20000A
104-10302-10022
2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992
DAILY
TOP SECRET
NOFORN
Chiet, Adm. Statt
OĆI for VM
COPY NO. 107
SC NO. 00550/63
29 November 1963
SUMMARY
CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE
AGENCY
OF AMERICA
UNITED STAT
STATES OF
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS CODE WORD MATERIAL
GROUP I
Excluded from
automatic downgrading
and declassification
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DAILY SUMMARY
29 November 1963
This summary of significant information has not been coordinated
outside the Office of Current Intelligence. It does not represent a
complete coverage of all current reports received, nor does time
permit the complete evaluation of all reports which are included.
CONTENTS
CASTRO'S SPEECH:
In his 27 November address, Castro first sought to exon-
erate his regime of complicity in the death of President
Kennedy and then provided a decidedly optimistic assess-
ment of Cuba's economic situation. (Page 1)
MILITARY DEVELOPMENTS:
An unsuccessful combing operation was affected on the Isle
of Pines for two persons who apparently escaped from the
military prison there. (Page 3)
CUBAN INTERNAL SITUATION:
The Cuban Government may have instituted new controls on
fishermen by eliminating night fishing along the north
coast and by restricting fishermen to three and one half
miles from the coast, according to two clandestine sources.
(Page 3)
INSURGENCY AND CIVIL UNREST:
Three incidents of sabotage have been noted in recent in-
tercepted messages--two in Matanzas Province and the third
in Oriente. (Page 4)
A LCB operation against an insurgent band in Las Villas
Province ended on 29 November without results. (Page 4)
Department of State Security (DSE) officials in Camaguey
Province have been alerted to a possible clandestine
escape attempt during the night of 28-29 November; militia-
men have been instructed to mobilize at Playa Santa
Lucia. (Page 4)
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CUBAN EXILE AND REFUGEE ACTIVITIES:
Comandos L is considering an attack against a Soviet
vessel in Cuban waters in the near future or when the
seas become more quiet. (Page 4)
Cubanos Libres may be planning to hijack a ship in a raid
that would be staged from Miami. (Page 5)
A small group of Cuban refugees may have attempted to
infiltrate Cuba about 27 November, according to a promi–
nent exile activist. (Page 5)
BLOC RELATIONS:
The Albanian ambassador spoke to a near-empty hall in
Havana on 26 November at a celebration marking his country's
national holiday; the audience was composed chiefly of
Chinese embassy personnel, students, and journalists.
The Cuban Government was represented by an official of the
foreign cultural council. (Page 5)
NON-BLOC RELATIONS:
·
A three-man "good-will" mission is en route to Morocco to
smooth Rabat's ruffled feelings over presence of Cuban
troops in Algeria. (Page 6)
The director of the Cuban petroleum enterprise is scheduled
to travel to Georgetown aboard the BAHIA DE TANAMO; an
untested source in Georgetown reports that Cuba will
supply fuel oil for the British Guiana Electricity Cor-
poration. (Page 6)
Cuba may establish diplomatic relations with Somalia and
is attempting to improve its relations with Tanganyika
and Ghana, according to intercepted communications. (Page 7)
Two representatives of the Cuban National Association of
Small Farmers are planning to attend a seminar in Chile.
(Page 7)
NON-BLOC COMMERCIAL RELATIONS:
Cuba is continuing negotiations for the purchase of large
amounts of construction equipment, probably from the Varmi
company of Brussels. (Page
7)
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CUBAN SUPPORT OF EXTERNAL SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES:
The Venezuelan Government has announced the discovery of
a large cache of weapons of Cuban origin; this provides
the best evidence in recent years of major Cuban support
for Latin American subversives. Havana radio immediately
denied the charge. (Page 8)
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CASTRO'S SPEECH:
Fidel's 27 November speech to the students at Havana
University evidently had been scheduled some weeks ago, be-
fore the assassination of President Kennedy, and was in-
tended as a fairly sweeping review of the country's economic
situation, post-Hurricane Flora salvage operations and,
lastly, the regime's plans for changes in the educational sys-
tem. In fact, it was the third time in a week that Castro has
addressed himself publicly and at length to the death of the
late President and to imputations that the Castro regime was
involved in any way. On 24 November Castro had displayed
considerable apprehension that already strained US-Cuban re-
lations would worsen markedly as a consequence of the assassi-
nation. We do not have an adequate text of Castro's seemingly
impromptu remarks of 26 November to a group of high school
students; but that speech apparently went little beyond his
statement on the Sunday following Mr. Kennedy's death. The
address of 27 November obviously was a carefully prepared ref-
utation of charges of complicity between Castro's regime and
Oswald.
