SECRET i Latin American officers in Panama, and also supplied material for the US Army Intelligence School to use in training foreign students on Communisn. Nine CIA » officers lectured at a Fort Holabird course for senior Latin American officers in 1961, capping their presenta- i tion by producing a Soviet defector who spoke on the s 267/ Soviet intelligence service. ih ROO a RTE spect Or BRE Ngee, — CIA maintained a station in Havana throughout 1960 but faced increasing operational difficulties-- some of CIA's own making. Probably the outstanding flap was the capture of three TSD technicians, caught in the act of planting a microphone in the New China News Agency office. An analysis of this operation, made when the technicians were released 18 months later, Showed that they had ignored many of tthe basic rules of tradecraft. On the other hand, the Cubans had given 268/ them only perfunctory interrogations. In 1960 the Havana Station consisted of; chief of Station; Arthur Avignon, deputy; about six case officers and as many secretaries. Life was unpleasant; Castro agents shadowed American Em- bassy personnel, monitored their telephone conversa- tions, and tried to pump their children about what - 233 - sit so ua Es EH pi na ra ia Ha SECRET Vr
~ SECRET daddy was doing. As relations between the United States and Cuba deteriorated the station concentrated On support for the Cuban invasion then being planned, and on developing stay-behind assets. Frank Belsito and later Ralph Seehafer were designated as "stay- behind officers" and regularly reported on a dozen or so agents and nets, a few of which survived the station's closing.* The break in diplomatic relations with Cuba | was predictable, and during the fall of 1960 Embassy dependents were moving themselves and their house- hold effects back to the United States. Avignon made a special trip on the Havana-Key West ferry to take out his personal car, Silverware, and a $1,500 violin. Station files not absolutely essen- tial were crated and shipped back to Headquarters. Case officers were working 15-hour days, seven-day weeks, When the break came, the Embassy had three days' notice that it would close on 4 January 1961. The CIA station had just installed a new incinerator * One stay-behind agent, AMFOX-1, was still report- ing in 1973 but WH Division believed he had been doubled. ~ 234 -~ SECRET |
14-00000 ete naz aoe sans FPR eee roe os SECRET and managed to burn what files it could not ship to Key West on the attache aircraft. When they were not burning papers or smashing technical equipment, case officers were caching radios or making advance payments to agents left behind. On 4 January station personnel met at the Embassy, rode in convoy to the ferry, and sailed to the States. A few, like William J. Murray, had main- tained houses until the end and lost everything in 269/ them. * This was the period when Fidel Castro, as yet unrestrained by his more cautious and practical Soviet advisors, was busily stirring up trouble in the Western Hemisphere and popularizing the phrase "exporting the revolution." A typical target was Honduras, the poorest and most primitive country in Central America. CIA's reaction was also typical of the "nation-building" and “institution-building" approach to countering subversion. When Castro began his propaganda campaign in * Two years later Congress authorized the Department of State to reimburse its employees the depreciated value of furnishings left in Cuba. Payments fell far short of replacement costs. - 238 - SECRET
€ | of assets commencing with a close per- sonal relationship between the station chief and the President of Mexico, high- level telephone taps, photographic sur- veillance, unilateral intelligence as- sets and a broad scale of covert action capabilities. Within a week of the inspector's visit was relieved as chief of station inf partly because of comments made by Ambas- sador | a former labor attache who had not worked closely with CIA. cos, left WH Division (perhaps coincidentally) BERaEEE a few months after the Inspector General had described him thus: The chief of station is a GS-18 who has served in many different_posts in the Agency. He has been f£or about five years. A wide gap in human relations exists between the chief of station and his staff. He is coldly aloof and is reputed to brook no dif- ference of opinion even on questions of operational procedures. He is a hard-driving administrator. His tal- ents along this line are granted even by the Ambassador, who bluntly dis- credits his ability as an intelligence officer. 275/ Although the separate Task Force W (TFW) was not officially established until 8 March 1962, the planning and execution of the Bay of Pigs operation - 242 - SECRET CO SE SN LE ONE Tene = tana Sen
14-00000 SECRET were for all practical purposes conducted indepen- dently of WH Division and therefore are not covered in this history. There was an informal but under- stood shortcut in the chain of command; basic deci- sions were made at the DDP, DCI, or Presidential level. Although some of the key personnel were de- tailed from WH Division, the Cuban Headquarters unit was in another building and no one pretended that J. C. King was running the show. Jacob D. Esterline, a veteran WH Division officer who later became deputy chief of the divi- Sion, was chief of the Cuban unit during the buildup and invasion attempt, and took his orders from the DDP. When the Cuban unit was made officially autono- mous as TFW and later as the Special Affairs Staff (SAS), it was headed first by William K. Harvey and then by Desmond FitzGerald, Bruce B. Cheever and John L. Hart, none of whom had previous service in WH Division. It was not until 1965 that the Cuban unit really lost its autonomy and again came firmly under WH Division. Actual expenditures in FY 1961 illustrate the disparity between Cuban operations and the - 243 - SECRET
14-00000 a | SECRET parent WH Division. In that_year total obligations for Cuban operati or almost four times the spent in the rest of Latin America. Except for Cuba 1961 was a repre- r sentative year, and these were the obligations for | resular stations throuchout the hemisphere: <<<" 9" Until the nearly 1,200 prisoners taken at the . Bay of Pigs could be ransomed with shipments of phar- maceuticals, CIA regularly supported their dependents in the United States. In the opinion of the General Counsel, if a dependent had sued, courts would probably -. "have found that Cuban Brigade members were entitled to the benefits of the Federal Employees' Compensation Act. Thus by mid-1962 CIA was disbursing $311,500 ok, per month to the dependents, plus bonuses and medical care for invaders who managed to return. These ex- penses, however, were paid from special funds outside - 244 - SECRET