MEMO:HSCA REQUEST FOR SENSITIVE CIA FILE
Originator: CIA
From: BRECKINRIDGE. OLC
To: DDCI
Document date: 07/26/1978
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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

SECRET

Executive Registry

28:9248

0L6 478-2825:1

26 July 1978

MEMORANDUM FOR : Deputy Director of Central Intelligence

FROM

: S.D. Breckinridge

SUBJECT

: HSCA. Request for Sensitive CIA file

1. Action Requested: That you approve the recommenda-

tion in paragraph 6 to

withhold files on Teresa Proenza

Proenza with a generalized explanation to the HSCA Chief

Counsel of the reasons therefor.

2. Background: The HSCA investigators have come

across references to the name of Teresa Proenza Proenza,

who served in 1963 as the Cultural

Attache at the Cuban

Embassy in Mexico

City,

and have requested her file.

The files concerning

this person lead to a very sensitive

deception operation that resulted in the jailing of

certain Cuban officials, including Miss proenza.

ramifications of the operation are extensive but do not,

of themselves, relate to the assassination of J.F. Kennedy.

3.

The fact that Miss Proenza was ordered back to

Cuba suddenly in December 1963, shortly after the assassina-

tion.of President Kennedy, may

make her of special interest

to the HSCA; however, the cause for the recall was the CIA

operation.

4. HSCA has not been exposed to the techniques of

deception operations.

This particular operation continues

to have considerable

sensitivity, without reference to the

techniques that we would wish to not have exposed to this

Committee.

Attached at Tab A is a paper summarizing the

nature of the operation.

At Tab B is a shorter summary

prepared as

a first attempt to get an agreement with the

HSCA investigators to not inquire into this matter further.

5.

The Deputy Director for Operations has approved

recommendations of Chief, IAD/CAS, concurred in by Chief

of LA Division, that this matter not be shown to HSCA.

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EL IMPDET CL 3Y 131%6

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If you agree, the undersigned will undertake to discuss the

matter with the Chief Counsel of the Committee and seek

agreement, although he may raise the question to the level

of the Committee chairman.

Recommendation: That the Chief Counsel, HSCA, be

briefed in general detail only on the nature of

the opera-

tion involved in this matter with the request that the

matter not be pursued further by the Committee.

qD Buschil

S.D. Breckinridge

Attachments

APPROVED:

1s/ Frank C. Carlueel

Deputy

Director of Central Intelligence

DISAPPROVED:

Deputy Director of Central Intelligence

27 JUL 1978

DATE:

OLC/SDBreckinridge/hfs

Distribution:

1 - DDCI w/atts

1 - DDO w/atts

- C/IAD/CAS w/atts

1 - C/LA Division w/atts

1

- ER w/atts

- LC w/atts

1

- OLC/Subj w/atts

1 - OLC/Chron w/o atts

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UNCLASSIFIED

INTERNAL

USE OMLY

CONFIDENTIAL

SECRET

ROUTING AND RECORD SHER )

SUBJECT: (Optional)

House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) Request for CIA

Files on Teresa Pro en z a Proenza

FROM:

EXTENSION

Walter Raymond,

Jr.

Chief, IAD/CAS

3D0004

4253/

1596

TO: (Officer designation, room number, and

DATE

building)

OFFICER'S

INITIALS

DATE

26 JUL 1978

COMMENTS (Number each comment lo show from whom

to whom. Draw a line across column ofter each comment.)

RECEIVED

FORWARDED

1.

Chief, LA Division

3C20

6 JUL

1978

2.

3.

Deputy Director for a Ju.

Operations 7E26

1970

4.

5.

Chief, IAD/CAS

3D0004

6.

7.

Chief, IAD/CAS/COB

8.

9. MA SHEPANEK

PCS/LOC

26 July

10.

11. MS. Scoft Breckenridge

PRINC. COORDINATER,

12.

ASCA

13.

14.

15.

BY HAND

I teher please

"Bow chance

Shap

FORM

3.. 62

610 USEOFRONOUS

EDITIONS

SECRET

CONFIDENTIAL

INTERNAL

USE ONLY

UNCLASSIFIED

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27771

MEMORANDUM

SUBJECT : Political Action Operations in Cuba - The PROENZA

Case

1. Introduction

This memorandum sets forth information concerning the

conduct of a series of interlocking non-violent political action

operations against the Cuban government, its internal coalition

and its alliance with the Soviet Union mounted in 1963.

2. Objectives

Pursuant to instructions from the 303 Committee,

during the Kennedy Administration, the CIA

established among its

objectives against Cuba

the fragmenting of its governing

coalition and exacerbation of its relations with the USSR.

1ac1obe 196 nssile crisis.

This decision was taken prior to the October 1962 Missile Crisis.

As a result of the decision a number of non-violent operations

were carried out.

Those pertaining to the Teresa Proenza Proenza

case are set out

below.

3. The Operations

a. On 3 April 1963 a set of spurious documents falsely

ascribed to a disaffected CIA agent in Mexico were passed

through a ClA controlled asset to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City.

