U.S. SENATE,
                                                                                      SUBCOMMITTEE ON SECURITY AND TERRORISM,
                                                                                                                                COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
                                                                                                                                            Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in room 2228, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Jeremiah Denton (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Also present: Senator East.

Staff present: Joel S. Lisker, chief counsel and staff director; Bert W. Milling, Jr., counsel; and Fran Wermuth, chief clerk.

Senator DENTON. The hearing will come to order.

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Thurmond, is hospitalized due to a pinched nerve in his back. Otherwise he would have attended the hearing this morning. He wanted me to make that known. Senator East will be arriving shortly and Senator Biden has indicated to me that he will come if he can break away from other commitments this morning.

I would like to welcome Señor Gerardo Peraza who has, with great personal effort, managed to appear here this morning.

Today we begin a series of hearings in which the subcommittee will receive testimony about the role of Cuba in international terrorism and subversion. Much of this activity, according to testimony previously given before this and other congressional committees, is conducted through the Cuban Intelligence Service, Direccion General de Intelligencia, commonly called the DGI.

In the April 24, 1981, hearing entitled "Terrorism: Origins, Direction and Support," this subcommittee undertook an overview of the problems of worldwide terrorism. From the outset and throughout the hearing, the involvement of Cuba, its intelligence officers, and their agents in international terrorism was repeatedly cited.

The first statement on Cuban involvement before the subcommittee came from William E. Colby, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who testified about the Soviet use of Cuba as a proxy to extend and enhance its own efforts to train and supply elements engaged in "wars of national liberation" around the world. In response to the question, "During your term as Director (1) of the CIA, did you see evidence to support those conclusions on the Soviet role in international terrorism?", he replied, "Certainly, training in Cuba with Soviet support of a variety of terrorists, revolutionaries from various parts of Latin America."

Claire Sterling, self-styled communist while she was in college, left of center by her own self-designation, and one of the leading authorities on terrorism, also highlighted the Cuban role. She told of a meeting in 1966 between the leader of the Tupamaros, often extolled as a model for other terrorists or revolutionaries, and Fidel Castro. At that time, it was arranged to provide guerrilla training in Cuba for the Tupamaros.

Mrs. Sterling further testified that various groups which emerged around 1968, and which were committed to revolution by violence, "were given first access to the guerrilla training camps in Cuba, around Havana, which had opened first for guerrilla fighters from Latin America and Africa." She made the additional point that bringing these groups together, as in Cuban. training camps, was the beginning of the interlocking linkage that we see among them today. She pointed out that the terrorist training camps in Cuba were supervised by Col. Vadim Kotchergine of the Soviet KGB.

Several other references to Cuba in Mrs. Sterling's testimony point to the pivotal role Cuba has played in the organized emergence of the terrorist and so-called national liberation movements. She said that this emergence of Cuba's pivotal role originated on January 3, 1966, at the Tricontinental Conference in Havana. At that meeting, 513 delegates from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern and Western Europe, the United States and Canada gathered, as they stated in their resolution, to devise a global strategy against American or Western "imperialism." It was within a few months of that conference that the first important network of guerrilla training camps was set up around Havana and the "guerrilla international" began to take form.

Prior to this conference, there was an initial period of direct infiltration into many countries from Cuba. During that period, from 1959 to 1965, attempts were made to set up revolutionary cells in Latin America and in Africa. These early guerrilla attempts failed in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Dominican Republic, E1 Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela. In addition, the infiltration work was severely hampered by a shortage of Cuban resource. I would add that although those guerrilla attempts failed, it gave those countries a taste of communist guerrilla terrorism which they have not forgotten.

After January 1966, the drive became systematic, more powerful, and more dangerous. The Soviet Union officially participated in the creation and the work of the AALAPSO (African, Asian and Latin American Peoples Solidarity Organization), the LASO (Laotian American Solidarity Organization), and the CLASO (Continental Latin American Student's Organization). Moscow provided money and "advisors." The agenda approved at the 1966 meeting of the Tricontinental was a program and a schedule for the wellplanned and equally well-financed terrorist and destabilization operations which have occurred since that time.

The second part of the agenda covered "burning issues of the struggle against imperialism in the countries of the three continents," particularly in Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, the Congo, the Portuguese colonies, Rhodesia, southern Arabia and Palestine, Laos, Cambodia, South Africa, Korea, Venezuela, Guatemala, Peru, Colombia, Cyprus, Panama, South West Africa, and North Kalemonton. The Tricontinental organization also provided active material and propaganda support to the Communist forces in Vietnam. Thus we can see the thoroughness and the deliberateness of this transcendent worldwide organization.

In the subsequent 15 years, most of these countries have suffered direct Cuban involvement in their internal affairs. The Cubans have widely spread their subversion and terror network in a continuing effort at destabilization.

One of the Venezuelan Communist Party members who attended the Tricontinental Conference was Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as "Carlos the Jackal." Carlos' name came up recently with respect to a plot to assassinate our President and other important members of our Government. I was dismayed to find at this meeting of a very important committee of the Congress that not one member of the committee had any idea who Carlos was. It is regrettable, in my opinion, considering his activities and those of another Carlos, Carlos Marighella, that in this body and in the House of Representatives the existence of these men is not even known. It would be mind-boggling to the citizens of the nations that have suffered the terrorism which these men have been so active in. I find it regrettable that the testimony we have had in these hearings has not been publicized more, because these men and the others like them are a great threat to civilization.

