Possible Cuban regime involvement with US election machines casts doubt on integrity of America’s votes Reply

  J. Michael Waller, Center for Security Policy

Reports of Cuban regime funding of tech companies that serviced America’s elections may indicate that foreign intelligence services have manipulated our presidential vote. A possible Chinese connection makes things even worse.

The technologies were created to “manipulate” votes favorable to socialists, according to Sidney Powell, a prominent Washington attorney and member of President Trump’s legal team who has been investigating the problem.

Reports include insider accounts, affidavits, a user manual, news reports, and other information unearthed in a legal investigation into the origin and function of voting technologies by Dominion and Smartmatic in Georgia and other states.

Voting systems used to keep Cuban-backed regime in power

The technologies are of foreign origin, used under Cuban direction in Venezuela as early as 2004. They were “created to produce altered voting results in Venezuela for Hugo Chavez and then shipped internationally to manipulate votes for purchase in other countries, including this one,” Powell told Fox Business News on Friday.

Those systems were used in the entire state of Georgia and across the United States this year.

“It was funded by money from Venezuela and Cuba, and China has a role in it also,” Powell said. “So if you want to talk about foreign election interference, we certainly have it now.”

The former chairwoman of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, Ana Mercedes Diaz, exposed these operations back in 2013 and produced a copy of Smartmatic’s 2004 contract with the Cuban-backed regime

Scrappy Cuba hits way above its weight

In the world of political warfare and covert operations, Cuba’s Communist regime punches way above its weight. Its survival depends on it. Built as a surrogate for the Soviet KGB, Cuba’s DGI intelligence service was more effective than its creator in doubling our own agents against us, matched only by the exceptionally capable Stasi of East Germany.

But the Stasi is structurally gone and the KGB has been reorganized with its components re-named, while the DGI remains the nervous system, eyes, ears, and hands of the Cuban regime, at home and abroad. And US counterintelligence capabilities and resources range from inadequate and obsolete to disastrous.

Intelligence and subversion are Cuba’s only significant manufactured exports. Regimes like China, Russia, and Venezuela pay Cuba for the services.

Feature continues here: Possible Cuban manipulation of US Election

 

On Malmierca’s Visit: Cuban Spies, Businessmen and ‘Useful Idiots’ 3

“Former” Cuban Spy and Current Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz

By Capitol Hill Cubans

This week, Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz, is visiting Washington, D.C., where he will discuss business with Obama Administration officials and be fêted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Let’s be clear: Malmierca is not “the Cuban people.”

This trip is not about doing business with “the Cuban people” or any of the discredited rhetoric of the Obama Administration and its new Chamber friends, led by former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez.

During this trip, Malmierca will distribute the Cuban dictatorship’s glossy 168-page book of 246 business “opportunities” with Castro’s state monopolies, which are run by its military and intelligence services.

But it’s also about recruiting “useful idiots” (“poleznye idioty”).

You see — Malmierca is not simply Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment (MINCEX, Spanish acronym).

Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz is the son of Isidoro Malmierca Peoli, a historic Castro confidant and founder of Cuba’s counterintelligence and state security services. In the 1980s, Rodrigo himself entered Cuba’s intelligence services (known as “DGI“) as an officer in the Q-2 Department, which was tasked with “recruitment” and other operations against Cuban exiles. As a DGI officer, Rodrigo would serve under “diplomatic cover” at Castro’s Embassies in Brazil, Belgium and the Cuban Mission to the United Nations in New York. Then, in 2009, he was named Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment.

Rodrigo Malmierca is not the first senior MINCEX official to visit the United States.

In 1995 (that’s right 1995), Cuba’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Trade, Ismael Sene Alegret, traveled throughout the Midwest as part of a month-long Cuban “trade delegation” in the United States. (Click here to see how familiar this article reads). His goal was to “recruit” allies in the agri-business community.

