New York Governor Andrew Cuomo toasts with a mojito during a meeting at the Hotel Nacional in Havana, Cuba, Monday, April 20, 2015. Cuomo is the first U.S. governor to visit Cuba since the Dec. 17 declaration of detente. At right is Gustavo Machin, Cuba’s deputy chief of North American affairs.(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa,Pool) The Associated Press
By Chris Simmons
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and executives from Jetblue, Chobani Greek Yogurt, Pfizer and other New York-based companies spent today meeting with Directorate of Intelligence (DI) officers Josefina de la C. Vidal Ferreiro and Gustavo Machin Gomez. Both officers serve under the shallowest of covers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX), since they were thrown out of the US for espionage in 2003 and 2002, respectively
Unknown to the governor and executives, they fall into a category of politically-important visitors known as “useful idiots.”
More narrowly, for Vidal, Machin, and the rest of their DI brethren, the New Yorkers are simply known as “targets.” Ever the opportunists, the DI seized upon Cuomo’s outreach to conduct an Influence Operation. This type of intelligence mission subtly and skillfully uses agents, collaborators, sympathizers, and the media to promote a nation’s objectives in ways either un-attributable or marginally attributable to that power.
Thus, Vidal and Machin get to cultivate a relationship with Cuomo, the governor of the state that hosts the largest Cuban spy base in the United States: the Cuban Mission to the United Nations. Concurrently, the executives will also be the focus of traditional espionage targeting as – according to US government records – Havana is second only to Beijing in the conduct of economic espionage against the United States.
It’s truly frightening how easy we make it for the Cubans to spy against us.
PHOTO:
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, right, walks with Cuba’s Josefina Vidal, director general of the U.S. division at Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, as he arrives to the Jose Marti airport in Havana, Cuba, Monday, April 20, 2015. Cuomo is the first U.S. governor to visit Cuba since the Dec. 17 declaration of detente. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan)The Associated Press
Editor’s Note: According to knowledgeable defectors and émigrés, the Hotel Nacional – where important foreign visitors stay — is wired for video and audio surveillance on the 7th floor and above.
Cuba Confidential 
Mr. Simmons, you state that it is known that New York Governor Cuomo and the executive members of his recent mission to Cuba are known as “useful idiots”, can you please clarify for the record who is it known by that they are “useful idiots”?
I have a feeling it is, actually, you who is referring to New York Governor Cuomo and the executives accompanying him on his mission to Cuba to be “useful idiots” based on your own idiosyncrasies and purpose of this web page CUBACONFIDENTIAL.
I say lets not be “useful idiots” by allowing to be used by anyone with a position to withhold–regarding my homeland Cuba– based on each idiosyncrasies. Tell us a little about what was discussed and how you believe the potential projects discussed will not result in the better good of Cuba. Pfizer makes Viagra, a multimillion dollar medication available through prescription. What are you going to do for Cuba and to improve the living conditions for the people in that nation and why?
I´m sick and tired of the bickering and of the naysayers who are making a living on the subject of Cuba. Why don´t you start a blog named UNITED STATES CONFIDENTIAL or maybe RUSSIA CONFIDENTIAL OR ISLAM CONFIDENTIAL, IRAK CONFIDENTIAL, go ahead. Yeah right; Cuba Confidential.
Kudos, Chris, for getting Castro’s minions hysterical with Cuba Confidential. Keep up the good work.
And who exactly are you referring to that according to you are “Castro´s minions” ?
Why does Dr. Antonio de la Cova make a personal allegation as the result of someone´s opinion by accusing the person with a different opinion to his or Cuba confidential, to be a Castro “minion”, when such is totally void of intelligence and as low as their own pretensions. What´s the matter? Now a University professor wants to lecture in a public blog that in this great nation of the United States of America–where the preservation of first amendment rights is vernacular–there is only one way to think and only one form of expression. Only, perhaps, a Cuban American professor of biased and prejudiced thinking.
Only a fool, would think and would call people who are very sophisticated and successful business people in our nation and a Governor of the State of New York “useful idiots” and worst by stooping so low as to state their “to be known” to be “useful idiots” and then when asked: who are these successful Americans known by to be “useful idiots” total silence.
You Mr, Antonio de la Cova fit the description, through your written words–those words from you that are accusatory and declaratory–to be a Cuba Confidential, minion. I, however, am an independent Cuban American who is an independent thinker. Not everybody agrees with what Cuba Confidential states and that does not make everybody who doesn´t not agree with you or Cuba Confidential a “minion”. Have a real nice day Mr. Professor.