Mrs. Sterling testified that some of the most important figures on the terrorist scene, including Carlos, were trained in Cuba. Carlos began his training at Camp Matanzas immediately after the Tricontinental Conference. From there he went to Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow.

Mrs. Sterling's testimony also revealed an interesting connection between Fidel Castro and Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, the Italian millionaire terrorist. He provided large sums of money to various terrorist groups and was the first to put together a fully operational terrorist network in Europe.

According to Mrs. Sterling, Feltrinelli was a hero worshipper of Castro, Che Guevara, and the Cuban concept of Third World revolution. He was present at the Tricontinental Conference, and he visited Castro many times. When he returned to Italy, Feltrinelli featured in his bookstores the Italian edition of Tricontinental Magazine. That magazine, Castro's first official voice on the continent, offered among other things the first full text of Marighella's "Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla" in Italian and French. The "Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla" is found in Canada, the United States--any place in the world where terrorism occurs. It is the standardized text from which these people operate.

Mrs. Sterling's testimony revealed that the United States is not immune from Cuban activity. She showed that a Puerto Rican terrorist group was trained and equipped in Cuba and that members of the Weatherman organization made frequent trips to Cuba.

I believe that the testimony we have received thus far about Cuban involvement in Puerto Rican independence and terrorist groups is but the tip of the iceberg. It shows merely the outer surface of a very extensive program of support and manipulation of terrorist groups, often amounting to control, to advance Cuban and Soviet strategies for destabilizing and ultimately destroying the United States.

Cuba's unremitting effort in the United Nations to separate Puerto Rico from the United States is not coincidental or the act of a benevolent sister state. At subsequent hearings, the subcommittee will focus in greater detail on Cuban involvement in Puerto Rico and Havana's true objectives in its manipulation of the issues of statehood and independence.

In our hearing on June 26, 1981, entitled "The Role of Moscow and Its Subcontractors," the testimony of Robert Moss, a British journalist, confirmed Cuba's massive involvement in international espionage and terrorism. He detailed Cuba's role in training and equipping groups, from throughout the world, in camps in Cuba, Algeria, South Yemen, Libya, and Africa. These terrorists are very active now, increasingly so, and have a great deal to do with the destabilization which has resulted in the overthrow of governments throughout the world. Considering the rate of overthrows in the years since the Tricontinental Conference, and the number of people that have been subjected to communism, we should be alarmed not only because of the human tragedy but also because of the strategic and economic consequences.

Mr. Moss told of a meeting of Central American revolutionaries held last July in Monimbo, Nicaragua, to celebrate the overthrow of the Somoza regime. This meeting was attended by Fidel Castro and Manuel Piniero, former DGI chief and now head of the Department of America. Castro boasted that his agents in the United States were so industrious and well placed that they had the capacity to create race riots at a moment of his choosing--race riots on a scale that, he said, would make the Miami troubles look like a sunshower.

Further testimony revealed that when two leaders of the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, who were arrested in the fifties for plotting the murder of President Truman, were released from jail in October 1979, they were given a hero's welcome in Havana at the invitation of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party.

Finally, Mr. Moss referred to Philip Agee, a CIA turncoat who has made it his business to attack the Agency and his former colleagues by systematically disclosing the names of alleged American agents around the world. According to Mr. Moss, Agee has had more than 30 confirmed meetings in London with the local station chief of the Cuban DGI.

Mr. Agee, whose activities border on treason--and I consider that an understatement--is still quoted by major U.S. newspapers on important issues such as E1 Salvador. This is despite his outspoken support of and association with Cuba and other Communist states. He is generally identified only as a former CIA officer. There is rarely an effort to present his known connections with hostile countries.

Too many in our country still adhere to the belief that Fidel Castro is a romantic revolutionary who is simply carrying the standard for the poor and oppressed people of Cuba. The mass exodus of 130,000 Cubans from the port of Mariel to the United States in the spring of 1980 should help enlighten them. This event was totally orchestrated by Castro. It has been estimated that 18 percent of the total number, or 23,000 individuals, are criminals; 1,538 are in prisons in the United States; and 469 are still being detained in camps. Even more important, there is no way to accurately estimate the number of DGI agents who entered under this guise of refugees to join those already in place in the United States.

We must note the disruption and confusion the exodus caused in this country. We must consider Castro's refusal to take back the criminal element and the dramatic increase in crime rates in those areas where these Cubans have settled. We should note the high unemployment rate among the refugees and the burden this places on local, State, and Federal Governments and agencies. We must take seriously Castro's recent threat to repeat this callous act, and we must consider Cuba's clandestine and overt terrorist activities throughout the world. These factors should convince even the most skeptical or idealistic of the true intentions and policies of Fidel Castro and Cuba toward this country.

I just returned from Panama, where I was briefed by the commander of the Southern Command and his staff and by a number of diplomats from all over Latin America. Their unanimous opinion was that unless the trends in Venezuela and El Salvador and the other chain of events which it portends are stopped, the previous exodus of refugees into the United States will be minuscule compared to what is going to happen. They predicted there will be people walking from South America to the United States and crossing the border at Mexico, at any risk to their lives, just to get out of the situation they are in, much like the boat people in Southeast

In the series of hearings which we begin this morning, the subcommittee will examine the role of Cuba in international terrorism and subversion, focusing specifically today on the intelligence activities of the DGI. We have the benefit of the testimony of a former DGI officer

Gerardo Peraza was born on February 22, 1938, in Havana, Cuba. On September 27, 1958, he joined Fidel Castro's rebel forces in the Sierra Maestra. In early January 1959, having reached the rank of second lieutenant in the Revolutionary Army, Mr. Peraza returned to Havana and, after spending a few months as a policeman, joined the G-2 security service.

