Francesco/who-killed-jfk huggingface dataset:
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 55]
SECRETQ Non-official cover. What was the cover?A It was a commercial cover. It was called -- the first one was called Zenith Corporation and it was set up with a President and Vice President, normal corporate setup.Q Engaging in any business?A No.Q Now, in a community of that type, Cuban community, how long could a non-official cover last?A Well, obviously it didn't, but it was research activities. Funded -- it is a giant mechanism when you put one of these things in for the funding and this type of thing for your ostensible customers, establishing bank accounts.Q Yes, I understand.A So it was a research activity and the only people that ever paid any attention to the place were the newspapers. You know, somebody would make an inquiry, you know, we can't accept any work, we are loaded with Government contracts and this type of thing, and it held up reasonably well. And out of this one thing, of course, then we were running these innumerable other covers with different activities. The guard force, of course, were like -- well, they wore uniforms, similar to the Pinkerton people and this type of thing. And I think that there was -- in the later days at that site I think the Department of Agriculture had offices in there and some other Government agencies, in other buildings, of course.
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 56]
SECRETQ And this particular Station, then, was under the supervision of the group we have been discussing?A Yes. They were staffed within the Cuban Operations.Q When did the Western Hemisphere Division resume responsibilities for the Miami Station?A Well, when Des. Fitzgerald left as Chief of the Special Activities Staff and became Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division, he brought it back into the Division.Q Is there presently a Miami Station?A Oh yesQ And how large is it at the present time?A Well, since we--I think when we closed down the Cuban Operations, I don't know how large it is at the present time because we are in one of these periods where we are reassigning people, but I think by the end of this fiscal year there are going to be between 11 and 14 people.Q When you joined the group in 1963, what functions were being performed by the Miami Station?A Well, all the classical intelligence functions. think I have lined them out at one time -- collection of positive intelligence, counterintelligence, paramilitary, this type of thing. Covert action.Q This is the list of things you gave me earlier in the deposition?A Yes.
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 57]
SECRETQ Which of these activities, if any of them were actually being conducted within the Cuban community in Miami?A Well, the collection of foreign positive and probably counterintelligence.Q So the Agency was conducting counterintelligence activities in the Miami area?A Yes, sir.Q Can you give me an example of the kinds of counterintelligence activities that the Agency would be conducting in that area or was conducting in the area at that time?A Well, we had a number of joint operations, as I recall, with the Bureau. We had identified a Castro agent that came in by small boat and when she was -- she came in with a number of other people. When she hit the -- they had a reception center up in Opa Loca that was really a HEW operation. The Domestic Contact Division office had people out there and we did, too. Our people from the DDO were under Immigration and Naturalization service cover. When the HEW people did the preliminary interrogation of these people they had to fill out forms, where were you born, this type of thing, biographic type thing. These forms would be passed to our people who would look at the forms and based on previous experience or what they might have been doing, and they felt that perhaps they might have some information of intelligence value, they would reinterrogate them.
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 58]
SECRET56It was in this manner that this gal came to our knowledge. We surveilled her for a long time and determined that obviously she was receiving messages and she was sending messages. So along with the Bureau we put a surveillant on her and we obtained a van with DF equipment in it and indeed, she went on the air in the morning at 5:00 o'clock or 4:30 or whatever it was, and the direction finder found it was being beamed toward Cuba, this type of thing, and that was oen of the examples of the CI activities we were involved in.Q. Were there many activities of that type?A. Not really. You have got to remember that the Bureau's Cuban squad was fairly small. I mean, it was a large squad in terms of FBI squads. It had 36 people on it, something like that, but 36 people trying to follow a couple of hundred thousand Cubans around, you know, it is pretty negative. This was one of the reasons that obviously from in those days when we had formed these revolutionary fronts which were being run by the Cuban exiles, they were reporting to Case Officers and they would report on things in the community, of people they thought were suspect and this type of thing. These leads in turn were then given to the Bureau and it was to this extent that we got ourselves involved in CI activity.Q Would it be fair to say that the involvement in CI
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 59]
SECRET                                                                      57activities in that area was primarily a function of the over-whelming number of these people and the Bureau's inabilityto properly staff the thing?A   Yes, yes. You have got to remember, too, that a lotof the people on that Cuban squad were in the legal sectionof the Embassy in Havana. You know, the FBI overseas isknown as Legal Attaches, obviously working out of the Embassythe same as our Station was, and a lot of our Station officersfrom Havana were down in Miami at that time. So there was arelationship there that had gone over a period of yearsbetween the Agency and the Bureau.MR.MANFREDI: We will reconvene at 1:00 o'clock.(Whereupon, at 11:45 o'clock a.m., the taking ofthe deposition was recessed, to reconvene at 1:00 p.m., thissame day.)
