[1]104-10301-10001 | 2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992 |
[3]oo SECK
[5]CIA Internal Use Only
[6]Access Controlled by DDO
[8]HISTORICAL STAFF
[9]CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
[11]~ WESTERN HEMISPHERE DIVISION
[12]1946 - 1965
[14]DDO HP 324
[16]by
[18]Approved:
[20]Davi . ilips ,
[21]Chief, Western Hemisphere Division
[22]Directorate of Operations
[24]December 1973
[26]VoLuME I
[28]Copy No. 1: WH
[29]Copy No. 2: O/DDO -
[31]SECRET
[33]SECRET
[35]-Latin American officers in Panama, and also supplied
[36]material for the US Army Intelligence School to use
[38]in training foreign students on Communism. Nine CIA
[39]officers lectured at a Fort Holabird course for senior
[40]Latin American officers in 1961, capping their presenta-
[42]tion by producing a Soviet defector who spoke on the
[45]Soviet intelligence service.
[47]' AER nro nile terem mpm oy wna we
[49]oe eo eS
[51]CIA maintained a station in Havana throughout
[52]1960 but faced increasing operational difficulties--
[53]some of CIA's own making. Probably the outstanding |
[54]flap was the capture of three TSD technicians, caught
[55]in the act of planting a microphone in the New China
[56]News Agency office. An analysis of this operation,
[57]made when the technicians were released 18 months later,
[58]Showed that they had ignored many of the basic rules
[59]of tradecraft. On the other hand, the Cubans had given
[60]them only perfunctory interrogations -
[61]In 1960 the Havana Station consisted of (Janes
[62]A. Noei, chief of station; Arthur Avignon, deputy;
[63]about six case officers and as many secretaries. Life
[64]was unpleasant; Castro agents shadowed American Em-
[65]bassy personnel, monitored their telephone conversa-
[67]tions, and tried to pump their children about what
[69]- 233 -
[71]SECRET Vp
[74]a i i i I * I |
[75]t 4 a J - | 5 i . ) : " 2 |
[76]os eo i . 7
[77], x
[79]SECRET
[81]daddy was doing. As relations between the United
[82]States and Cuba deteriorated the station concentrated
[83]on support for the Cuban invasion then being planned,
[84]and on developing stay-behind assets. Frank Belsito
[85]and later Ralph Seehafer were designated as "stay-
[87]behind officers" and regularly reported on a dozen
[89]or sO agents and nets, a few of which survived the
[91]station's closing.*
[93]The break in diplomatic relations with Cuba |
[94]was predictable, and during the fall of 1960 Embassy
[95]dependents were moving themselves and their house-
[96]hold effects back to the United States. Avignon
[97]made a special trip on the Havana-Key West ferry
[98]to take out his personal car, silverware, and a
[99]$1,500 violin. Station files not absolutely essen-
[100]tial were crated and shipped back to Headquarters.
[101]Case officers were working 15-hour days, seven-day
[102]weeks.
[104]When the break came, the Embassy had three
[105]days' notice that it would close on 4 January 1961.
[107]The CIA station had just installed a new incinerator
[109]* One stay-behind agent, AMFOX-1, was still report- .
[111]ing in 1973 but WH Division believed he had been
[113]doubled.
[114]- 234 - . :
[116]SECRET
[119]SECRET
[121]and managed to burn what files it could not ship to
[122]Key West on the attache aircraft. When they were
[124]not burning papers or smashing technical equipment,
[125]case officers were caching radios or making advance
[127]payments to agents left behind.
[129]| i i i | a
[131]On 4 January station personnel met at the
[133]Embassy, rode in convoy to the ferry, and sailed to
[135]the States. A few, like William J. Murray, had main-
[136]tained houses until the end and lost everything in
[138]them. *
[139]This was the period when Fidel Castro, as yet
[141]unrestrained by his more cautious and practical Soviet
[143]advisors, was busily stirring up trouble in the
[145]Western Hemisphere and popularizing the phrase
[147]"exporting the revolution." A typical target was
[149]Honduras, the poorest and most primitive country in
[150]Central America. CIA's reaction was also typical
[152]of the "nation-building" and "“institution-building"
[154]approach to countering subversion.