Like Malmierca, Sene Alegret was a senior DGI officer.

Sene Alegret officially served in Cuba’s DGI from 1967-1997. (That’s right, he was still a DGI officer while serving at MINCEX). He was a senior Cuban intelligence official in Eastern Europe — with close KGB ties — where he headed missions in the former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Feature continues here: Spy-Diplomats

 

 

 

 

Rolando Cubela: A Castro Agent? Reply

By Arnaldo M. Fernandez (about the author)

The outstanding e-book State Secret, by Bill Simpich, concurs with the scholarly destitute paperback edition of Castro’s Secrets (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), by Dr. Brian Latell, in deeming CIA agent Rolando Cubela (AMLASH-1) as a double agent ultimately loyal to Castro.

The CIA operation AMLASH (1961-65) began by simply recruiting Cubela, but turned into a plot to kill Castro. It would be twisted in a manner that Senator Robert Morgan (D/N.C.) summed up as follows: “JFK was assassinated by Fidel Castro or someone under his influence in retaliation for our efforts to assassinate him [and] this fellow [Cubela] was nothing but a double agent.”

The retaliation hypothesis is neither logically nor circumstantially justified. Castro knew that risking everything to kill a sitting U.S. President would result in gaining nothing else than another U.S. President. And even declassified files in Eastern Europe show that he considered Kennedy the best option among the possible U.S. presidents emerging from the 1964 elections.

Moreover, in 1984 Castro knew about an extreme right-wing conspiracy to kill the worst U.S. president for him, Ronald Reagan. The Castroit General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI) furnished the intel to the U.S. Security Chief at United Nations, Robert Muller, and the FBI proceeded to dismantle the plot in North Carolina.

The plain fact is that Castro dodged the efforts to assassinate him by penetrating the Cuban exile and the CIA with DGI agents who told him right back what his enemies were up to. And he cautiously made no distinction. Long before the AMLASH plot, Castro assumed that the CIA stood behind any anti-Castro deed.

That’s why Simpich is wrong by embracing Dr. Latell and asserting that only when the CIA cut all ties with Cubela, “only then did Castro arrest [him], have him tried on disloyalty charges unrelated to his CIA activities, and give him a jail sentence that was combined with big freedoms.”

The Cubela Criminal Case

On March 1, 1966, the Cuban official newspaper Granma broke the news that Rolando Cubela and Ramon Guin had been arrested “due to counterrevolutionary activities in connection with the CIA.” The coverage followed with a communiqué of the Interior Ministry: “The traitors Cubela and Guin were plotting an attempt against Fidel” (March 5), the announcement of their confession (March 8), the trial (March 9 and 10), and the sentence (March 11).

Article continues here: Rolando Cubela: A Castro Agent?

The Shadow Cuban Intelligence Service 6

By Brian Latell, The Latell Report

At the height of the Cold War, when Miami was a cauldron of international intrigue and conspiracy, intelligence agents and services abounded. Enemy operatives stalked one another, competing, carrying out high stakes missions, recruiting spies, and mounting counterintelligence dragnets. But it is scarcely known even today that from 1961 until 1975 two of the rival espionage services that operated here were Cuban.

The larger and more aggressive was Fidel Castro’s General Directorate of Intelligence, the DGI, run by Manuel Pineiro, the notorious Redbeard. The other service, lean and obscurely proficient, was staffed entirely by courageous Cuban-American men and women. Collectively they were known –inside the CIA at least– by a curious cryptonym. They were the AMOTS.

The shadow intelligence service they staffed was intended to relocate to Havana following the expected collapse of the Castro government, and then to serve the security needs of a democratic Cuba. They would form the agile, ready core of a much larger intelligence service. The AMOTS were a “miniature CIA,” according to an Agency veteran who worked with them.

