Under the inspiration and training in the State Security bodies of the former USSR, the Intelligence Services of Cuba managed to keep the government of Fidel Castro afloat for 52 years, facing military and paramilitary operations, psychological war, sabotage, the embargo imposed by the US Government, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and organizations of exiled citizens based in this country.
Starting with the suppression measures on the supply of petroleum and of the Sugar Quote, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the promotion and support of paramilitary groups, the propaganda war of TV and Radio Martí, all efforts made by the most powerful government on earth has been shielded by the Cuban Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence.
Out of the operations of the CIA Station in Mexico during the Guerra Sucia (Dirty war) the former agent reveals the names and pseudonyms of the CIA agents coopted by the Cuban Intelligence and the undercover agents infiltrated in the Agency between 1973 and 1993.
Riera started in 1973 in Cuba as an Official for the Analysis of CIA activity in Mexico, in what was back then the Buró de Información y Análisis (Bureau of Information and Analysis) of the extinct Departmento de Contra-Inteligencia Exterior (the Exterior Counter-Intelligence Department) of what used to be called in 1989 the Dirección de Intelligencia (Intelligence Directorate, DGI).
“All the information obtained through the DGI of the CIA in Mexico reached my hands, in addition to the information sent by allied intelligence services, the KGB (Committee for the Security of the Russian State), the Czech (Czechoslovak) and the (East) Germans”, he remarks.
He points out that between 1974 and 1975 he analyzed the archives of allied intelligence services on operations of countries where Phillip Agee worked, and specifically in Mexico. The former CIA Official and agent for the Intelligence Directorate of Cuba, who passed away in 2008, wrote the book Inside the Company, diary of CIA, in which he contributed with highly valuable information of the CIA in Mexico.
With the obtained information he says to have periodically updated the CIA Station in Mexico, mainly its structure, operations and personnel that made up each and every task group, as well as its means and methods, their Officials and the distribution of the offices on the fifth floor of the US Embassy, where the CIA Station of Mexico is located.
By the end of 1973 the pressure of the CIA against the Cuban Embassy and Intelligence Services was reduced, solely composed by six officials and an encoder, whereas 3 years later the task against the CIA in Mexico was at top priority for the Cuban intelligence through their legal center.
“Between 1976 and 1977 I performed the evaluation of the first operating agent in Mexico with the pseudonym Aquiles II, as part of the preparation of the methodology of penetration and recruitment program of agents by the CIA called Juego operative (Operative play, double agents). In 1978 I worked as an operating officer, afterwards as the Head of the CIA Mexico Group against the Station and the US Embassy until 1993, during the last eight years (1985-1993) I was the Head of the CIA Mexico Group”.
The CIA Station was one of the biggest of its kind in the world, says the former agent currently exiled in Spain since 2011. “I spotted 53 elements which operated in Mexico, including operating officials, reporting officers, secretaries and communication staff, excluding the officials under Non-Official Cover (NOC). Its budget reached several million dollars.
He adds that on the same date the CIA Station in Mexico developed great penetration and control over the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (Federal Security Directorate, DFS), while realizing its own surveillance operations and visual check-up of their objectives, basically former officials of the Mexican security service.
In exchange the Legal Center of Cuba developed the penetration of the US Embassy, throughout the control, identification, research and recruitment operations of CIA officials assigned to Mexico.
Some main aspects of this control were the photographs taken of all passengers travelling to Cuba, the visual surveillance, technical penetration and telephone taping of the Embassy. Already in 1973 the control over the passengers departing to and arriving from Cuba were no longer realized openly by taking the pictures, but continued through the coordination operations of the CIA Station with the DFS as well as through their own agents who provided the passenger lists.
From his position inside the Intelligence Directorate in Havana in the 70’s Aníbal knew for years about the decisive role played by Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios in the liberation of Fidel Castro, as he was detained in Mexico in 1956 during the military training for the expedition on the Granma yacht. “A few years ago I learned the details of that operation ran by Gutiérrez Barrios and of the beginning of his relationship as an informer of Fidel Castro. This is shown in a book published by the Office of the State Council of Cuba after his death in October 2000”, he asserts.
