwhelming majority, prohibiting the use of US combat personnel or
any type of aid to the divisionist groups in Angola "without the full authority
of the US Congress". In defiance of that decision, the CIA established
bases for recruiting mercenaries in London, Paris and Madrid and in some
US cities.
At the beginning of December, 1975, the CIA made contact in Madrid with former
Colonel Santos E. Castro, with a view to making plans to recruit a mercenary
force of 300 Portuguese, who would go and fight with the FNLA --a force for
which an initial sum of $110,000 was budgeted, although the total operation,
including the costs of recruitment, wages, plane flights, maintenance in
Angola and medical expenses, would come to more than $1.5 million.
In Miami, Manuel Artime, the well-known CIA agent an chief of the mercenary
invasion of Cuba, set up a recruitment office to form a support brigade for
UNITA and FNLA action, offering individual monthly salaries of up to $1,000.
Around this time, in January of 1976, AP released statements by the Playa
Giron mercenary Jose Antonio Prats, who claimed to be "representative of
the UNITA and we have requests from Cubans and Latin Americans..."
According to the public testimony of the mercenaries tried in Luanda, there
were various organizations controlled by the CIA that were engaged in the
recruitment of mercenaries, such as the World Wild Geese Club, Phoenix Associated
and Omega Group Limited.
In London there were two offices for this purpose, the Security Advisory
Services (SAS) and the Mercenary Forces Group. In February, 1976, John
Best, spokesman for the former, revealed that the recruitment was financed
with US money that had been received through Major James E. Leonard, Assistant
US Army Attache to the US Embassy in London, who acted as liaison with the
SAS.
The CIA hasn't stopped
Even after the crushing defeat of the mercenaries in the provinces bordering
on Zaire, strong repulsion of the attempts to invade Cabinda and the total
withdrawal of South African troops, the CIA didn't give up organizing and
financing actions against Angola.
The ex-head of the CIA in Angola points out in his book that, with the first
part of the Angola adventure over in September, 1976, the CIA had already
begun to evolve its intervention program for Ethiopia. At that time,
in a meeting among Stockwell, the director of operations, and the head of
the Ethiopia Somalia-Section, the future program for Ethiopia began to be
drawn up. To Stockwell's surprise, the director of operations proposed
that the CIA could request the launching of another covert action in the
Horn of Africa.
The Luanda trial of mercenarism had barely ended when a meeting took place
in the Azores Islands, in June, 1976 organized by the Political Adviser to
the Head of UNITA, a US citizen and CIA official, with the aim of reactivating
cooperation between the counterrevolutionary group and the Agency.
In May of that year, the Organization of Free Africa (OAL) was created to
infiltrate into the former Portuguese colonies and try to destabilize their
governments through such actions as sabotage, criminal assaults and assassinations.
OAL headquarters was in Madrid and it had branches in Miami, Paris and other
important cities. Its most active members included a number of Cuban-born
counterrevolutionaries, whose representative belonged to the counterrevolutionary
CORU group, protected, naturally by the CIA.
More recent information indicates the arrival in Zaire after December, 1977,
of groups of French, US and Belgian mercenaries whose mission is to support
operations against Angola in Maquela de Zamboen in the north.
The CIA hasn't stopped its "program" in Angola, nor in the rest of Africa
--wherever the people decide to struggle to become masters of their own destiny.
The CIA continues to be the operational arm of US imperialism's policy of
acting as international gendarme, an arm for the forces of peace, progress
and socialism to cut off.
The "Maxim" Case
A movie house was the clue that led to the identification and location of
Francisco Munoz Olive (alias Montes), once the state security bodies had
collected sufficient information to know that there existed in Cuba an individual
who worked for the CIA under that alias.
Who was Montes? Where did he live? What did he do? What were his activities?
Cuban security had received a scanty piece of information during its investigations:
"He lives near or in front of a movie house, one block away from Ayestaran,
a street in the center of Havana."
The only movie house in this location was the Maxim theater. Therefore,
from then on, the Security Bodies began to refer to the search for Montes,
the CIA agent, as the Maxim case.
