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AAAAA

1704-10302-10022

2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992

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NOFORN

Churt, Ailm STatt

vil

COPY NO. 107

SC NO. 00550/63

29 November 1963

DAILY

SUMMARY

AGENCY

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS CODE WORD MATERIAL

GROUP I

Excluded from

automatic doungroding

and declessification

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DAILY SUMMARY

29 November 1963

This summary of significant information has not been coordinated

outside the Office of Current Intelligence. It does not represent a

complete coverage of all current reports received, nor does time

permit the complete evaluation of all reports which are included.

CONTENIS

CASTRO'S SPEECH:

In his 27 November address, Castro first sought to exon-

erate his regime of complicity in the death of President

Kennedy and then provided a decidedly optimistic assess-

ment of Cuba's economic situation. (Page 1)

MILITARY DEVELOPMENTS:

An unsuccessful combing operation was affected on the Isle

of Pines for two persons who apparently escaped from the

military prison there. (Page 3)

CUBAN INTERNAL SITUATION:

The Cuban Government may have instituted new controls on

fishermen by eliminating night fishing along the north

coast and by restricting fishermen to three and one half

miles from the coast, according to two clandestine sources.

(Page 3)

INSURGENCY AND CIVIL UNREST:

Three incidents of sabotage have been noted in recent in-

tercepted messages--two in Matanzas Province and the third

in Oriente. (Page 4)

A LCB operation against an insurgent band in Las Villas

Province ended on 29 November without results. (Page 4)

Department of State Security (DSE) officials in Camaguey

Province have

been alerted to a possible clandestine

escape attempt during the night of 28-29 November; militia-

men have been instructed to mobilize at Playa Santa

Lucia.

(Page 4)

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CUBAN EXILE AND REFUGEE ACTIVITIES:

Comandos I is considering an attack against a Soviet

vessel: in Cuban waters in the near future or when the

seas become more quiet. (Page 4)

Cubanos Libres may be planning to hijack a ship in a raid

that would be staged from Miami. (Page 5)

A small group of Cuban refugees may have attempted to

infiltrate Cuba about 27 November, according to a promi-

nentexile activist.

(Page

BLOC RELATIONS:

The Albanian ambassador spoke to a near-empty hall in

Havana on 26 November at a celebration marking his country's

national holiday; the audience was composed chiefly of

Chinese embassy

personnel, students, and journalists.

The Cuban Government was represented by an official of the

foreign cultural council.' (Page 5)

NON-BLOC RELATIONS:

A three-man "good-will" mission is en route to Morocco to

snooth Rabat's ruffled feelings over presence of Cuban

troops in Algeria. (Page 6)

The director of the Cuban petroleum enterprise is scheduled

to travel to Georgetown aboard the BAHIA DE TANAMO; an

untested source in Georgetown reports that Cuba will

supply fuel oil for the

British Guina Electricity Cor-

poration.

(Page 6)

Cuba may establish diplomatic relations with Somalia and

is attempting to improve 1ts relations with Tanganyika

and Ghana, according to intercepted communications. (Page 7)

Two representatives of the Cuban National Association of

Small Farmers are planning to attend a seminar in Chile.

(Page 7)

NON-BLOC COMMERCIAL RELATIONS:

Cuba is continuing negotiations for the purchase of large

amounts of construction equipment, probably from the varmi

company of Brussels.

(Page

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CUBAN SUPPORI OF EXTERNAL SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES:

The Venezuelan Government has announced the discovery of

denied the charge. (Page 8)

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CASTRO'S SPEECH:

Fidel's 27 November speech to the students at Havana

University evidently had been scheduled some weeks ago, be-

fore the assassination of President Kennedy, and was in-

tended as a fairly sweeping review of the country's economic

situation, post-Hurricane Flora salvage operations and,

lastly, the regime's plans for changes in the educational sys-

tem.

In fact, it was the third time in a week that Castro has

addressed himself publicly and at length to the death of the

late President and to imputations that the Castro regime was

involved in any way.

On 24 November Castro had displayed

considerable apprehension that already strained US-Cuban re-

lations would worsen markedly as a consequence of the assassi-

nation. We do not have an adequate text of Castro's seemingly

impromptu remarks of 26 November to a group of high school

students;

but that speech apparently went little beyond his

statement on the Sunday following Mr. Kennedy's death.

address of 27 November obviously was a carefully prepared ref-

utation of charges of complicity between Castro's regime and

Oswald.