Members were recruited, tasked, and funded by the Agency, and managed by JMWAVE in Coral Gables, the largest CIA station anywhere in the world in the early 1960’s. A few CIA officers were posted at the separate AMOTS headquarters building near Miami International Airport but for security and cover reasons there was little personal interaction between the two.

“Telephone contact with JMWAVE was frequent,” the resident CIA case officer at the AMOT installation, recalled. He said his visits to the CIA station “were rare.” “Each day I would meet with a station courier to pass on all of our processed materials and to receive station requirements.” The AMOTS were obviously highly productive, operating in secrecy largely on their own.

There were about 150 of them, veterans of many professions in their previous lives in Cuba, trained in virtually the entire spectrum of operational and analytic tradecraft. Many were intellectuals and scholars, not inclined to volunteer for the dangerous infiltration and commando operations run by JMWAVE into Cuba. But their unsung contributions were of enormous value.

What did they do? Ted Shackley, the legendary chief at JMWAVE testified about their work before a Senate committee, citing what may have been a hypothetical example. “We’d say, we are looking for a Cuban diesel engineer with a license, and they’d come up with one.” Miami exiles with special or exotic skills needed by JMWAVE were identified and recruited this way.
Another CIA officer involved in Cuba operations testified that the AMOTS served as access agents, as “eyes and ears in the Cuban community.” They helped CIA, he said, in targeting potential agents, “hand holding defectors, and compiling personal and psychological information.” Some AMOTS, extensively trained in espionage tradecraft, “were sent overseas to help prepare other (intelligence) services.” He said that AMOTS managed safe houses and listening posts.

They performed information-gathering and counterintelligence functions on a large scale. Dossiers were kept on prominent Cuban leaders. A monthly analytic newsletter about developments on the island was issued. Most refugees arriving from Cuba were first screened and interviewed by teams of specialists that provided raw intelligence that was valued by Washington analysts. Reporting about Cuban leadership dynamics, the economy, military maneuvers flowed into analysts’ inboxes. New arrivals from Cuba were also screened for counterintelligence purposes by specially trained AMOTS.

Occasionally they provided American law enforcement with information used to detect and prosecute criminal activities. The most dramatic case centered on Che Guevara when he delivered an anti-American diatribe at the United Nations in New York in December 1964. AMOTS in Miami learned of a military-style attack against him planned by an exile faction. JMWAVE informed the FBI and arrests were subsequently made.

In fact, nonetheless, the militants managed to fire a remote-controlled bazooka at the UN building just as Guevara was in the midst of his harangue. The shell fell harmlessly into the East River a few hundred yards short of the building, causing a geyser and rattling the windows of the building. No one was hurt, but had the UN been struck, casualties would have been likely.

Until now, with the declassification of once highly sensitive intelligence records, the existence of the AMOT operations was known to few beyond the confines of the CIA. Sadly, therefore, the contributions of these anonymous Cuban-Americans have never been properly acknowledged. They served their new country –and the free Cuba they desired– with dedication, enthusiasm, and modesty. I am not aware that any former AMOTS have ever sought credit or fame by violating the secrecy oaths they swore to many years ago.

OPED: Forgotten Cuba? Is Washington Playing Word Games in Latest Espionage Estimate? 3

By Chris Simmons

Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that “A new intelligence assessment has concluded that the United States is the target of a massive, sustained cyber-espionage campaign that is threatening the country’s economic competitiveness, according to people familiar with the report. The National Intelligence Estimate identifies China as the country most aggressively seeking to penetrate the computer systems of American businesses and institutions to gain access to data that could be used for economic gain.”