Shortly thereafter, with the help of the mass organizations, particularly
the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, they determined that in
front of that movie house, on Bruzon Street, in the house numbered 65, in
apartment number 2, lived a tall, heavy- set man, light complected, who had
been a member of the police force for many years prior to the Revolution
and presently received a pension from the State. This man was Francisco
Munoz Olive. He was the CIA agent Montes.
The CIA had provided Montes with the technical equipment that he used in
his work: a radio received, carbon paper for invisible writing, code
keys for receiving messages, etc.
___(photograph)
with caption: Radio-receiver used to capture messages sent from the
United States.
The first important contact that Montes made in order to build his network
was Rafaela Rojas, who had a long and ominous counterrevolutionary history
in Oriente province and who had been convicted and imprisoned by a revolutionary
court for these activities.
It was through Joan of Arc, the alias that Montes himself gave Rojas when
she moved to Havana after serving her sentence, that Munoz Olive recruited
some of the members of his network. Montes himself spent long "rest"
periods in a chalet belonging to his wife's family in the city of Holguin,
and here he directly recruited an expoliticker from that region into the
network.
Montes did not spent all his time "resting", as he would have it appear.
He spent much of his time collecting economic, political and military information
on Oriente and he sent his secretly written messages to the CIA right from
Holguin. He often went to Santiago de Cuba, the capital of former Oriente
providence, in order to meet with one of his collaborators who had moved
from Havana to Santiago shortly after having been recruited into the group.
Another target point for the network was the area of Antilla and Banes, in
Oriente. Some members were recruited from this very area, including
Melba de Feria Santiesteban, a large landholder who was affected by the Agrarian
Reform Law and who became one of the most important of agent Montes' collaborators,
after "Joan of Arc" left the country.
Melba de Feria, profoundly reactionary and anti-communist, played a leading
role in the network as the link between her boss and some of his collaborators.
She herself recruited Dr. Martha Frayde Barraque (alias Fuente) and for a
long time acted as the direct link between the doctor and Montes. Fuentes,
as she was known in combat by the CIA, became a source of very valuable information.
She had many friends and a wide variety of activities that permitted her
to obtain information that she systematically relayed to the CIA network
chief.
Dr. Martha Frayde Barraque took advantage of her large social circle, composed
of both personal and professional relations, to obtain secret information
on Cuba, which she then handed over to the government of the United States.
The group of informants was varied and dissimilar, although the majority
could be identified as reactionary elements, embittered, traitors --enemies
of the Revolution. It is worth noting that
Dr. Frayde maintained personal contracts with members of the diplomatic corps
accredited in Cuba, through which the CIA agent managed to acquire illegal
resources and materials for her enemy activity.
Also, Dr. Frayde maintained regular contacts with Cuban elements who, attracted
by diversionist propaganda and campaigns coming from the Chinese Embassy
in Cuba, provided her with information about these matters.
The information which Martha Frayde obtained was so important to the CIA
that this US Government agency decided to pay her a monthly salary in dollars
which was collected in Madrid, Spain, by the doctor's good friend Maria Sifontes
Vazquez (alias Beba). Beba was to safe the money since Dr. Frayde was
planning to leave Cuba.
MSJ ONE EIGHT FIVE X RECEIVED SIX BUT FOUR MISSING X PLEASE SEND AGAIN FOUR
STILL URGENTLY NEED MESSAGE ONE EIGHT FOUR ON POLITICAL PRISONERS XX ON TRAINING
OF CHILEANS AND VENEZUELANS AND NAMES AND AIMS FORESEEN XXX STILL INTERESTED
IN PLANS LEAVE OR SEND CUBAN FORCES TO ANY PART AFRICA AND IS THERE WAY OF
KNOWING WHEN ISIDORO MALMIERCA LEAVES FOR TRIP AND TO WHERE XX GREETINGS
MAXIMO
One of the characteristics of this type of espionage network is the observance
of the classical rules of compartmentalization and secrecy. Since Munoz
Olive served many years in police forces and had been educated directly by
CIA and FBI officials with whom he had tight relations, he rigorously demanded
the application of the standard rules that US intelligence agencies follow
in order to safeguard their subversive and illegal activities.
