HW 55355 —TOP SECRET DINAR CUBAN —- CHINESE COMMUNIST RELATIONS - cont'd While he is, of course, a member of the Chinese Communist party, he is not a ranking party member. He appears to be a lower ranking person than newly assigned Chinese Communist ambassadors to such countries as the UAR and Algeria. The earliest biographic references to him have him as a member of the Chinese Communist Army in 1931. He subsequently became an army political commissar and rose to the rank of general. It is not unusual, however, for Chinese Communist diplomats to be generals. He speaks Russian, but there is no informa- tion that he speaks Spanish. For the last year and a half, however, he has been stationed in Peiping and he could have learned the language then. He accompanied Chinese Communist chief of state Liu Shoa-chi on the latter's visit to Cambodia last spring. (CIA FBIS Havana, 6 December, OFFICIAL USE ONLY; BACKGROUND DATA: SECRET NO FOREIGN DISSEM) BLOC ECONOMIC RELATIONS: L.P. Kyuchukov, chief of the Engineering Directorate of the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Trade, was to arrive in Prague from Havana yesterday and fly on to Sofia today. Kyuchukov, who is thought to have negotiated Bulgarian arms shipments to Cuba, was noted traveling between Havana and Santiago de Cuba on 21 and 23 November--the third time he has been in Cuba since November 1962. (DIRNSA, 2X/0/QOC/T2810- 63, 5 December, SECRET SABRE) BLOC RELATIONS: A 4-man Soviet delegation, headed by USSR Deputy Min- ister of Education Serafim Nikichev, arrived in Cuba on 5 December to spend a month "working on the curriculum of Havana University's School of Social Sciences." Nikichev was accompanied by "academicians" Aleksandr Smirnov, Vassiliy Rayike, and Maria Filipova. The group was. welcomed at Jose Marti airport by the Rector and Deputy Rector of-the univer- sity, Juan Mier Febles and Mariano Rodriguez Solveira, and the School's protocol specialist, Professor Pedro Canas. The delegation's trip to Cuba is the first tangible result of the Soviet-Cuban educational exchange agreement signed in Mos- cow two months ago. That agreement provides for the loan of Soviet academicians and educational administrators to Cuban schools, the exchange of students and instructors be- tween the two countries, and the use of Soviet texts in Cuba. (CIA/FBIS, Havana, 5 December, UNCLASSIFIED) NON-BLOC COMMERCIAL RELATIONS: The US consul in Antwerp has been informed by the Varmi Company of Brussels that it will not sell construction equipment to Cuba; there have been reports that such a sale, perhaps total- ling $1 million, ,was being negotiated. (See Daily Summary of 7 and 13 November. ) 6 —FOP-SEERET-DINAR- DoclId: 3274013278 Page i1
HW 355355 “TOP SECRET DINAR- NON-BLOC COMMERCIAL . RELATIONS - cont'd The director of Varmi confirmed to US officials that he had been negotiating with a Spanish firm (probably CILASA) for the sale of US-origin construction equipment; after being informed that the material was destined for Cuba and having been warned of the consequences of such a sale, the director agreed on 2 December to stop negotiations, The US consul comments that it is not sure whether the knowledge of the eventual sale to Cuba or the fact of US intervention in the matter caused Varmi to stop the arrangements. Meanwhile, a source with access to CILASA's files re- ported on 28 November that a Cuban comission headed by Rene Narbona of the Cuban tractor importing agency would be unable to arrive in Brussels on 30 November because of inability to -- obtain visas, This group had probably been scheduled to com- plete negotiations for the:purchase of the Varmi construction equipment. (Am ConGen Antwerp,29, 3 December, CONFIDENTIAL; SEM) TDCS-3/566 ,653, 5 December, SECRET NO FOREIGN DIS- SEM The US Embassy in Tokyo, in receipt of a report that private Japanese companies have contracted for 325,000 tons of Cuban sugar for delivery between July 1964 and June 1965, sees little prospect of inducing the Japanese Government to interfere with the transaction, The Japanese Government would have difficulty intervening because of the general world sugar shortage, the unavailability of sugar from other sources at’ comparable prices, and the political problem which rising sugar prices is causing the Ikeda administration, (Am Emb Tokyo 1688, 5 December, CONFIDENTIAL) The director of the Spanish firm Empresa Nacional de Optica, Vicente M. Cabanillas Gonzalez, left Madrid for Havana ona 29 November:. [IBERIA Airlines flight. As reported earlier (see Daily Summary, 11 October), Cabanillas is negotiating through CILASA for the sale of a large quantity of movie pro- jectors to the General Administrator of University Inspection in Havana, According to a CILASA employee with access to company files, Cabanillas' travel expenses are being paid by CILASA, Cabanillas had hoped to get a Cuban visa which would not appear in his passport,as he hoped to visit the US later. He was unable to arrange this, however, and finally had to ac- cept-the Cuban visa in his passport. (CIA, Madrid, IN 74453, 5 December, SECRET NO FOREIGN DISSEM) NON-BLOC RELATIONS: A Cuban good-will mission was received by the Moroccan acting foreign minister on 2 December, according to information received by the US Embassy in Rabat. The mission was probably composed of Antoni: Carrillo Carreras, Enrique Vian Audivert of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and Dr. Enrique Rodriguez Leoches, Cuban ambassador to Moroc- co. (See Daily Summary of 29 November for recent Cuban-Moroccan relations.) ~— -7- FOP-SECREF PINAR DoclId:32401375 Page 12