The newspaper goes on to note that “The National Intelligence Estimate names three other countries – Russia, Israel and France – as having engaged in hacking for economic intelligence but makes clear that cyber-espionage by those countries pales in comparison with China’s effort.” [emphasis added] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-said-to-be-target-of-massive-cyber-espionage-campaign/2013/02/10/7b4687d8-6fc1-11e2-aa58-243de81040ba_story.html

While the story makes for tantalizing reading for the layman, it raises several red flags with this retired intelligence officer. Let’s start with the most fundamental: why is cyber-espionage, which in this NIE is reportedly narrowly focused on America’s “economic competitiveness,” separate and distinct from the NIE on economic espionage? Computer hacking is simply a technique used to steal industry secrets. It should be nothing more than a chapter in the NIE on Economic Espionage. To remove and spotlight this tool is to distort the actual intelligence targeting of our economic interests.

Cuba, for example, runs the largest Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) complex in the Western Hemisphere outside of our own National Security Agency (NSA). Since the 1960s, economic espionage has been a priority for the DI. For example, a declassified CIA report noted that in 1964, Havana appointed General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI) officer Orestes Guillermo Ruiz Perez as Vice-Minister for Economics within the Ministry of Foreign Trade. Separate CIA documents stated that in 1973, DGI officer Alberto Betancourt Roa served as president of Cuba’s Chamber of Commerce. During 1986-1987, he served as Vice-Minister of Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Trade. By the early 1990s, Betancourt headed Cubazucar, the national sugar corporation.

A key example of Havana’s success in economic espionage is the case of Guillermo “Bill” Gaede, In the 1980s, Cuba recruited Gaede to steal information on computer software and provide it to case officers in Mexico. Havana, in turn, passed the information to the USSR and East Germany until the end of the Cold War. Gaede, an Argentine communist and software engineer, worked for Advanced Micro Devices, Incorporated in Sunnyvale, California from 1979-1993. He provided Cuba with AMD specs, designs, “Blue Books,” masks, wafers, and small measuring devices.

Experts said Russia, with whom Cuba shared its stolen information, possibly narrowed the US technology lead by exploiting the chip designs and manufacturing techniques, which AMD spent millions of dollars to develop. Experts opined that Gaede’s damage was limited, as the technology used in the semiconductor industry advances so quickly that designs and manufacturing techniques quickly become outdated. However, the damage control provided by the experts failed to address the true effect of systematic and long-term economic espionage.

Gaede later claimed his initial motivation was his belief in communism, but this motivation waned after he repeatedly traveled to Cuba and became disillusioned. He left AMD in 1993 because of mistaken fears that the company would soon detect his misconduct. The technology giant Intel then hired him and greed became his motivator. He filmed the entire process used to make the Pentium chip, down to the smallest technical detail. He subsequently sold the information to China and Iran, which paid him handsomely. The secrets stolen from ADM and Intel ultimately earned Gaede the nickname, the “The Billion Dollar Spy.” He was arrested in late 1995.

The following year, the CIA advised the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that Cuba ranked sixth of the seven nations worldwide that “extensively engaged in economic espionage” against the US. The CIA rated France as the most serious threat, followed by Israel, China, Russia, Iran, and then Cuba. Havana, it noted, liked to target American firms whose facilities were based outside of the US. In a separate 1996 report, the US government reiterated that Havana collected “political, economic, and military information within the United States.” The report went on to note that the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) had begun targeting those technologies needed to help Cuba’s ailing economy.

Subsequently, Cuba appeared prominently in a classified list known as the National Security Threat List (NSTL). The NSTL is compiled by an FBI-led, interagency group which identifies the issues and countries which pose the greatest strategic intelligence threat to U.S. security interests. The 1999 list, apparently the most recent to have been declassified, declared that out of approximately 180 countries in the world, only 11 were so dangerous that they were included on the NSTL. These strategic threats were China, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

Similarly, a 1999 report by the US government’s National Communication System identified Cuba as having used electronic intrusions to collect economic intelligence. Additionally, during the latter half of the 1990s, the Department of Energy included Cuba as one of 22 nations on its “Sensitive Country List.” The DOE list is now restricted, so it is not known whether Cuba remains on the list.

