Appendix

 

A Brief History of D.G.I.

 

In the preceding chapters I have told the story of my career with the Direccion General de Inteligencia. The espionage system built up by the government of Cuba, with guidance and assistance from the Soviet Union, has become one of the most sophisticated in the world. Little has ever been written about the D.G.I. The following, therefore, is an account of some of its operations and personnel.

 

Fidel Castro's intelligence service had its genesis in the mountains of eastern Cuba. The rebel movement, in 1957 and 1958, was engaged in guerrilla warfare against the forces of Dictator Fulgencio Batista. Campensinos – peasants ‑ moved back and forth between the govern­ment and rebel zones, and some of these rural folk kept the guer­rillas posted on the movements of the government's troops. In the nearby city of Santiago and extending across the island there was a clandestine rebel apparatus that served as a support organization for the guerrillas, funneling funds, recruits, and supplies into the hills. The underground also waged urban warfare ‑ terrorism, sabotage, propaganda ‑ and this attrition eventually so weakened the regime that the guerrilla forces were able to come down out of the hills and take over the country and the government.

 

A major coup ‑ from the viewpoint of attracting worldwide publi­city to the rebel cause ‑ was scored by the rebel intelligence service in 1958. The United States government, in an effort to maintain its neutrality in the Cuban civil war, suspended the shipment of weap­ons to the Batista regime in March 1958.

 

Nevertheless, the United States did subsequently provide Batista with live ammunition to replace practice warheads which had been previously sent to him by mistake under a mutual security agreement. What happened next has been described by Raul Castro in an article he wrote titled "Operation Antiaircraft." Raul recounted:

 

At the end of May, our Department of Rebel Intelligence handed me a photograph and a document of exceptional im­portance. It was a photograph taken inside the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo, where two of Batista's planes could be seen alongside a parked American truck loaded with ammunition. The insignia on the planes, alongside the U.S. emblem on a hut close to the airstrip, left no doubt as to those planes being Batista's and receiving help from the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. The other document, even more important, had been torn from a record book of war material dispatched from the Guantanamo Naval Base. Taken from the files of the base, it was dated May 8, 1958 and bore the signa­ture of an authority in charge of such procedures. This was a detailed account of the shipment of North American war ma­terial by the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo to the Batista government.

 

Raul Castro decided to utilize the opportunity thus presented in order to create an international furor. At this time the guerrillas were being severely harassed by Batista's air force, and Raul felt that if he were to seize Americans living within the rebel zone and hold them, Batista would call off the air raids out of fear of injuring the captives. The rebels would use, Raul decided, the shipment of ammu­nition to Batista as the pretext for the mass kidnapping.

 

With the victory of the rebel cause and the establishment of the Castro government, Castro set his sights on a larger target, the Carib­bean and then the entire Southern Hemisphere. The first attempts at subversion were crude. Filibustering expeditions were dispatched to a number of countries, but were quickly wrapped up by the defense forces of these countries. Cuba turned to more sophisticated meth­ods of subversion, and its intelligence operations were concerned mainly with supporting these efforts. The primary function of Cuban intelligence was, and has remained through the years, the support of subversion and guerrilla warfare in target countries, coun­tries which have ranged geographically from Canada to Argentina, from the United States to Zanzibar. Cuban intelligence operations and subversive projects have usually been so interwoven that they have been virtually indistinguishable.

 

Cuban intelligence functions were originally the responsibility of G‑2, a department of the Ministry of Interior. (Subsequently this section was named the Departamento de Seguridad del Estado, al­though it is still popularly known as "G‑2.") In late 1961, owing to Cuba's increasing interest in foreign affairs, the Direccion General de Inteligencia (General Directorate of Intelligence) was created as a separate entity within the Interior Ministry. The D.G.I. is headed by Major Manuel Pineiro Losada, who is First Vice‑Minister and Techni­cal Vice‑Minister of the Ministry, the latter capacity giving him authority over D.G.I. Pineiro's high rank attests to the importance attached by Castro to his espionage service. Pineiro had been one of the guerrilla officers serving under Raul Castro during the Revolu­tion. At one time a student at Columbia University in New York, Pineiro evidently met there the American girl who was to become his wife. Sporting a red beard, Pineiro is sometimes known as Barba Roja, which, when one thinks about it, seems quite appropriate for the chief of Fidel Castro's Communist spy service.

 

One of the first functions of D.G.I. was the running of special schools for the training of Latin Americans in guerrilla warfare and subversive techniques. At one time, early in the sixties, as many as 1,500 men a year were being brought to Cuba for training. Once a major air and sea hub for travel in the hemisphere, Cuba's virtual exclusion from the hemispheric political system sharply cut down transportation means to and from the island. Nevertheless, flights have continued between Havana and Mexico City and Madrid, and there are also flights to and from Iron Curtain cities via Algeria. These circuitous routes were utilized to bring Latin Americans to Cuba, and use was also made of clandestine methods: Communist freighters and Cuban fishing boats.