[156]When Castro began his propaganda campaign in
[158]* Two years later Congress authorized the Department
[159]of State to reimburse its employees the depreciated
[160]value of furnishings left in Cuba. Payments fell
[161]far short of replacement costs.
[163]i
[164]i
[167]a
[169]- 238 -
[171]SECRET
[174]pee aa)
[176]7” of assets commencing with a close per-
[177]sonal relationship between the station
[178]| chief and the President of Mexico, high-
[180]level telephone taps, photographic sur-
[181]‘ veillance, unilateral intelligence as-
[182]sets and a broad scale of covert action
[183]an capabilities.
[185]Within a week of the inspector's visit
[187]Frederick W. Cole was relieved as chief of station
[188]| in La Paz, partly because of comments made by Ambas-
[189]sador Ben Stephansky, a former labor attache who had
[190]not worked closely with CIA. Lyle T. Shannon, cos,
[191]Panama City, left WH Division (perhaps coincidentally)
[192]a few months after the Inspector General had described
[194]him thus: |
[196]Se SSS
[198]i
[199]The chief of station is a GS-18 who
[200]has served in many different posts in
[201]| the Agency. He has been in Panama for
[202]about five years. A wide gap in human ‘
[203]relations exists between the chief of
[204]| station and his staff. He is coldly
[205]aloof and is reputed to brook no dif- \
[206]‘ ference of opinion even on questions
[207]| ; of operational procedures. He is a
[208]: ; hard-driving administrator. His tal-
[209]: ents along this line are granted even
[210]by the Ambassador, who bluntly dis-
[211]credits his ability as an intelligence
[212]officer. 275/
[214]Although the separate Task Force W (TFW) was
[215]not officially established until 8 March 1962, the
[217]planning and execution of the Bay of Pigs operation
[219]- 242 -
[221]el a SECRET
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[226]SECRET
[228]were for all practical purposes conducted indepen-
[229]dently of WH Division and therefore are not covered
[230]in this history. There was an informal but under-
[232]stood shortcut in the chain of command; basic deci-
[234]sions were made at the DDP, DCI, or Presidential
[236]level. Although some of the key personnel were de-
[237]tailed from WH Division, the Cuban Headquarters unit
[238]was in another building and no one pretended that
[240]J. C. King was running the show.
[242]Jacob D. Esterline, a veteran WH Division
[243]officer who later became deputy chief of the divi-
[244]Sion, was chief of the Cuban unit during the buildup
[245]and invasion attempt, and took his orders from the
[246]DDP. When the Cuban unit was made officially autono-
[247]mous as TFW and later as the Special Affairs Staff
[248](SAS), it was headed first by William K. Harvey and
[249]then by Desmond FitzGerald, Bruce B. Cheever and
[250]John L. Hart, none of whom had previous service in
[251]WH Division. It was not until 1965 that the Cuban
[252]unit really lost its autonomy and again came firmly
[253]under WH Division.