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 60]
SECRETAFTERNOON SESSIONThereupon,WILLIAM! C. STURBITTS,called as a witness by Counsel for the Commission on CIA Activities, and having been first duly sworn by the Notary Public, was examined and testified as follows:EXAMINATION BY COUNSEL FOR THE COMMISSION (Cont'd)BY MR. MANFREDI:Q. When we recessed for lunch you were talking about the Miami Station . Do I understand that the Miami Station was the largest CIA station in the world?A. The largest CIA station in the world.Q At its height?A. Nothing comes anyplace close to it.Q. I wonder if you could describe briefly for the record what the *AMOTS* were.A. Well, the *AMOTS* were Cuban a Cuban intelligence organization in exile. We full intended -- this was part of the overall contingency plan that US Government had. Should Castro ever be overthrown, these people would be the nucleus to go into Cuba and form a new Ministry of the Interior.Q. Now, Ministry of the Interior, is that a euphemism for Security Agency?A. Well, in most countries of the world the Ministry of Interior, unlike ours, is the security force, internal and
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 61]
2SECRETQ. And these people were Cuban exiles?A. Cuban exiles.Q. How large an outfit were the AMOTS?A. Well, at one time -- I can give you the exact figures but I know it well exceeded over 100, probably closer to --Q. Go ahead.A. Probably closer to 150, something like that.Q. Now, would that 150 persons be included within the three to 500 who made up the Miami Station?A. No.Q. That was over and above the personnel of the Miami Station?A. Right.Q. These people were fulltime CIA employes, weren't they?.A. Right. Well, let me -- these people really were they were being subsidized by the Agency. They were employed by two cover companies, the largest of which was called rating American Social and Economic Research. Then we had another smaller group that did the interrogating and they were under another cover, commercial cover -- I just don't recall what it was. But these people ostensibly were employees of these wholly owned proprietaries of the Agency. They were duly constituted, incorporated, paid taxes, all this type of thing.Q. The salaries of these people, although paid indirectly, were paid by the CIA?
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 62]
SECRETA. That is right.Ω And was training provided then by the Agency?Ω Oh, yes.A. You said the smaller group of the two groups that made up the OTS conducted the interrogations, is that correct?A. Right.Ω When you speak of interrogations, are you referring to debriefings?A. I am referring to debriefings of newly arrived exiles or perhaps exiles that had been in the country whom during their time here had acquired new information.Ω. How were those -- how and where were those debriefings conducted?A. Well, normally the debriefings were conducted at Opa Loca.Ω That is the Air Pase?A. That is the old Air Base there but that is where the reception center was for all the Cuban refugees coming in.Sometimes if there was going to be a lengthy debriefing, we had a residence which we rented and the interior was changed into small rooms like this where you could bring people in, sit them down, under controlled conditions, and debrief them without any interference and this type of thing.Ω. For how long a period did these debriefings go on?
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 63]
4SECRETA. You mean in terms of years?Ω Yes.A. Well, I would think that I would probably say from about 1962, and I think the debriefings as such, of course -- we relied principally on the airlift for the people coming out and when the airlift was cut off, which Castro did -- cut off about, I guess about 1970 or '71, in that timeframeΩ I see.A. -- that stopped the flow of the refugees, so we just terminated that part of the activity.Ω Well, in addition to debriefing refugees that came in in the airlift, did the smaller group of *ALIOTS* have any other intelligence gathering functions --A. No.Ω In the community?A. Well, I can't give you a real yes or no to that. I would suppose that there is an outside possibility that would have been used to debrief people within the community, within the Cuban community, but we had in the organization -- all the people were Cuban with the exception of we had what we call an On-Site Case Officer, who was a fulltime staff employee and had a couple of assistants, including a secretary. These people were directly under his control. Though the organization as it was set up, they had their own chief and this type of thing, but the chief took his instructions from the On-Site Case Officer
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 64]
SECRETOf course, if these people went out and did something on their own, they could do things we were not aware of, obviously. You can't -- you know what they are doing during their eight or ten hours that they are going to work everyday but once they leave, we don't know what they are up to.Q. Did they have CIA credentials?A. No sir, because they were proprietary hires of this commercial coverQ. Did CIA levy any intelligence requirements upon these people other than in their duties -- in their debriefing capacity, I should say?A. No. When -- there were -- obviously there was a standard debriefing form that covered questions of intelligence interest or a battle, you know, anything -- economic questions, morale, and this type of thing. When these questions -- when these people were debriefed and the debriefer wrote the report, it would be sent from the AMOTS over to the Station. If the debriefing report contained something of positive intelligence, of that nature, the Case Officer -- well, not the Case Officer but a staffer in the Station may or may not jot down some additional requirements and ask that that person be recontacted and asked specific questions.Q. Now, in addition to debriefing, what else did this smaller group of AMOTS do for the Agency in the Miami area?A. This was their prime purpose.