During his last months of life Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios as a Senator for the State of Veracruz, revelations by former Cuban spy Jorge Masetti were made public, who remembered that the “bloodhound of the system” protected and endorsed Cuban clandestine operations in Mexico and turned a blind eye on any action realized during the government of Luis Echeverría.
Among other of his facets, the South American ex Guerrilleras remember Gutiérrez Barrios with affection, because he prevented the death squads of the dictatorships of the Southern Cone from enforcing the execution plans against several of them. In other cases he intervened to avoid that they were imprisoned.
For several years, he continues, Gutiérrez Barrios was one of the main contacts of the CIA Station in Mexico, being acquainted with the chiefs of the agency since the 70’s; protector of others, like Edward Palmer, who after his retirement in Mexico founded a personal protection agency throughout the continent as well as associate of others like Lawrence Sternfield who founded an agribusiness company.
The Cuban writer Luis Baéz poured in his book El merito es vivir (The merit is to be alive) declarations of the CIA Official John Mac Meckles Spiritto, who afterwards was infiltrated inside the rebel army, and after the victory of the revolution in 1959, he took part of the armed opposition; he was detained by the security services, served 20 years of jail and established himself in Cuba. Afterwards he returned to the US by the late 80’s.
Mac Meckles who was born in Los Angeles, California from Sicilian parents, told Baéz that during the follow-up of Fidel Castro in Mexico, the CIA maintained a “full and narrow” collaboration with the Colonel Leandro Castillo Villegas, the Director of the Federal Security (1952-1958); with the Assistant Director Gilberto Suárez Torres and with the heads of the group Luis Bazet Marín and Fausto Morales Suárez.
Mac Meckles, a polyglot enrolled in the CIA since 1946, said that the escape of Castro and his group out of Mexico “remains something we couldn´t explain”. Questioned by Baéz over the reaction of their superiors, he stated that “I presume that they got angry. According to this version Gutiérrez Barrios was acting behind the backs of his superiors and the CIA. Whom was he responding to, if not to the agreement with Colonel Leandro Castillo Villegas, head of the DFS?” asks himself Riera Escalante.
The CIA basically used recruitment on the economic basis with some elements of affective compromise, using family relationships inside the US, but the basis for recruitment was fundamentally economic.
The intelligence consists of two aspects, the human and the technical intelligence, the main weakness of the CIA being the first, i.e. the recruitment of relationships, i.e. the formation of officials and their capacity to interpret and know the idiosyncrasy, the characteristics and customs of any given country.
In the case of the 11th of September 2001 events, the CIA proved its lack of efficiency by not penetrating the terrorist groups in order to prevent the event of such a magnitude, and this constitutes a fundamental deficiency in the intelligence services, which caused the total reorganization of the agency and the dismissal of the dismissal of the Head of the Counter-Intelligence.
“Via the recruitment of double agents, i.e. agents of the Cuban Intelligence, which were in contact with the CIA, we knew what plans they had and at times we found out who they were recruiting”. We got ahead in recruiting the agents before them, especially Mexicans working in different spheres and institutions of the government, to obtain the information which would serve the purposes of the foreign policy and the protection of the government of Cuba.
“The recruitment of agents in Mexico was made easy as the legal figure of espionage is not clearly defined. An offense of espionage in Mexico is virtually impossible to set up. The threat of a severe sentence for espionage simply doesn’t exist. Whatever could deter anyone from working for the intelligence service being the subsequent sanctions”.
“There is also the figure of the illegal Officer, similar to the five imprisoned Officials in the US working in the Avispa (wasp) Network (recently freed by the agreements between Cuba and the USA), of which there certainly were several located in Mexico, but I neither attended nor knew them.
“The illegal Officials are designated that way because they act under a false identity, generally speaking they don’t hold the Cuban citizenship, rather stemming from Latin American countries; they are carefully trained to interpret their new role, they master their false biography, life or cover, in order to hide their true personality”.