Whatever the Cuban leader's intent, textual analysis of
the speech neither proves nor disproves that he had advance
knowledge of the plot. He is determined to indict unnamed
"reactionaries" in the United States with conspiring to murder
the President, using Oswald as their innocent dupe, and to
frame Cuba in order to provoke punitive action by the US Gov-
ernment against the revolution. To this end, he presented a
considerable body of "evidence"--much of it admittedly specu-
lative--based on what is generally known about Oswald, the
"normal" behavior pattern of paranoiacs, the weapon the killer
used, the technical difficulties presented by the use of a
telescopic sight, the 36-hour Dallas police interrogation of
the alleged killer and, finally, Oswald's death at the hands
of Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters.
Castro rehearsed the details of Oswald's 27 September
application at the Cuban consulate in Mexico City for a Cuban
visa and protested the 23 November arrest of two employees of
the consulate by Mexican authorities. (Castro's remarks were
followed up on 28 November by the delivery of a formal pro-
test by the Cuban Foreign Ministry to the Mexican Government--
which rejected it.) Oswald's Dallas television interview in
July, his attempts to infiltrate the pro-Castro Fair Play for
Cuba Committee, and his street brawl with anti-Castro refugees
in New Orleans--all were intended by those behind Oswald to
mislead public opinion, according to Castro. And, finally,
the decision of the Dallas police to "close" the Oswald case
with the shooting of Sunday, 24 November, "demonstrates that
the persons guilty of the death of Kennedy needed and urgently
had to eliminate the accused at any cost...so that he would
not talk...."
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CASTRO'S SPEECH cont'd
-
But, says the Cuban premier, the "shot has backfired."
Alluding to statements made earlier in the week by physicians
at Parkland Hospital, Castro claims that no one in a posi-
tion to do so has said whether one or two bullets were used
to kill the late President. He declared "they cannot estab-
lish which are the entry and exit wounds," implying that more
than one assassin was involved and that the President was
struck both from in front and behind.
In sum, while Castro obviously was well briefed and went
to some length to select "evidence" proving the guilt of do-
mestic reactionaries in the United States (conversely clear-
ing himself of any involvement), nothing he said indicates
advance knowledge of the crime or encompasses more factual
data than can be presumed to have been gleaned from the press.
The balance of the 27 November speech, the part which
Castro told his listeners comprised the address he originally
intended to deliver, was devoted to a somewhat rambling as-
sessment of Cuba's economic health. It can be summed up for
the most part with the quote: "Things are progressing in our
country and they are going well, despite the obstacles, de-
spite the hurricane...." As he has done before, Castro blamed
the sloth and ineptitude of the Cuban bourgeousie for the
"mismanagement, lack of concern for expenditures, by lack of
concern not only for the quantity but also the quality of what
we produced" immediately after the fall of Batista.
He re-
viewed the "tremendous ideological battle...it was a battle
between ideas and theories..." within the regime during its
first two years in power, said that the government officials
had become too "argumentative," and admitted that for a time
the regime had been incapable of compensating for the loss of
trade with the non-Communist world. Today, he boasted, Cuba
"can trade with any country in the world; we can offer an ad-
vantageous exchange because we no longer have to sell sugar to
Japan, England, Spain, France and most of the countries with
which we traded, take their dollars and use them to pay the
Yankee imperialists. Instead, Cuba can plow back into its in-
ternal development revenue derived from foreign trade, and de-
velop to the maximum the use of those natural resources which
are in demand.