 

Once in Havana, the trainees were grouped by nationality. Usual­ly there were fifteen to twenty‑five men in each group, although there might be as few as three. The various nationalities were generally kept apart, for security reasons as well as because the courses given to the different groups varied. Venezuelans concentrated on guerrilla operations and sabotage techniques. Chileans, coming from a country with a strong Communist Party, were coached on further­ing the Communist cause through political methods. In special cases, emphasis was placed on techniques of agitation and propaganda in particular fields in which the trainees were involved in their home­lands: unions, universities, intellectual organizations, or such.

 

Guerrilla warfare courses lasted three to six months, but occasion­ally as long as a year. Trainees showing particular promise were sometimes given additional training to become intelligence agents when they returned to their home countries. Appearing before an investigating committee of the Organization of American States in June 1967, a Venezuelan, Manuel Celestino Marcano Carrasquel, de­tailed the subversive preparation he had received in Cuba. Marcano testified:

 

I took courses in guerrilla and counter‑guerrilla tactics, theory and practice; assembling and disassembling short and long weapons, automatic and semi‑automatic weapons, especially some of the ones that were easiest to acquire, especially "Springfield," "Garand," "Fals," M‑1, "Mendoza" machine guns, as well as the Mexican, the .30 and .50 caliber; theory and practice of firing long and short weapons; security mea­sures; then rapid firing, which they call "Mexican defense." In explosives I was given a course that covered homemade bombs using chlorate, grenades, booby traps, "Molotov cocktails" of various kinds ‑ including wickless, detonating wicks, blasting caps, calculation of charge. They put a great deal of emphasis on blowing up oil pipelines .... Then in topography: I took a course in map‑making and map‑reading, including reading of tactical maps, contour lines, intersection, reception, scientific orientation and practice with the compass.

 

There were a relatively large number of people in Marcano's origi­nal group, but most were eventually weeded out. He reported: "We began with 150 persons. After three months we numbered 50. Later the number was ten. Apparently they [the instructors] made a series of observations with regard to the ability and ductility of each indi­vidual."

 

The group was also given instruction in a range of intelligence and clandestine fields. This included: "Checks and counterchecks . . . Hiding places for making indirect contacts; places where it would have been possible to leave explosives, arms, money; the internation­al post boxes for indirect correspondence on the basis of cryptog­raphy . . . Underground organization and structure at various levels. Photography . . . Infiltration . . . The falsification of documents, make‑up, tailoring, simulation of dialects, phonetics, etc. This with regard to [false] identity."

 

Never before had so ambitious a program of subversion been launched by a small country. North Viet Nam has tried to subvert South Viet Nam; Cuba was aiming at subverting an entire continent. The Castro‑Guevara program was one of the most systematized sub­versive schemes in the annals of the Cold War. The tentacles reached out from Havana to every corner of the continent.

 

Despite its ostracism by the Latin American community because of its continued efforts at subversion, the Castro regime has persisted in its program. What could only be termed an international confer­ence to foment subversion was held in Havana from January 3 to 15, 1966. It was officially called the "First Conference of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America," but for brevity's sake it has come to be known as the "Tricontinental Conference." The hosts were the Communist Party and government of Cuba, and the joint sponsors were the Communist‑dominated Afro‑Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organization, with headquarters in Cairo, and Latin American Communist parties and subversive groups. Attending were approximately 512 delegates, 64 observers, and 77 invited guests. The official delegates represented 82 countries and territo­ries. The Soviet delegation, consisting of forty members, was the largest at the conference.

 

Whatever fiction may have existed that international communism did not engage in subversive practices was dispelled at the Triconti­nental. The agenda was crowded with such phrases as "Struggle against imperialism . . . Struggle for complete national liberation . . . Intensification of all forms of struggle . . . Ways and means of aiding the liberation movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America . . . Burning issues of the struggle . . . Anti‑imperialist solidarity, and so on. In spite of splits within the conference, especially the Sino-­Soviet division, the Tricontinental passed 73 resolutions on a variety of subjects. These were summed up in the declaration, "The Confer­ence proclaims the inalienable right of the peoples to total political independence and to resort to all forms of struggle that are necessary, including armed struggle, in order to conquer that right." In a closing speech to the delegates, Fidel Castro declared that the Tri­continental had been "a great victory of the revolutionary movement."