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 65]
6# SECRET63Q. How large was that particular group?A. Oh, there were only about, I would say at the outside, I think there were about five lebriefers with the support people which would be secretaries, translators, strictly administrative types. I don't think there were more than probably 12 or 15 in that group, if there were that many.MR. MANFREDI: Off the record.(Off the record discussion)BY MR. MANFREDI: Back on the record.Q. Before we move on to further discussion of the AMOTSK could you briefly describe for me what role the CIA plays in resettling Cuban enigres?A. CIA doesn't resettle Cuban emigres.Q. What Agency is charged with that responsibility?A. Health, Education and Welfare.Q. Does CIA play any role in that process?A. We may assist if we are asked but the idea of the whole airlift was having relatives here for somebody to claim vou when you came in so you wouldn't become a ward of the State of the Government, and normally when these refugees came in, they were processed through the Center and then they had a place down on Biscayne Boulevard they called Freedom House and this was, of course, all run by HEW, and they -- if need be and they had to stay overnight or stay several days, HEW would put them up and care for them in Freedom House.
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 66]
# SECRETThen as soon as they could, of course, they would move them to the areas where they wanted to resettle them, where the relatives were, this type of thing, and we had nothing to do with that whatsoever.Q Turning back to the MOTS and to the larger of the two groups, what was the name of that group again?A. SASER, Latin American Social and Economic Research.Q We can call them LASER for short?A. Really, they are both -- the only reason we separated the two groups was for security because we had one group housed over here and the smaller group was over here. Obviously we couldn't bring these refugees into the larger establishment, so that is why we took the smaller establishment to preserve cover.Q. Okay. What activities was the larger group engaged in?A. Well, the larger group was engaged in the collection of intelligence. They compiled dossiers on the principals inside Cuba. They carded -- they kept card files on every refugee that came through the reception center. They provided they did do economic and social reporting. They put out a monthly newsletter based on the information they collected.The information these people collected as opposed to the information we collected, their's was all unclassified. That came from -- all the information they had came from human source:
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 67]
8SECRETor overt publications. We subscribed -- well, the proprietarysubscribed to a number, a great many newspapers, periodicals,Spanish language type things.Q. Well, they were doing clandestine collections as well, weren't they?A. I don't know if you could call it clandestine. What did you have in mind?Q. Well, would they run agents in the community?A. Well, yes, there were penetrations of the Cuban community, yes.Q. And that is clandestine collection, isn't it?A. Well, I call that human resources.Q. All right. Where are these files now?A. They are in the Headquarters here. A great many of them were really destroyed. It got to be rather comic. We went down there several years ago just looking through the files to see what kind of shape they were in and they had such great information for intelligence value in there as a picture of a gal who might be the daughter of a Cuban refugee who just won a swimming meet. It got rather ridiculous. So we purged those files and took out that material, you know, which just didn't have any pertinancy at all.Q. How are the files organized? You indicated before that there is a card, index card for each Cuban refugee?A. Right.Q. Are there soft cover files as well?
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 68]
SECRETA. Yes.Q. For each Cuban refugee?A. No. Not for each Cuban refugee. I think, as I recall, those card files were up in the milli-ns and I forget, we had I guess the manilla fiies, probably went into the tens of thousands, I would think.Q. Now, is there any way to determine from those files which of those exiles have become United States citizens?A. No way.Q. Has there been any effort to make such a determina-tion?A. We made an effort at one time but this -- you can become nationalized out in California and your record of nationalization wouldn't be reflected here in Washington for two years. That is how far they are behind.Q. So I take it --A. So there is no central index you can go to. there is a central index you can go to but it is not curren.Q. I take it, then, that there is a possibility tha CIA has some files in Miami or here in Langley on Cubans who are now American citizens?A. Absolutely true.Q. Now, are any of those files likely to contain derogatory information about the individuals involved?A. Well, no. One of the things these people do, of
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 69]
10# SECRET67course, we had targets for recruitment. It could range from anything from a first mate, a captain or chief engineer of a Cuban maritime vessel to Fidel. When we targeted these people as possible recruitments, for possible recruitment, we would ask that all the information on that individual be assembled so that we could do a complete target study -- habits, you know, everything right down the line. In case of some of the more important ones, of course, we had psychological studies prepared where we had enough information. But this is one of the things these people did. If we said we want everything you have on the first mate of the -- one of the Cuban ships, then they would start looking through the papers or anything else to come up with anything they could on what the guy's current activities are, his background, his life habits, this type of thing.Q. Well, the AMOTS were going to be the intelligence service of Cuba?A. Right.Q. And they obviously were going to perform some function in addition to recruitment of agents?A. Right.Q. I take it they were trained in counterintelligence, gathering of positive intelligence, recruitment and all of the traditional skills, is that correct?A. That is about right.Q. So I trust that they had files that were amassed for
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 70]
11**SECRET**1 purposes other than recruitment?2 A. Well --3 Q. For example, let me ask you this. Were any of these4 files on Cubans who were suspected or thought to be a possible5 internal security problem?6 A. No. No. They didn't keep those types of files. We7 would simply task them with through your sources what do you8 have on so and so. They would not be told the reason why we9 wanted the information on anybody.10 Q Well, I guess with several million fiels or severalmillion cards and tens of thousands of files it is difficult to12 make generalizations about the kind of information that is inthose files?14 A. Well, that is right.15 Q So I guess I won't ask you to do so, but I want to ask16 you this. I trust that there is the possibility that some of17 these files do contain what you in the trade refer to as deroga-tory information?18 A. I would assume so.19 Q And that so much of them may -- some of the subjects20 of those files may now be American citizens?21 A. Right.22 Q. And finally I take it that no effort has been made to23 study that particular situation?
