MEMO: INTERNAL SECURITY - CUBA
Originator: FBI
From: CLARENCE M. KELLEY
To: DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
Document date: 06/06/1977
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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2022 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992

OFFICE OP THE DIRECTOR

SECRET

Haid for ten i s

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20535

BY LIAISON

Date:

To:

From:

Subject:

June 6: 1977

Director of Central Intelligence

Clarence M. Kelley, Director

¡OCELOT;

INTERNAL SECURITY - CUBA

This is to advise of pertinent developments in

double agent operation, assigned the code name

"Ocelot,")

which involves a meeting between our asset and Cuban

Intelligence Officers (CIO's) in Mexico on May 19, 1977;

We learned, after debriefing the asset upon his return?

from Mexico, that the format of the meeting had unex-

pectedly involved a videotaped interview of our asset

by Cuban technicians concerning his knowledge and

partici-)

pation in anti-Castro Cuban exile activities.

(s)

The asset developed in this operation first,

became of investigative interest to the Federal Bureau of

Investigation (FBI) in November, 1976,

when allegations

were received that he was in contact with known CIO's in

Jamaica during October and November, 1976.

Subsequent

investigation, coordinated closely

with the Central

Intelligence Agency

(CIA), confirmed an active relation-

ship with Cuban officials

in Jamaica,

Panama and Mexico.

A successful interview of asset was effected on April 8,

1977, which resulted in establishing a double agent

operation. At that point, the asset furnished details

of seven previous meetings with CIO's in Jamaica, Panama

and Mexico.

In addition,

asset furnished a typewritten

note containing instructions for his next meeting in

Mexico City, on May 19, 1977, which involved a coded

telephone call to the Cuban Embassy, Mexico City, to

activate the scheduled meet at a pre-determined time

and place. The purpose of this meeting, according to!

the asset, was for the passage of additional information

concerning

the activities of Cuban exile groups in the

United States and Latin America, as had been done at

previous meetings.

SECRET

Classified by 5182

Exempt from GDS,

Categories 2 and 3

Date of Declassification, Indefinite

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Letter to the Director of Central Intelligence

Re: (Ocelot)

The asset has advised that he was transported/

by automobile from the meet site in Mexico City to a)

hotel room equipped with videotape equipment and occu=

pied by two Cuban technicians.

The asset was then asked

questions by CIO's and his responses were recorded on

Videotapa.

They assured the asset that this tape would

be shown to high Cuban officials,

including Fidel Castro,

and that it would not be made public.

There is, however,

obvious propaganda value in this film which could bel

utilized by the Cuban Government.

Asset was specifically

advised by CIO's that Premier Fidel Castro has a forth-i

coning television news interview with an unnaned U. S.

news commentator, and that they wanted Castro to see this

videotape prior to his interview. (s)

According to the asset, the interview began)

with questions regarding his family life in Cuba before

the Castro revolution, after which he was asked to comnent)

on the former Batista Regime in Cuba.

He was then asked

to name the political movéments of which he had been á

member.

He told the interviewer that in 1964 he had worked)

with Alpha 66, a militant anti-Castro organization head-

quartered in Miani, Florida, in helping approximately!

twenty-eight Cuban

exiles and arms pass through Puerto Rico

to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, for use against Cubal

and that all but

four of these Cuoan exiles had returned

to Puerto Rico.

Cuban jails.

The four who did not return are now in

an assassination attempt of Fidel Castro in Chile in 1971.)

The asset stated that he had participated in the attempt)

with Antonio Veciana, a Cuban exila now residing in Miami.

When asked if Veciana had been employed by the CIA, hel

replied that he did not know, however, assumed that he

was, based on the fact that Veciana had used a car with

United States diplomatic license plates to transport the

necessary arms and equipment from Bolivia, where Veciana

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Letter to the Director of Central Intelligence

Re: Ocelot

was employed in the United States Embassy, to Chile.

plan was aborted by other Cuban exile participants

at the)

last minute. Asset had previously furnished this infor-

nation to CIO's during other meetings. (S)

(Asset) was also questioned about a 1961

assassi-

nation attempt directed at Castro in Cuba, in which they

asset participated.

He acknowledged that

he, Veciana,)

and Bernardo Pradreres had at that time tried to kill

Castro with a bazooka.

They waited in an apartment, which

was rented in Havana, Cuba, by Veciana's mother-in-law,)

for Castro to appear at the nearby Cuban capitol. Pradreresi

had hired two other individuals not known to the asset tol

do the actual firing, but when Castro finally appeared the

bazooka failed to fire due to its deteriorated state from

having been buried for an oxtended period of time.

Cuban authorities later discovered the bazooka, which had

been left in the apartment, and were then able to identify

all of the participants. (S)

April 8, 1977, he made available a photograph (obtained)

from Antonio Veciana, which Veciana claimed) to depict

Lee Harvey Oswald in attendance at an Alpha 66 meeting

in Dallas, Texas, in 1963.

Another photograph depicted

Veciana as a speaker at this neeting. The asset had

made this information available to CIO's at previous

neetings.

In the last segment of videotaping in Mexico,

the asset was confronted with enlarged photographs of

the alleged Alpha 66 meeting and was asked to point out

the individual similar in description to Oswald, after

which the videotaping was concluded.. The whole taping

process lasted approximately 90 minutes and consumed

almost three reels of videotape. (S)

Photographs made available by the asset were

examined by FBI agents familiar with the Oswald Investi-

gation and it was determined that Lee Harvey Oswald is

not depicted in these photographs.

It is noted that

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Letter to the Director of Central Intelligence

Re:

(Ocelot)

Jack Anderson's column in the Washington Post on May 6,

1977, claims that Antonio Veciana has testified before

the House Assassinations Committee that he was in con-

tact with Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas, in August,

The above asset has furnished other sensitive

Intelligence information, including the identities of

previously unknown CIO's, and it is anticipated that he)

will be of future value to our foreign counterintelligence)

effort. Any effort by the Cuban Government to exploit

the propaganda value of information obtained from this)

recently developed asset over the period of seven previous

meatings would necessarily cost their intelligence service

the public identification of several CIO's currently in)

Jamaica and Mexico.

You are being made aware of the above

developments since it is recognized that the Cuban Gövern-

ment may elect to publicize this videotape for propaganda

purposes and that such an event could impact upon current

policy decisions.

his information is also being furnished to th

Secretary of State,

he Assistant to the President to

National Security Affairs, and the Attorney General.l

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