 

Two permanent organizations grew out of the conference. The first, created by resolution of the conference itself, was the Organi­zation of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin Ameri­ca, whose task was "to unite coordinate, and further the struggle" on those three continents. The second organization was created by the 27 Latin American delegations after the close of the Tricontinen­tal. On January 16 they announced establishment of the Latin American Organization of Solidarity (Organizaciort Latino‑americana de Solidaridad‑O.L.A.S.). Its aim was "to utilize all the means with‑

in its reach in order to support the movements of liberation."

 

The O.L.A.S. was of especial interest to Castro and his regime.

 

Through its establishment, a facade of international recognition and respectability ‑ at least among the Communists ‑ was granted to the subversive efforts directed by Cuba against other Latin American countries. The headquarters of O.L.A.S. was set up in Havana, and the First Conference of Solidarity of the Latin American Peoples was held in that city July 28‑August 5, 1967. One hundred and

sixty‑four delegates, plus 104 observers and guests, attended the conference, and the usual resolutions were passed. A statement pro­claimed, "It is a right and a duty of the peoples of Latin America to carry out the Revolution." "Che" Guevara, at this time embarked on his Bolivian adventure, was "President of Honor" of the conference. He had dispatched a message, published in April in Havana, which had set the theme for the Castro‑Communist subversive program: the message called for the creation of "two, three, or many Viet Nams" aimed at completely bogging down the United States in guerrilla wars around the globe.

 

One would have thought that the conquest of Latin America was a sufficiently ambitious project for Castro and Guevara. Not at all. Their attention to Africa went far beyond inviting African dele‑

gates to the Tricontinental Conference. Cuba's designs on the Dark Continent dated back to 1961. Toward the end of that year an office of the Zanzibar National Party was opened in Havana. In mid‑1962, at the time when Soviet troops began pouring into Cuba, U.S. intelligence officials were puzzled by reports that a number of Africans had also arrived on the island. As it turned out, they were there to receive indoctrination and training in subversion. Men from at least nine African countries‑Ghana, Mali, the Congo, Nigeria, Spanish Guinea, South Africa, Kenya, Tanganyika, and Zanzibar­ were given instruction.

 

Cuba enjoyed the first fruits of its efforts in January 1964. John Okello, an African Negro trained in Cuba, assembled a force of some 600 guerrillas in Zanzibar and led them in successful raids on two police armories. The guerrillas then swept into Zanzibar Town, handed out weapons, and quickly overthrew the pro‑Western govern­ment. Some of the guerrillas had been trained in Cuba and they sported fidelista beards and berets‑quite a spectacle in an African capital. The "People's Republic of Zanzibar" was established, and it was promptly recognized by Cuba and the Iron Curtain countries.

 

"Che" Guevara, the fervent advocate of guerrilla warfare, was the mastermind behind Cuba's vast subversive program. Violence, di­rected and fueled by Havana, touched virtually every country in Latin America, and in some places it reached dangerous proportions. Nevertheless, the end result that was sought ‑ the establishment of other Communist governments ‑ was not achieved. Guevara's myrmi­dons approached, but never quite grasped, victory. At some point Guevara decided to relinquish his managerial role, leave Cuba, and go back into the field as a guerrilla commander once again. Guevara had always been a restless individual, and perhaps he had found pro­longed residence in one country, Cuba, too confining. Perhaps he had tired of playing second fiddle to Fidel Castro. The continued failures of Cuba's subversive efforts may have convinced him that his personal leadership was required if a guerrilla movement were to succeed.

 

The disappearance and clandestine travels of Guevara were one of the intelligence feats of the Cold War. Guevara was the top man in Cuba after the Castro brothers, he was a prominent figure in the ranks of international communism, and he was recognized around the world as a guerrilla chieftain and theoretician. For a person of this stature to drop completely out of sight was a unique and bizarre occurrence in modern times. Rumors cropped up that Guevara had appeared in this or that place around the world, but none of these were confirmed, and some experts on Cuban affairs became con­vinced that Guevara was dead, the victim of either illness or assassi­nation.

 

Although some of Guevara's travels and activities during the period 1965‑1966 remain in mystery, it has now become possible to reconstruct a portion of his wanderings. Evidently disguised as a priest, Guevara secretly slipped out of Cuba and made his way to the Congo, there to lead a guerrilla operation which included a number of Cubans. Guevara had chosen Africa because he believed that, since it was more distant from the United States, a rebel movement there would have a greater chance of success than one in Latin America. In the Congo, at a place called Baraca, Guevara's forces battled troops led by famed mercenary leader Michael Hoare. Years later, in an interview, Hoare described what happened:

 

 

When we arrived at Baraca, which . . . was an amphibious operation the first thing that impressed itself upon me was the extent of the firepower which was being directed upon us, which was fantastic.

