LA DIVISION FILE SEARCH FOR RECORDS OF CUBAN OPS
Originator: CIA
From: SDB
To: MFF
Document date: 12/09/1976
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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

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MEMO FOR FTLE

SUBJECT

Ld Division File Search

Background Use Only

RETURN TO CIA Dee 176

•Do Not Reproduce

1. I net with Bill Sturbitts and Chris Hopkins for about an

hour this afternoon to review the statua of the In task force on

1 the

aban ops files.

Essentially the original 900 files have been reviewed,

plue some 300 files to which the material in the 900 files led. Chris

was reminded in the course of this of a sensitive operation that se

never had access to at the time she was in Cuban ops, ZRKNICK. It was

an intercept of a Cuhan OWVL and provides names of a variety of CUIS

tripes and what they were reporting. Some 12 box»s of this material

have bi en searched, and there remain two large boxes bf carded material

that requires meticulous review; based on the earlier search referebces

in this maternal suggests other materials to be checked.

2. Items found to date add but marginally to what is known

already. We talled about how to present it for the final report.

envistoned separate rackages covered with a brief description or explanati on,

which would be used for writing a final report with some attachments, but

the finst set of packages or bundles being held for the record of the

research. Documents with any referebce to assassination were pulled;

they may contain condolences, but nothing operational. Some few itens

are intrig ing but not of substantive meaning that can yet be identified.

Samples of problems, not all stenning from these materials:

ao

Reference was made to a latter in 1962 from a Cuban requesting

the addressee in the US about

assassinations.

An attegpt is bing made

be identifythe persons, nut at present it is an inteiguing but not

very nearingful item.

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bo There are some gaps in the files

at the "critical

perood," which they think reflects documents taken from the

file to serve other resear h purposes

at the time of the Warren

Comission inquiry; the transcripts, for instance, are not there,

though known to exist elsewhere.

• Co

I mentioned the speculation in O/S about Frank Sturgis

making mention of Juan Orta's role prior to our having released

anything on this outside the Agency, and what it might mean

about who knew what re Irafficante, etc. Sturbitts said that

Orta's daughter has asked the Agency for the mss. of a book or diary

done by Orta during his taking haven in the Mexican embassy in

Havana. Orta came ou; of Havana and soneone fet. hit and took the

tabssesendingtitito Miami, where the CA people took poosession.

A search for the mss has been fruitless to date. (Don feath) O3

remembers its existence, but not; its contents. ritz "arkin) may.

know, but he has retired. The diary may contain very significant

mayerial, but Sturbitts recalls large burnings of paper when the

station changed from a large to small one; it could have gone up in

the flames then. A search for the mss continues.

3. By and large, the projest is moving to a conclusion. When

La finishes, we can assemble what has been found, which seems not to be all

that much, and a final sunmary can be undertaken. In terns of what has

Ken found to date it would seem that we have little to add to what e

already know.

SDB

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