[255]Actual expenditures in FY 1961 illustrate
[257]the disparity between Cuban operations and the
[259]- 243 -
[261]SECRET
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[268]parent WH Division. In that year total obligations
[269]for Cuban operations were (G41, 498,743) or almost
[270]four times the ($11,003,991) spent in the rest of
[271]Latin America. Except for Cuba 1961 was a repre- :
[272]sentative year, and these were the obligations for
[274]regular stations throughout the hemisphere: :
[276]/ Brazil $1,498,101 Colombia $301,389
[278]' Mexico 1,384,505 Dominican Rep. 261,148
[280]i Venezuela 922,424 Costa Rica 231,351
[282]\ Argentina 802,302 £1 Salvador 222,037
[284]\" ' Chile 646,768 Honduras 103,820
[285]q | Panama 579,310 Nicaragua 92,088
[286]' Uruguay 521,082 Haiti 77,675
[288]j Guatemala 418,778 Paraguay 54,606
[290]' Peru 380,422 West Indies 41,864
[291]Ecuador 336,367 Puerto Rico 24,377
[293]Bolivia | -—- 303,210 | 276/ |
[295]“Until the nearly 1,200 prisoners taken at the
[297]“ Bay of Pigs could be ransomed with shipments of phar-
[298]maceuticals, CIA regularly supported their dependents
[299]in the United States. In the opinion of the General
[300]Counsel, if a dependent had sued, courts would probably
[302]-. ‘have found that Cuban Brigade members were entitled to
[304]the benefits of the Federal Employees' Compensation
[306]Act. Thus by mid-1962 CIA was disbursing $311,500
[307]i ; per month to the dependents, plus bonuses and medical
[308]care for invaders who managed to return. These ex-
[310]penses, however, were paid from special funds outside
[312]- 244 - ;
[314]SECRET 3 Wn 4
[317]14-90000
[321]SSS ot ESSE
[323]wet
[325]SSSR es
[328]the WH Division budget.
[330]\_ . Bee ane }
[331]: 7 ae Probably Castro's attempt to export his revo- iy
[332]"We ]
[334]lution reached its peak in 1962. The first Castro-
[335]inspired guerrilla action in Latin America occurred
[336]in March of that year, when Indians in the interior
[337]of Peru attacked the towns of Huampani and Satipo.
[338]A Lima Station penetration agent identified their
[340]leader as Cuban-trained and reported that radios and
[342]; weapons had been smuggled in from Cuba to start the
[345]attack.
[347]At year's end the US Government planned to
[348]assemble for the Organization of American States a
[349]white paper on Cuban subversion in Latin America,
[350]and in February 1963 WH Division chiefs of station
[351]met in Panama to discuss their contributions with -
[352]the DCI. From this meeting came a picture of Castro's
[353]campaign of subversion.
[354]Argentina reported that left-wing Peronists
[355]were an attractive target for Cuba; police had cap-
[356]tured a group of terrorists organized and directed
[357]by John William Cooke, an ex-Peronist then in Cuba.
[358]Bolivia knew of 217 activists trained in Cuba within
[360]nine months and was looking forward to debriefing
[362]- 245 -
[364]SECRET
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[371]a
[372]I Everyone breathed easier, and the Chief, WH
[374]Division, described the operation as “one of the
[376]most tightly held of our Cuban activities." Two ;
[378]“| years later the hold was not so tight, for on 26 March ‘i.
[380]1965 the New York Times front-paged a reasonably com-
[381]f
[383]plete and accurate account of the great sugar-sabotage
[385]operation under the headline:
[387]PRESIDENT KENNEDY BALKED "
[388]CIA PLOT ON RUSSIAN SUGAR i
[390]United a
[392]3 ten La Sete eaklstt pT’:
[393]ype a TF Re a eT
[395]Press services picked up the story.
[397]Press International doffed its cap to "enterprising
[399]we 1S
[401]i
[404]U.S. agents," but added that "White House interven- fe
[406]‘i
[408]' tion foiled the Central Intelligence Agency's Carib- i
[409]283/ HT
[411]eee es ts
[413]bean melodrama." CIA, as usual, had no Comment...
[414]gE Pa Ey a a Tee - st ste
[416]For across- the- board coverage of Cuba in
[418]the early 1960's the Mexico City Station was tops.
[420]Reporting on the Cuban Embassy, the COS said in Feb-
[424]... . We intercept their mail, photograph
[425]all the people who go in and out of the
[426]Embassy, cover their telephones completely,
[427]and within a few hours of the conversa-
[428]tions have resumes of all. the phone calls.
[429]We cover their trash, and this has been
[430]found to be useful. And included in the
[431]usefulness was the discovery of a man who
[432]‘was doublecrossing us, who we thought was
[433]a good penetration of the Embassy.
