Francesco/who-killed-jfk huggingface dataset:
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## SECRET1 It was in this manner that this gal came to our2 knowledge. We surveilled her for a long time and determined3 that obviously she was receiving messages and she was4 sending messages. So along with the Bureau we put a surveillance5 on her and we obtained a van with DF equipment in it and6 indeed, she went on the air in the morning at 5:00 o'clock7 or 4:30 or whatever it was, and the direction finder found8 it was being beamed toward Cuba, this type of thing, and that9 was oen of the examples of the CI activities we were involved10 in.11 Q Were there many activities of that type?12 A Not really. You have got to remember that the13 Bureau's Cuban squad was fairly small. I mean, it was a large14 squad in terms of FBI squads. It had 36 people on it, some-15 thing like that, but 36 people trying to follow a couple of16 hundred thousand Cubans around, you know, it is pretty nega-17 tive. This was one of the reasons that obviously from --18 in those days when we had formed these revolutionary fronts19 which were being run by the Cuban exiles, they were reporting20 to Case Officers and they would report on things in the21 community, of people they thought were suspect and this type22 of thing. These leads in turn were then given to the Bureau23 and it was to this extent that we got ourselves involved24 in CI activity.25 Q Would it be fair to say that the involvement in CI## SECRETPhotocopy fromGerald Ford Library
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SECRETPhone (Area 202) 544-6000activities in that area was primarily a function of the over-whelming number of these people and the Bureau's inability to properly staff the thing?A Yes, yes. You have got to remember, too, that a lot of the people on that Cuban squad were in the legal section of the Embassy in Havana. You know, the FBI overseas is known as Legal Attaches, obviously working out of the Embassy the same as our Station was, and a lot of our Station officers from Havana were down in Miami at that time. So there was a relationship there that had gone over a period of years between 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 of the deposition was recessed, to reconvene at 1:00 p.m., this same day.)SECRETPhotocopy fromGerald Ford LibraryNW 50955 DocId:32275518 Page 5957WARD & PAUL410 First Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003
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SECRETAFTERNOON SESSIONThereupon,WILLIAM C. STURBITTS,called as a witness by Counsel for the Commission on CIAActivities, and having been first duly sworn by the NotaryPublic, 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.
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1. Q. And these people were Cuban exiles?2. A. Cuban exiles.3. Q. How large an outfit were the AMOTS?4. A. Well, at one time -- I can give you the exact figures but I know it well exceeded over 100, probably closer to --5. Q Go ahead.6. A. Probably closer to 150, something like that.7. Q. Now, would that 150 persons be included within the three to 500 who made up the Miami Station?8. A. No.9. Q. That was over and above the personnel of the Miami Station?10. A. Right.11. Q These people were fulltime CIA employes, weren't they?12. 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 Latin 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 peop.e ostensibly were employees of these wholly owned proprietaries of the Agency. They were duly constituted, incorporated, paid taxes, all this type of thing.13. Q The salaries of these people, although paid indirectly were paid by the CIA?
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1 A. That is right.2 Q. And was training provided them by the Agency?3 Q Oh, yes.4 A. You said the smaller group of the two groups that made5 up the AMOTS conducted the interrogations, is that correct?6 A. Right.7 Q. When you speak of interrogations, are you referring to8 debriefings?9 A. I am referring to debriefings of newly arrived exiles10 or perhaps exiles that had been in the country whom during their11 time here had acquired new information.12 Q. How were those -- how and where were those debriefings13 conducted?14 A. Well, normally the debriefings were conducted at Opa15 Loca.16 Q. That is the Air Base?17 A. That is the old Air Base there but that is where the18 reception center was for all the Cuban refugees coming in.19 Sometimes if there was going to be a lengthy debriefing, we had20 a residence which we rented and the interior was changed into21 small rooms like this where you could bring people in, sit them22 down, under controlled conditions, and debrief them without any23 interference and this type of thing.24 Q. For how long a period did these debriefings go on?