Fast forwarding to late 2007, the Heritage Foundation had this to say about Cuba’s espionage capabilities:

• Since Raul Castro took the reins as acting head of state in 2006, Cuban intelligence services have intensified their targeting of the U.S. Since 9/11, however, U.S. intelligence agencies have reduced the priority assigned to Cuba.

• Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence (DI) is among the top six intelligence services in the world. Thirty-five of its intelligence officers or agents have been identified operating in the U.S. and neutralized between 1996 and 2003. This is strong evidence of DI’s aggressiveness and hostility toward the U.S.

• Cuba traffics in intelligence. U.S. intelligence secrets collected by Cuba have been sold to or bartered with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and other enemies of the United States. China is known to have had intelligence personnel posted to the Cuban Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) site at Bejucal since 2001, and Russia continues to receive Cuban SIGINT information. Additionally, many Cuban intelligence agents and security police are advising Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

• Cuban intelligence has successfully compromised every major U.S. military operation since the 1983 invasion of Grenada and has provided America’s enemies with forewarning of impending U.S. operations.

• Beijing is busy working to improve Cuban signals intelligence and electronic warfare facilities, which had languished after the fall of the Soviet Union, integrating them into China’s own global satellite network. Mary O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal has noted that this means the Chinese army, at a cyber-warfare complex 20 miles south of Havana, can now monitor phone conversations and Internet transmissions in America. (For the entire Heritage Foundation feature, see http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/10/cuba-at-the-crossroads-the-threat-to-us-national-security)

Then, in July 2008, Dr. Joel F. Brenner, Director of the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (an element of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence) said: “The Russians and the Chinese remain big problems for us. The Cubans are a problem for us and the Iranians are a big problem for us… and the Cubans have a very accomplished set of intel services and they are something we have to watch.”

Last year, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) told the Senate Armed Services Committee “Cuba remains the predominant foreign intelligence threat to the United States emanating from Latin America.” Shortly thereafter, former Director of the National Counterintelligence Executive, Michelle Van Cleave, testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that “…measured by its reach, history, objectives and success against us, Cuba is easily within the Top Ten list worldwide.”

Cuba earned its position as “Intelligence Trafficker to the World” by stealing U.S. secrets, not necessarily hacking our computers. Knowing this, it is disingenuous for Washington to split hairs between old-school “economic espionage” and “cyber-espionage directed against economic targets.” Everyone understands that Washington insiders exploit the cyber threat to generate publicity for themselves and funding for their projects. It’s time for the administration to stop minimizing the threat from Havana and revitalize our Counterintelligence services so they can better identify and destroy foreign spy services operating in America.

Havana Gives Literary Award to One of its Master Spies 2

Writer Jesus Arboleya Wins Casa de las Americas Award

Havana, (PL).- Cuban writer Jesus Arboleya said that winning the Casa de las Americas Award is a special honor because this is one of the most prestigious awards worldwide, and also because it is a revolutionary award. Arboleya earned the highest distinction in the social-historical literature category, for his book “Cuba y los cubanoamericanos. Un analisis de la emigracion cubana” (Cuba and Cuban Americans. An Analysis of Cuban Migration). The jury that unanimously granted the award, announced at the Casa de las Americas in Havana, was comprised of the French Salim Lamrani, Colombian Renan Vega Cantor, and Cuban Sergio Guerra Vilaboy. According to the decision, the jury took into account that Arboleya´s work reconstructs in detail, with solid supporting documentation, the issue of relationships between the United States and the Cuban Revolution from the perspective of migration policies between both countries. The clarity and expository text fluently allows the work to be accessible to all readers, without diminished rigor and analytical depth, and demystifies one current issue that has been subject to many interpretations, the jury added. For his part, Arboleya stated that this award, in its 54th edition, is “deeply connected to the history of our struggles, the defense of our identity, and the dignity of our people.”