-Which were the CIA operations inside the movement of 1968 in Mexico?
-The CIA operated throughout the program called Litempo 14, when Echeverría Álvarez was a “trusted agent” and not “Liaison Contact” of the Station, in accord with the information secretly delivered by Agee, which wasn’t published in his book. I had the task to discuss with Agee the change of category of Echeverría from agent to “liaison contact”, downgrading his operational relationship and his subordination to the station, ordered by the then-president Fidel Castro via the former Secretary of Foreign Affairs Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, to avoid trouble with Echeverría, who had started to improve the relations with Cuba in the midst of the 70’s.
“I had to overcome Agee’s resistance who knew of the implications and the major responsibility of the president Echeverría and the CIA in the massacre of the Students in 1968 as he refused to downgrade the subordination of the former Secretary of the Interior with the station.
“Philip Agee was assigned to the Station in Mexico shortly before the Olympic Games of 1968 with the cover of an Olympic Attaché, and had knowledge of the CIA task related with the student manifestations and the repressive activities carried out by the Mexican Government assisted by the Station, part of which are in the book of the former CIA Official and agent of the Intelligence Directorate of Cuba who passed away in 2008, entitled Inside the Company, diary of CIA.”
“The Litempo Program was being attended by Winton Scott, Head of the CIA Station since 1956, with the help of Annie Goodpasture, an official set on the case. It included contacts and agents and high-ranked figures of the government, as the president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, the Secretary of the Interior Luis Echeverría Álvarez; Fernando Gutiérez Barrios, Head the Federal Security Directorate and Luis de la Barreda Moreno among others.”
“Within the liaison operations the program included operational support activities to the Mexican security forces with the purpose of exchanging intelligence, joint operations and improvement of the task of gathering of intelligence and public security. Within the joint operations of the security forces included (also) the control on travels, telephone taping and repressive actions.”
-What do you refer by collaboration in “repressive action” as part of the joint operations with Mexican agents?
-The Objective of the CIA by penetrating the security and police services and simultaneously liaison operations is to obtain information on left-wing parties and movements, in order to neutralize them and prevent these to become an alternative to the government, This was done by gathering information supplied by its agents of penetration to support the local security services in the pursue and imprisonment of dissidents for the government. Thereby the efficiency of repression of local police was increased, in addition to assessment of interrogations and torture.
There are “recent reports of the Commission on Intelligence of the Senate about torture in jails in Iraq and other countries; interestingly it must be highlighted that one of the aims of the recruitment was the Official Brant Basset, violin.
“As a result of the Operation Loupe we obtained a love letter from Basset to his friend Dusty Foggo, who would be in charge of the construction of secret jails in Europe after 2001, to interrogate and torture the people accused of terrorism. Dusty Foggo was involved in cases of corruption for which he served his prison sentence. Recently he was feed. He eventually became the Chief of Operations of the CIA”.
-Who were the CIA Officials in Mexico as of the Embassy responsible for operating with infiltrated Mexican agents inside the Government?
Winston Scott (was) the first of the Station who arrived to Mexico in 1956 and remained for an unusual time of 13 years; Winston M. Scott 1968-1969; James B. Noland, 1969-1971; John R. Horton, 1971-1074; Richard A. Sampson, 1974-1975 and from 1975 to 1977; Thomas Polgar, 1977-1978, Lawrence M. Steinfield, 1978-1980; Steward D. Burton, 1980-1982; Francis C. McDonald, 1982-1985; Albert D. Wedemeyer, 1985-1987; Thomas A. Branton, 1987-1989; James M. Olson, 1989-1993; Morton M. Palmer, 1993-1998 and 1998-2001; José A. Rodríguez, 2001-2003; the other names I don’t remember.
“Additionally there is Annie Goodpasture, the Assistant to the Head of the Station for the Litempo program. Robert Feldman who was in charge of the operation Licobra aimed to penetrate the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, Revolutionary Institutional Party) and the Secretaría de Relacoines Exteriores (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). He was also in charge of the penetration of the Department of Political and Social Research. During the government of Echeverría I could mention the following people: John R. Horton, Head of the Station, and among the Officials Paul V. Harwood, second in command of the Station.”