Whatever the Cuban leader's intent, textual analysis of

the speech neither proves nor disproves

that he had advance

knowledge of the plot. He is determined to indict unnamed

"reactionaries" in the United States with conspiring to murder

no pot un on ties

the President, using Oswald as their innocent dupe, and to

frame Cuba in order to provoke punitive action by the US Gov-

ernment against the revolution.

to this end, he presented a

considerable body of "evidence"--much of it admittedly specu-

lative--based on what is generally known about Oswald, the

"normal" behavior pattern of paranoiacs, the weapon the killer

used, the technical difficulties presented by the use of a

telescopic sight, the 36-hour Dallas police interrogation of

the alleged killer and, finally, Oswald's death at the hands

of Jack Ruby in the basement of

the Dallas police headquarters.

Castro rehearsed the details of Oswald's 27 September

application at the Cuban consulate in Mexico City for a Cuban

visa and protested the 23 November arrest of two employees of

the consulate by Mexican authorities.

(Castro's remarks were

followed up on 28 November by the delivery of a formal pro-

test by the Cuban Foreign Ministry to the Mexican Government--

which rejected it.) Oswald's Dallas television interview in

July, his attempts to infiltrate the pro-Castro Fair Play for

Cuba Committee, and his street brawl with anti-Castro refugees

in New Orleans--all were intended by those behind Oswald to

with the shooting of Sunday, 24 November, "demonstrates that

the persons guilty of the death of Kennedy needed and urgently

had to eliminate the accused at any cost... so that he would

not talk...."

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CASTRO'S SPEECH - cont'd

But, says the Cuban premier,

Alluding

the "shot has backfired."

to statements made earlier in the week by physicians

at Parkland hospital, castro claims that no one in a posi-

¡ion to do so has said whether one or two bullets were used

to kill the late President.

lish which are the entry and exit wounds,"implying that more

than one assassin was involved and that the President was

strick both from in front and behind.

In sum, while Castro obviously was well briefed and went

to some length to select "evidence" proving the guilt of do-

mestic reactionaries in the United States (conversely clear-

ing himself of any involvement), nothing he said indicates

advance knowledge of the crime or encompasses more factual

data than can be presumed to have been gleaned Iro! the press.

The balance of the 27 November speech, the part which

Castro told his listeners comprised the address he originally

intended to deliver, was devoted to a somewhat rambling as-

sessment of Cuba's

economic health. It can be sumned up for

the most part with the quote: "Things are progressing in our

country and they are going well, despite the obstacles blared

spite the hurricane....

As he has done before, Castro

the sloth and ineptitude of the Cuban bourgeousle for the

"mismanagement, lack of cocern for expenditures, by lack of

concern not only for the quantity but also the quality of what

we produced"

immediately after the fall of Batista.

He re-

viewed the "tremendous ideological battle...it was a battle

between ideas and theories...

within the regime during 1ts

first two years in power, said that the government officials

had become too "argumentative," and admitted that for a time

the regime had been incapable of compensating for the loss of

trade with the non-Communist world.

Today, he boasted, Cuba

"can trade with any country in the world; we can offer

an ad-

vantageous. exchange because we no longer have to sell sugar to

vanele "emperdadistak*

Instead, cuba can plow back into its in-

ternal development revenue derived Irom foreign trade, and de-

velop to the maximum the use of those natural resources which

are in demand.

Attempts

to bar cuba from the world sugar trade, he said, have

resulted only in increasing the price of sugar so that the Cubans

profits from what they do sell and more than break even.

been able to get wonderful prices, and we have sold sugar for 1965

for approximately 10 cents.

He have made sales for 1966 at approxi-

mately 10 cents."

Though the Cuban sugar growers will be affected

in gome measure

for several years by the attempts of nonbloc states

to juggle sugar prices, "we shall be in a position 1970 or-TI/

to resist any price decrease in the sugar produced In the cpaltal-

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CASTRO'S SPEECH - cont'd

Returning to the post-hurricane economic dislocation,

Castro promised that by 15 December of this year full food

rations would be restored and in many cases allotments in-

creased. He called for greatly increased mechanization

of

agriculture and the use of the latest methods of cultivation,

appealed for more food production and the recovery of arable

land lost through neglect and erosion.