Congolese rebels' tactics would be normally to get drunk on, say, marijuana or something of that nature and to gather in thousands and to come on you in their thousands, overwhelm­ing. But this we didn't experience at Baraca. Here we had troops responding to whistle signals, wearing equipment, carry­ing out maneuvers, and this went on for four or five days.

 

Despite the fine combativeness displayed by his men, at least on this occasion, Guevara's African adventure ended disastrously. De­tails of this fiasco are recounted earlier in this book in the chapter titled "Guevara."

 

For months afterward the story of Guevara remains a blank. At some point he obtained two Uruguayan passports, made out to false identities. Although these passports were evidently genuine, the in­formation and signatures in one, possibly both, were false, and so it has not been possible to ascertain whether Guevara obtained these in Uruguay, or possibly France (one of the passports may have been sent to the Uruguayan Embassy in Paris), or whether they were obtained by D.G.I. for his use, without his having been in Uruguay or France. At any rate, Guevara eventually returned secretly to Cuba, and there began preparations to launch a guerrilla movement in Bolivia. Guevara's ambitions were still great: his long‑range plan was aimed not so much at the Bolivian government as at the entire continent of South America. The Bolivian movement was to serve as a spawning ground for additional guerrilla operations in adjoining countries, and particularly Argentina.

 

The mounting of the Bolivian movement required extensive intel­ligence work, in which D.G.I. played a major role. A Bolivian Communist purchased a farm in a hinterland area which was to serve as the guerrillas' base. Guevara, still in disguise, traveled to Spain and Brazil, and slipped into Bolivia early in November 1966. Sixteen Cubans, including high‑ranking officers, also traveled to Bolivia, at least one of them passing through the United States. In France, D.G.I. recruited Regis Debray to join and report on Guevara's guer­rillas. In Argentina, a man associated with a guerrilla group was summoned to Bolivia, where Guevara gave him detailed instructions on laying the groundwork for a rebel movement in their mutual homeland. For the same purpose, a Communist leader was brought from Peru to confer with Guevara. A D.G.I. official who used the code name "Ivan" served as a liaison between Guevara and Havana. Another D.G.I. official, Rene Martinez Tamayo (code name: "Ar­turo"), was Guevara's radio and explosives expert and died with him in Bolivia.

 

For, despite all the planning and preparations, Guevara's hopes came to naught. After eleven months of ambushes and skirmishes, Guevara was captured and executed by the Bolivian army. The Boli­vian adventure had been far more successful as an intelligence opera­tion than as a guerrilla rebellion. For D.G.I. it had been a project carried out on an international scale, and D.G.I.'s role in the affair did not terminate with "Che's" death. (See "Guevara" chapter.)

 

That D.G.I. was able to carry out its tasks on so wide a scale was an indication of how large and effective Fidel Castro's espionage service had grown since "Section M" of the Department of State Security became the nucleus of a new intelligence organization. Fol­lowing are details on the structure and personnel of D.G.I.

 

The headquarters in Havana is known as the Centro Principal. The major staffs are called "sections," and these in turn are divided into desks. The Principal Center is divided into ten sections, five of which handle operations, while the other five are of a support nature. The operational sections, and their areas of responsibility, are:

Section II‑1   Latin America

Section II‑2   Western Europe

Section III   Offices in Moscow, Prague, East Germany, Canada, Mexico, the United Nations

Section III‑1   Illegals

Section V   Africa and Middle East

 

 The support sections are:

 

Section III‑2    Contacts

Section IV   Personnel

Section M‑1   Technical Services

Documentation Center

Logistics

 

The work and personnel of the ten sections are as follows:

 

Sections II‑1 and II‑2. The overall chief is "Armando." He was the official at the Principal Center who was in charge of D.G.I. activities related to Guevara's Bolivian operation.

 

Section II‑1. "Ariel" is chief of this section under "Armando." "Ariel" is responsible for the six branches into which Latin America is divided. The six branches, and their branch chiefs, are:

 

Colombia / Venezuela / Ecuador   "Arana"

Brazil /Uruguay   "Fermin"

Argentina /Chile /Peru   "Jose Luis"

 Dominican Republic / Haiti / Jamaica "Jesus"

Guatemala / Central America "Noel"

Bolivia  "Lino”

 

Chiefs of country desks within the Section II‑1 branches include "Gary," chief of the Uruguayan desk, and "Jordan," chief of the Peruvian desk. "Gary" uses as his cover a position with the Cuban Institute of Friendship with Peoples (LC.A.P.). Among the personnel attached to Section II‑1 is "Renan," who as "Ivan" served as a liaison between D.G.I. and Guevara in Bolivia. "Renan" bears a strong resemblance to movie actor Kirk Douglas.