[435]- 252 -
[437]SECRET
[440]14-00009,
[441]ia
[443]CIA had seven different microphones in the
[445]Cuban Embassy, one hidden in a leg of the coffee
[446]table in the Ambassador's office. Like most audio
[448]operations, this one produced a lot of chaff, but
[450]it also yielded bits of operational information
[451]showing connections between the Embassy and local
[452]Communists and students. At the airport the station
[453]was getting photographs of all travellers to Cuba,
[454]plus about 300 photos per day of their passports
[456]and documents. y
[458]: 2
[459][inciudea in the take from the Cuban Embassy
[461]were the serial numbers of weapons bought by Commu-
[463]nists for smuggling into Guatemala, plus the names
[465]and positions of the sellers. Complicating the ex-.
[467]ploitation of this information was the fact that the
[469]weapons had been sold by Mexican officials, and while
[471]the station wanted to stop the smuggling and appre- ~
[473]hend the Communist smugglers it had no desire to
[475]upset sensitive relations with the Mexican Government]
[476]g [Two high-level officers of the Cuban Embassy,
[478]one of them the cultural attache} were recruited CIA
[480]penetrations. The station had sent three agents into
[482]Cuba and was getting reports from them by secret
[486]- 253 -
[488]SECRET
[491]14-0000
[493]Se eT
[494]ten Eee ee FL
[496]Saree
[497]Ren seacietliivo Sears
[499]panne
[502][Ne such restraint was applied to Venezuela,
[503]‘1 where Castro-supported terrorism was rampant. On
[505]writing. Meanwhile it was servicing 17 accommoda-
[506]tion addresses for Headquarters and Miami.
[508]In spite of all this, there was little exploi-
[509]table evidence that Cuba was using Mexico as a base
[510]for subversion in the rest of Latin America. Mexico
[511]was the only Latin American nation to maintain diplo-
[512]Matic relations. with Cuba in the face of an OAS reso-
[514]lution intended to isolate the island. Anxious to
[516]retain this bridge to the Western Hemisphere, Castro
[518]had ordered his Embassy to do nothing which might 284)"
[519]284
[520]considered offensive by the Mexican Government.
[522]SIRT TE ae s
[523]co See eee PO Fe St ee
[525]SIT SS ne
[527]2 November 1963, on a tip from a campesino, the
[528]Servicio de Inteligencia de las Fuerzas Armadas
[530](SIFA) found a cache of more than three tons of
[532]Cuban arms on a beach on the Paraguana Peninsula
[533]in northwest Venezuela. CIA learned about it promptly
[534]through liaison.
[536]Jonathan G. Hanke, a Caracas case:officer,
[538]brought sample weapons to Washington, where CIA was
[539]able to raise the serial numbers and Cuban Army in-
[541]Signia which had been ground off. Richard Helms,
[543]- 254 -
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[550]SECRET
[552]blocs in the country: Barrientos, supported by the
[553]. ae
[555]campesinos; General Alfredo Ovando Candia, supported
[557]by the army; and the Communists and leftists, sup-
[559]ported by tough mine and factory workers. To have
[561]py Barrientos elected, CIA first had to promote a
[562]" credible election by underwriting the campaigns of
[564]both the selected winner and his token opposition
[566]at the polls.
[567]The real question was whether elections would
[569]be held at all. In 18 months the La Paz Station
[571]spent $585,000, first to persuade the armed forces
[573]to clamp down on the leftists, then to persuade
[574]Barrientos to run, then to convince Ovando he should
[575]not interfere, and finally to promote enough politi-
[576]cal opposition to make the election plausible. In
[578]a genuine tour de force, COS Lawrence M. Sternfield
[579]produced what OAS observers called a democratic and
[581]honest election--and got the results from the elec-
[583]“ont 7 vote 1964 “President “Lyndon B. Johnson
[584]presided at a White House meeting which laid down
[585]general guidelines for CIA action against Cuba.