He demanded an end

to public "vice," such as official bribe-taking, theft,

pilferage, etc.

In the field of social welfare, Castro

praised medical students for "volunteering" to serve in

out-of-the-way country posts for minimum terms of two years

and prophesied that "as the number of graduate doctors in-

creases,

the need for the establishment of socialized

once felt as a social need will not be quite as great."

aroat, medicine

Castro concluded by appealing to Cuban youth to partici-

pate "in the great task of opening new frontiers in every

field...you are in a revolution that will never end." (CIA

FBIS 07 and adds, 28 November, OFFICIAL USE ONLY)

MILITARY DEVELOPMENTS:

Military headquarters on the Isle of Pines informed

Armed Forces headquarters in Havana that two persons who

had escaped, probably from the military prison, had not yet

been recaptured.

The 27 November intercepted message re-

ported that an unsuccessful combing operation had been

effected in an area indicated by two peasants who reportedly

saw the escapees. • (See Daily Summary of 26 November for

information on other personnel being sought on the Isle of

Pines.)

(USN 856, 2X/SL/CUM/T405-63, 27 November, SECRET

SABRE)

CUBAN INTERNAL SITUATION:

The Cuban Government may have instituted new controls

on fishermen, by eliminating night fishing along the north

coast and by restricting fishermen to three and one half

miles from the coast.

A Florida law enforcement officer was

informed by the former administrator of a fishing coopera-

tive at Isabela de Sagua that on 12 November it was rumored

that no night fishing would be allowed on the north coast

of Cuba after 17 November.

Reportedly, those who were fish-

fired upon.

from an unidentified fisherman that in late November, Cuban

fishermen were ordered by the Cuban general staff to do

their fishing between three and three and one half miles

from the coast.

No confirmation has yet been received of

these reported changes in fishing regulations.

(CIA TDCSDB-

3/658,077, 27 November, SECRET/CONTROLLED DISSEM)

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INSURGENCY AND C.. IL UNREST:

Two additional acts of sabotage have been reported by

Bureau of Public Order (BOP) officials in Matanzas Province.

On 25 November nearly four tons of sugar cane were burned

on the Araujo farm near Maguanito and on 27 November two

empty houses were burned on the Angelina farm in the dis

trict of Maximo Gomez.

Meanwhile, First Army headquarters in Santiago de Cuba

was informed by its southern sector Sierra Maestra head-

quarters that 81,000 arrobas of cane were burned on 17 November

at Algeria del Pio near San Lorenzo in Oriente Province.

(USM,

603,

2/YJ/CUP/R127-63,

28 November, SECRET KIMBO; and USN

835, 21/bR1/CUM/T669-63, 26 November, SECRET SABRE)

On 27 and 28 November special anti-insurgent forces

(LCB) in Las Villas carried out an operation against Menendez

Esquijaro and his band near Sancti Spiritus. LCB field opera-

tions headquarters in Santa Clara was informed on 21 November

that the operations had ended without results.

(USM 603, 2X/

UJ/ CUM/350-63,

28 November; and 2X/YJ/CUM/T351-63, 29 Novem-

ber, SECRET SABRE)

Department of State Security (DSE) officials in Nuevitas,

Camaguey Province, were instructed on 28 November to mobilize

militiamen into an "easily seen land patrol" at Playa Santa

Lucia in order to prevent a clandestine escape attempt dur-

ing the night of 28-29 November.

DSE headquarters in Camaguey

directed Nuevitas to coordinate the operation with LCP units

and "to be especially watchful for boats."

(USM 603, 2/YJ/

CUP/B128-63, 29 November, SECRET KIMBO)

CUBAN EXILE AND REFUGEE ACTIVITIES:

Comandos L is considering an attack against a Soviet

ship in Cuban waters, according to a member of a group of

Cuban refugees who have provided useful reports.

which was being discussed on 22 November, would take place

in the near future or when the seas become more quiet. Re-

the plan would involve 15 men in three speed-boats

who would rendezvous in international waters aiter leaving

from three points along the Florida coast.