 

Section II‑1 maintains centers only in those hemisphere countries with which Cuba has diplomatic relations: Mexico, Jamaica, and Chile. Some of Section II‑1's activities are handled through the Intelligence Center in Paris. The Paris Center takes care of agents traveling through that city en route to or from Havana, and it establishes letter drops used by revolutionaries under the jurisdiction of II‑1, forwarding their correspondence to Havana.

 

On occasion, Section II‑1 officers travel abroad. In October 1967 the chief of the Dominican branch, "Jesus," traveled to Paris to meet the Dominican leader, Francisco Alberto Caamano. In November 1968 "Noel," the chief of the Guatemala/Central America Branch, went to Paris to meet Ricardo Ramirez de Leon, a leader of a Guatemalan revolutionary organization.

 

Section II‑2. "Julio" is the chief of this section. He personally supervises French, Austrian, Swiss, Portuguese, and possibly Spanish matters. His deputy is "Jose." Section II‑2 has seven country desks, each with five to eight officials. The desks: Austria, France/Belgium,

Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Each desk is responsible for supporting its respective overseas center.  Chief of the Italian desk is either "David," former head of the D.G.I. center in Rome, or Roberto Alvarez Barrera ("Remigio"). Alvarez was formerly assigned to Paris, where his cover position was that of Second Secretary of the Cuban Mission to U.N.E.S.C.O. In 1968 he was in charge of organizing participation of French youths in sum­mer work and indoctrination camps in Cuba. "Orestes" is chief of the Spanish desk. He was formerly First Secretary of the Cuban Embassy in Madrid. Chief of the French/Belgian desk is "Janio." Among the personnel in Section Il‑2 are: "Leyda," wife of section chief "Julio" and a member of the Cuban delegation to the General Assembly of U.N.E.S.C.O., a specialist in diplomatic affairs and busi­ness management procedures; "Magaly," who is responsible for counter‑intelligence and for contacts with journalists; "Manolo," who was trained in the Soviet Union; "Taimara," also trained in the Soviet Union; and "Isnoel," responsible for scientific and technical matters.

 

The overseas centers of Section II‑2 are located within the Cuban diplomatic posts in Geneva, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Paris, Rome, and Vienna. The Centro in Vienna is the newest, having been opened in the spring of 1968. There are no centers in Scandinavia, although it is believed D.G.I. plans to open one in Stockholm. Cuba closed its diplomatic mission in Athens in 1968, and Cuban interest in Greece are handled by the Cuban Embassy in Rome. Presumably any intelli­gence matters related to Greece are managed by the D.G.I. center in Rome. In Belgium, D.G.I. affairs were handled by a collaborator, Luis Palacios Rodriguez, who was Second Secretary of the Cuban Embassy in Brussels. In The Hague, D.G.I. was represented by Aldo Rodriguez Camps ("Aldo"), who was the Commercial Counselor of the Cuban Mission.

 

Among the D.G.I. personnel in Europe are/were the following:

 

Center              Names and other data                                      Position

Geneva            Santiago Diaz Pas ("Rodrigo").                  Chief

                        (Has cover position with U.N.

            office in Geneva.)

Lisbon              Mario Garcia Vazquez ("Daniel").                     Chief

London            Cristobal Fajardo Rabassa ("Abel").                       Chief

Madrid             Aristides Diaz Rovirosa ("Domingo").            Chief

                        Orlando Kautzman Torres                          Official

            (His wife may also work for D.G.I.)

Paris                 Armando Lopez Orta ("Arquimides").            Chief

(Was recalled as result of Orlando

Castro's defection.)

Rome               Adalberto Marrero Rodriguez                                 Chief   

(Was formerly Chief of Logistics

at Principal Center. Wife is also

believed to be D.G.I. official.)

"Oneido."                                                          Official

            (Trained in Soviet Union.)

Vienna              "Armando."                                                      Chief

            (Trained in Soviet Union.)

 

Section III. This section is divided into nine subsections: Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.), Counter‑Revolution, United Nations, Mexico, Canada, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and a false documents unit. Head of Section III is "Demetrio," who came to D.G.I. from the Department of State Security (D.S.E.) in August 1966. In D.S.E. he had been chief of "Section L," which was charged with surveillance of foreign diplomatic missions in Havana.

 

In the mid‑sixties an office of Section III called the C.I.A. and Counter‑Revolution Bureau had as its objective to penetrate C.I.A. and Cuban exile activities directed against the Castro regime. In August 1966 "Jacobo" was placed in charge of the C.I.A. group. He was a former officer of D.S.E.'s "Section L." "Candido," also a former D.S.E. officer, was put in charge of the Counter‑Revolution unit. In 1967 the Bureau was split, and the men remained as chiefs of the now separate desks.