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# SECRETA. You mean in terms of years?Q. 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 timeframe --Q. I see.A. -- that stopped the flow of the refugees, so we just terminated that part of the activity.Q. Well, in addition to debriefing refugees that came in in the airlift, did the smaller group of AMOTS have any other intelligence gathering functions --A. No.Q. 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 they could have been used to debrief people within the community, within the Cuban community, but we had in the organization -- all these people were Cuban with the exception of we had what we call an On-Site Case Officer, who was a fulltime staff employee and he 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.# SECRET
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SECRET                                                                                                                621 Of course, if these people went out and did something on2 their own, they could do things we were not aware of, obviously.3 You can't -- you know what they are doing during their eight or4 ten hours that they are going to work everyday but once they5 leave, we don't know what they are up to.6 Q Did they have CIA credentials?7 A. No sir, because they were proprietary hires of this8 commercial cover.9 Q Did CIA levy any intelligence requirements upon these10 people other than in their duties -- in their debriefing11 capacity, I should say?12 A. No. When -- there were -- obviously there was a13 standard debriefing form that covered questions of intelligence14 interest or a battle, you know, anything -- economic questions,15 morale, and this type of thing. When these questions -- when16 these people were cebriefed and the debriefer wrote up the17 report, it would be sent from the AMOTS over to the Station.18 If the debriefing report contained something of positive19 intelligence, of that nature, the Case Officer -- well, not the20 Case Officer but a staffer in the Station may or may not jot21 down some additional requirements and ask that that person be22 recontacted and asked specific questions.23 Q Now, in addition to debriefing, what else did this24 smaller broup of AMOTS do for the Agency in the Miami area?25 A. This was their prime purpose.SECRETPhotocopy fromGerald Ford Library
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SECRET                                                                        631 Q How large was that particular group?2 A. Oh, there were only about, I would say at the outside,3 I think there were about five debriefers with the support people4 which would be secretaries, translators, strictly administrative5 types. I don't think there were more than probably 12 or 156 in that group, if there were that many.7 MR. MANFREDI: Off the record.8 (Off the record discussion)9 BY MR. MANFREDI: Back on the record.10 Q Before we move on to further discussion of the AMOTS11 could you briefly describe for me what role the CIA plays in12 resettling Cuban emigres?13 A. CIA doesn't resettle Cuban emigres.14 Q What Agency is charged with that responsibility?15 A. Health, Education and Welfare.16 Q Does CIA play any role in that process?17 A. We may assist if we are asked but the idea of the whole18 airlift was having relatives here for somebody to claim you when19 you came in so you wouldn't become a ward of the State of the20 Government, and normally when these refugees came in, they were21 processed through the Center and then they had a place down on22 Biscayne Boulevard they called Freedom House and this was, of23 course, all run by HEW, and they if need be and they had to24 stay overnight or stay several days, HEW would put them up and25 care for them in Freedom House.SECRETPhotocopy fromGerald Ford Library
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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.Ω. Turning back to the AMOTS, and to the larger of the two groups, what was the name of that group again?A. SASER, Latin American Social and Economic Research.Ω. 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 some cover.Ω. 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, ther's was all unclassified. That came from -- all the information they had came from human sourcesSECRET> Photocopy from> Gerald Ford Library
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SECRET                                                                                           65or 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. Whatdid you have in mind?Q. Well, would they run agents in the community?A. Well, yes, there were penetrations of the Cubancommunity, 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 ofthem were really destroyed. It got to be rather comic. Wewent down there several years ago just looking through the filesto see what kind of shape they were in and they had such greatinformation for intelligence value in there as a picture of agal who might be the daughter of a Cuban refugee who just wona swimming meet. It got rather ridiculous. So we purged thosefiles and took out that material, you know, which just didn'thave any pertinancy at all.Q. How are the files organized? You indicated before thatthere is a card, index card for each Cuban refugee?A. Right.Q. Are there soft cover files as well?SECRETPhotocopy fromGerald Ford LibraryWARD & PAULPhone (Area 202) 544-6000410 First Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003NW 50955 DocId:32275518 Page 67
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SECRET1 A. Yes.2 Q. For each Cuban refugee?3 A. No. Not for each Cuban refugee. I think, as Irecall, those card files were up in the milli-ns and I forget,we had I guess the manilla files, probably went into the tensof thousands, I would think.7 Q. Now, is there any way to determine from those fileswhich of those exiles have become United States citizens?9 A. No way.10 Q. Has there been any effort to make such a determina-tion?11 A. We made an effort at one time but this -- you can12 become nationalized out in California and your record ofnationalization wouldn't be reflected here in Washington for14 two years. That is how far they are behind.16 Q. So I take it --17 A. So there is no central index you can go to. I mean,there is a central index you can go to but it is not current.18 Q I take it, then, that there is a possibility that the19 CIA has some files in Miami or here in Langley on Cubans whoare now American citizens?21 A. Absolutely true.22 Q. Now, are any of those files likely to containderogatory information about the individuals involved?24 A. Well, no. One of the things these people do, ofSECRET> [Figure] Photocopy from Gerald Ford Library
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SECRETcourse, 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
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SECREI                                                                                681   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 several11  million cards and tens of thousands of files it is difficult to12  make generalizations about the kind of information that is in13  those 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-18  tory information?19  A. I would assume so.20  Q. And that so much of them may -- some of the subjects21  of those files may now be American citizens?22  A Right.23  Q. And finally I take it that no effort has been made to24  study that particular situation?25  A. WEll, we did make an effort to do it at one time.SECRETPhotocopy fromGerald Ford Library
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SECRET1 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 --25 Q. The machine here that you tried to match up with theSECRETPhotocopy fromGerald Ford Library
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1 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 0 This is a separate --6 A. This is a complete -- only the Latin American Division7 uses this particular system.8 Ω. 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 --15 they were all given six months termination bonuses and told to16 go find a job.17 Ω. Do they have any facilities, physical facilities, inMiami at this time?18 A. no.19 Ω. So there are no records in Miami?20 A. No. No. We brought all those records back here.21 Q. Did the AMOTS have law enforcement responsibilities22 in the Miami community?23 A. No. No.24 Ω Any affiliation with law enforcement groups?