In September 1960, he became a member of Section U of the G2's successor organization, the Department of State Security (DSE) of the Interior Ministry. There he worked to recruit agents for the DSE from among the members of Revolutionary Defense Committees (CDR). After further training, he was assigned to the Counterintelligence Section of Military Intelligence and became chief of the Investigations Bureau.

Mr. Peraza held that position until August 1965, when he left Cuba as part of a select group of Cuban officers to attend an advanced intelligence training course in Moscow. After returning to Havana, Mr. Peraza becamechief of the General Staff's Communications Bureau, in which capacity he was responsible for detecting "treasonable" activities by general staff personnel. In 1967, he transferred to the General Directorate for Intelligence (the DGI) as chief of the Signals Bureau, which worked against the Central Intelligence Agency and monitored counterrevolutionary activities among Cuban exiles.

Later, Mr. Peraza was assigned to the DGI center in London, England, as a member of the Cuban Embassy with the cover title of Second Secretary. He was responsible for counterintelligence as well as for the physical security of the Embassy premises. He sought refuge in the United States in November 1971.

We will be employing two interpreters this morning, although Mr. Peraza speaks some English. He has indicated that he would prefer to testify in his native tongue.

Mr. Peraza, please stand and raise your right hand while I administer the oath.

[Witness sworn.]

Senator DENTON. I would ask the interpreters to rise and be sworn, Mr. Theodore E. Herrera and Mr. Alfonso Tarabochia.

[Interpreters sworn.]

Senator DENTON. Thank you. Please be seated.

Senator DENTON. Mr. Peraza, would you briefly give us the reasons why you left the service of the Cuban Government in 1971?

Mr. PERAZA. The fundamental facts are these: First, there was a law which was promulgated in the intelligence service of Cuba making it mandatory to belong to the Communist Party. And second, the intelligence service of Cuba was transferred directly to the services of the Soviet intelligence service.

Senator DENTON. Was "responsible directly to"?

Mr. PERAZA. Was transferred.

Senator DENTON. "Transferred"?

Mr. PERAZA. It was directly responsible.

These were the two reasons, the fundamental reasons.

Senator DENTON. Thank you. I understand the two reasons were that within the intelligence service they issued two instructions: One, that it would become mandatory to belong to the Communist Party; and two, the intelligence service henceforth would be directly responsible to the Soviet Union, presumably the KGB.

Mr. PERAZA. Yes. The Cuban intelligence service's structure was placed under the KGB.

Senator DENTON. Then I would have to infer you either were not a Communist or you did not want everyone to be required to be one.

Mr. PERAZA. I belonged to the intelligence service of Cuba, but I do not--I did not belong to the Communist Party of Cuba.

Senator DENTON. I would like to welcome my distinguished colleague from North Carolina, Senator East. If you want to make anopening statement, Senator East, please feel free. I have only asked one question.

Senator EAST. I would not interrupt you. Please go right ahead.

Senator DENTON. Mr. Peraza, you departed in November 1971. That would indicate that you had a career as an officer in the intelligence service of Cuba of about 12 years. This would appear to give you a deep understanding of the organization.

[Mr. Peraza nods in the affirmative.]

Senator DENTON. Would you describe the various departments of the DGI and their respective functions?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes. The principal function of the Directorate of Intelligence was penetration and recruitment in the United States of America. For this reason, it was divided--before the Soviet Union took over the control of the intelligence--in three main sections.

Section 3 was the one which worked directly against the CIA. It worked with the principal center in New York; and the other centers in Canada and Puerto Rico.

Senator DENTON. Excuse me; I missed that. The other centers were where?

Mr. PERAZA. The other center or the other station which worked Canada and Puerto Rico, because Puerto Rico is considered, for the intelligence service of Cuba, as part of the penetration into the United States. It is also considered as part of the operations of the Department of Liberation.

In essence, there are two groups operating against Puerto Rico, the Department of Intelligence and the Department of Liberation. This in broad lines is what the Department of the Intelligence was.

After it was taken over by the Soviet Union, the structure of the Cuban intelligence service was changed, adopting the same structure of the intelligence service in the Soviet Union. They opened the first Department of Economic Intelligence against the United States, the Department of Military Intelligence against the United States, the Department of Political Information, and the Department of Foreign Counterintelligence.

And, at that moment, the Cuban intelligence service made a turn of 90 degrees, taking advantage of a period of inactivity of the intelligence service of the United States between the years of 1965 to 1970. This gave to the Cuban intelligence service the possibility to recruit a number of officers and to prepare itself for the change that came about in 1970.

In 197O, with the financial resources given to it by the Soviet Union--because up until that moment Cuba didn't have sufficient resources. In those days, in 1970, they were able with that large financial aid to train about 100 intelligence officers in 2 weeks, to buy cars, equipment, and conduct the various operations of placement.

Senator DENTON. May I ask a clarifying question here?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes.

Senator DENTON. Recruited 100 intelligence officers in 2 weeks, is that what you said? Did you say produced or recruit?

Mr. PERAZA. Recruit.

Senator DENTON. From where? From the United States?

Mr. PERAZA. These officers were trained--myself among them-- to leave together at the same time to go to different countries like England, the United States, Italy, France, and other countries.