 

The United Nations desk supports the activities of the D.G.I. Centro within the Cuban Mission to the United Nations. Most of the mission officials work for D.G.I. The U.N. Center maintains contact with subversive organizations in the United States, serves as a funnel for Cuban propaganda to enter this country, and through its agents, particularly in the Miami area, keeps track of the activities of Cuban exile organizations. It is Castro's espionage outpost within the United States.

 

The unit responsible for false documents is called "Diosdado's Group." The formal name of the unit is not known. This is the name by which it is always called, because it is headed by an official who uses the code name "Diosdado." It acquires the seals, stamps, and stationery of foreign embassies, as well as different types of paper from foreign countries. It secures maps, train schedules, photographs of airports, information about frontiers, and in general all types of information that may be useful to D.G.I. officials traveling abroad, including details on how foreign borders may be crossed illegally.

 

The D.G.I. center in Mexico City is responsible for supporting clandestine operations in that country as well as in the rest of Latin America, particularly Central America. Since Mexico City is one of the few places which still maintains a regular air route with Havana, the Mexico Centro assists the comings and goings of agents and subversive figures. The Centro also arranges for agents to be slipped across the border into the United States. Because of the variety of tasks carried out by this key office, its staff members probably are under the jurisdiction of more than one of the D.G.I. sections, al­though basically it functions as a part of Section III.

 

D.G.I. officials now or recently assigned to Mexico City include the following:

 

Name                                                   Cover position at Embassy, Consulate

Felix Luna Mederos                                  First Secretary

("Filiberto"), chief of Centro

Rafael Mirabel Fernandez                    Vice Consul, Attache

Edgardo Obulio                          Commercial Attache

Valdes Suarez

Enrique Micuel Cicard             Consul General,

Labrada                                               Third Secretary

Lineo Fernando                                    Consul

Salazar Chia

Juan Astorga                                        Employee

Frometa

Luis Ismael Cruz                             Arce Consul

Jesus Cruz Gonzalez                                  Second Secretary

 

The Section III center in Prague arranges for the travel, housing, and documentation of leftist revolutionaries en route to Cuba for training or consultation. Antonio Perez Caneiro ("Nico") is the chief of the center. His cover position is that of First Secretary of the Cuban Embassy. His brother, Ricardo Perez Caneiro, is also a D.G.I. official and also holds the position of First Secretary.

 

The centers in the Soviet Union and East Germany serve as liai­sons with the intelligence services of those countries. The Moscow Centro handles Cuban personnel sent to that country for intelligence training.

 

The D.G.I. center in Canada serves as an outlet for propaganda, handles agents slipping into or out of the United States, and is in touch with subversive separatist movements. For months in 1963 the city of Quebec was troubled by terrorists who were setting fires and placing bombs in public buildings. After intensive investigations, the police arrested seventeen members of an organization called Front de Liberation Quebecois. Among the leaders who were jailed was a former University of Montreal student, Georges Schoeters, who had met Castro during a trip the latter made to Montreal. Subsequently, Schoeters took two trips to Cuba, one of them of several months' duration, during which time he is believed to have been given in­struction in subversive techniques.

 

Section 111‑1. Sometime between mid‑1967 and early 1968 Sec­tion III (Illegals) was divided into two separate entities: Section III and Section III‑1, which became the "illegal" section. Section III retained most of the operational units of the former section, as described above. Section III‑1 is engaged in such activities as recruit­ment, training, and infiltration. It is headed by "Lucio." A subsec­tion, referred to by the code name of its chief, "Dario," is believed to have some responsibility for activities in other Communist coun­tries.

 

Section III‑2. This section, called Enlaces, provides D.G.I. offi­cials abroad with mail drops, safe houses, meeting sites, and accom­modation addresses. It also handles liaison with other organizations of the Cuban government, including D.S.E. "Quern" is the chief of the section. His deputy is Adalberto Quintana Suarez ("Sexto), who is also Vice‑Director of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with Peoples. Section III‑2 maintains a file on clandestine contact facili­ties throughout the world, available for any D.G.I. operation. " [Quintana was at one time Centro chief in Paris. Among his clandestine con­tacts was a French woman named Michele Firk. Firk committed suicide in September 1968 in Guatemala City in order to avoid arrest by Guatemalan authorities for her alleged participation in the assassination of U.S. Ambassa­dor John Mein.]