The documents made it appear that the Cuban Vice Minister of

Defense, a highly placed and extreme Moscow-line Communist (who

had been in Moscow when the missile build-up

was planned in

early 1962), was actually a CIA agent who had betrayed the build-

The purpose of this disinformation was to cause a great

strain in the relations between the Cuban Comnunist Party (then

known as the PSP) and the other partners in the coalition.

was also hoped that the operation would redound against the USSR

because the Vice Minister of Defense was a senior Moscow-line

member of the PSP.

It was calculated that the USSR would

move to defend the Vice Minister, who was probably their chief

agent in the Cuban government, and that a collision between the

Soviets and Cubans could result. The Cubans accepted the

spurious papers and paid for them per our demand.

b. Through the summer of 1963 several further deliveries

of spurious documents were made to the Cubans and several

thousand dollars were received in payment.

But results of the

operation from inside Cuba were not yet observed.

Therefore

on 13 November 1963, when a delivery of documents was again

WARNING MONICE

GRE TIERGSACE SOURCES

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several were included revealing the presence of another

bElA sent in the Cuban government, this time inside the Cuban

Embassy in Mexico. This target was

Teresa Proenza Iroenza.

long-time Cuban Communist and contact of the Soviet intelligence

in Mexico, who was acting as Cuban Cultural Attache.

She also

was a close contact of the Vice Minister of Defense.

On

10 December 1963 Miss Proenza was informed of her sudden

back to Cuba; she actually departed on 23 January 1964. Heransfer

recall was believed to be a result of the spurious documents and

of her known long-time friendship with the Vice Minister of Defense.

occurred in The first reaction taocn the ope that time de cutor

member of

the Communist Party (PSP)o was tried

and convicted

of betraying non-Communist leaders of the resistance to the former

government of Cuba which had been overthrown by Fidel Castro.

co which had

As the trial wore on it became apparent that since the young

Communist had been the protege of the Vice Minister of Defense

the trial was really a trial of the latter.

d. During 1964 deliveries of documents to the Cubans

were continued and payments received. On 18 November 1964

the Vice Minister of Defense was arrested on charges of treason

and removed from his post, as was his wife who also held cabinet

rank. They were

Jailed as was Teresa Proenza.

released to house arrest.

Proenza was later permitted to work as

a librarian in Havana.

The Vice Minister died peacefully in his

bed several years later.

His widow was allowed to leave Cuba

to reside in Spain.

This phase of the CIA operation wound

down in March 1966 when the Cubans ceased taking an interest in

it.

4. Concluding Remarks.

The foregoing is but the barest outline of a highly

complex operational system that made use of a wide variety.of

techniques and assets which have not been revealed to the public.

The story would make dramatic headlines if it became publicly

known, especially in the present environment. The fact that

several persons were deprived of their freedom as a result of the

operation would attract further attention. Furthermore, this

operation laid the basis for other operations of a similar

nature that were successfully mounted against Cuban and other

hostile targets. In short, this file is a Pandora's box the

opening of which would not only expose the cryptonyms of other

operations of this type but would attract unfavorable publicity

for the Agency in certain quarters and would expose hitherto

secret techniques and assets.

This would make their employment

in the future very difficult. The fact that this series of

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operations did not begin to register on the Cubans

until after

the death of President Kennedy should remove any

suspicion that

it could in

any way have caused Castro to direct an assassination

attempt against the President.

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25 May 1978:

MEMORANDUM FOR: SA/ DO/0

TIN

FROM

SUBJECT

: Chief, LA/STB

: Charles l. Anderson

Chief, CAS/ PAG/ COB•

: Maria Teresa Pr o en z a Proenza

1.

Maria Teresa Pro enz a Proenza, born

11 March 1908 in Havana, Cuba, is a Cuban citizen who

resided in Mexico for a

number of years before the coming

to power of Fidel C a

st r o in January 1959. Miss Proenza,

a member of the Cuban

• Communist Party in Mexico was an

associate of many Mexican and foreign Communists and

leftists in intellectual and artistic circles. For

..

example,

in 1957 she was

the housekeeper of famed Mexican

Connunist artist Diego Rivera.

She was also well

acquainted at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City.

When the incoming Castro regime took command of

the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, Miss Proenza was

iscally hired to work there in propaganda affairs.

Elentually she was given the title Third Secretary/

Sultural

Attache.

She maintained her leftist Communist

and Soviet contacts and played an important propaganda

role for the Cuban Government because of them.

On 13 November 1963 this Agency initiated an

operation to counter Miss Proenza's effective exploitation.

of her contacts in Mexico,

a work which frequently had

strong anti-U.S. overtones. Miss Proenza

returned

to

Ciba in January 1964.

At no time has this Agency maintained contact

with Miss Proenza.

• Charles W. Anderson

=::

C/LA/STB

manito

6545W!

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SUBJECT:

Maria Teresa P roen

z a Proenza

DDO/C/CAS/PAG/COB: CHAnderson:jd (ext. 1620) (25 May 1978)

Distribution:

0 & 1 - SA/D0/0

1

- Memo. Chrono

1 - C/LA/STB

Hit Parade

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