(foa-10289-10018 weve! 2 Marci: 1965 WHC #65-87 LX-2486 MEMORANDUM FOR: FLD Staff TSsD OC SUBJECT : General: AMMUG 1 Debriefing Report #241 : Subject: Communications of the DGI (Cuban Intelligence Service) RE FERENCE : WHC Memorandum #65-86, dated 1 March 1965 1, When a headquarters’ cuse officer in one of the opera- fhonal departments wishes to send a dispatch or cable to the field, he prepares the message himself (un his own typewriter) and sends if to the Department of Legal Centers office (if it is volng to a field station) for transmission by the means imlicated, He inay handcarry the message to Legal Centers or may send it by his department driver or au M Building messenger, A driver or messenver may be summoned by tclephone at any tune, but there are always headquarters’ messengers circulating among buildings carrying dispatches and other correspondence from one to another. The operations’ officer, therefore, may wait for the next messenger to come over from M Building or may call one, The messengers operate on nyu fixed schedule but deliver messages as they are received or ready for dispatch, 2. An outgoing messace from the LN Department to the field station in Mexico, for example, is prepared by the LN” ease officer and sent by messenver or carried persomilly to the Mexican section (Nucleus 5) of the MS (Legal Centers) De- partment, That department, if it is to go by dispatch, photo- graphs the message ami places the resultant microfilm in the next pouch to Mexico. MS Department has its own equipment for hotoyraphing, preparing microfilm, and developing microfilm, an outgoing message is prepared in origina; and one copy; the copy is returned by the MS Department to the origimiting officer, with a stamp showing the out number and the date and time af dispatch, If the message is to go by cable, the MS Department forwards it to the Central Ciphering Service of the DSE, which has the communications facilities and which encodes the message ty a |
14-00000 vot ‘ Prccasesmenes eo. | eres before sending tt. Cables are handled through commercial cable channels, 3. it the outgoing message requirea cover language of any sort, the preparing operations® officer writes it with a simple a “number aubetitution for classified or sensitive names and ex- ‘ préasions (example: #1 - Nicaragua; #2 - FLN; #3 - passports; #4 ~ Jose GARCIA, etc. ), using numbers instead of real names or terms, With the t ‘text of the message containing the numerical code, he supplies a list of the numbers and the terms or names they represent, The Central Ciphering Service encodes the message with the numbers in it and also the list of number- term equivalents and transmits the two items to the field station by commercial cable. Cable messages leave the DGI office through ‘“‘VEDALINA" and incoming decoded messages from the Central Ciphering Service go to her and then to the MS Department for distribution to the proper recipients. The standard term ‘ “PABLO” is used on all outgoing cables as sender. ; 4, When the cable message arrives at the field station, the embassy code clerk receives it and decodes it. He then passes the encoded text of the messayve and the number-term substitution list, Lf any, to the chief of the field station, who passes it to the officer concerned, In.no case does the opera- tiona’ officer at either end see the encoded message or know what code is used, aside from the number-term substitution list prepared by the originator and given to the addressee in decoded form. Only the code clerk and the chief of the field station know anything about the codes or coding process, 5, For incoming messages by cable or pouch, the system is the same, The field operations’ officer prepares the message, with a number-term substitution list if needed, and submits it to the field station chief, If the message is to go by pouch, the field station. chief has it photographed and sends the results on microfilm; he has equipment for microphotography and development, if the message is to go by cable, he submits it with the substitution list to the mission code clerk, who encodes messaye and accompanying st and transmit them by commercial cable. 6. Both pouches and cables are addressed tu the Ministry of Foreiga Relations (MINREX), When the Ministry of Foreign Relations receives a pouch, {it sends the part of the contents addressed to the DGI to DG{ headquarters by messenger “wus +o ey ae sie &
14-00000 3 (sometimes the regular courier from abroad delivers them). They are received.by “VIDALINA" and distributed through the MS Department to the proper addressees, When the message is sent by cable, it goes from the Ministry of Foreign Relations to the Central Ciphering Service, which decodes it and sends a paraphrased version to “VIDALINA" for distribution in the DGL rn 2 Incoming messages in Havana show the date and time received by the.¢ ptral Ciphering Service (entered on a standard form) and the -més: ge. ‘number (also entered on a standard form), The Central Ciphering Service also enters the time at which it dispatches the message to the DG, and the DGI headquarters stamps the incoming message with the date and time of receipt. The date and. time of receipt are also stamped on the message by the department office of the addressee. Cables in the Zapote Operation file show that a message from Mexico received by the Central Ciphering Service at 1850 hours was delivered to the DGI headquarters at 2350 hours and reached the LN Department, to which it was addressed (determined by the pseudonym of the case officer), on the following morning. Since it was a routine message, it was held over at the late hour of delivery until the next day, for internal distribution, _ 8 In preparing reports in the field, the field operations’ officer usually interviews the agent and then writes the report on the basis of what the agent told him, putting in numbers for names or critical terms. The message is then microfilmed and dispatched, In one instance, when an operations’ officer from Havana was visiting Mexico, he asked an agent for a written report on expenditure of funds with which he had been entrusted, The agent prepared the report but did not get it to the embassy in time for the case officer to carry it back to Cuba with him. In that instance, the field case officer sent the agent's original report direct to headquarters by pouch without photographing it, possibly because hé was hurrying to cet it into a departing pouch, The procedure is noted as unusual, ; 9 The code clerks assigned to Cuban official missions abroad are all members of the DSE but while in the field are subordinate to the chief of the DGI field station, When a code clerk is required, the DGI asks the DSE to supply one. ft Is not known whether the code clerk also handles the normal Foreign Ministry coded traffic and, if he does, whether he uses the same och AE SR,
14-00000 ~4- codes for it as for the DGL To all intents and purposes a code clerk abroad is a member of the DGL 10, - Radio communication between field stations and headquarters. in Havana is almost never used and is regarded as - Strictly an emergency measure, although field stations have -.— vadio equipment (type unknown) for use if needed, DGI headquarters - aan receives almost no.radio.messages from field stations. The DGE . Sa field station in Mexico has a plan for emergency radio commune , nn cationg with Havana to relay messages through the Dominican Republic if normal radio transmission direct to Havana is interrupted. This arrangement, however, is only a plan; no implementation of it has ever been attempted, .as far as is known, and it is extremely doubtful that relay. facilities of any kind ‘actually exist in the Dominican Republic which could be used in an emergency. C/WH/C/RR/OS T oleie awe ne x fn . . ~