 

Section IV. Called Cuadros, this section is responsible for the recruitment and training of all D.G.I. staff personnel. It also selects personnel for the diplomatic courier service. The chief is believed to he "Pelayo." Another high official is Ramiro Rodriguez Gomez, who was the chief of the D.G.I. Centro in Rio de Janeiro from 1961 until Brazil severed relations with Cuba in 1964.

 

Section M‑1. This section supplies clandestine communications systems to D.G.I. personnel, as well as any technical support that may be needed. The section's facilities include an audio unit, a photographic unit, a concealment devices unit, and a codes and secret‑writing unit.

 

Documentation Center. This office takes care of official docu­ments used by D.G.I. personnel in their travels. The chief is "Facundo."

 

Logistics Section. This section handles the food, clothing, and housing needs of officials coming to Havana, as well as the logistic and administrative needs of the various departments in the Principal Center.

 

Cuba's interest in Africa and increasing interest in the Middle East has augmented the importance of Section V, which is responsible for both areas. Armando Ulises Estrada Fernandez ("Ulises") is the chief of Section V. He works closely with his military counterpart, Major Victor Emiliano Dreke Cruz, an official of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, of which Raul Castro is chief. Dreke is in charge of Cuban army operations in Africa (there are Cuban military units stationed at Brazzaville), as well as of Cuban guerrilla activities in that continent.

 

Estrada traveled to the Middle East in early 1969 and visited camps of the Al Fatah Arab guerrilla organization. He accompanied Arab raiders on an incursion into Israeli‑occupied territory.

 

The escuelas especiales (special schools) which had been run by D.G.I. for the guerrilla training of foreign nationals was transferred to the Armed Forces Ministry in February 1967. D.G.I. and the ministry coordinate in this enterprise, and it is believed that Estrada may head a school which has given training to members of Al Fatah. Abu al‑Hasan, an official of Al Fatah, stated in April 1970: "Some time ago a group of our combatants was graduated from the Havana military college. We were the first Asian group admitted to this college. At the graduation the college commandant, who happened to have spent some time with us in the Jordan Valley, said: ‘I pres­ent to you today a class of legendary guerrilla fighters from Asia‑Al Asifah fighters.’ " (Al‑Asifah is the military wing of Al Fatah.)

 

The geographical extensiveness. of D.G.I.'s operations attests to the importance attached to its work by the Castro government. D.G.I. is an expanding organization. In addition to its own structure, it has virtually taken over the Prensa Latina news agency and the Cuban Institute for Friendship with Peoples (LC.A.P.). The latter is in charge of the many foreigners who visit Cuba for one reason or another. D.G.I. officials have moved into Cuba's diplomatic corps to such an extent that this has become hardly more than an arm of the intelligence service. In Africa and the Middle East, where Cuba's diplomatic aims and intelligence designs are one and the same, most Cuban ambassadors are D.G.I. and double as chiefs of centros.

 

The United States itself has not been beyond the reach of Castro's intelligence organization. It has, in fact, long been an area of primary interest. When Castro was still a guerrilla in the Sierra Maestra mountains, his agents in the States carried out propaganda activities and arranged for the shipment of weapons to the rebels. Following Castro's rise to power, his agents have continued highly active in this country.

 

In 1959 two of his agents attempted to bribe two Florida police officers and an F.B.I. agent pretending to be a local officer to arrange the kidnapping of a man wanted by the Cuban government. In a reverse operation, two American flyers in a small plane were shot down over Cuba in March 1960 as they participated in a scheme to make it appear that the United States was involved in helping "war criminals" escape from Cuba. (Their being shot down was apparently due to an accident.) The Americans had been bribed by a Castro agent in the States.

 

This same agent ‑ a naturalized American citizen ‑ kept Havana informed of the activities of Cuban exiles in Florida and was be­lieved responsible for the capture in Cuba of a number of exiles who participated in clandestine missions to that country. This agent circulated freely in the exile community, and was particularly well-­informed about missions to Cuba because of his work on small boats in the Miami area. To transmit information to Havana, he sent coded messages by telephone and commercial cable, and he was also in contact with the Cuban Intelligence Center at the United Nations. This agent still lives in Miami; because his activities have not directly involved espionage against the United States, charges have not been brought against him.

 

Cuba has never had any real difficulty in infiltrating agents into the United States. When one considers that more than 900 Cuban refugees enter the country every week, it is understandable that D.G.I. is able to get personnel into this country. Most of the refugees arrive via the daily Varadero‑Miami airlift; others come in small boats. Still others are flown in from the Guantanamo Naval Base, having jumped over the fence there and asked for asylum. And still more eventually make their way to the States after having flown from Havana to Spain or Mexico. Refugees are screened by U.S. officials, but there is no sure way of weeding out all the men and women who may be working for D.G.I.

