[1]177-10002-10016) | | 2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992 |
[2]. JFK Assassination System Date: 8/26/20)
[3]Identification Form
[5]Agency Information
[7]AGENCY:  LBJ
[8]RECORD NUMBER:  177-10002-10016
[9]RECORD SERIES: NSF, UNARRANGED FILES, LA/CUBAN SUBVERSION, BOX 5
[10]AGENCY FILE NUMBER :
[11]Document Information
[12]ORIGINATOR: CIA
[13]FROM:
[14]TO:
[15]TITLE:
[18]SUBJECTS :
[19]NEED SUBJECT ASSIGNED
[20]DOCUMENT TYPE: DRAFT BRIEFING NOTES
[21]CLASSIFICATION: — Unclassified
[22]RESTRICTIONS: 1A
[23]CURRENT STATUS: — Redact
[24]DATE OF LASTREVIEW: 04/21/1998
[25]OPENING CRITERIA :
[26]COMMENTS :
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[37]DRAFT BRIEFING NOTES 18 February 1963
[39]FUNDING
[41]I. Cuban financing of subversive operations in Latin
[43]America is easy to ascertain and hard to document.
[45]Our evidence shows that it is generally effected
[47]by couriers carrying cash.
[49]A.
[51]A Venezuelan politician, Fabricio Ojeda, re-
[52]turned from Cuba in March of 1962, and was seen
[53]by several witnesses to have large quantities
[54]of US currency stuffed in a false-bottomed com-
[55]partment of his suitcase: There is no law
[56]against bringing currency into Venezuela, so
[57]that authorities could not even determine how
[58]much he had brought in. Ojeda later was cap-
[59]tured, tried, and sentenced for guerrilla ac-
[60]tivity.
[62]A Nicaraguan exile, Julio Cesar Mayorga Porto-
[63]carrera, was flying from Mexico to Honduras in
[64]September, 1961, when weather forced the plane
[65]to overfly Honduras and land in Nicaragua. He
[66]was found to be carrying $3,600 in cash from
[67]Cuba for Nicaraguan rebels in Honduras.
[69]Last March Ecuadorean troops raided a guerrilla
[71]training camp in the mountains west of Quito and
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[79]arrested some 48 members of the URJE (Union of
[80]Revolutionary Ecuadorean Youth): The leaders ‘of
[81]the group admitted having received guerrilla
[82]training in Cuba, but there was no other evidence
[83]at the time of any Cuban involvement. The URJE,
[84]however, was a Communist-front group whose leaders
[85]had thrown off the discipline of the regular Conm-
[86]munist. party, and this January the Communists man-
[87]aged to have a URJE convention, run by Young Com-
[88]munists, expel the leaders. They were accused,
[89]according to published accounts, of having wasted
[90]$44,000 supplied by Cuba for guerrilla activities.
[91]One of our reliable sources in the Communist Party
[92]((a regional Communist leader in contact with the
[93]Cuban chargé in Chile, and a member of the PCE
[94]inquiry commission)) has informed us that the
[95]next-to-last Cuban chargé in Quito blamed the
[96]fiasco on the fact that his successor had passed
[97]the money to the URJE without coordinating with
[98]the regular Communist party.
[100]D. A highly placed Guatemalan Communist who defected
[101]last November has given us a specific account of
[102]procedures by which Cuba sent cash to Mexico to
[103]puy weapons which were then smuggled into Gua te-
[105]mala.
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[116]E. We also have considerable evidence of involved
[117]bank transfers by which Cuban money eventually
[118]reaches Latin American front groups to pay for
[119]political and propaganda activity. In some
[120]countries where the Cubans still have diplomatic
[121]missions, we have obtained photostats showing
[122]that Cuban diplomats paid for printing of front-
[123]group propaganda.
[125]F. Just last month, one of the first Brazilians to
[126]receive guerrilla warfare training in 1961 was
[127]Picked up with a Suitcase full of ammunition he
[128]was carrying to some of those same guerrilla
[129]training camps exposed when the Varig plane
[130]crashed in Peru. Interestingly enough, the
[131]Brazilians believe that the money Cuba had been
[132]providing for the camps actually came from Com-
[133]munist China. Since the exposure of the Varig
[134]documents-~and probably since the guerrillas
[135]first reached the Cuban embassy in Rio with
[136]their complaints about mismanagement, confusion,
[137]and corruption--the Cubans have apparently
[138]stopped financing this operation, but the evidence
[139]shows it is still limping along. The man with’
[140]the suitcase full of ammunition said that a woman
[141]attorney in Rio had given him the money to buy a
[142]large hacienda as a new guerrilla camp. We know
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[154]that this woman is a cut-out in the communica-
[155]tions between the pro-Communist Peasant Leagues,
[156]which have run the camps, and the Cuban embassy.
[157]it. The principle that guerrillas must be self-sustain-
[158]ing has obviously been applied to finances as well.
[160]Communists have staged waves of bank robberies in
[162]Venezuela, Peru, and Argentina,
[164]A. The most spectacular hold-up was that of a bank
[165]in a Lima suburb last year which netted almost
[166]$100,000. Some of the participants have been
[167]caught and are being tried in the mass trials
[168]of more than 200 Communists just starting in
[169]Peru. We know that the hold-up was carried out
[170]by a combination of guerrillas and ordinary
[171]criminals, who divided the loot fifty-fifty.
[172]Some of the share of the common criminals has
[173]been recovered, but the Communist half is be-
[174]lieved to have reached the sizeable guerrilla
[175]forces of Hugo Blanco in the Cuzco Valley.
[177]B. Just last week a bank in an outlying Venezuelan
[178]‘town was robbed of $25,000 by men wearing FALN
[179]armbands.
[181]Cc. Argentine police last July raided a Buenos Aires
[182]warehouse and found evidence that it had been
[183]the headquarters for a gang of terrorists—-ap-
[184]parently working with both the Peronists and the
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[194]Communists--responsible for a wave of hold-ups,
[195]burglaries, and attacks on police posts designed
[197]_ to obtain funds, weapons, and explosives,
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