Jesus Arboleya Cervera (1947), is a PhD in Historical Sciences, and has collaborated with the Center for Policy Alternatives, the Center About the United States at the University of Havana, the Center for American Studies, and the Center for European Studies, as well as having worked with the Chilean newspaper La Nacion. Among his books are “Las corrientes políticas en la comunidad de origen cubano en Estados Unidos” (The political currents in the Cuban community in the United States (1994), Havana-Miami: The US-Cuba Migration Conflict (1995), and “La contrarrevolución cubana” (The Cuban counterrevolution) (1997).

Editor’s Note: Colonel Jesus Arboleya Cervera was identified by DGI Captain Jesus Perez Mendez after his defection in 1983. Arboleya, who served as a Second Secretary at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations in New York City before transferring to the Washington-based Cuban Interests Section, was also identified by convicted spy Carlos Alvarez. During his tour, Arboleya was the architect of the 1970’s US-Cuba normalization drive, which almost succeeded in 1977 following the formation of a group of prominent Cuban-Americans who called themselves the Committee of 75. Although headed by respectable Cuban-Americans, including two clerics and several businessmen, the Committee was DGI-inspired. According to Senate testimony of March 12, 1982, at the time, Arboleya may have been the longest serving DGI officer in the United States.

On a related note, Arboleya’s co-author, Rafael Betancourt Abio, along with his brother, were founders of the pro-Castro magazine Areito in April 1974. He was also a founder of the Antonio Maceo Brigade in December 1977. On April 28, 1978, he met in D.C. with Arboleya and Ricardo Escartin Fernandez, another DGI member. Rafael Betancourt Abio was born in Havana April 23, 1952.

La Incógnita Cubana 2

Hugo Chávez, presidente de Venezuela, lucha por su vida en La Habana. Su muerte puede causar serias dificultades en varios países de habla hispana, que afectarían los Estados Unidos y Europa.

No está claro como se sustituye en Venezuela un presidente en funciones que ha muerto. No soy creyente de las encuestas porque generalmente se inclinan por la ideología y los intereses que tengan quienes las realizan, no obstante diré que una de la ultimas hechas en ese país indica que 8 de cada 10 venezolanos desaprueba la entrega del petróleo “gratis” de su país a varias naciones vecinas, incluyendo Cuba. 7 de cada 10 venezolanos creen que los cubanos están gobernando su patria y lo desaprueban.

En la esquina opuesta los gobiernos y pueblos de los países vecinos que reciben petróleo venezolano están sumamente preocupados porque creen que con la muerte de Chávez se les acaba una ayuda económica muy importante. Especialmente Nicaragua y Cuba.

Raúl Castro, presidente de Cuba, es muy pragmático, pero también tan osado como su hermano Fidel, el cual todavía le da determinadas órdenes. ¿Qué hace un hombre muy inteligente a sus 84 años como Fidel Castro, con su mente lúcida y sin nada que hacer después de pasar su vida haciendo conspiraciones y luchas nacionales e internacionales? Pensar en como subsistir políticamente y causarle el mayor daño posible a sus enemigos, ya que la guadaña para él está cerca.

El Comandante Ramiro Valdes Menéndez, que fue el primer Jefe y por muchos anos de los Servicios de Contrainteligencia e Inteligencia de Cuba, desde meses vive más en Caracas que en La Habana, asesorando en “cuestiones energéticas”. En 53 años de gobierno revolucionario en Cuba Ramiro jamas ha tenido que ver con “cuestiones energéticas”, sin embargo, fue Ministro del Interior dos veces. La actividad de Ministerio del Interior venezolano está en sus manos. Los principales dirigentes de ese ministerio son “asesores cubanos”. Además, existe una considerable fuerza de las Tropas Especiales de Cuba. Si hubiera una insubordinación ciudadana peligrosa después de la muerte de Chávez, Ramiro actuará en consecuencia. Esto tal vez sea el preludio de una guerra civil que podría dañar seriamente los fértiles pozos petroleros venezolanos.