The official links between Munoz Olive and US repressive bodies were established
before the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. At that time, he maintained
relations with US citizens accredited as diplomats of the US Embassy in Cuba.
Actually, they were advisers from the Batista police force. After January
1, 1959, Munoz Olive expanded these relations, particularly with David Morales,
a US Embassy attache, who took charge of recruiting into the Yankee Central
Intelligence Agency. In practice, Munoz Olive became Morales' operative
assistant and carried out numerous intelligence tasks for him. Afterwards,
other CIA officials were put in charge of Munoz Olive until, in 1961, diplomatic
relations between the US and Cuba were severed.
Agent Montes, considered to be a very reliable and trustworthy man and having
the endorsement of long-standing official links with the FBI, was useful
to the Intelligence Service that functioned in Yankee diplomatic headquarters
and, particularly, to CIA officials who collaborated with him in different
activities, such as accompanying and guiding North Americans who were carrying
out complex and sensitive intelligence operations, recruiting telegraph operators
and sources of information, selecting and furnishing secret houses for training
agents, and moving in espionage equipment and materials.
Montes spy ring was duly supplied with special modern communications equipment.
These were built in the CIA laboratories and were supplied to the principal
agent by means of caches or deposits made in secure, previously selected
places. Agent Munoz Olive, who had a car, drove to places near the
coast outside Havana, in the area of Guanabo, the Mariel road, and other
sites, in order to pick up shipments of transmitters, accessories, and large
sums of Cuban money which the CIA headquarters sent periodically from the
US.
Each Wednesday, at 10 a.m., and each Saturday at 11:30 a.m., the windows
and balcony doors of 65 Bruzon Street, apartment 2, closed. These were
t he days and the hours in which the CIA transmitted to Francisco Munoz Olive
directly from Langley, Virginia. On those days, at those times, Munoz
Olive exhibited a keen love for Spanish instrumental music, in particular,
two pieces: "El Relicario" (The Relic), and "Por el Mundo" (In this
world).
When one of these pieces was heard over the frequency on which Olive was
to receive the transmission, it indicated that a message would or would not
be transmitted that day. If "El Relicario" was played, Olive would
take pencil and paper and copy the numbers which were transmitted immediately
afterwards. If the other piece was played, Olive would be able to open
his windows and doors once again. That day there would be no message.
What interests did the CIA raise with Montes? Many and varied ones.
In the messages from Langley, signed by Maximo, the network was urged to
obtain secret information about military, economic and political affairs:
military units, the movements of the leaders of the Revolution and their
friends, the harvest, friendship with diplomats, wives, and technicians from
socialist countries, international events held in Cuba, Cuba's policies with
respect to Latin America. These were among the more frequent interests
that the CIA raised with Munoz Olive for the purpose of using this information
in plans against Cuba.
We want to refer to one specific matter. After 1970, the CIA pressed
Montes' network several times to transmit information about Chilean exiles
and other Chilean revolutionaries living in Cuba.
With this request for information that obviously has nothing to do with "the
security of the United States Government", the CIA once again manifested
its complicity with Pinochet and the criminals that have installed a fascist
regime in Chile. For what and for whom does the CIA information about
the activities of Chileans in Cuba?
As is known, one of the main objectives of the activities against Cuba planned
by the CIA has been the physical elimination of Commander in Chief Fidel
Castro, and espionage has been used for these criminal ends.
The Agency instructed Munoz Olive to collect information about the movements
of revolutionary leaders and government officials, particularly about their
trips outside of Cuba, and transmit this information to Langley.
They wanted to know the dates and itineraries of trips. Why did the
CIA want this type of information? Perhaps to carry out its diabolical,
terrorist, criminal plans?
For some time now the windows and doors of the apartment in front of the
Maxim theater do not have to be closed on certain morning hours of Wednesday
and Saturday. The network of spies has been captured.