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SECRET1 A. Not to my knowledge.2 Q What else did they do, this larger group of AMOTS that3 was not doing debriefings?4 A. Well, when they were trained in trade craft we would5 send them to other countries, in Europe and within the Hemisphere6 to train some of the local services in those countries. They7 served as safe housekeepers in other countries. They served in8 listening posts where we had audio --9 Q. Foreign listening posts?10 A. Oh, yes, foreign.11 Q Any domestic listening posts?12 A. No, no.13 Q Any domestic surveillances conducted by these people?14 A. I would assume -- this I cannot answer because I reall15 don't know. I know that they did a great number of things but16 to my knowledge there wasn't any domestic surveillance17 conducted by them.18 Now, if it was conducted, and if it is a matter of record,I don't know where it could be.19 Q. What intelligence gathering activities did they20 conduct in the Cuban community in Miami?21 A. One of the big problems we had was within that Cuban22 community, as I said earlier, were some of the militant anti-23 Castro groups and this just drove the FBI and the Coast Guard24 and Customs and in general the law enforcement US. Government25SECRETPhotocopy fromGerald Ford Library
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SECRET1 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 AMOTS 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, they are 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 but he was always walking around Miami when I was there. So25SECRETPhotocopy fromGerald Ford Library
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SECRETI truthfully don't know whether any of these people ever went to jaul or not.Q. Other than identifying operations by militant anti-Castro groups, what other intelligence gathering did the AMOTS engage in?A. Well, of course, there was a counterintelligence -- I wouldn't call it a project but a counterintelligence. interest at that time because we knew that they were infiltrating agents.Q. Cubans were?A. The Cuban Government. They couldn't do it very well on the airlift because, as I said before, the aged, infirm, and young, but they did infiltrate them by small boat. And I don't -- well, we had knowledge that this was on and we did try to identify those people whom we thought would be suspect.Q. Was that done in cooperation with the Bureau?A. With the Bureau, yes.Q. Because of their manpower limitations you folks were in a better position to do it?A. Yes, and language-wise, too. That is always a big factor.Q. And this was conducted through the AMOTS?A. Yes.Q. How substantial was the counterintelligence operation in the community?A. Well, it wasn't that big. They identified not what ISECRET
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# SECRETwould call a great number of suspect infiltrees, but they didcome up with a few promising ones and ones it turned over to the Bureau, of course, we have no idea what the hell ever happens to it because, you know, you just -- unless you personally know the guy in the Bureau that is handling the case, you might as well forget it. You have got too many other things to do.Q. What other positive intelligence gathering activities were they engaging in?A. Well, as I told you, one part of them were engaged in electronic intercept.Q. Where was that done?A. Down in Florda, down in Homestead.Q. This is Southeast of Homestead?A. Yes.Q. What ere they intercepting?A. Well, originally they were set up to assist with the commo. for the infiltration.As we phased down the maritime activities, they were made available to intercept Cuban communications. NSA tasks them with the frequencies they wanted covered and the Cuban Communications nets they wanted covered, such as the border guards. Another important one was the sugar network. We had the border guards, sugar, transportation, maritime. I think there was an interior network they covered too. But all electronic intercept coverage is dictated by NSA.SECRET> Photocopy from Gerald Ford Library![photo of NW 50955 DocId:32275518 Page 76]