“The Officials in charge of the task against Cuba in the period of 1968 to 2000 were Francis Sherry, Joe Piccolo, Daniel Flores, Gerald Jerry Peterson, Lane Nordholm, Richard Santos, Brant Bassett, Clayton L. Cowart and Barry Thein.”
-Who were the Officers of the Federal Security Directorate which belonged to the CIA?
-Did you access the archives of the CIA on (the subject of) subversive organizations in Mexico?
-I had knowledge of virtually all information provided by Philip Agee on subversive organizations during the period when he was in charge as an official of the CIA Station, and had access through his task work in operations against the communist party and other left-wing parties and organizations, among them student and syndicalist ones.
-What was the involvement that the CIA had in the battle of the regime against left-wing organizations and Guerilla Groups?
-The CIA since the start of its operations in Mexico and until 1993 had an important role in the battle in order to penetrate, control and repress all of the objectives that you mention. The fundamental aim of the CIA was since its foundations to stop and destroy the rise of communist, socialist, left-wing and revolutionary organizations in all of its nuances. Furthermore (it aims to) limit, to hinder the influence of socialist countries until their disappearing and of the Cuban revolution.
“The task of the CIA was developed via recruitment and infiltration of agents into the organizations; the operations of political action, propaganda and psychological war aimed at creating divisions and issues to impede, divide, weaken or destroy those organizations. It was performed via its operations and depending on the status of their relationships with the local security services and the government they would inform them on objectives they considered should be repressed or eliminated.
“Included within the support operations were the joint operations of telephone taping called Lienvoy, realized in collaboration with the DFS with the capacity of 40 lines, The CIA Station contributed with the equipment, the technical assistance, the mails and transcribers, whereas the Mexicans performed the exchanges of liaisons and kept up with the listening posts, in addition to controlling the lines of the communist diplomatic missions and the Mexican revolutionary groups.
-How did the CIA operate against the communist party, (as well as) other parties and syndical movements? Were these agents inside these organizations?
-According to the operational theory of the CIA these objectives were considered as enemies, therefore counter-intelligence tasks. They work in two ways: penetrating the organization through recruitment of infiltration of agents and through the transfer of information to the local security services in order to be chased down, detained or of being subject to diverse clandestine actions, such as discredit and propaganda campaigns marked within the so-called psychological war.
“The CIA also works on its objectives through the so-called support operations, installation operations of microphone, telephone or other technology, follow-up, mail interception; and since the internet appeared as it has transcended, the world is before some massive espionage by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA, and other intelligence and counter-intelligence services.”
-What relationship did the CIA had with the Mexican Army during the repression of 1968?
Winston Scott, then the Head of the Station maintained a close relationship with the Intelligence Service of the Mexican Army.
-Were the Mexican Army and Navy infiltrated by the CIA?
-Probably by the Intelligence Agency of the Defense Department.
During the 70’s, as Aníbal states in his memories, the so-called Group 32 of the CIA was infiltrated under the leadership of Miguel Nazar Haro, who later would become head of the white brigade, in charge of the repression during the dirty war (Guerra sucia), This clandestine group performed different operations in the benefit of the CIA, as the surveillance, visual follow-up, recruitment and management of agents against the embassies of socialist countries.
José Luis Valles would have joined the White Brigades around these years, becoming afterwards the Head of the Counter-Intelligence of the Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional (National Research and Security Center, CISEN), who would be in charge of the kidnapping of Riera Escalante in Mexico in 2000, “by order of Fidel Castro, solicited by Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios”, to deport him to Cuba, where he was in jail for several years.
The DGI didn’t have amid its objectives the penetration into the Federal Security Directorate expressly, due to his good relationship with the FGB, neither had it as an objective the CISEN. Therefore the information (available) about the DFS was quite limited.