Si lo antes expuesto sucediera, la situación económica-social en Cuba se apretaría aún más y pudiera ser la mecha que detonara una violencia popular. Hay muchos “tronados”, dirigentes políticos y militares de distintos niveles que han sido destituidos, tanto por Fidel como por Raúl, que pudieran dirigir esa violencia popular y convertirla en una grave amenaza para el gobierno actual de Cuba, que respondería con todas sus fuerzas. El Castrismo jamas cederá el poder de ninguna forma.

De estallar una guerra civil en Cuba, los resultados son imprevisibles. El gobierno Castrista posee armas bacteriológicas y químicas. He recibido información de una persona que fue un compañero de armas y amigo mío durante 30 años y que reside en Cuba, de que han entrado misiles por el Puerto del Mariel, en la provincia de Pinar del Río, Cuba.

Las causas que pudieran desencadenar estos nefastos sucesos no pueden ser ya evitadas, pero al menos pudieran ser limitados sus efectos si se efectúan determinadas medidas políticas-militares.

Juan Antonio Rodriguez Menier

Miami Herald Continues to Minimize Columnist’s Ties to Cuban Intelligence Reply

Editor’s Note:  A  very interesting exchange between University of South Carolina professor, Dr. Tony de la Cova, and the Miami Herald.  For those unfamiliar with Dr. de la Cova’s work, his website (www.latinamericanstudies.org) is a Must-Read, especially the Cuba section.

 

From: delacova@latinamericanstudies.org

Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2012 2:34 PM

To: Myriam Marquez

Cc: Juan Tamayo ; David Landsberg ; Manny ; Jay ; Michael Sallah ; mailto:AMarques@miamiherald.com ; Edward Schumacher-Matos

 

Subject: Re: Selective journalism

 

Dear Ms. Marquez,

Thank you for your prompt response.

Professor Marifeli Pérez-Stable for years appeared on the Miami Herald website as a member of the Board of Contributors to the Miami Herald. The Miami Herald to this day has avoided fully investigating the various accusations against her of being controlled for more than a decade by the Cuban Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI). The accusation was first made by DGI defector Capt. Jesús Pérez Méndez in an FBI debriefing in 1983. A copy of the document appears here:  http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Perez-Mendez-debriefing.pdf

I have been a university professor for two decades with a lengthy and award-winning academic publication record that is found here http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/articles.htm

In contrast, while you offer so-called “Cubanologists” access to the Herald’s Opinion page, you personally denied me the same right of rebuttal that you gave Prof. Pérez-Stable in November 2009, in response to the Herald ombudsman´s article “Charges against columnist don’t add up.” Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos mentioned me eight times in seven paragraphs with a total of 356 words. Instead, you chose to limit me to a 330-word “Letter to the Editor” rather than the same 700-word op-ed piece afforded Pérez-Stable. To refresh your memory, please read our exchange of emails on my academic website here http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Miami-Herald-spy-polemic.htm

I use that correspondence as a teaching tool to let my students judge for themselves if the Miami Herald denied me the appropriate right of rebuttal and if the newspaper uses selective journalism. You are invited to attend my class to present the Herald’s viewpoint when we again discuss this issue next semester.

Enjoy the holidays.

Antonio de la Cova, Ph.D.

 

 

From: Myriam Marquez

Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2012 1:44 PM

To: mailto:delacova@latinamericanstudies.org

Cc: Juan Tamayo ; David Landsberg ; Manny ; Jay ; Michael Sallah ; mailto:AMarques@miamiherald.com ; mailto:ombudsman@miamiherald.com

 

Subject: Re: Selective journalism

Dear Mr. de la Cova,

Please correct your false assertion about Prof. Perez-Stable’s links to TMH. The professor wrote two columns monthly for The Miami Herald. She was never a member of the editorial board and certainly never guided editorial positions. We offer an array of opinions on our pages, prominently including Cubanologists Carlos-Alberto Montaner, Jose Azel, Jaime Suchlicki, Pedro Roig, and many others every week.