The Department of State Security captured from the ring-leader's house the
RR-48 and its accessories, the carbon paper for invisible writing, drafts
of messages received and sent, informative reports from the members of the
network, codes for ciphering and deciphering messages, counterrevolutionary
propaganda, a gun other instruments that Munoz Olive used when he belonged
to the repressive bodies of the Batista tyranny, and large sums of money.
All this was found in hiding places behind an altar, in a false compartment
of a night table, and inside of books hollowed out to store money.
And so the Maxim case was closed.
Conversation with "Delfin"
The CIA Radio-station in Havana up to January 3rd. 1961
___(photographs
with caption: 1. John Z. Williams, officer of the CIA Station in Havana 1959.
2. David A. Morales Sanchez, officer of the CIA station in Havana,
1959
A US Senate Select Committee for investigating US intelligence activities
chaired by Frank Church, has recently acknowledged publicly that a CIA station
operated out of the US Embassy in Havana --as a center of subversion, destabilization,
counterrevolution and plots to assassinate Fidel Castro and other leaders
of the Revolution-- up to the very day the Eisenhower administration decided
to break relations with Cuba.
This is no news to our people. As early as 1959, Cuban Security officers,
among them Valiente G. Gonzalez Morales, managed to penetrate the CIA Station
in Havana as recruits and even played a significant role in the counterrevolutionary
plots that were hatched there.
___(photographs)
with caption:
1. Roberto E. Van Horn, head of the CIA radio Station in Havana, until
January 3rd, 1961
2. Erikson S. Nichols, officer of the CIA Station in Havana, 1959.
3. Delfin
In 1959, on instructions from our newly created state security bodies Gonzalez
Morales (Delfin) managed to learn certain details about how the CIA Station
on the 5th floor of the US Embassy systematically operated and directed activities
against the Cuban Revolution organizing counterrevolutionary groups; recruiting
counterrevolutionary leaders; promoting banditry; supplying arms, ammunition,
sabotage material and funds to counterrevolutionary groups and organizations,
and plotting the overthrow of the revolutionary government in line with CIA
and US governmental plans.
First, Delfin infiltrated the Anti-Communist Legion of the Caribbean (LAC),
led by the CIA in that area. When a LAC branch was set up in Cuba,
he met with Carlos Dominguez, a member of the CIA operation group and Vice
President of Chrysler Company in Havana. According to Delfin, "this
Dominguez had played and important role as a CIA agent in the operation that
wound up with the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala."
Three other members of the LAC leadership also took part in that meeting
held early in 1959 at Dominguez's house in Nautico Residential Area:
Julio Oton Sanchez, national coordinator; Erbe Vergara, Roberto Hernan.
Erbe Vergara was also a Cuban State Security officer and the enemy used that
interview to recruit Delfin and Vergara for the CIA
"Dominguez asked me a great number of questions, Delfin related: my
social background, whether I had been baptized, whether I had participated
in the revolutionary struggle, whom I had worked with in the revolutionary
movement, what I thought about Communism, my date of birth...A few days later,
I was summoned to the American Embassy.
"The Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean had the CIA's ok but we were
told not to let the rank-and-file members of LAC in on the fact that it was
run by the CIA and was in contact with the US Embassy.
The CIA Station in Havana was on the 5th floor of the Embassy. I was
given an ordinary envelope containing a code name that admitted me to the
CIA station office where I was received by CIA station chief, Major Robert
Van Horn. Dominguez introduced him to me and told me that Robert would
give me a rundown on the structure and functioning of the counterrevolutionary
organization.
"I went to lots of meetings always alone, as was the case with other leaders
of the Anti-Communist League. We all had different days. I used
to go on Tuesdays, at 10 a.m. At first we were given a sort of training
course in how our counterrevolutionary organization should work.
"We were told how to set up a counterrevolutionary organization, the different
sections to be created, everything that had to be set up and put into operation,
the compartmentalization that had to abe maintained among the members...They
would say it had to be organized from the top down and not from the bottom
up, to prevent penetration by Cuba's G-2, or state security bodies.
"LAC should accomplish certain missions and carry out liaison work.