Senator DENTON. I want to understand this. The weakness in intelligence on our part in the years 1965 to 1970 gave the opportunity to install those people. Is that the idea? To install them in this country?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes. The problem was that when the Cuban intelligence service had nobody to obstruct its work, there was no activity detected. There was no possibility, no way that the United States could do anything against Cuba. All the forces were directed to prepare the penetration and the intelligence work against the United States from different countries.

And they opened up new departments, because they had never attempted to collect military information against the United States, because we were not prepared for that. We were not prepared to collect economic information. We were not prepared to collect technical information.

Senator DENTON. This was before the rubles came from the Soviet Union and the reorganization?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes. Prior to the Soviet Union's taking over the DGI, the DGI underwent a process of preparation. One of these orders to prepare was to make it mandatory for the members of the DGI to belong to the party, to have gone through schools, intelligence schools in Moscow and in Cuba.

Senator DENTON. All right. Thank you very much. Are you finished with that?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes.

Senator DENTON. Senator East, I will be happy to defer to you at this point or continue questioning.

Senator EAST. You go ahead and finish your questions.

Senator DENTON. It appears from your testimony thus far that the Cuban DGI is oriented by organization, at least up through 1971, against the United States principally.

Mr. PERAZA. The Cuban intelligence service has always been against the United States.

Senator DENTON. Principally or exclusively?

Mr. PERAZA. Exclusively. All the other countries where they work, they do it to direct the activity against the United States. Because Cuba doesn't have any intelligence interests--I don't know about the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union utilizes Cuba because of its great potential in the intelligence field against the United States.

The Soviet intelligence officers always saw in the Cuban intelligence service a great potential of penetration in the United States, because Cuba is a small country, not a great power, and many people in the United States feel a certain sympathy toward a small country.

Senator DENTON. I wonder if you could confirm an impression I have received from previous testimony to the effect that Fidel Castro himself, for a considerable period of time, was ambitious about spreading communism with all the Cuban intelligence apparatus connected thereto, into Latin America. However, at a time roughly corresponding to Che Guevara's death, and possibly be cause of the economic burden associated with these activities, he became less ambitious. The Soviet Union at this stage tried to first persuade Castro and, failing that, imposed economic pressure on him to coerce him into continuing his efforts to communize Latin America--there followed the installation of the KGB general and the takeover of the DGI.

I have that general impression and wonder if you have any comments.

Mr. PERAZA. There are certain events which took place at that time, before the KGB took over control completely. In effect, Cuba, for economic reasons, could not maintain an intelligence service by itself. If Cuba tried to develop an intelligence service greater and more powerful than the one it had, then it would have created a problem for the economy.

Then there is a division operation which took place in Communist Cuba in order to be able to direct more effectively all the forces against the United States. And it was for this reason that the various sections of intelligence work were created in Cuba, for the reason that we know. The Soviet Union needed military, economic and political information from the United States. The Cuban intelligence service had the possibility to provide this information to the Soviet Union, and it is for this reason that the Cuban intelligence service changed and passed directly into the hands of the Soviet intelligence service.

For this reason, the Soviet Union did some fevers to Cuba. One of them was to provide financial aid to other fields of the economy. The second, in trying to bolster Fidel Castro's ego, they gave him the power or the freedom to work against the Latin American countries, such as Nicaragua, El Salvador. They allowed Castro to take Manuel Piñeiro away, and name him head of the Department of Liberation, and the intelligence service remained under the orders of Colonel Simonov.

It is then that the division of tasks began. The other part, which concerns Africa, the Department of Liberation in Palestine, which is operated in conjunction with the Soviet Union, Cuba, and other Socialist countries like Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and other countries.

Senator DENTON. Thank you. In other words, you have corrected my impression by your testimony, in that Castro was not pressured or forced; he was permitted the means to carry out his own ambitions about communizing in Latin America as long as he served the Soviet Union's specific aim of rolling over the United States.

Mr. PERAZA. There you can see that the economic aid of the Soviet Union to Cuba is different. Specifically as regards the intelligence service, you can say that the intelligence service of Cuba can count on any means, but the Department of Liberation of Latin America and Africa has a limited amount of money and a limited quantity of weapons and other means.

For instance, the Cuban intelligence service has no limits as far as money, armament and equipment. This happened after 1971.

Senator DENTON. I am confused on one point. I presume that there are DGI activities in Africa.

Mr. PERAZA. Yes.

Senator DENTON. And many other countries, other localities.

Mr. PERAZA. Yes.

Senator DENTON. Thus it seems to be going too far to say that the exclusive target of the DGI is the United States, unless one can place it into this context: The DGI response to the KGB and the Soviet Union's principal objective is to destroy our system. As a means to that end, they undertake activities in every nation of the world, which could account for the DGI operating in those countries.

Is that what you meant by the United States being the exclusive target?

Mr. PERAZA. We don't disagree. What appears difficult, outside of the intelligence service, to be able to define which activity is directed directly against the United States or directly against some other country.

For example, when we went to London, the plans of intelligence work were directed toward certain British citizens. But the central or main objective was to utilize these people in one way or another to penetrate the United States, which is the principal objective of the intelligence center in London, the penetration of the American Embassy in London, and all the efforts were directed toward that center.

For instance, in the case of Spain, Cuba detected that the United States was directing certain activities from Spain and all the group of the CIA that worked--I mean, of the Cuban intelligence that worked against the CIA were transferred to Spain to work against Spain. But the principal objective was to detect the activities of the U.S. intelligence in Spain, with the objective of penetrating the United States, with, in other words, all the activities of the intelligence service directed toward the penetration of the United States, which is the main objective.