"
Attempts to bar Cuba from the world sugar trade, he said, have
resulted only in increasing the price of sugar so that the Cubans
--though exporting less--are able to realize proportionately greater
profits from what they do sell and more than break even. "We have
been able to get wonderful prices, and we have sold sugar for 1965
for approximately 10 cents. We have made sales for 1966 at approxi-
mately 10 cents." Though the Cuban sugar growers will be affected
in some measure for several years by the attempts of nonbloc states
to juggle sugar prices, "we shall be in a position /1970 or-717
to resist any price decrease in the sugar produced In the cpaïtal-
ist world." By then, "we shall be in a position to surpass the
10-million-ton figure in sugar production...."
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CASTRO'S SPEECH
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cont'd
Returning to the post-hurricane economic dislocation,
Castro promised that by 15 December of this year full food
rations would be restored and in many cases allotments in-
creased. He called for greatly increased mechanization of
agriculture and the use of the latest methods of cultivation,
appealed for more food production and the recovery of arable
land lost through neglect and erosion. He demanded an end
to public "vice, such as official bribe-taking, theft,
pilferage, etc. In the field of social welfare, Castro
praised medical students for "volunteering" to serve in
out-of-the-way country posts for minimum terms of two years
and prophesied that "as the number of graduate doctors in-
creases, the need for the establishment of socialized medicine
once felt as a social need will not be quite as great.
"
"
Castro concluded by appealing to Cuban youth to partici-
pate "in the great task of opening new frontiers in every
field...you are in a revolution that will never end." (CIA
FBIS 07 and adds, 28 November, OFFICIAL USE ONLY)
MILITARY DEVELOPMENTS:
Military headquarters on the Isle of Pines informed
Armed Forces headquarters in Havana that two persons who
had escaped, probably from the military prison, had not yet
been recaptured. The 27 November intercepted message re-
ported that an unsuccessful combing operation had been
effected in an area indicated by two peasants who reportedly
saw the escapees. (See Daily Summary of 26 November for
information on other personnel being sought on the Isle of
Pines.) (USN 856, 2X/SL/CUM/T405-63, 27 November, SECRET
SABRE)
CUBAN INTERNAL SITUATION:
The Cuban Government may have instituted new controls
on fishermen, by eliminating night fishing along the north
coast and by restricting fishermen to three and one half
miles from the coast. A Florida law enforcement officer was
informed by the former administrator of a fishing coopera-
tive at Isabela de Sagua that on 12 November it was rumored
that no night fishing would be allowed on the north coast
of Cuba after 17 November. Reportedly, those who were fish-
ing at sunset were to anchor their boats or risk being
fired upon.
Another source received information thirdhand
from an unidentified fisherman that in late November, Cuban
fishermen were ordered by the Cuban general staff to do
their fishing between three and three and one half miles
from the coast. No confirmation has yet been received of
these reported changes in fishing regulations. (CIA TDCSDB-
3/658,077, 27 November, SECRET/CONTROLLED DISSEM)
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INSURGENCY AND C₁.IL UNREST:
Two additional acts of sabotage have been reported by
Bureau of Public Order (BOP) officials in Matanzas Province.
On 25 November nearly four tons of sugar cane were burned
on the Araujo farm near Maguanito and on 27 November two
empty houses were burned on the Angelina farm in the dis-
trict of Maximo Gomez.
Meanwhile, First Army headquarters in Santiago de Cuba
was informed by its southern sector Sierra Maestra head-
quarters that 87,000 arrobas of cane were burned on 17 November
at Algeria del Pio near San Lorenzo in Oriente Province.