Through LAC, the CIA would supply military equipment to other counterrevolutionary
organizations, bands, terrorist groups. They incited and support the
rise of counterrevolutionary bands. LAC for example, was entrusted
with creating a banditry center in Pinar del Rio. At first their plan
was to divide the country into three parts and launch a US-supported invasion
on the southern part of Cuba. We were very often told about the need
to eliminate Fidel, Raul, Che and other leaders of the Revolution.
"Robert Van Horn and Dominguez assigned me the task of organizing action
and sabotage cells and a supply network for the counterrevolutionary bands,
with a chain of contacts and liaison with other counterrevolutionary organizations
in every province, to determine where it would be possible to stage the bandit
uprisings and, in general, supply weapons, ammunitions and military equipment
"They provided me with certain contacts with bands already established in
Las Villas province. In Santa Clara, for example, the CIA liaison with
bandit chiefs Evelio Duque, first and Tomas San Gil later, was Mr. Bonanza.
I was also provided with contacts that the CIA had with Benito Campos' and
Blas Tardio's bands and others.
"I held several interviews with their respective liaisons, with the aim of
making maps of the area so dates, signals and sites could be selected for
dropping weapons. These weapons, which the CIA sent in from abroad,
gradually fell into the hands of the Rebel Army, since I naturally passed
this information on to our headquarters in the Cuban Security immediately.
"Roberto and Dominguez appointed me Head of Action and Sabotage of the Anti-Communist
League of the Caribbean and CIA liaison. This was made official in
June, 1960, at a meeting to step up counterrevolutionary activity, explain
LAC's role in the final phase of the plan against Cuba, and what steps the
US Government and revolutionary government.
"That meeting was called by CIA officers Major Robert Van Horn, Carlos Dominguez
and Lieutenant Colonel Erikson S. Nichols, known as "Frank" whose cover
was a diplomatic post in the US Embassy. Some 20 CIA trained LAC members
also attended this meeting held at a farm in Cacahual owned by a counterrevolutionary.
It was planned as a birthday party so as not to arouse suspicion.
"Among other things we were told that we would have to supply men for the
bands and send men abroad for training; that they would supply weapons to
the organizations and bandits; establish an economic and diplomatic blockade
of Cuba; stage a provocation -- a fake aggression against Guantanamo Naval
Base, and that there would be a US supported invasion from abroad.
On December 3, 1960, the Cuban State Security arrested more than 40 ringleaders
of counterrevolutionary gangs. At their trial, both Delfin, the alleged
CIA agent and LAC Head of Action and Sabotage, and Erbe Vergara, testifies
and publicly unmasked the CIA's participation in every subversive and criminal
action against Cuba.
Finally, they charged that US diplomatic headquarters in Havana was being
used by the CIA to direct the counterrevolution and aggressive plots against
our country.
Significantly, just a few days later the Eisenhower administration decided
to break relations with Cuba in a new step to isolate Cuba and create an
international atmosphere propitious for launching the armed aggression against
Cuba engineered by the CIA from abroad.
Shortly thereafter, on January 3, 1961, the US Embassy closed its doors...
But the US Central Intelligence Agency's criminal and subversive activity
against the people, the Cuban Revolution and its leaders did not stop.
A CIA provocation
The CIA espionage and control centre, opposite the Cuban Embassy and Consulate,
at 149-1 Francisco Marquez Street in the Capital of Mexico.
From the vantage point, photos of all Cuban officials and visitors to the
Cuban diplomatic offices were made, bugging devices installed in the various
diplomatic offices were monitored and communications were established with
a CIA surveillance team to check and harass anyone who went to the Consulate
Embassy.
There are no limits to CIA activities against Cuba, to carry out its illegal
and anti-Cuban activities, the Central Intelligence Agency often uses third
countries, even those that maintain good relations with Cuba, in an effort
to create problems for these governments.
A good example of this was the CIA surveillance and espionage of the Cuban
Embassy and Consulate in Mexico City, their staff and visitors. All
this work was done inside Mexico, in flagrant violation of the laws of that
friendly country and with disdain for the sincere feelings of sympathy and
friendship the people of Benito Juarez's homeland felt for the Cuba of Jose
Marti.