[587]Others at the meeting included Secretary of State
[589]- 279 -
[591]SECRET
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[597]SECRET
[599]Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara,
[601]General: Maxwell Taylor of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, -
[602]Presidential Advisor McGeorge Bundy, DCI John A.
[604]McCone, DDP Richard Helms and FitzGerald. There was
[606]no question about charging CIA with the following
[608]types of activity:
[610]Bnew»
[612]1. Collection of intelligence.
[614]2. Covert propaganda to encourage
[615]low-risk forms of active and passive
[616]resistance. 5
[618]3. Cooperation with other agencies
[619]in economic denial.
[621]4, Attempts to identify and estab-
[622]lish contact with potential dissident
[623]elements inside Cuba.
[625]5. Indirect economic sabotage.
[627]There was sharp disagreement, however, over
[628]whether CIA should continue infiltrating sabotage
[629]agents into Cuba. McNamara, Taylor and McCone favored
[630]more sabotage raids, but Rusk and Bundy feared that —~
[631]CIA raids might undermine the US "clean hands" pos-
[632]ture in the OAS or give the Soviets an excuse for
[634]delaying turnover of their surface-to-air missile
[636]- 280 -
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[643]SECRET
[645](SAM) sites to the Cubans.
[646]Finally Rusk recommended that CIA's raiding
[647]assets be kept in being but not actually used--at
[649]least until the OAS and SAM sites problems could be
[651]clarified. The President accepted this recommenda-
[653]tion. Although CIA did try to keep its sabotage
[654]agents ready, the White House decision spelled the
[655]end of the Agency's. sabotage (though not support and
[656]intelligence-collecting) infiltrations of cuba
[658]Agency-sponsored radio propaganda aimed at
[659]Cuba reached its peak in early 1965 with an actual
[660]expenditure of about $1,500,000 and expansion still
[661]planned. The semi-notional Cuban Freedom Committee
[662]served as cover for Radio Free Cuba, which broad-
[663]cast a total of 77 hours weekly from transmitters
[664]in Miami, Key West, and New. Orleans.
[666]Started in 1961, the Cuban Freedom Committee
[667]retained a public relations firm and spent. $7,000
[668]annually to establish its cover by soliciting bona |
[669]fide public contributions. In its first year these
[670]totalled $5,000, but by 1965 public support. had dwin-
[671]dled to $200. One of the difficulties was that any
[673]widespread US appeal for funds for Rddio Free Cuba
[675]- 281 -
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[684]would perforce have to attack Castro, and might there-
[685]fore be considered domestic propaganda exceeding CIA's
[686]charter. i
[688]Outside the committee, CIA operated a trans-
[689]mitter calling itself Radio Americas and broad-
[690]casting from Swan Island, and bought time for anti-
[691]Cuban broadcasts from three commercial stations.
[692]Programming on these four stations totalled 119
[693]hours weekly in addition to the 77 on Radio Free
[696]Cuba.
[698]Swan Island, roughly a mile and a half long
[699]and three-quarters of a mile wide, lies in the Carib-
[700]bean 125 miles north of the Honduran coast. Both the
[701]United States and Honduras claimed sovereignty over the
[702]island in the 1960's. The US Weather Bureau-had manned
[703]a weather station there Since 1949, and CIA first set
[704]up a covert transmitter in 1954 to support its propa-
[705]ganda against the Arbenz regime in Guatemala. *
[707]Apart from the question of its real impact—in
[709]Cuba and the psychological problems of a. staff living
[711]* Under a 1971 agreement the US relinquished its claim
[713]to sovereignty but retained the right to operate a
[715]weather station.