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 71]
12**SECRET**1 You know, we have a traveler program where when Cubans travel,2 whether they are on an island or perhaps other places, their3 names turn up on manifests and this type of thing. Well, these4 are put into a machine system. What we did when these cards5 were all transferred back here in Miami, we did go through them6 at random and pick out cards and then try to match it up with7 what the machine system had to see if there was updated informa-8 tion in the machine system that would show that this guy had9 become a naturalized citizen, and it didn't work out. So --10 Q. Excuse me, off the record.11 (Off the record discussion)12 MR. MANFREDI: Back on the record.13 BY MR. MANFREDI:14 Q. I want to straighten out confusion in my own mind15 where these files presently reside. The cards I take it are16 presently here in Washington?17 A. The cards and what is left of the files.18 Q. That is the soft cover files?19 A. Yes.20 Q. And --21 A. I assume they are either here or down at the22 Records Center.23 Q. And where is the computer system?24 A. You mean our machine system? We have --
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 72]
13# SECRET701 information on the cards?2 A Right down on the third floor.3 Q That is not the hydro system?4 A. Oh, no, no.5 Q This is a separate --6 A. This is a complete -- only the Latin American Division7 uses this particular system.8 Q What kind of records -- strike that.9 The *AMOTS* are still in existence, aren't they?10 A. No.11 Q T thought they were going out in June.12 A. Well, okay. They are on the books until June.13 Q I see.14 A But they have all been let go. They were let go -- they were all given six months termination bonuses and told to go find a job.17 Q Do they have any facilities, physical facilities, in Miami at this time?18 A. no.20 Q So there are no records in Miami?21 A. No. No. We brought all those records back here.22 Q Did the *AMOTS* have law enforcement responsibilities in the Miami community?23 A. No. No.
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 73]
14                                                                                                            71**SECRET**1.  A. Not to my knowledge.2.  Ω What else did they do, this larger group of AMOTS that was not doing debriefings?3.  A. Well, when they were trained in trade craft we would send them to other countries, in Europe and within the Hemisphere to train some of the local services in those countries. They served as safe housekeepers in other countries. They served in listening posts where we had audio4.  Ω Foreign listening posts?5.  A. Oh, yes, foreign.6.  Ω Any domestic listening posts?7.  A. No, no.8.  Ω Any domestic surveillances conducted by these people?9.  A. I would assume -- this I cannot answer because I really don't know. I know that they did a great number of things but to my knowledge there wasn't any domestic surveillance conducted by them.Now, if it was conducted, and if it is a matter of record, I don't know where it could be.Ω What intelligence gathering activities did they conduct in the Cuban community in Miami?A. One of the big problems we had was within that Cuban community, as I said earlier, were some of the militant anti-Castro groups and this just drove the FBI and the Coast Guard
[157-10011-10083.pdf — page 74]
15**SECRET**1 agencies in Miami plus the State government enforcement agencies2 up the wall and, of course, I guess it was around -- the3 Government allowed a lot of this to go on for awhile but I guess4 about 1965 or 1964 they got a little tired of it and they5 started to tighten up.6 I am sure the SAMOTS were in part responsible for proposing7 alerting us and in turn we alerted the enforcement agencies when8 there was going to be a raid against Cuba by one of these9 militant groups. A number of times raids were aborted, picked10 up by the Coast Guard or Florida Coastal Patrol or the Bureau,11 this type of thing.12 Q These people were arrested?13 A Oh, yes.14 Q Prosecuted?15 A. Not really.16 Q Any of them American citizens?17 A Not to my knowledge.18 Q This would be Alpha 66 type groups?19 A. I don't know whether this guy -- well, you know, theyare still after this Masferrer and this guy Donestevez. I don't20 know if they ever did get him in jail but they had him up on21 so many charges and he was a Cuban exile that made it big here.22 He was a boat manufacturer, small boats, but whether he ever23 served any time or not I don't know. I know he was convicted24