14-00000 21, 22, 23, munication. .4ance anc counter-surveillance and servicing dead drops is given _in appropriate sectiona of Havana. S-E-C-R-E-T NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 8 ~ CS-311/04298-64 Administration Department. The same safehouse is used for suc- cessive agents, but only one is trained there at a time. Follow- ing the agent’s operational plan as laid down by the case officer, the MI Department provides instructiton‘in the necessary skills through its own sections and various departments of the DGI oute ‘side the operational departments. All. illegal agents are trained in normal tradecraft elements such as clandestine meetings, clection and use of dead drops, recruite- ment of agents, establishment and operation of agent nets (only for agents specifically intended for network direction), use of informants and collaborators, photography, and some form of com- Practice in operational techniques such as surveil- Each agent in addition is ine Struéted-on matters relating to his particular mission, and is given whatever communications traintng he will need. Communica= tions receives special emphasis because all arrangements must be made during the training period, Techniques include secret write ing, codes and ciphers, radio transmission and reception, micro- dots, and microfilm, Only a few agents are trained in the latter two techniques, and not all are trained in radio, but almost all receive instruction on secret writing, which is the most widely used means of communication between. agents in the field and their case officers, The type of communications tradning the agent will recelve is usually discussed with the case officer by the HI Department, but sometimes the MI Department decides without con- sultation and sometimes it consults the SI Department for opera- tional background on the country where the agent will work, The ST Section (Technical Section - Seccion Tecnica) of the MI Department has the main responsibility for agent communications training and itself conducts the training in secret writing. It first requests the LG Section (Chemical Laboratory - Laboratorio Quimico) of the MI Department “to devise and prepare a secret writing system for the agent's use, Most systems depend on sympathetic inks made with salt, blood, urine, and other materials; the type assigned the agent is determined by his mission and operational situation, Each agent receives a different system, although two agents working in the same operation use the same System, An agent normally learns two systems, one for incoming correspondence, development only, and one for outgoing corres-~ pondence, preparation only. In addition, if he is to direct an. agent network of his own which requires internal clandestine com- munication, he is taught a third system, both preparation and development, for use in the network. The case officer not only does not participate in the training but knows very little about the secret writing systems, Since the processing of messages from agents in the field its handled by the ST Section and he receives only the developed text, and the ST Section, for reasons of . security and compartmentation, refuses to tell the case officer anything Specific about communications, The ST Section trains the agent thoroughly on the materials and methods he is to use and gives him practice in processing messages under direction, then in preparing test messages and in developing and interpreting test messages prepared by the instructor, The training period varies according to the complexity of the system and the requirement for competence from the agent. In cases where communications are of special importanee, the instruction may continue for two or three months with great detail, and the S~E-C-R-E-T NO FOREIGN DISSEM
24, 25. 26.0 S-E-C-R-E-T NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 9 = . CS-311/04298~64 agent iS expected to attain ow high standard of performance. An ager: who fatls the course may have to repeat it, Lf the opera- tional) plan requires it and his schedule permits. Training normally continues until the agent has achieved the desired pro- ficiency; an evaluation of his ability is included in his personal file, Actually, however, secret writing training has not been uniformly successful in DGI expertence; in some cases, communica- tions from the agent in the field could not be read at headquarters because the secret writing was improperly prepared, and agents have also had difficulty in. deciphering messages. sent to them, Agents never write directly to DGI headquarters; all their mail in both diréttions goes through accommodation addresses, usually in another country. Instruction in selection and use of accom ‘modation addresses is given by the MS Department (Department of Legal Centers - Departamento Centros Legales), which handles DGI field stations and their correspondence, because accommodation addresses are usually in countri°*s where Cuba has official repre- Sentation and the field station services the letter drops. Out- going communications to agents go by diplomatic pouch to the field Station and are mailed from there to the agent. Agent letters to headquarters go to an, accommedation address, where they are picked up by the field station and forwarded by diplomatic pouch. The country used for incoming communications 1s usually different from that for cutgoing; an agent in El Salvador, ior example, may send his reports to Havana via Mexico and receive headquarters direc- tions and replies via Paria, The MIS Department controls the assipnment of accommodation addresses, Since the DGI believes that there is less dang-t of .-xposing the agent if his cover letters containing secret writing are as realistic and natural as possible, the agent is bricfed net only on the accommodation address to which he is to write, but alse on the persons who actually live there--ages, background, r-lationships, etc.--so that he can refer te birthdays and personal int-c*sts or family events, The agent 15 also taught s+¢lection of plausible but not genuine return addresses for his outgeing communications, Agents who are to learn ccdes and ciphers and radio transmission and reception are trained by th- ST Section, which has its own radio transmitter for ipatruction purposes, The radios the agents use in tcaining are precured in their own countries and -are adapted for cland-stine use by the ST Section; most such equipment is Western-made, ard much of if is American, The agent learns transmission and reception and also is taught how to adjust a commercial radio to his andividual requirements and how to make minor repairs on it, H+ may learn the standard Morse code but usually is taught a numerical code arranged in groups. As with secret writing, the case ¢fficer knows little about the actual mechanics of the radic communications arrang-ments because radio messages are processed cutsid+ the operational departments and reach him only in the fcerm of clear text, and because compart- mentation keeps him from acquiring technical knowledge. . : Similarly, he knows little abcut the proficiency required of the agent and sees only the final evaluation report prepared by the ST Section for the agent's personal file, If the agent is also to receive training in microfilm and micro- dot techniques, the ST Section arranges with the LF Section (Photographic Laboratory ~- Laboratorio Fotografico) of the MI Department for the use of equipment and the asSignment of a SyStem and then itself gives the training. The LF Section has S-E-C-R-E-T NO FOREIGN DISSEM f