(USM,
603, 2/YJ/CUP/R127-63, 28 November, SECRET KIMBO; and USN
835, 2X/LR1/CUM/T669–63, 26 November, SECRET SABRE)
On 27 and 28 November special anti-insurgent forces
(LCB) in Las Villas carried out an operation against Menendez
Esquijaro and his band near Sancti Spiritus. LCB field opera-
tions headquarters in Santa Clara was informed on 21 November
that the operations had ended without results. (USM 603, 28/
UJ/CUM/T350-63, 28 November; and 2X/YJ/CUM/T351-63, 29 Novem-
ber, SECRET SABRE)
Department of State Security (DSE) officials in Nuevitas,
Camaguey Province, were instructed on 28 November to mobilize
militiamen into an "easily seen land patrol" at Playa Santa
Lucia in order to prevent a clandestine escape attempt dur-
ing the night of 28-29 November. DSE headquarters in Camaguey
directed Nuevitas to coordinate the operation with LCP units
and "to be especially watchful for boats." (USM 603, 2/YJ/
CUP/R128_63, 29 November, SECRET KIMBO)
CUBAN EXILE AND REFUGEE ACTIVITIES:
Comandos L is considering an attack against a Soviet
ship in Cuban waters, according to a member of a group of
Cuban refugees who have provided useful reports.
The raid,
which was being discussed on 22 November, would take place
in the near future or when the seas become more quiet. Re-
portedly, the plan would involve 15 men in three speed-boats
who would rendezvous in international waters after leaving
from three points along the Florida coast. In connection with
the raid, Jesus Alvarez Amador picked up material on 22 Novem-
ber, including one box of fragmentation grenades, three maga-
zines for a 20-mm. cannon and 87 rounds of ammunition for
the same, and 15 ponchos. This equipment is being stored at
the home of Jesus Vazquez, owner of Super Cake S.A., La Gran
Via Bakers, Miami; Vazquez' home tèlephone number is 379-5218.
Other weapons to be used in the operations are two 20-mm.
cannons, one 57-mm. cannon, four machine guns, and two Garand
rifles. Alvarez planned to go to West Palm Beach on 22 Novem-
ber to borrow some additional weapons. (CIA TDCS-DB-3/658.
110, 28 November, CONFIDENTIAL NO FOREIGN DISSEM/CONTROLLED
DISSEM)
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CUBAN EXILE AND REFUGEE ACTIVITIES
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Cubanos Libres may be planning to hijack a ship in a
raid that would be staged from Miami, according to a mem-
ber of a group of Cuban refugees who have provided useful
reports. The source reported that funds for the raid were
to be raised at a dinner scheduled for 24 November in Le
Tre Venezie restaurant, 472 West 9th Avenue, New York City.
At the dinner, Cubanos Libres was planning to show films
of their raids against Cardenas Bay in October 1962 and the
Arechabala Refinery in June 1963. (CIA TDCSDB-3/658,109,
28 November, CONFIDENTIAL NO FOREIGN DISSEM/CONTROLLED DISSEM)
.
'
A small group of Cuban refugees may have attempted to
infiltrate Cuba about 27 November, according to a prominent
exile activist who received the information from a close
associate of a person involved in the attempt. Reportedly,
a 20- to 22-foot speed-boat left Key Biscayne, Florida, the
night of 26 November to rendezvous off Key Largo with a Cuban
fishing boat and then proceed to an infiltration point on the
north coast of Las Villas. The fishing boat is reportedly
based in a shrimp fishery on the southeast coast of Key Largo.
