CIA activities in Cuba - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Cuba 1956

In June, 1956, Lyman Kirkpatrick

Lyman Kirkpatrick

Lyman Kirkpatrick served as inspector general and executive director of the CIA. He wrote a number of books about intelligence after his retirement....

, a senior Central Intelligence Agency

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

figure, traveled to Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

to offer President Batista

Fulgencio Batista

Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was the United States-aligned Cuban President, dictator and military leader who served as the leader of Cuba from 1933 to 1944 and from 1952 to 1959, before being overthrown as a result of the Cuban Revolution....

aid and assistance in the development of the Bureau Para La Represion de Actividades Comunistas

Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities

The Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities was the secret police agency that Fulgencio Batista maintained in the 1950s, which gained a reputation for brutality in its fight against pro-Castro rebels.The bureau was headed by Mariano Faget, who had first gained fame as a Nazi hunter...

(BRAC), a Cuban agency established to combat the growing anti-government movement.

Cuba 1959

Fidel Castro

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

purged the first post-revolution Prime Minister José Miró Cardona

José Miró Cardona

José Miró Cardona was a Cuban politician. He served as Prime Minister for a period of some six weeks in early 1959, following his appointment by President Manuel Urrutia on January 5, 1959...

and President Manuel Urrutia Lleó

Manuel Urrutia Lleó

Manuel Urrutia Lleó was a liberal Cuban lawyer and politician. Urrutia campaigned against the Gerardo Machado government and the second presidency of Fulgencio Batista during the 1950s, before serving as president in the first revolutionary government of 1959...

, assuming power.

On 11 December 1959, Colonel J.C. King

J.C. King

J. C. King Joseph Caldwell King was the Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division of the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also known by his CIA code name of Oliver G. Galbond and as Colonel J.C. King.-Career:...

of the CIA recommended assassinating Fidel Castro. Specifically, the CIA began to send weapons to guerillas that were against Fidel Castro.

Communist regime

By the end of 1960, all opposition newspaper had been closed down and all radio and television stations were in state control. Moderates, teachers and professors were purged. The Communist Party strengthened its one-party rule, with Castro as the head of government. Hundreds of thousands fled to the United States.

Operation Mongoose

Cuban Project

The Cuban Project was a program of Central Intelligence Agency covert operations developed during the early years of the administration of President of the United States John F. Kennedy...

was approved by U.S. President John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

to assassinate Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

.

The Soviet Ambassador to the US said the USSR had no plans to put bases into Cuba.

There had been CIA agent reports and NSA SIGINT of increased military activity in Cuba starting in late 1960, but these initially appeared to be of defensive equipment.

Between August 1960, and April 1961, the CIA pursued a series of plots to poison or shoot Castro according to the assassination plots proposed by Colonel Sheffield Edwards, director of the CIA's Office of Security.

The CIA-organized Bay of Pigs Invasion

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...

of Cuba

Cuba

in 1961, failed, using plans that the regular military advised against. Kennedy also required the invasion to be less visible, and reduced its air support. Recently declassified documents show that President Kennedy had officially denied the CIA authorization to invade Cuba. Cuban leader Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

used the routed invasion to consolidate his power and strengthen Cuba's ties with the Soviet Union.

CIA establishes a main physical facility in Miami, Florida, as one of the bases for intelligence and covert actions against Cuba. The station itself had the cryptonym JMWAVE

JMWAVE

JMWAVE or JM/WAVE or JM WAVE was the codename for a major secret United States covert operations and intelligence gathering station operated by the CIA from 1961 until 1968...

; operations using it had their own cryptonyms or code words, such as Operation Mongoose

Cuban Project

The Cuban Project was a program of Central Intelligence Agency covert operations developed during the early years of the administration of President of the United States John F. Kennedy...

. The facility, under commercial cover of "Zenith Technical Enterprises", was located at the University of Miami, was considered too obvious and closed in 1968. Some of its functions moved to other locations in the Miami area, including the overt radio broadcast monitoring station of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service

Foreign Broadcast Information Service

Foreign Broadcast Information Service was an open source intelligence component of the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Science and Technology. It monitored, translated, and disseminated within the U.S. government openly available news and information from media sources outside the...

.