This is the reason for being of the Cuban intelligence service.

Senator DENTON. How many illegals, nondiplomatic types, have come into the United States, in the sense of penetration, while you were working for the DGI?

Mr. PERAZA. The orders were for Cuban penetration on a limited level of infiltration. But notwithstanding this, when we talk about something limited, when we talk about limited infiltration, we talk about an agent, as in the case of Camarioca, when--I don't remember the exact year, 19--I don't remember the exact year. I think it was 1965, or around then, when this great group of Cubans came to the United States.

We had prepared a group to infiltrate this exodus about a year before. We took the names from the lists of the Cubans who wanted to leave Cuba, and they recruited within those who thought of coming to stay, and they infiltrated agents with their names and their relatives.

Many times this group of agents is great in number, but when they come to the United States, many of them do not continue the work, because in addition to the living conditions, they don't have the proper preparation. This did not happen in 1971, when they opened the first illegal center in the United States. When we talk about the first center of illegals in the United States, we are not talking about regular agents; they are officers of the intelligence service, officers who come under different names. And they came prepared, after having taken a special course of preparation in the Soviet Union.

Senator DENTON. We have been told that there are now about 300 DGI officers and agents in the Miami area alone.

Do you believe that number is accurate? Why would such a large intelligence presence be required there?

Mr. PERAZA. The objective of these 300 agents, and possibly more, does not touch directly the work of the intelligence service. One of the objectives is to distract the counterintelligence services of the United States when they send such a number of agents.

The true agents, the legal center of intelligence, receives the real support because those officers are much better prepared, more organized. And the counterintelligence agencies, because of the small number of agents, have no possibility of detecting the true agents.

In addition to the legal center, which would be a support activity, the great number of refugees per se are used as ideological agents, creating difficulties and problems and make more acute this type of problem. As agents-provocateur, in other words.

Under those circumstances, the FBI does not have the time to detect the real agents. This is reason why, for instance, that my professor of intelligence in Moscow spent 20 years in an illegal center in the United States, and claimed to have never been bothered.

Senator DENTON. I will turn it over to Senator East.

But it reminds me of the fact that aerospace warfare for the defense becomes very difficult when decoys are launched. Is that correct? Is that an accurate analogy?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes.

Senator DENTON. Senator East.

Senator EAST. Thank you, Senator Denton.

Mr. Peraza, I wish to thank you for coming this morning and sharing your valuable testimony with the subcommittee. And I also would like to publicly mention the great leadership the chairman is giving in this subcommittee and particularly in this whole vital area of security and terrorism.

I am somewhat intrigued, Mr. Peraza, in your testimony to try to get a finger on the key strands of your contribution here. In the DGI Soviet connection, at least while you were there and on which you could speak with particular authority, from what I gather from your testimony, it is not merely a case of Soviet and DGI cooperation, a certain coequal, that it is not then a matter of mutuality or coequal partners, it is a matter of Soviet dominance. In short, it is not a partnership, it is a subordinate role the DGI is playing.

Mr. PERAZA. I can explain. Between the years 1959 to 1970 there was between Cuba and the KGB a cooperation of intelligence. For this reason, in the year 1968 a committee of the chiefs of the intelligence service of Cuba went to the Soviet Union to offer the intelligence that they had obtained in the United States. This information was given to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Korea, and other countries that I do not remember.

But beginning from 1970, the intelligence service of Cuba was placed under the direct orders of a general or a colonel--a Russian General or Colonel Simonov. When we left to go to London, we had to discuss the operational plans with him. He was the one who approved the money and the different activities which we were going to perform in England.

Prior to 1970 the intelligence plans were approved by the chief of intelligence, the Cuban chief of intelligence. After 1970 the budget of the intelligence service was prepared by Simonov and was sent to the Soviet Union to be approved.

The 100 officers who went out in 1970, we had to send a copy of the plans of penetration and infiltration to the Soviet Union. We also had to send to the Soviet Union the names of all the agents who worked in the United States.

Up to that point we had sent their pseudonyms, but we had never sent their real names. And from that moment on we had to send the names, the operational plans, all the activities, contacts. And they changed the activities of the principal center's legal centers of operations, like the United Nations, the activity that dealt with transferring weapons and money, explosives, to Puerto Rico.

It was forbidden by the Soviet Union because the Soviet Union worked on the premise that the activity of the center in New York and the United States had to be directed toward the collection of military, economic, and political information, placing more emphasis on the economic aspect because the best intelligence officers of Cuba were transferred to the Directorate of Economic Intelligence.

Senator EAST. So what you have suggested here, obviously, in this response is that as you saw it and understood it, it certainly then was not a matter of equals cooperating to achieve specific ends; but it was clearly a dominant Soviet role and a subordinate Cuban role. That, in short, you have given very good evidence to suggest that conclusion. Am I correct in drawing that conclusion? At least that is the one that I do draw.

Mr. PERAZA. Yes, sir.

Senator EAST. To move on to a second point. In this Soviet-Cuban connection, and perhaps this is a question difficult for you to answer from the role you were performing, did you have any evidence or did you have any opportunity to know whether the Soviet Union used the intelligence arm of any other country quite as extensively in terms of worldwide scope that from your testimony as it is using, or was using the DGI?

In short, is the DGI the apple of their eye in terms of subversive terrorist activity in the underdeveloped world, Africa, Asia, Latin America, certainly in Latin America and Africa? The Cuban DGI had a very unique role here? Or were there lots of other intelligence services of other countries, Soviet-connected, that were also utilized in this fashion and extensively?