 

In the fall of 1965, when Castro permitted flotillas of small boats to leave Cuba filled with refugees heading for the States, a D.G.I. official began recruiting large numbers of the refugees to work for the Intelligence service once they arrived north. Rather than endan­ger their hopes of leaving, the refugees agreed to the official's de­mands. Some of them evidently took seriously their promise to help: D.G.I. began receiving reports from a number of them. The official had failed, however, to instruct his recruits on how to identify them­selves when sending their reports, and when these began arriving, D.G.I. was unable to determine who was sending them. The reports were virtually useless.

Groups of leftist American students have visited Cuba over the years. Radical black leaders, such as Stokely Carmichael and Robert Williams, have also been in Cuba. The Castro government encourages subversive movements in the States by radio broadcasts, by playing host to these visitors, and probably by giving some of them basic training in subversive techniques.

 

Among pro‑Castro "front" groups established in the United States have been the Medical Aid for Cuba Committee and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The latter organization was spotlighted when a person associated with it, Lee Harvey Oswald, assassinated President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. Although there has been no indication that Castro had any hand in the assassination, it is not inconceivable that he had an inkling it might be attempted. Oswald was in Mexico from September 26 until October 3 of 1963, and during that time he visited the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, ostensibly seeking a visa to enter Cuba. A few weeks earlier, Castro had warned that if American leaders were involved in plans against his regime, "they themselves will not be safe."

 

Because the United States and Cuba do not maintain diplomatic relations, and therefore there is no Cuban diplomatic mission ac­credited to this country, the Intelligence Centro at the United Na­tions serves as headquarters for Cuban‑directed subversive and espio­nage activities in the States. There have been a number of cases in which the United States has had to take action against Cuban United Nations officials because of their intelligence activities.

 

In November 1962, the F.B.I. arrested three Cubans in New York and seized a cache of explosives and incendiary devices. The Cubans were charged with attempting to gather information about U.S. mili­tary installations and with stockpiling the explosives "for the pur­pose of injuring and destroying national defense materials, premises, and utilities." Among the contemplated targets were retail stores, oil refineries, and the New York subway system. The detainees included Roberto Santiesteban Casanova, an attache at the Cuban Mission. Because he had arrived recently, his official papers were being pro­cessed and the U.S. government asserted he still did not enjoy diplo­matic immunity. A Cuban couple, Jose Gomez Abad and his wife Elisa Montero de Gomez Abad, were charged with complicity in the affair and ordered to leave the country. Both were attaches at the Mission, and as such did have diplomatic immunity from arrest.

 

In January 1968 Chafik Homero Saker Zenni (who also used the name Rolo Martinez; code name "Rolo"), First Secretary of the Cuban Mission, was barred from reentering the United States. In February 1969 Jesus Jimenez Escobar, Counselor of the Mission, was also refused reentry. Both men had been providing guidance and financial assistance to black extremist groups in the States.

 

In August 1969, Lazaro Eddy Espinosa Bonet, Third Secretary of the Mission, was ordered expelled because he had attempted to re­cruit several Cuban refugees for the purpose ‑ the United States said succinctly ‑ of gathering information about "the security of the of­fice of the President." The fact was that, meeting clandestinely with Espinosa in New York, the refugees had been instructed to obtain all the information they could about President Nixon's home on Key Biscayne in Miami: photographs, floor plans, details of security, itin­eraries, and modes of travel used by the president when arriving and leaving. It is not known why D.G.I. wanted this information.

 

At the same time that Espinosa was expelled, the United States also barred Alberto Boza‑Hidalgo Gato (code name "Zabo"), who was in Cuba at the time, from reentering the country. Boza‑Hidalgo, First Secretary of the Cuban U.N. Mission, was charged with at­tempting to recruit refugees for the purpose of gathering "material of an intelligence value" about a U.S. military installation.

 

In October 1970 another espionage case involving Cuba's U.N. Mission was revealed. Orlando Gutierrez, First Secretary of the Mis­sion, and Rogelio Rodriguez Lopez ("Jose"), Counselor of the Mis­sion, were given forty‑eight hours to leave the United States by the U.S. government. They had been using the services of a young secre­tary employed at the Washington embassy of the Republic of South Africa. The secretary's access to embassies and cocktail parties had been useful to the Cubans, whose diplomatic activities are officially limited to the New York area.

 

These are cases that have been partially brought to view. Other operations continue in the gray world of espionage. D.G.I., in the United States as well as elsewhere in the world, relentlessly pursues its goal of attempting to subvert other nations to the Communist standard. As D.G.I. grows larger, its operations become more sophis­ticated, its tentacles extend farther and farther abroad, and it stead­ily becomes a more deadly instrument.