HW 355355 NON-BLOC RELATIONS - cont'd Despite the Moroccan announcement of its break in diplo- matic relations with Cuba, the Cuban ambassador is still in Rabat and attends functions he normally attended. The chancery offices are open and the Cuban flag is flying. This situation has been a source of some embarrassment to the Moroccan Foreign Ministry. However, the US Embassy believes that the reception of the Cuban delegation by the Moroccan Government may presage the official re-establish- ment of diplomatic relations. An officer in the Spanish Embassy in Rabat believes this is entirely possible; he be- lieves the Soviets are using their influence to keep the Cuban Embassy in Rabat. The US Embassy also feels that the Moroccan King may not feel he received sufficient benefit to justify continuing the break in diplomatic relations with Cuba. (Am Emb Rabat 860, 4 December, CONFIDENTIAL) The Swiss ambassador in Cuba was informed by the dep- uty foreign minister that the preliminary hearing had been completed for the US citizen Frank Emmick, who reportedly will be charged with being a CIA agent. (See Daily Summary of 5 December.) The ambassador believes that Emmick's trial will be held shortly after the completion of the OAS inves- tigation into charges by Venezuela of Cuban intervention in Venezuelan affairs. Currently, the ambassador is trying to find a Cuban lawyer to defend Emmick. He is considering the lawyer hired by the Canadian Embassy to defend the Cuban pilots Lippert and Milne, an attorney who handles Swiss Em- bassy affairs, or a member of the Havana University Law School faculty. (Am Emb Bern 363, 5 December, CONFIDENTIAL) Prime Minister Williams of Trinidad. Tobago. gave a “very chilly" reception on 4 December to a visiting Cuban official, Robert Gerardo Sanchez, commercial officer in the Cuban Consulate in Kingston. A Foreign Ministry official in- formed the US Embassy that Williams was annoyed that Sanchez ‘had presumed on a scant acquaintance with him to visit Port- of-Spain, despite advice from the government of Trinidad that such a visit would be inopportune. Reportedly, the ‘prime minister turned down Sanchez' suggestion for trade talks, on the grounds of Cuba's involvement with Venezuela and Trinidad, Tobago's.delicate and difficult relations with Caracas. He did not, however, close the door on such discussions at some appropriate time in the future. The government of Trinidad expects Sanchez to leave the country soon, (Am Emb, Port of Spain.223, 5 December, CONFIDENTIAL) CUBAN SUPPORT OF EXTERNAL SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES: 1" Act 6 (1) (B) In a message of 3 December, the Embassy in Ha- vena reported to its Foreign Ministry information it had re- ceived from "reliable sources" in Cuba on Cuban efforts to ship weapons to Venezuela and other Latin American countries. -8- —FOP-SEECREFPRAR DoclId:32401375 Page 153
HW 55355 FOP-SECREF-PDINAR CUBAN SUPPORT OF EXTERNAL SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES - cont'd The embassy stated that “everything leads to the belief that" the arms recently discovered _in Venezuela had come from Cuba. According to one of the Embassy's sources, two Ships had left Cuba at an unspecified date enroute to British Guiana with "packages consigned as machinery consigned to an industrialist of known Communist tendencies whose propert adjacent to the Venezuelan border." Various of the Embassy sources "accept the rumor" that the arms are of Belgian and British (sic) make and that the ‘shipments have been made from various Cuban ports. The embassy report also expressed the belief that Cuba not only sends arms to various points South America, but also Cuban guerrilla leaders; ‘(NSA _ 3/0. + T1129-63, 5 December, TOP SECRET DINAR) OSE Act 6 (1) (B) Havana Radio announced yesterday that pro-Castro guer- rillas have established "six operational zones" in the moun- tains around Santiago and Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. The Havana. radiobroadcast credited the announcement to "the first communiqué issued by the command." Meanwhile, press dispatches from Miami report that most Cuban exiles feel that the Havana announcement is an attempt to cover up the failure of Castro terrorists to stop Venezuela's presidential elections last Sunday. Other exile sources predict that the announcement and the setback in Venezuela mean:. that the Castro regime will launch a concerted terrorist campaign against the military-installed provisional regime in Santo Domingo. Batista Falla, leader of the Cuban exile Christian Democratic Movement (MCD), said yesterday in Miami that the failure of terrorism in Venezuela “has put Castro in a difficult position and damages his chances in the rest of Latin America."' He added that he expects Castro to "make desperate attempts to picture terrorism as successful, despite its miserable failure in Venezuela." All reporting by the Dominican Government indicates that its forces are in effective control of the areas of guerrilla ~ activity. About 40 insurgents of the outlawed pro-Castro 14th of June Political Group (APCJ) are said to have been captured, with only isolated bands yet to be apprehended. (UPI, Miami, A-11,6 December, UNCLASSIFIED and Background Information, SECRET) Cuba is reportedly making preparations to recognize a Venezuelan government-in-exile, according to an official West German service from a fairly reliable source with contacts in Havana. Reportedly, the Cuban Foreign Ministry is consulting the USSR and other bloc countries to induce them to recognize this government~in-exile, . The Cubans, according to the source, do not expect the USSR and other countries to agree to this; nevertheless, the attempt is being made. -~9- TOP-SECRET -DINAR DoclId: 3274013278 Page 14