Mr. PERAZA. When I took the course in the Soviet Union, together with us there was a group of Vietnamese, a group of Poles, a group of Czechoslovaks. But there existed a difference in what was the preparation of those groups and those of Cuba. In other words, there was a different emphasis placed on the preparation of the instruction given to the Cubans and the other groups.

We could see as student officers of intelligence in the Soviet Union that we were the apple of their eye, we were the preferred ones. We had more access to information. We had more access to what concerns public relations, public information.

We were able to visit places that other students of intelligence were not allowed or could not visit. Really, at that moment the Soviet Union considered us as part of their own intelligence service. With all that, there was a difference. They were looking at us from the top and we from the bottom. Yes, that is right.

Senator EAST. So then, on the basis of your----

Mr. PERAZA.In other words, they were looking down at us and we had to look up to them.

Senator EAST. You are suggesting that, one, your role was a clearly subordinate one, the DGI to the Soviet Union. We have established that.

And then, second, even though they were, of course, training and utilizing intelligence entities from other countries--you mentioned Vietnam and so forth--that there was this very unique position of the DGI and of the Cubans who were in a preferred position with the Soviet Union, I would assume in the sense of not only what you have said in terms of instruction, but in terms of the Soviet Union anticipating utilizing the DGI extensively wherever it might be appropriate to carry on this kind of activity, be it in Central America, South America, be it in Africa?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes. This is definitely so.

Senator EAST. Why do I not relinquish to you, if you would like? I think I have had adequate time here. I can come back.

Senator DENTON. Oh, no. We will turn it right back to you, Senator East.

Senator EAST. No, you go right ahead.

Senator DENTON. I just had one or two very specific questions ] wanted to make sure were asked.

Mr. Peraza, do you have any personal knowledge that the following diplomats assigned in the United States have DGI connections? The first two were in Washington: Teofilo Acosta and Ricardo Escartin? The third man was in the United Nations. We have a photo of him which I will refer to you after your answer. His name is Julian Torres Rizo.

Mr. PERAZA. Yes.

Senator DENTON. DO they have DGI connections?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes. They were intelligence officers. In the specific case of Washington and the United Nations, it is not necessary to ask if they are intelligence officers or not because the rules of the DGI are that all the diplomats who come to the United States or to New York have to be members of the intelligence service, including when, for instance, someone is recruited as an agent of the intelligence service. Rizo was a reporter for Prensa Latina. He was recruited and prepared as an intelligence officer at least for 2 years before he left to come to the United States.

Senator DENTON. IS the other photograph one of Rizo also?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes. It is of Rizo. He was not actually a reporter for Prensa Latina but he worked in Prensa Latina. He was connected with Prensa Latina when he was recruited for the intelligence service.

Senator DENTON. And Rizo was at the DGI station in New York for 3 years, as I understand it.

Mr. PERAZA. Yes.

Senator DENTON. He was an active DGI agent in the Venceremos Brigade camps?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes. This was his first intelligence job. His first intelligence job was to recruit members of the Venceremos Brigade. He had also connections with many North Americans, preparing himself to come to the United States. And he continued directing the work of these agents in the United States.

Senator DENTON. The second photograph shows him with the youth of the Venceremos Brigade at Aguacate in Havana during a meeting of the second contingent of the Venceremos Brigade.

Would you tell us what the Venceremos Brigade was, what it was composed of and what its general mission was?

Mr. PERAZA. The Venceremos Brigade brought the first great quantity of information through American citizens that was obtained in the United States, because up to the moment when the brigades came into existence--I do not remember the exact year, around 1969--the amount of information that we had on American citizens came from public sources, and it was confusing.

One of the first jobs that we gave them, very simply, was to obtain the telephone books of the United States with the objective of identifying and verifying the identity of certain people. And the Venceremos Brigade helped by sending those telephone books and information, including the U.S. Senate, because among the members of the brigade there were persons who knew some Senators and relatives of Senators.

With the brigade there was an extraordinary emphasis placed on the Senate of the United States and it appears with quite a bit of success in some cases.

Senator DENTON. Very interesting. We will follow up on that statement in a closed session.

Do you know whether Julian Rizo served as Ambassador from Cuba to Grenada?

Mr. PERAZA. I understand that he is down there. And the fact that he is down there is that, after all the publicity he received, it is logical that he would be sent to occupy a diplomatic post.

Senator DENTON. So he is a DGI agent acting as an Ambassador in Grenada now?

Mr. PERAZA. There are many ambassadors who have been intelligence officers. You have to keep in mind that the Ambassador is the highest representative of the government in that country.

For instance, in the case of the Japanese Ambassador, he was the chief of center of Canada for many years. It was the Cuban Ambassador in Japan who was the chief of center in Canada before he went to Japan as an Ambassador.

Senator DENTON. Is it true that the present Ambassador to Nicaragua is Julian Lopez Diaz, the man to whom we referred previously as a DGI agent?

Mr. PERAZA. I cannot identify him by the name he uses. All the officers of intelligence use pseudonyms.

Senator DENTON. The man Rizo you did identify by photograph, and he is the Ambassador in Grenada. We will supply you with photographs of Julian Lopez Diaz, and Ulises Estrada, who was the Ambassador to Jamaica, and try to ascertain if they are DGI agents in your knowledge.

Mr. Peraza, I have a photograph of two handgrenades, Russian made antipersonnel weapons, which were found in Miami. Three have been exploded in Miami, causing considerable damage. One was exploded as recently as Monday of this week.