The persons involved in the operation were Manuel Pedro
Gutierrez Cardenas, and presumably two infiltrees--Emilio
Perez Fernandez and Luis Aguiar Perez. Two crew members,
known only by nicknames, were "Comacho" and "Vascoy," possibly
Jose Bascoy Barrios. (CIA TDCSDB-3/658,104, 27 November,
SECRET/CONTROLLED DISSEM)
BLOC RELATIONS:
The Albanian ambassador to Cuba, Josif Pogace, delivered
a speech to a nearly empty hall in Havana on 26 November. A
Polish correspondent in Havana informed Warsaw that the speech,
in celebration of Albania's national holiday, was attended by
only 80 people, mostly Chinese Communist embassy personnel,
students, and journalists. Cuba was represented by an official
of the Cuban foreign cultural council. The Polish correspond-
ent reports that the audience applauded the ambassador's words
on the subject of "contemporary revisionism" and "the revision-
ist blockade of Albania" but reacted with silence to his at-
tack on "false guarantees for Cuba." (CIA FBIS 105, 27 Novem-
ber, OFFICIAL USE ONLY)
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NON-BLOC RELATIONS:
"
The Castro regime, which has yet to acknowledge publicly
the Moroccan Government's severance of diplomatic relations
following the arrival of Cuban troops in Algeria in late
September, is attempting to placate Rabat. On 26 November,
Foreign Minister Raul Roa advised the secretary general of the
Moroccan Foreign Ministry that a three-man "good-will mission,
composed of Dr. Antonio Carrillo Carreras, Enrique Vian Audivert
of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and Dr. Enrique Rodriguez
Loeches, the Cuban ambassador to Morocco, would leave for
Rabat the next day "to begin conversations with your illustrious
government with a view to clearing up the unfortunate mis-
understandings which may have arisen.... The Moroccans, who
since breaking off formal diplomatic relations have become
alarmed by the realization of the extent to which they depend
on their sugar imports from Cuba and the dislocation which
the loss of these imports would entail, probably will give
the Cuban delegation a sympathetic hearing. Nevertheless it
is unlikely that Rabat will agree at this time to return an
ambassador to Cuba or to disavow publicly its renunciation of
diplomatic ties so long as Cuban troops remain in Algeria.
"
On 21 November, Rabat instructed one of the junior members
of its embassy who had remained in Cuba when the ambassador
departed to remain at his post until he had closed out all
financial dealings with Cuban banks, etc., and to forward per-
tinent documents on his activities to Morocco's Permanent
Mission to the UN. Two days later the secretary general of
the Moroccan Foreign Ministry cabled Havana that his government
was inclined to receive a Cuban good-will mission. (NSA,
3/0/MRD/T329-63, 21 November; 3/0/MRD/T329-63, 23 November;
3/0/MRD/T335-63, 26 November, TOP SECRET DINAR)
-
Meanwhile, an
The director of the Cuban Government owned Consolidated
Petroleum Enterprise, Salvador Salas Portuondo, is scheduled
to travel to Georgetown, British Guiana, on a Cuban vessel.
On 21 November Cuban shipping headquarters in Havana informed
the captain of the BAHIA DE TANAMO that Salas would be
traveling to Georgetown from Santiago de Cuba .
untested source who is a member of the board of the British
Guiana Electricity Corporation reports that GIMPEX has been
awarded the contract to provide fuel oil for the electricity
corporation for 1964. GIMPEX, Jagan's party's trading enter-
prise, reportedly intends to import the oil from Cuba. The
electricity corporation will pay $240,000 for the oil. (USM-
84, 2X/0/CUC/T406-63, 27 November, SECRET SABRE; and CIA TDCS-
3/566,043, 28 November, CONFIDENTIAL NO FOREIGN DISSEM)
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cont'd
Cuba may establish diplomatic relations with Somalia
and is attempting to improve its relations with Tanganyika
and Ghana, according to intercepted communications.