Operation Mongoose

Cuban Project

The Cuban Project was a program of Central Intelligence Agency covert operations developed during the early years of the administration of President of the United States John F. Kennedy...

was re-approved to Edward Lansdale

Edward Lansdale

Edward Geary Lansdale was a United States Air Force officer who served in the Office of Strategic Services and the Central Intelligence Agency. He rose to the rank of Major General and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1963. He was an early proponent of more aggressive US actions in...

by U.S. President John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

in November 1961. The CIA tried and failed several times to assassinate Fidel Castro. Various methods are discussed, such as hiding bombs in seashells.

The limitations of large scale covert action became apparent during the CIA-organized Bay of Pigs Invasion

Bay of Pigs Invasion

of Cuba in 1961.

The failed para-military invasion embarrassed the CIA and the United States worldwide. Recently de-classified documents show in written confirmation that President Kennedy had officially denied the CIA authorization to invade Cuba. Cuban leader Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

used the routed invasion to consolidate his power and strengthen Cuba's ties with the Soviet Union.

The CIA supported a variety of anti-Castro agents such as Orlando Bosch

Orlando Bosch

Orlando Bosch Ávila was a Cuban exile militant, former Central Intelligence Agency-backed operative, and head of Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, which the FBI has described as "an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization". Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh called...

and Luis Posada Carriles

Luis Posada Carriles

Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles is a Cuban-born Venezuelan anti-communist and former Central Intelligence Agency agent....

, who are wanted in Venezuela for terrorism charges. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/index.htm

The January 1962 Special National Intelligence Estimate suggested "We believe that Castro's Cuba will continue to do what it can to export its revolution

Export of revolution

Export of revolution is actions by a victorious revolutionary government of one country to promote similar revolutions in other countries, as a manifestation of revolutionary internationalism of certain kind, e.g., the Marxist proletarian internationalism....

." Such attempts were made, especially under the leadership of Che Guevara

Che Guevara

Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...

.

While there were CIA agent reports of increased Soviet activity from late 1960 on, NSA SIGINT gave indications of increased air defense activity from approximately May 1962. In August, CIA imagery intelligence IMINT

IMINT

Imagery Intelligence , is an intelligence gathering discipline which collects information via satellite and aerial photography. As a means of collecting intelligence, IMINT is a subset of intelligence collection management, which, in turn, is a subset of intelligence cycle management...

confirmed the presence of Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missiles, the presence of which indicated something was receiving exceptional protection. Surveillance, without overflights, was stepped up.

In October 1962, high-altitude reconnaissance photographs, taken from outside Cuban airspace by U-2

Lockheed U-2

The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is a single-engine, very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency . It provides day and night, very high-altitude , all-weather intelligence gathering...

aircraft flown by Air Force pilots were analyzed at the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), indicated that Soviet missile construction was underway. As described by Dino Brugioni

Dino Brugioni

Dino A. Brugioni is a former senior official at the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center . He was an imagery analyst and also served as NPIC's Chief of Information. During his 35-year career, Brugioni helped establish imagery intelligence as a national asset to solve intelligence...

, these photographs were brought to the President and Secretary of Defense, who authorized overflights that confirmed the construction and triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...

.

NPIC IMINT was key in assessing the activity in the crisis. A selection of the actual photographs, as well as supporting data such as the chart of CIA photographs are at the George Washington University National Security Archive

National Security Archive

The National Security Archive is a 501 non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located in the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.. Founded in 1985 by Scott Armstrong, it archives and publishes declassified U.S. government files concerning selected topics of US...

. Some of the techniques used to determine what was being shipped into Cuba, and out of it after the US-USSR agreement was reached, was called "crateology", or recognizing the characteristic ways in which the Soviets crated military equipment, is Hilsman's To Move a Nation. A photograph analyzed using the crateology technique is shown in.

November 1963, Operation Mongoose

Cuban Project

The Cuban Project was a program of Central Intelligence Agency covert operations developed during the early years of the administration of President of the United States John F. Kennedy...

was cancelled following the John F. Kennedy assassination

John F. Kennedy assassination

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...

.