Have you seen this type of grenade, and, if so, does the DGI use it or issue it to its agents?

[Photograph is handed to the witness.]

Mr. PERAZA. Yes. It is the typical model used by the technical department, which once was called the M-1. Today it is called Technical Department of the Intelligence. This is the department which supplies the intelligence service with different types of grenades and explosives. All this armament, including North American types of weapons, are found in Miami. This is very common.

Senator DENTON. In North Vietnam we had a Cuban who was in charge of one of the most inhumane torture programs in our prison camps. We nicknamed him "Fidel." [Laughter.]

I just mention that in passing.

While you were in the Soviet Union for training, you had a number of experiences which would be interesting to this subcommittee. Would you outline in some detail the nature of your training while you were in the Soviet Union?

Mr. PERAZA. The training in the Soviet Union was based primarily in the knowledge of the Central Intelligence Agency and the other organizations of intelligence in the United States, the different working methods of the FBI. The course of penetration was given by the teacher who had spent 20 years in the United States as an illegal, and a considerable amount of time, hours, on explosives.

More though was general knowledge and communications channels. This is in general terms the type of training. The fundamental emphasis was on the organization of the CIA and the FBI and the other intelligence organizations, all the intelligence community of the United States. Also, among others, the Senate of the United States; a briefing on the economic, political conditions, and evaluation of certain individuals, political leaders of the United States which they obtain from public sources.

They gave briefings on the chiefs of the intelligence agencies their background, the means and the methods of recruiting agents used by the intelligence services of the United States, and the importance of the illegal centers, and what, at that time, they prepared us for to set up the illegal centers.

Senator DENTON. Senator East, would you like to continue?

Senator EAST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Peraza, in pursuing the line of reasoning here of the SovietDGI connection and their obvious activities in the Third World, particularly of course in Central America, Latin America, and in Africa, you have in this dialog put some focus now upon the connections activity here in the United States. You mentioned the Venceremos Brigades of a decade ago. I gather from what you're saying, clearly they were manipulated by Soviet-DGI connections.

Were there and are there, if you can answer that, other organizational connections of this kind that are being utilized or exploited by the Soviets and the DGI to enhance their impact here in the United States? In short, what other evidence do we have at this time of a fairly active Soviet-DGI activity in the United States.

Mr. TARABOCHIA. Pardon me, sir? I didn't understand you.

Senator EAST. What evidence do we have of current Soviet-DGI activity in the United States beyond the Venceremos Brigades? Would we have reason to believe that there is more and continued activity of that kind?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes. Let's look at the intelligence service as it develops. For instance, the Cuban service sent to the Soviet Union 25 intelligence officers, 20 to 25 officers for the illegal center, 30 officers of the military counterintelligence, for the internal counterintelligence service from 30 to 50 officers, and this is out of the country.

Within Cuba, you have the military counterintelligence school, with Soviet officers who train officers of the military counterintelligence at the rate of about 200 officers per year. This military counterintelligence school is probably one of the most advanced counterintelligence schools on the continent. It not only uses Soviet instructors; they have instructors from the PLO and other terrorist organizations.

This school of military counterintelligence has been visited by the most famous terrorists in the world. For instance, Carlos himself, that Senator Denton referred to, visited that school after having gone to the Patrice Lumumba School in Moscow, because that school has the capability to train a group, an individual, or a leader of the highest level, such as Allende who visited that school, Amilcar Cabral of Cape Verde and Sao Tomb Islands, the former Portuguese colony.

Thousands of terrorists have gone through that school for training or a special training. This explanation was necessary in order for you to get an idea of the reasons. If this intelligence organization is to grow from year to year, it's an organization that needs a great number of agents working to survive.

For instance, how many officers are there in the United States at this moment? In New York, 20; in Washington, 4 or 5. Every intelligence officer makes a contact. He has to make a contact with at least one agent, every 3 days.

You see, if we add to that the legal center which operates in the United States, with 10 years of operation at this moment, there are 25 officers per year for 10 years, and how many illegal centers are operating in Miami? How many in New York? How many are there here in Washington?

For instance, the dream of the Cuban intelligence service was to send intelligence officers to Washington in order to be able to attend to a considerable number of friends and agents who before had to be taken care of from New York. Now it is much easier to do it here.

Senator EAST. So as you see this Soviet-DGI connection, not only of course active in the Third World, as we've already noted, but by reference here then to the United States, beginning with this contact of the Venceremos Brigade, you see this DGI connection in the United States as alive and well and presenting a threat of serious proportions. Just give me your brief judgment on that.

I gather from what you're saying you do so evaluate it? I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Mr. PERAZA. We can say that the Cuban intelligence has taken over parts of the work of the Soviet intelligence.

Senator EAST. Here in the United States?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes. The problem is, for instance, that the counterintelligence services of the United States always pay more attention to the Soviet intelligence officers. For example, a Cuban intelligence officer, if he makes a contact with an American who has access to high, to classified information in the United States, he can do it much more easily.

When Soviet intelligence officers become active in New York or in Washington, you can see the counterintelligence focused on the Cubans decrease.

We made an experiment. The center of the Soviet intelligence in New York made an experiment, a joint operation on a certain day between Cuba and the Soviet Union. That day the Soviet officers in New York and the Cuban officers went out to see if they detected a lessening in the pressure on the Cuban intelligence officers. It almost disappeared when the Soviets began to move within their network.

Senator EAST. I gather then from what you're saying, the SovietDGI connection in the United States is obviously alive and well.