“However in 1976 the Cuban Intelligence in Mexico recruited Robert (I don’t remember his real name), member of the so—called Group 32, whose file we handed over to Pavel Yatzcov, an Advisor for the Counter-Intelligence Department of the KGB in the Q1 Department of the DGI of Cuba, as they were keen on working on him.
“The Agent Robert was recruited on the basis of cash payments. He contributed with information on the modus operandi, its objectives and the members of the Group 32. I even saw in his file a picture of this group led by Nazar Haro.
“The Group 32 had another agent living for years in the Colonia Roma (a central district in Mexico City), a Cuban doctor who was destined for Cuban doctors travelling to Mexico in order to study them for possible recruitment. He was identified as Efraín Taché Jalak (X-2). It was decided to perform a “false recruitment” to develop a double game, i.e. make him believe that we trust him, when the real purpose was to verify his conditions of enemy agent.
“In the beginning of 1978 I took over the case. For 6 six we were in contact through the official in charge of the task against the CIA, the Consul Ciro Montilla. It was proved that Taché had built up a system in which every time a Cuban doctor travelled to Mexico he would attend hum, offer him presents and study him, it was established that he shall deliver to us the reports of these liaisons. Taché was not persecuted for espionage, he was allowed to return to Mexico and (carried) the obligation to inform once a month of any contact with Cubans was imposed upon him, and was banned from travelling to Cuba for 2 years. In 1986 being myself consul in Mexico, he was authorized to continue his trip to Cuba and he was ceased of his duty to inform on his relationships.”
-Which Mexican agents did you recruit to infiltrate the CIA Station?
-Amidst the Mexican agents and those of other countries feature:
“Juan Aldama Muciño, pseudonym Buzo. I suggested his recruitment while being the head of the CIA Group Mexico, he evolved successfully and I attended with the juego operative (operative play, double agents). He was recruited by the CIA Officer Lane Nordholm and against her we conducted an operation for her recruitment between 1986 and 1987.
“Linda Vrom, Laura, US-Citizen. We introduced her inside the Embassy as an aerobics instructor as an agent of Access towards CIA Officials and specially the characterization of the CIA officers Brooke Brummitt and Kathleen Blevins.
“Arturo Duran, Duarte, employee of the Mail Room of the US Embassy. Through him we developed the Operation Loupe. He extracted around 2 thousand letters of CIA Officials. His role was vital to verify information in order to try the recruitment of the CIA Official Brant Bassett, Violin, and Brooke Brummit, Secretary of Richard Kitchen, Second in Command in the CIA who attended the task against Cuba.
“Librado Luna, pseudonym Bacanao, F-246, an employee at the Security Office. I contacted him in 1986 but he refused. He was a Mexican employee of the Security Office of the Embassy, in charge of the processing of Mexican personnel, as well as of the investigations or coordination with different police forces in addition to the Mexican Security Services. He was recruited in the late 70’s. He contributed with information about the functioning of the security office of the embassy and its connections with the Mexican Security Services. Afterwards the connection was interrupted. At my arrival in Mexico in 1986 I realized a new approach but he refused.
As I discovered afterwards by information provided by Barry Thein, a CIA Official with whom I got in touch in Mexico, in 2000 he was dismissed from the Embassy when his connections with the Cuban Intelligence were confirmed; featuring in a resolution of the Congress of the Union which approves the registration and cancellations of Mexican employees at embassies.
“Evangelina Mendizábal, Minister-Counsellor of the Embassy of Guatemala, with whom I established a trust relationship. She was what in terms of the DI would be called a trust relationship. A person who for ideological reasons cooperates by delivering political information that we had requested about her country. It was the period when Vincio Cerezo governed (in Guatemala), the information delivered was concerning the situation of the government with regard to the URNG (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca, Revolutionary National Guatemalan Unity). In absence of the Ambassador she stood at the front as she had the rank of Minister-Counsellor.
The Ambassador Roberto Rodríguez Hernández, currently the Consul-General of Mexico in Phoenix, Arizona. He has been the private Secretary of the Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, he attended him in a trust relationship. He provided internal information of the Foreign Ministry about staff of the US Embassy which wasn’t listed inside the diplomatic directory. During his previous stay in Budapest he provided information about the CIA Official Brant Bassett.