In his book, published in 1975, former CIA agent Philip Agee revealed that
"The Cuban operations section (in Mexico) consists of two case officers.
Francis Sherry and Joe Piccolo, and a secretary under Embassy cover and one
case officer under non-official cover. An observation post for photographic
coverage and radio contact with the LIEMBRACE surveillance team is functioning,
as well as LIENVOY telephone monitoring and LIFIRE airport travel control.
Agee went on to say that "The most important current operation targeted against
the Cuban mission is an attempted audio penetration using the telephone system.
Telephone company engineers working in the LIDENY tapping operation will
eventually install new wall boxes for the Embassy telephones in which sub-
miniature transmitters with switches will have been cast by TSD".
The espionage and surveillance center
The LIEMBRACE surveillance team mentioned by Agee was headed by an individual
known as Guillermito, who lived at No. 1217 Pitagoras St., and had a mustard-yellow
Valiant, license plate number JV-532. At first, his headquarters were
at No. 16 Agrarismo St.
The operations center of this CIA team for harassing and spying on the Cuban
Consulate and Embassy was located at No. 149-1 Francisco Marquez St., Colonia
Condesa, opposite the Cuban mission. This group worked actively up
to 1972, when it was disbanded.
Up to that time, the CIA checked the entrance and exit of persons who visited
the Cuban Embassy and Consulate in Mexico City from there, photographing
everyone including the staff, using electronic espionage and installing bugging
devices in the diplomatic offices. It was also a liaison and communications
center for the CIA surveillance team in the surrounding area.
Alberto Cesar Augusto Rodriguez Gallego, who pretended to be a Colombian,
but was actually born in Havana, was the CIA's main agent in the Espionage
Center at No. 149 Francisco Marquez St.
___(photograph)
with caption: CIA agent Rodriguez Gallego who now lives in Spain
Data on Rodriguez Gallego
He was born in Havana on November 6, 1922, attended grammar school in Tampa,
Florida, and graduated from the University of Havana Law School. From
1941 to 1950, he worked in the legal department of the Cuban Finance Company,
and later for the Cuban Telephone Company, one of the most powerful US monopolies
on the Island. There, Rodriguez Gallego managed to become the president's
right- hand man.
He left Cuba for Mexico in 1960. There he lived at No. 800-1 Bolivar
Street, Colonia Alamos, Mexico, D.F. and, in late 1961 he moved to No. 149-1
Francisco Marquez Street, Colonia Condesa, Mexico 11. D.F. (Telephone 514-74-967).
Then and there, the CIA's Espionage and Surveillance Center came into existence.
From a window on the third floor of the house Rodriguez Gallego watched all
the visitors to the Consulate, working full time for the CIA throughout his
stay in Mexico.
When the CIA's LIEMBRACE group was temporarily disbanded in 1972, Rodriguez
Gallego hurriedly set off for Spain to carry out missions for the Central
Intelligence. There he bought apartment 7-A at No. 194 Manzanares Avenue,
Madrid 26, where he now lives.
He is listed as assistant director of the Berlitz English Language Academy,
at No. 80 Jose Antonio Avenue, Madrid.
Bugging Techniques
The espionage tapping operation that Philip Agee mentions in his book was
a CIA job that used the telephone network in the offices of the Cuban ambassador
and his secretary, in the consulate and the consul's office and in the sentry
box. Nor is this the only espionage action against the Cuban Consulate
and Embassy in Mexico City.
Another kind of device was discovered when the chairs in the ambassador's
office were sent to be upholstered. Another time the CIA placed a bugging
device in a sofa that had been sent for reupholstering, along with four chairs,
to the Bucky shop, at No. 418 Coyoacan Avenue, Acc. B. Colonia del Valle,
Mexico 12 D.F. It has been established that these espionage devices
were installed while the furniture was in that upholstery shop.
End of Page
Copyright 1998-2006
Cuban Information Archives. All Rights Reserved.