[717]- 282 -
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[725]in almost total isolation, the Swan Island transmitter
[727]| raised a nightmare of cover complications. Operating
[728]as Radio Americas, it was supposedly under cover of
[729]the Vanguard Service Corporation, an Agency proprie-
[730]| tary which offered no services, and the Gibraltar
[731]Steamship Corporation, another proprietary which
[732]operated no steamships. A Boston millionaire who
[733]= | claimed to-own the island collected rent from the
[734]Vanguard Corporation, which could not afford to argue,
[735]but not fromthe Weather Bureau, which disputed his
[736]claim. Vanguard contracted with Coastal Air of
[737]Miami for one light-aircraft supply flight a week
[738]and with the Logistics Service Corporation of Phila-
[739]delphia, a Philco subsidiary, to maintain the island
[740]facilities and transmitting equipment. All of this
[741]enabled CIA to play tapes and broadcast the commen-
[742]: - 7 “ taries of the three Cuban anfiouncers stationed on ~
[743]' the island, but it did not prevent Radio Habana
[745]from pinpointing the transmitter and calling it a
[747]| CIA \ propaganda mechanism.
[749]wee ee ee -— wre: re en ce ce
[750]vn eT eererenaaesreae eae - st reso — coats
[752]_ “Nevertheless in early 1965 Congressman Roman . J
[753]C
[755]. Pucinski (D-I11.), a member of the Cuban Freedom
[757]4
[759]i
[760]i
[764]Committee executive board, was pressing CIA to saturate j/
[766]- 283 -
[768]SECRET
[769]a
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[774]SECRET
[776]iif the Cuban airwaves and smuggle or airdrop transistor
[777]radios into Cuba to expand the audience. Inside the
[778]Agency FitzGerald politely rejected the. congressional
[779]advice but pointed out that WH Division already was ot
[781]planning the University of the Air,* which would of
[783]broadcast college-level courses to divide the loyalty
[784]of Cuban students. /
[785]Another congressional critic was Senator 7
[786]Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.), perennial sponsor of bills :
[787]to create a CIA Watchdog Committee and author of a i
[788]January 1964 Saturday Evening Post article entitled :
[789]"The CIA Is Getting Out Of Hand." In April 1965
[790]FitzGerald and Seymour Bolten of WH Division met
[791]with the Senator to discuss the Christian Democratic
[793]social and political programs of the Catholic Church
[795]in Latin America. After this meeting McCarthy, a
[797]‘devout Catholic, coo tempered his assess-
[798]310 :
[800]- ment of the Agency. i nay usta eee ated
[801]| iL nig EE TS Ee EE be a ETS 6 eB td into
[802]US relations with Cuba entered a new phase
[804]| after the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 when Agency
[807]Pee ana ~ ae cee i ees Soe See TENE ee
[809]* This project was abandoned following press expo- b:
[810]sure of CIA's relations with American universities
[812]and student groups. ey
[813]ST a +
[815]- 284 -
[817]ZR] - SECRET
[820]14.90000
[822]SECRET
[824]facilities provided the Kennedy administration with
[825]positive information on. the buildup of Soviet mis-
[827]sile capability on the island. This episode is docu-
[829]-mented elsewhere and is outside the scope of this
[831]present paper.
[833]One of FitzGerald's major successes against
[834]Cuba was in the field of economic warfare--called
[835]the MHVIPER program in CIA. After a hurricane
[836]ripped through the island in 1964, Castro's econo- |
[837]mists and publicists began a campaign to persuade
[838]free-world sugar brokers that the Cuban sugar crop
[840]had been badly damaged and exports would be low.
[842]‘The object, of course, was.to drive up sugar prices
[844]on the world market, on which Castro depended for
[845]hard currency to finance imports.
[847]At first the campaign worked and sugar prices
[848]did skyrocket. But FitzGerald was not convinced,
[849]and sent Natalie Scott’ to London to study economic
[850]reports from the British Embassy in Havana. Partly
[851]on the basis of her research, the US. Government's
[853]sugar-crop forecasters concluded that despite the
[855]_ hurricane Cuba would harvest more sugar than ever.
[857]FitzGerald arranged to have a. Department of
[861]SECRET
[864]14.90000
[865]-
[867]SECRET
[869]State official leak this general conclusion to the
[871]New York Times. Sugar prices dipped, but rallied
[873]when Castro indignantly denied the Times story.