In a
27 November intercepted message, the Somali Government in-
formed its United Nations representative that the Council of
Ministers had approved the establishment of relations with
Cuba, and instructed him to determine the level at which the
Cubans wanted to exchange representatives. In a 26 November
message, the Cuban Foreign Ministry requested its Prague
embassy to obtain customs exemptions for three personnel who
were on their way to Tanganyika. Cuba does not currently have
diplomatic representatives in Tanganyika and the Cubans may be
on a good-will mission which is expected in that country. (See
article above on good-will mission to Morocco.) The three
Cubans--Juan Felipe Benemelis Varona, second secretary of the
Cuban Embassy in Accra, Nevris Vernier, attaché at the embassy
in Accra, and Jose Antonio Benitez Cabrera, an attache of the
Cuban Embassy in Prague--were scheduled to arrive in Prague on
27 November. In another intercepted message of 25 November,
Havana instructed its ambassador in Ghana to sign a cultural
pact with Ghana during the first part of December. The Cuban
representative was told to sign the Ghanaian-inspired pact "out
of political considerations." (NSA 3/0/SOD/T202-63, 27 November,
TOP SECRET DINAR; NSA 2X/0/CUB/T2439-63, 27 November, SECRET
SABRE; NSA 3/0/CUD/T1385-63, 27 November, TOP SECRET DINAR)
The Cuban Government requested Chilean visas for two
members of National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP)--
Juan Jorge Valdez Paz and Adelfo Martin Barrios--to attend
a "cooperative seminar" (sic; possibly, seminar on coopera-
tives) to be held in Santiago. An 11 November intercepted
message stated that their visit would last 15 days. (NSA
3/0/CLD/T1086-63, 27 November, TOP SECRET DINAR)
NON-BLOC COMMERCIAL RELATIONS:
Cuba is continuing negotiations for the purchase of large
amounts of construction equipment, probably from the Varmi
company of Brussels. (See Daily Summary of 7 November for
details of Varmi's offer.) According to an employee of
the Spanish export-import firm CILASA who has access to the
company's files, a seven-man Cuban delegation was expected
to arrive in Brussels on 30 November with authorization to
let contracts. The group reportedly plans to examine, dis-
assemble, and test the equipment and has a total budget of
$3.5 million. (It was previously reported that Varmi has
offered to sell $1 million worth of construction equipment.)
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NON-BLOC COMMERCIAL RELATIONS
cont'd
The delegation is also interested in visiting European
manufacturers of spare parts for the machines; they were
principally interested in visiting Spain. The members of
the delegation are Rene Narbona from the Cuban enterprise
for the import of machinery, in addition to representatives
named Respall, Hernandez, Rodriguez, Alemida (sic), Duran,
and Morales. They were to stay at the Hotel Metropole in
Brussels. (CIA Madrid IN 69382, 28 November, SECRET NO FOR-
EIGN DISSEM)
CUBAN SUPPORT OF EXTERNAL SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES:
The discovery of a large cache of weapons of Cuban origin,
announced by Venezuelan authorities on 28 November, provides
the best evidence in recent years of major Cuban support for
Latin American subversives.
The Venezuelan foreign minister has announced that Caracas
will lay formal charges concerning the arms cache before a
special meeting of Latin American Foreign Ministers scheduled
for December. Following this, Caracas will ask that the Coun-
cil of the Organization of American States be convoked for con-
sultation on the matter.
There is definite proof to support the Venezuelan claim
that the weapons came from Cuba. The approximately three tons
of weapons include light automatic rifles and submachine guns
identified as among those shipped to Cuba from Belgium in 1959
and 1960. There were also mortars, bazookas, recoilless rifles,
and ammunition of US manufacture.
Communist documents seized by Venezuelan authorities
earlier this month indicate that the equipment was destined
for the Venezuelan Communists' paramilitary arm, the Armed Forces
of National Liberation.
The cache was found on 1 November on a beach in Falcon
State, scene of the most active guerrilla effort. The Vene-
zuelan Government assumes that the weapons were sent from Cuba
by sea. This is not confirmed, but Cuban fishing vessels were
used to transport weapons to South America during the latter
part of October, according to several recent clandestine re-
ports.
For more than three years, the Castro regime has tried to
avoid actions that would clearly implicate it in direct sup-
port of Latin American subversives. This exception seems to
demonstrate either the high degree of urgency which Castro
now gives to his subversive effort, or his estimate that the
Venezuelan situation now is ripe for a final offensive..
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CUBAN SUPPORT OF EXTERNAL SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES cont'd
-
A Havana radiobroadcast immediately denied that Cuba
was involved in the arms-infiltration attempt. The broad-
cast, which quoted no official source, stated that "this
is a new campaign of President Romulo Betancourt against
Cuba and its revolutionary government, blaming the Cubans
for the explosive situation in his country and the instabil-
ity of his government." (SECRET)
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