I would, Mr. Chairman, like to ask one final question and then regret, because I have found the testimony valuable and intriguing and enlightening, that I must go.

Since you have seen this conflict from the other side, I am one of course who has not been able to do that, I am intrigued with the question of how do the Soviets, the DGI, those people working in the field you are familiar with, how do they perceive us as an adversary? Obviously they perceive us in an adversarial role.

Do they perceive us as being strong-willed and perceptive? Or do they perceive us basically as weak and confused? Or perhaps somewhere in between? How would you characterize their perception of us as a nation, in view of this threat that they are conjuring up for us?

Mr. PERAZA. Taking the Communist theory that the Soviet Union uses as a point of departure, you have to take the ideological point of view. For instance, in the case of the CIA, the infiltration of the intelligence organizations has detected or knows of some weaknesses. One of them is the change of political parties in the Government or the political party system that changes the administration.

For instance, Cuba has an operational plan for intelligence for the next 20 years. In 1964 or 1965, the American intelligence ceased working. But they didn't place emphasis on the fact that they knew that the CIA had slowed down. They were trying to place emphasis on the CIA as being an organization extremely powerful, because they also presupposed that the policy might change. And for this reason, the intelligence organizations--both the Cuban and Soviet--took advantage of that moment to develop their intelligence officers and to obtain more information through technical means.

For example, there has been a unit in Cuba since 1960 that has monitored all the information from the United States. When the intelligence activities slowed down that year, the Soviet Union increased its equipment and increased the size of the intelligence office in Cuba. They increased the contacts in Cuba with agents of other countries. In Cuba there were contacts between Americans and Soviet intelligence officers.

In other words, they take advantage of the changes in policy.

Senator EAST. But as concisely as you can in just a word or two on my question of how they perceive us as an adversary? I regret that I must leave. If he could make that as concise as he could

Senator DENTON. Do they think we're smart or dumb?

Mr. PERAZA. With many technical resources; very, very dangerous from the technical point; very strong economically at the time, but not being able to utilize the human resources, because they place much more emphasis on the technical resources.

For instance, in the case of the intelligence services, one is prepared more against technical services than the individual, per se.

Senator EAST. Excuse me. If I could just interrupt. They perceive us as strong in the economic sphere and the technical sphere, but in terms of ideas and will and understanding of the threat, weak? Would that be a correct conclusion?

Mr. PERAZA. Ideologically, the intelligence organizations are oriented toward certain tasks. For instance, to develop the drug addiction. Any type of weakness that existed, corruption that exists in the United States is an intelligence activity. For this reason, they use the 300 or 400 agents they have floating around. That's their task, to make more acute the internal problems that exist. For instance, the racial problem in the United States.

Senator EAST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know you have some further questions. Thank you very much.

Senator DENTON. Thank you, Senator East.

I think Senator East was trying to find out whether the KGB and DGI people see us as vulnerable because our public and perhaps our Government do not understand how the game is being played in the terms of ideological warfare, intelligence operations and the terrorist operations connected thereto.

Mr. PERAZA. I don't understand the question.

Senator DENTON. OK. Senator East tried two or three times. I have tried once. I'll go to my next question.

Do you have any personal knowledge of efforts by the DGI or the KGB to penetrate the various Government agencies in the United States or in England?

Mr. PERAZA. Yes. One of the plans was the American Embassy in England. Another of the plans of the Cuban intelligence is the penetration of the American intelligence. For this reason, they try to obtain the names and the backgrounds of the individuals. The objective is to recruit them to work for them.

For instance around all the organizations, American organizations in foreign countries, they do the operation of placement. It is nothing more than an expediency, where they try to obtain all the information about the organization, the people who work there, and those who have relations with that organization.

This information is very easy to obtain sometimes. For instance, the American Embassy in London, you ask for the list of the diplomats who work there. You ask a reporter, who are those who work for the intelligence agencies and who are the diplomats. They already have the information. It's not very difficult. Then they begin to start conversations at parties with you.

Senator DENTON. Senator Thurmond, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has sent us this question. He recognizes, he says, that Mr. Peraza has no specific knowledge of the DGI after November 1971, but wants to Know It fur. reraza has any comment on the frequent speculation in the U.S. press that Orlando Letelier was in contact with DGI agents. As you know, Letelier was the Ambassador to the United States during the Allende years in Chile.

Mr. PERAZA. The only information, actual information that I have is about Allende. Allende, he was not--before becoming President, he was not an agent of the Cuban intelligence service, but he was a very, very good friend of them--he visited the Cuban organization.

Senator DENTON. Are you personally aware, Señor, that there were any successful placings of high-ranking DGI or KGB agents within the U.S. intelligence service or any defense or security-oriented agencies?

Mr. PERAZA. The information existing on this case is in the hands of the organizations that----

Senator DENTON. I did not want names. I just wanted to know if he had knowledge that there were some.

Mr. PERAZA. Yes, definitely. We can use as an example the Senate.

Senator DENTON. I imagine we better have a closed session on that.

Mr. PERAZA. Yes, yes.

Senator DENTON. I am familiar with the considerations you have had to face in making the decision to appear before this subcommittee and I would like to congratulate you on your bravery. Thank you for your testimony. I also want to thank Mr. Tarabochia for his excellent interpretation, and Mr. Herrera for standing by.

Mr. HERRERA. Yes.

Senator DENTON. Thank you very much. This hearing stands in recess.

[Whereupon, at 12:16 p.m., the subcommittee recessed to reconvene at 10 a.m. on March 4. 1982.]