[875]The Department then officially announced the US Govern-
[876]ment estimate that there would be no shortage of
[878]Cuban sugar. As it turned out, the US estimate was
[879]right.
[881]After the official announcement world sugar
[882]prices dropped several cents per pound, and this
[883]time they stayed down. At a time when fluctuations
[884]of one cent a pound meant millions of dollars to
[885]the Cuban economy, publication of the essentially
[886]correct estimate upset Castro's attempts to manipu-
[887]late the narket
[889]Late in the summer of 1964. the DDI told Fitz-
[890]Gerald that the Department of State was inquiring
[891]informally about the possibility of setting up a
[892]CIA channel for plausibly deniable clandestine con-
[893]tacts with Cuba. FitzGerald replied:
[895]It seems to me that the establishment
[897]of a continuous two-way conversation with
[899]Fidel Castro at a time when we- have noth-
[901]ing to convey to him would be a serious
[903]mistake.... It may: be that Secretary Rusk
[905]feels that the present establishment of
[906]conversations with Fidel Castro should
[908]- 286 -
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[915]SECRET
[917]be considered in order to make sure that
[919]we will have the ability to speak to him
[920]when or if the time comes. On this score
[922]I do not feel there is any reason for worry.
[923]There are a number of ways in which we can
[924]communicate to Fidel. Castro virtually at a
[925]moment’s notice. 312/
[929]art of CIA's economic warfare against Cuba
[930]involved an elaborate scheme to Supply tampered pet-
[931]' roleum additives through an Agency mechanism in An-
[932]twerp. This was planned as subtle sabotage; after ‘
[933]being mixed with Soviet petroleum the additives would :
[934]Surely but imperceptibly incapacitate Cuban machinery.
[935]; Unfortunately, the doctored additives proved anything
[936]but subtle and the Cubans promptly discovered they
[937]were unusable.
[938]Also a failure was an attempt by Francis S.
[939]Sherry and William C. Boner, Jr., of the Cuban Oper-
[940]ations Group (WH/COG) to persuade Detroit automobile
[941]executives to produce spare parts: deliberately de-
[942]Signed to break down. Sherry and Boner went to De-
[943]“— troit in early March 1965 and explained to manufac-
[944]turing vice presidents that the defective parts
[945]could be:sent to Cuba through third-country suppliers.
[946]But. the automobile executives refused to cooperate;
[948]they feared that their companies' reputations would
[950]—— - 287 -
[952]| SECRET
[955]14.90000
[957]Sy . » .
[958]er Gy .
[960]SECRET
[962]be ruined ifthe doctored parts accidentally got in-
[963]314
[965],.to the wrong channels.
[967]| BN
[969]In the wake of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs ine “,
[971]vasion of 1961 and the active years of 1962-1964,
[972]anti-Castro operations began to diminish in .1965.
[973]Operations continued but at a slower pace. John L.
[974]Hart had the title of Deputy Chief, WH Division, for
[975]Cuba (DCWHD/C), and operated a large base in Miami
[976]with virtual autonomy. A chain of safehouses,
[977]training sites and boat-moorages stretched through
[978]the Florida keys to Key West. From these CIA
[980]. launched maritime operations which regularly placed
[981]and retrieved agents from the Cuban coast, but whose
[982]intelligence product often did not justify the
[983]effort.
[985]Meanwhile CIA ran a dwindling number of
[987]on-island intelligence agents, including some
[988]' handled in cooperation with the US Navy base at
[989]— ~~ Guantanamo, where hundreds of Cubans still worked = ~— => >
[990]-by day and returned to Castroland at night. As .
[991]the Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI)
[992]i improved and expanded under Soviet tutelage, CIA
[994]agent networks were rolled up and even singleton
[996]- 288 -
[998]UPJ SECRET
[1001]14.90000
[1003]. y
[1005]SECRET
[1007]agents dropped out of contact. Typical was Radio
[1008]Habana's 12 May 1965 announcement that '31 counter-
[1009]revolutionaries, members of a CIA espionage network"
[1010]had been arrested. Of the 14 actually named in the
[1011]broadcast, WH Division identified six who had worked
[1012]with Juan Bautista Perez Luis (AMTAUP-10), chief
[1013]gardener at the naval base and principal agent for
[1014]CIA. Although he had been debriefed in Miami in Jan-.
