MEMORANDUM: AMMUG 1 DEBRIEFING REPORT #241 - COMMUNICATIONS OF THE DGI.
Originator: CIA
From: C/WH/C/RR/OS
To: FI/D STAFF
Document date: 03/02/1965
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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104-10239-10015)

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

2 Marci: 1965

WH C 165-87

LX-2496

MEMORANDUM FOR:

FI'D SINS

TSD)

SUBJECT

..

General: AMMUG 1 Debriefing Report 4241

Subject: Communestions of the DGI

(Cutan Intelligence Service)

REFERENCE

:

WH/C Memorandu #65-86 dated

1 March 1965

1. When a headquarters' case officer on one of the opera-

tronal departments wishes to send a despitch or cable to the field,

he prepares the message himsel (on his own typewriter) und

sends it to the Department of Leg Centers office (if it is folng

to a field station) for transmission by the means indicated.

may handcarry the message to Leil Centers or may send it by

his department driver or an M Building messenger.

or messenger may be summoned by rolephone at any tune, but

there are always headquartors' messengers circulating among

buildings carrying dispatches and other correspondence from

one to another.

The operations officer, therefore, my wilit

for the next messenger to come over from M Building or may

The messengers uperate on no lixed schedule but

deliver messages as they are réceived or ready for dispatch.

An outgoing messaye from the LN Department to the

field station in Mexico, for example, is prepared by the LN

case officer and sent by messenger or carried personally to the

Mexican section (Nucleus 5) of the MS (Legal Centers) De-

That department, if it is to yu by dispatch, photo-

graphs the message and places the resultant microfilm in the next

pruch to Mexico. MS Department has its own equipment for

photosraphing, prepuring microfilm, and developing microfilm.

sis outgoing message is prepared in originai und one copy; the

copy is returned by the MS Department to the originating officer,

with i stamp showing the out number and the date ani time of

dispatch. If the message is to go by cable, the MS Department

forwards it to the Contr. Ciphering Service of the DSE, Which

has the communications facilities and which encodes the message

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bolore sending it. Cablos are handled througt commercial cable

channels.

3. I the outgoing message requires cover language ol any

sort, the preparing operations' officer writes it with a simple

number subetitution for classified or sensitive names and ex-

pressions (example: #1 - Nicaragua; 42 - FLN; #3 - passports;

#4 - JOBE GARCIA, etc.), using numbers instead of real names or

terms. With the text of the message containing the numerica!

code, he supples a list of the numbers and the terms or names

they represent.

The Central Ciphering Service encodes the

message with the numbers in it and also the list of number-

terrn equivalents and transmits the two items to the field station

by commercial cable. Cable messages leave the DGi office

through "VIALINA" and incoming decoded messages from the

Central Ciphering Service go to her and then to the MS Department

for distribution to the proper recipients.

The standard term

"PABLO" Is used on all outgoing cables as sender.

When the cable message arrives at the field station,

the embassy code clerk receives it and decodes it.

He then

pisses the encoded text of the message and the number-term

substitution list, l any, to the chief of the field station, who

passes it to the officer concerned. In no case does the opera-

tions' otticer at either end see the encoded message or know what

code is used, aside from the number-term substitution list

prepared by the originator and given to the addressee in decoded

form. Only the code clerk and the chief of the field station

know anything about the codes or coding process.

5. For incoming messages by cable or pouch, the system

is the same.

The field operations' officer prepares the message,

with a number-term substitution list i needed, and submits it to

the field station chief. I the message is to go by pouch, the

feld station chief has it photographed and sends the results on

microfilm; he his equipment for microphotography and development.

Il the message is to go by cable, he submits it with the substitution

who encodes message and

accompanying list and transmit them by commercial cable.

6. Both pouches and cables are addressed to the Ministry

of Forelga Relations (MINREX). When the Ministry of Foreign

Relations receives a pouch, it sends the part of the conterits

addressed to the DGI to DGI headquarters by messenger

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(sometimes the regular courler, irom abroad delivers them).

They are receired by "VIALINA" and distributed through the

MS Department to the proper addressees. When the message

1s sent by cable, it sues from the Ministry of Foreign Relations

to the Central Ciphering Service, which decodes it and sends

a paraphrased version to "VIDALINA" for distribution in the DGL

7. Incoming messages in Havana show the date and time

received .by the Gentral Ciphering Service (entered on a standard

form) and the message number (also entered in a standard form).

The Central Clphering Service also enters the time at which it

dispatches the message to the DGl, and the DGI headquarters

stamps the incominy message with the date and time of receipt.

The date and time of receipt are also stamped on the message

by the department office of the addressee.

Cables in the Zapote

Operation file show that a message from Mexico received by the

Central Ciphering Service at 1850 hours was delivered to the DGI

headquarters at 3350 hours and reached the LN Department, to

which it was addressed (determined by the pseudonym of the

case officer), on the following morning. Since it was a routine

message, it was held over at the late hour of delivery until the

next day: for internal distribution

8. In preparing reports in the field, the field operations'

olficer usually interviews the agent and then writes the report

on the basis of what the agent told him, putting in numbers for

names or critical terms.

The message is then microfilmed and

dispatched. In one instance, when an operations' officer from

Havana was visiting Mexico, he asked an agent for a written

report on expenditure of funds with which he had been entrusted.

The agent prepared the report but did not get it to the embassy in

time for the case officer to carry it back to Cuba with him. In

that instance, the field case officer sent the agent's original

report direct to beadquarters by pouch without photographing it,

possibly because he was hurrying to get it into a departing pouch.

The procedure is noted as unusual.

9. The code clerks assigned to Cuban official missions

abroad are all members of the DSE but while in the field are

ubordinate to the chief of the DGI field station.

lerk is required, the DGI asks the DSE to supply one. It le

not known whether the code clerk also handles the normal Foreign

Ministry coded traffic and, ll he does, whether he uses the same

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codes for it as for the DGL. To all interits and purposes a code

clerk abroad Is a member of the DGL

10. - Radio communication between field stations and

headquarters. in Havana is almost never used and is regarded as

strictly an emergengy measure, although field stations have

radio equipment (type unknown) for use li needed. DGl headquarters

recelves almost no radio messages from field stations. The DGE

Held station in Mexico has a plan for emergency radio communi-

cations with Havana to relay messages through the Dominican

Republic 1i normal radio transmission direct to Havana is

This arrangement, however, is only a plan; no

Implementation of it has ever been attempted, as far as is known,

and it is extremely doubtful that relay: facilities of any kind

actually exist in the Dominican Republic which could be used in

an emergency.

03

(Benjamin Stotts

C/WH/C/RR/Os

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