In a letter read by Fidel Castro, on Che Guevara

Che Guevara

Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...

bids a "Farewell", resigns from all of his official positions within the Cuban government. The letter, which Che apparently never intended to be made public, states that "I have fulfilled the part of my duty that tied me to the Cuban revolution...and I say goodbye to you, to the comrades, to your people, who are now mine."

(CIA Intelligence Memorandum, "Castro and Communism: The Cuban Revolution in Perspective," 5/9/66).

An agreement of April 28 between the US Army Military Group in Bolivia, and the Bolivian military, assigned mission sixteen-member United States Army Special Forces

United States Army Special Forces

The United States Army Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets because of their distinctive service headgear, are a special operations force tasked with six primary missions: unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, direct action, hostage rescue, and...

, drawn from the 8th Special Forces group of the U.S. Army Forces at Southcom in Panama, to "produce a rapid reaction force capable of counterinsurgency operations and skilled to the degree that four months of intensive training can be absorbed by the personnel presented by the Bolivian Armed Forces." In October, the 2nd Battalion, aided by U.S. military and CIA personnel, did engage and capture Che Guevara's small band of rebels.

Written in October, a CIA Directorate of Intelligence report presents an assessment that Guevara's preeminence as a leader of the Cuban revolution has waned, and his internal and international policies have been abandoned. In domestic policy, his economic strategy of rapid industrialization has "brought the economy to its lowest point since Castro came to power," and observes that Guevara believed centralized economic planning was an ideological necessity.

In foreign policy, he "never wavered from his firm revolutionary stand, even as other Cuban leaders began to devote most of their attention to the internal problems of the revolution." Guevara also preferred, in opposition to Castro, the Chinese side of the Sino-Soviet split.

With Guevara no longer in Cuba, the CIA's assessment concludes, "there is no doubt that Castro's more cautious position on exporting revolution, as well as his different economic approach, led to Che's downfall."

Che Guevara

Che Guevara

Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...

is captured and executed by Bolivian Army Rangers. The CIA officer with the team tried to follow US government wishes and take him alive to Panama, but failed.

Cuba

Cuba

sent forces to Africa and South America, in support of rebel forces.

On May 17, 2005, documents from the National Security Archives were presented on ABC's television show "Nightline". Among other things, they discussed Luis Posada Carriles

Luis Posada Carriles

Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles is a Cuban-born Venezuelan anti-communist and former Central Intelligence Agency agent....

, who was detained in Miami in May 2005 by Homeland Security. Posada is a Venezuelan living in the US, who is a member of anti-Castro groups, and is charged with plotting to blow up a Cubana airliner in 1976. Venezuela, from where the airliner flew, has charged him with terrorism against the aircraft.
The Posada matter points out the inherent conflict between US anti-terrorism and its policy of hostility to Cuba. "He has admitted to plotting attacks that damaged tourist spots in Havana and killed an Italian visitor there in 1997. He was convicted in Panama in a 2000 bomb plot against Mr. Castro.". Posada, who was a Venezuelan intelligence officer, claims asylum in the US, although Venezuela (not Cuba) is trying to extradite him. "If Mr. Posada has indeed illegally entered the United States, the Bush administration has three choices: granting him asylum; jailing him for illegal entry

Illegal entry

Illegal entry is the act of foreign nationals arriving in or crossing the borders into a country in violation of its immigration law.Migrants from nations that do not have automatic visa agreements, or who would not otherwise qualify for a visa, often cross the borders illegally in some areas like...

; or granting Venezuela's request for extradition.

It is unclear if Posada, or his associate Orlando Bosch

Orlando Bosch

, notified the CIA or FBI before the airliner attack. "According to Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Archive's Cuba Documentation Project, Posada's presence in the United States "poses a direct challenge to the Bush administration's terrorism policy. The declassified record," he said, "leaves no doubt that Posada has been one of the world's most unremitting purveyors of terrorist violence." President Bush has repeatedly stated that no nation should harbor terrorists, and all nations should work to bring individuals who advocate and employ the use of terror tactics to justice. During the Presidential campaign last year Bush stated that "I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world." Although Posada has reportedly been in the Miami area for more than six weeks, the FBI has indicated it is not actively searching for him.

Cuba 2005

Porter Goss indicated Agency concern with the succession, given that Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

was suffering the effects of a serious fall.

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