[1015]uary, Perez' location and status were not known in
[1018]May.
[1020]Bs, ak a hin Ee
[1022]PTO
[1024]bably the most successful political oper-
[1026]ation in WH Division's history was the Chilean elec-
[1028]tion of 4 September 1964 in which Eduardo Frei of
[1029]the Christian Democratic Party decisively defeated
[1030]Salvador Allende, Marxist leader of a Communist- ’
[1031]dominated coalition.* Drawing on covert mechanisms
[1032]established by Santiago Station years earlier, plus
[1034]new procedures and assets developed for the election, ys
[1036]the campaign to assure Frei's victory cost CIA about
[1038]$2,600,000. Its success kept Allende at bay until
[1040]1970, when no such intervention by CIA was authorized.
[1042]* For a full description, see "The Chilean Election
[1043]Operation of 1964, a Case History, 1961-1964." ‘
[1044]CSHP-1. —
[1046]- 289 -
[1048]SECRET
[1051]14-0000
[1053]SECRET
[1055]that FitzGerald had won the President's confidence
[1056]in several meetings. Freeman, who had been in Mexico
[1058]only a few months, apparently simmered down after his |.
[1059]318/ -
[1060]talk with the assistant_secretary copes ER
[1062]= see Ss Pathe eee Se ee
[1064]sar mae
[1066]The Mexico City Station devoted a major part
[1067]-of its time to running or supporting operations
[1069]| against Cuba; 47 percent of its cable traffic con-
[1071]cerned Cuban operations. Mexico was the only Latin
[1073]American country maintaining diplomatic relations
[1075]| ~ with Castro and had the only direct air link to Ha-
[1076]vana. WH Division assigned top priority to recruit-
[1078]| 7 ing agents in place in Cuba, and Mexico City Station
[1079]not only ran its own operations but supported the
[1080]tentative plans of other stations.
[1082]| The variety and volume of technical operations
[1083]created a heavy workload managing safehouses, listen-
[1085]| 7 - ing posts, and vehicles. - For photography. alone the
[1087]Station had six base houses commanding the entrances
[1089]to target embassies, two mobile photosurveillance
[1091]] trucks, and three agents trained in photosurveillance
[1092]7 on foot.: It was such projects that provided informa-
[1094]i _ tion on the visits of Lee Harvey Oswald, President
[1096]J Kennedy's assassin, to the Cuban and Soviet Embassies
[1098]- 293 -
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[1103]hoe ye SECRET
[1107]in Mexico.
[1109]CIA's clandestine information on Oswald, in-
[1110]cluding a photograph showing him in front of the
[1111]Soviet Embassy, was turned over to the FBI, which
[1112]promised to safeguard Agency sources and methods,
[1113]Instead, the Bureau showed the photograph to Oswald's
[1114]mother in Dallas and told her it was a CIA photo.
[1115]The mother gave the press a garbled story about the
[1116]photo, the FBI gave the press the correct story,
[1117]and eventually CIA's clandestine information became
[1118]part of the voluminous Warren Commission report on
[1119]the Kennedy assassination. In the process Mexico
[1120]City Station had to abandon its photosurveillance
[1123]base houses, which had been thorough ly blown.
[1126]Fe a ee eR ve
[1128]= In the early 1960's WH I Division “built an ex-
[1129]tensive political polling mechanism around the Insti-
[1130]tute for the Comparative Study of Political Systems,
[1131]a proprietary whose project cryptonym was JMTUBA,
[1132]From 1962 ‘to 1966 the institute conducted 20 polls
[1134]in nine Latin American countries. Their cost cannot
[1135]be computed because many of the expenses were charged
[1136]to other projects. .
[1138]In FY 1965, for example, political polls in
[1140]- 294 -