477-10002-10012 JFK Assassination System Date: 8/26/20] Identification Form Agency Information AGENCY: LBJ RECORD NUMBER: — 177-10002-10012 RECORD SERIES: NSF, UNARRANGED FILES, LA/CUBAN SUBVERSION, BOX 5 AGENCY FILE NUMBER : Bocument Information ORIGINATOR: CIA FROM: TO: TITLE: DATE: 02/18/1963 PAGES: 7 SUBJECTS : NEED SUBJECT ASSIGNED DOCUMENT TYPE: DRAFT BRIEFING NOTES CLASSIFICATION: — Unclassified RESTRICTIONS: 1A CURRENT STATUS : Redact DATE OF LAST REVIEW : : OPENING CRITERIA : COMMENTS : a v9.1 20 HW 50955 Deacld:32205169 Page 1
HW 450955 7 | {ope ae SECRET _— DRAFT BRIEFING NOTES 18 February 1963 ‘CUBAN SUBVERSION IN LATIN. AMERICA I. . Introductory Statement The public pronouncements of Cuban leaders, the daily record of events in Latin America, and reports from our intelligence sources within Communist and other left-extremist elements throughout this hemis-~-. phere all agree on one salient conclusion: that Fidel Castro is encouraging and supporting. the efforts. of Communists to overthrow and seize control of the. governments in Latin America. A. Analysis indicates that the immediate threat ‘stems less from the subversive efforts of tra- ditional Communist movements than from Cuban support of any and all active revolutionary and terrorist movements. B. These distinctions are not precise. In some countries, Castro's original success has spurred the established Communist movement to action, and he supports it. In others, the old-time Communists may even oppose radical action at: this time, and Castro works with more ‘active and more militant revolutionists. SECRET BDoclda: 32705169 Page 2
HW 450955 ~ SECRET But by and large, our evidence shows that Cuba is not now attempting a large program of physical support for Latin American rev— DoclId: 32205169 olutionaries. It is, rather, concentrating on supplying the inspiration, the guidance, the training, and the communications and technical assistance they require, In essence, Castro tells would-be revolu-—- tionaries from other Latin American coun- tries: "Come to Cuba; we will pay your way, we will train you in underground or- ganization techniques, in guerrilla warfare, in sabotage and in terrorism. We will see to it that you get back to your homeland. Once you are there, we will keep in touch. | with you, give you propaganda support, send you. propaganda materials for your movement, training aids to expand your guerrilla forces, secret communications methods, , and perhaps funds and specialized demolition equipment." Castro is not, as far as we know, promising these other Latin Americans any Cuban weapons or Cuban personnel--either leaders, ad- visers, or cadres. But he probably does tell them: "If you succeed in establishing ac SECRET Page 4
SECRET something effective by way of a revolu~ tionary movement in your homeland, if your guerrillas come down out of the hills | and confront regular armed forces, then we may consider more concrete forms of assist- ance," D. So far, it should be noted, none of the movements in South America has reached this final stage--and in fact even Castro's Sierra Maestra guerrillas never had to fight a pitched battle with regular military formations which might have required more . ; advanced weapons than small arms, grenades, mines, and machineguns. In many ways, Cuba under Castro is the Latin version of the old Comintern, inciting, abetting, and sustain- ing revolution wherever it will flourish. III. ‘Before going into more detailed evidence of Cuban ‘subversion in Latin America, I should note that Venezuela is apparently number one on Cuba's priority list for revolution. A, Fidel Castro said so to the recent meeting of Communist front organizations for Latin American women, 1, Che Guevara and Blas Roca both empha- sized the outlook for revolution.in Venezuela in speeches in January. 24. SECRET HY 50955 DBocld: 322705169 Page 5
2. One of our established sources of proven reliability,- | . Says the Central Committee agreed in Jan- uary that a "peaceful solution to the. present Situation in Venezuela is out of the question." B. This same source reported that Communist guer- rilla and terrorist operations in Venezuela “were placed under a unified command in late 1962, which coordinates activities with the other militant extremist group in Venezuela, - the MIR. The result has been the creation of the FALN, , or Armed Forces of National Liberation. l. The FALN is currently trying to publicize its existence by’ such acts as the hijack- ing of the freighter ANZOATEGUI, and by acts of sabotage and indiscriminate shoot- ings. These have also been designed to dissuade President Betancourt from his trip to Washington. 2. I do not wish to minimize the violence in Venezuela. The sabotage is the work of -5—' SECRET HW 50955 DBocld:32705169 Page 6
HW 450955 Docld: 32205169 SECRET experts, and is being done with advanced types of explosives. The shooting has reached the point in Caracas where it is not safe to go out after ten at night in some sections of the capital. . But it is the opinion of both our people and the em- bassy that this is not a threat to govern- ment control. It is one thing for a group of young men to race down a dark street firing a machinegun from a speeding car. It is quite a different matter to stand up to the armed forces, or seize and hold government buildings. We believe that Cuba has given guerrilla training to more nationals from Venezuela than from any other country. I shall ex~ plain in more detail later how we arrive at our figures on guerrilla trainees. Our_ best estimate now is that more than 200 Venezuelans received such training in 1962. a. Many of these are engaged in terror- ism in the cities, and others were rounded up and given long prison sentences when they committed themselves a so SECRET Page 7
HW 450955 DoclId: 32205169 Page a SECRET prematurely last spring ina country- Side where the rural population strongly supports the Betancourt administration. One of our best penetrations of the Com- munist Party in Venézuela tells us that at present the unified command has less than 150 guerrillas in’the field, in widely separated groups of 15 to 25 men each. ~7 = SECRET