“Julio Rochón Siri, Sirio, Uruguayan resident in Mexico. I recruited him to conduct the romantic approach towards the Official Analyst of the CIA Station Kathleen Blevins, Berta in 1990 on an ideological basis. He had been member of the Communist Youth of Uruguay and had immigrated to Mexico. He had had a relationship with Linda Vrom, agent Laura, a US-Citizen.
“He was sent to establish a romantic affair with the high-ranked official analyst of the CIA Station in Mexico Kathleen Blevins, Berta, P-103, whom we knew since 1971, when Philip Agee identified her. After that she received the pseudonym Pont, while she was located in the CIA Station in Chile, where she was also an analyst and drafted reports where she compelled the gathered information through several sources as the operations for the tumbling of the then-president of the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity) Salvador Allende were taking place.
“The approach to Kathleen was done in a known bar of the Zona Rosa District of Mexico City, where usually single men and women gathered together to establish relationships. We conducted the “casual encounter” with Linda, so that she brought Kathleen over, with whom she had made acquaintance as her aerobics instructor at the Embassy. We had thorough knowledge about Kathleen by Linda; I even remember that we recorded several conversations of her with Linda in her apartment. We ascertained the information about her personal status and extended it through her personal letters we obtained via the Operation Loupe.
“Berta fell in love with Sirio, who returned in 1991 to fulfill a new assignment at the CIA Headquarters and maintained with her a pen-pal relationship. The relationship between Berta and Sirio was a contravention to the rules of the CIA because of his condition of communist.
“José de Jesús Gutiérrez Mercado, L-107. For 8 years he was an agent within the consular office and the Security Area of the US Embassy, of which he was disengaged and we directed him to penetrate the CISEN at the basis level. I conducted the recruitment of Arturo Durán on behalf of the CISEN, i.e. under a third flag, merged with cash payments. After starting his recruitment I concluded it by interpreting the role the boss of José in the CISEN.
“Marta Solís Campos, Amalia, Costa Rican-Mexican Citizen, spouse of the DGI Official carrying the surname Sinobas. A journalist at the Siempre Magazine. (She was) a magnificent and efficient agent of operative play, she had a key role in the evolvement of the operations of recruitment of the CIA Officials Gerald J. Peterson and Lane Nordholm, both of which did not conclude successfully due to other reasons. She was put in evidence by the Major of the DGI Florentino Azpellaga who defected in Vienna in the midst of 1987.
“Pedro Manzón Barata, Aquiles II. He was the first operative play developed in Mexico, it hardly lasted, it was badly planned and conducted; it was detected by the CIA and the relationship was cut off with him by 1975. He was the Ambassador of Cuba in Malaysia and Australia. He is the brother of Mario Manzón Barata, Aquiles, DGI Official expelled from the mission in the United Nations in 1982 for infringing the laws on the embargo, and who died of a heart attack.
“Ivan Puri, Caney, Commercial Counsellor of the Cuban Embassy in Mexico between 1980 and 1983. He was an agent of operative play, i.e. he worked in the CIA following orders from the DGI. He obtained information of big value about the informative interests of the CIA. He was attended in the main Center in Havana by Florentino Azpillaga, a DGI Officer who defected in 1987.
He was conducted towards the characterization of the CIA official who attended him, with the pseudonym Dante, his real identity being Daniel Flores of Mexican origins. Throughout him we obtained the informative interests if the CIA Station on the commercial activity of Cuba in Mexico, which constituted a permanent line to the CIA, as well as the interest in the characterization of DGI Officials.
“Jesús Somohano, a Mexican volunteer married to Serafina Naranjo, also recruited as an agent. He was used according to the study of the Officials Peterson and Nordholm. The CIA ceased all relations with him. Lane Nordholm used him to characterize the Vice-Consul and DGI Official Alfonso Santos.”
(Translated by: Axel Plasa)
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