Wishing you a happy new year,

Myriam Marquez

 
On Dec 22, 2012, at 12:42 PM, <delacova@latinamericanstudies.org> wrote:

Juan Tamayo

Miami Herald

 

Dear Juan:

I read your article “Ricardo Alarcón will leave his post as president of the Cuban legislature,” published in the Herald on December 20, http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/12/20/3151330/ricardo-alarcon-will-leave-his.html where you again mention Cuban intelligence operative Mercedes Arce and that “Former FIU professor Carlos Alvarez, convicted of spying for Cuba, identified Arce as one of his handlers in the 1980s and 1990s.”

However, the Herald once again omits mention that Professor Alvarez, in page 489 of his FBI interrogation, that appears here http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Alvarez-spy-6.pdf stated that when Arce visited Miami, she stayed in the home of accused Castro agent, former Miami Herald Editorial Board member and FIU Professor Marifeli Pérez-Stable, whose background appears here http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/marifeli.htm

I indicated this to you in my email of June 7, 2012, and your terse response was: “thanks for reminding me of the arce-marifeli connex.” I wrote back the same day: “There is a pattern at the Herald of omitting any information linking their columnist Marifeli Perez-Stable to Cuban spies, such as Mercedes Arce, who stayed at her residence.”

I first brought this issue to the Herald’s attention in the exchange of emails on October-November 2009 that I sent you, Miami Herald Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos and Herald Editorial Page Editor Miriam Marquez, that I copied other Herald editors and posted on my academic website at http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Miami-Herald-spy-polemic.htm

My email on November 5, 2009, to Ms. Marquez concluded by indicating: “Hopefully, what people will remember is that Perez-Stable and her intimate friend Mercedes Arce are spies and the Herald suppressed the truth.”

Three years have passed since that exchange of emails and the Herald is still using biased and selective journalism on this story. The Herald continues neglecting to investigate or mention the decade-long links between Professor Perez-Stable and Cuban intelligence agents such as Arce.

In consequence, I have used my posted email exchanges with the Herald as a teaching tool for my history students as an example of the Herald’s duplicity, manipulation and yellow journalism.

Sincerely,

Antonio de la Cova, Ph.D.

Today in History: Cuban Spies Attended New York Conference 1

The New York City-based Center for Cuban Studies hosted the first National Conference on Cuba from November 2^nd-4^th, 1979. US participants included Congressman Ron Dellums, the Puerto Rican socialist party, union representatives, legal scholars, and innumerable academics.    Havana sent 15 participants, to include at least two intelligence officers: Alfredo García Almeida and Ramón Sánchez-Parodi Montoto.

An America Department (DA) officer, Alfredo Garcia Almeida found himself back in New York within two years — assigned to the Cuban Mission to the United Nations (CMUN) as a representative of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP).  According to former DI officer Juan Manuel Reyes Alonso, ICAP was penetrated by a small cadre of bona fide DI officers, aided by a large staff of agents (i.e., collaborators). As a result, roughly 90% of ICAP was thought to be DI-affiliated.

Following his posting as the first chief of the Cuban Interests Section in September 1977, Ramón Sánchez-Parodi Montoto, served in the US for 12 consecutive years. Experts remain undecided as to whether he is DGI or DA.

Editor’s Note: The General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI) was the name previously used by the foreign intelligence wing of the Ministry of the Interior. Following a 1989 “scandal” and reorganization, this service was reorganized and given a new name – the Directorate of Intelligence (DI).

The America Department (DA) was the name used by the intelligence wing of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party from 1974 to the late 1980s or early 1990s. The DA was heavily involved in supporting revolutionaries and terrorists, but has since become more focused on political intelligence operations. This service is now called the America Area of the International Department of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC/ID/AA).