In connection with

Jesus Alvarez Amador picked up material on 22 Noven-

ber, including one box of fragmentation grenades, three maga-

zines for a 20-mn. cannon and 87 rounds of ammunition for

the same, and 15 ponchos. This equipment is being stored at.

owner of Super Cake S.A., La Gran

i love can an a teen meter 1s 379-5218.

Other weapons to be used in the operations are two 20-mm.

cannons, one 57-um. cannon, four machine guns, and two Garand

rifles. Alvarez planned to go to West Palm Beach on 22 Noven-

ber to

borrow some additional weapons.

CIA TDOS-DB-3/058

110, 28 November, CONFIDENTIAL NO FOREIGN DISSEN/ CONTROLIED

DISSEM)

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CUBAN EXILE AND REFUGEE ACTIVITIES - cont 'd

Cubanos Libres may be planning to hijack a ship in a

raid that would be staged from Miami, according to a mem-

ber of a group of Cuban refugees who

have provided useful

reports.

The source reported that funds for the raid were

to be raised at a dinner scheduled for 24 November in Le

Tre Venezie restaurant, 472 West 9th Avenue, New York City.

At the dinner, Cubanos Libres was planning to show films

of their raids against Cardenas Bay in October 1962 and the

Arechabala Refinery in June 1963.

2o November, CONFIDENTIAL NO FOREIGN DISSEN/ CONTROLLED DISSEM

A small group of Cuban refugees may have attempted to

infiltrate Cuba about 27 November, according to a prominent

exile activist who received the information. from a close

associate of a person involved in the attempt. Reportedly,

a 20- to 22-foot speed-boat left Key Biscayne, Florida, the

night of 26 November to rendezvous.off Key Largo with a Cuban

fishing boat and then proceed to an infiltration point on the

north coast of Las Villas.

The fishing boat is reportedly

based in a shrimp fishery on the southeast coast of Key Largo.

The persons involved in the operation were Manuel Pedro

Gutierrez Cardenas, and presumably two infiltrees--Emilio

Perez Fernandez and Luis Agular Perez.

Iwo crew members,

known only by nicknames, were "Comacho" and "Vascoy," possibly

Jose Bascoy Barrios.

(CIA TDCSDB-3/658, 104, 27 November,

SECRET/CONTROLLED DISSEM)

BLOC RELATIONS:

The Albanian ambassador to Cuba, Josif Pogace, delivered

students, and journalists.

Cuba was represented by an official

of the Cuban foreign cultural council.

The Polish correspond-

ent reports that the audience applauded the

on the subject of "contemporary revisionism" and sade reviston-

ist blockade of Albania" but reacted with silence to his at-

tack on "false guarantees for Cuba." (CIA FBIS 105, 27 Novem-

ber, OFFICIAL USE ONLY)

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NON-BLOC RELATIONS:

The Castro regime,

the Moroccan Government's severance of diplomatic relations

following the arrival of Cuban troops in Algeria in late

September, is attempting to placate Rabat.

Foreign Minister Raul Roa advised the secretary general of

Moroccan Foreign Ministry that a three-man "good-will mission,"

composed of Dr. Antonio Carrillo Carreras, Enrique Vian Audivert

of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and Dr. Enrique Rodriguez

Loeches, the Cuban ambassador to Morocco, would leave for

Rabat the next day "to begin conversations with your illustrious

BEGE

which has yet to acknowledge publicly

On 26 November,

the

government with a view to clearing up the unfortunate mis-

understandings which may have arisen...."

The Moroccans, who

since breaking off formal diplomatic relations have become

alarmed by the realization of the extent to which they depend

on their sugar imports from Cuba and the dislocation which

the loss of these imports would entail,

probably will give

the Cuban delegation a sympathetic hearing.

Nevertheless it

is unlikely that Rabat will agree at this time to return an

ambassador to Cuba or to disavow publicly its renunciation of

diplomatic ties so long as Cuban troops remain in Algeria.

On 21 November, Rabat instructed one of the junior members

of its embassy who had remained in Cuba when the ambassador

departed to remain at his post until he had closed out all

financial dealings with Cuban banks, etc., and to forward per-

tinent documents on his activities

to Morocco's Permanent

Mission to the UN. Two days later the secretary general of

the Moroccan Foreign Ministry cabled Havana that his government

was inclined to receive a Cuban good -will mission.

INSA,

3/0/MRD/T329-63, 21 November; 3/0/MRD/T329-63, 23

November;

3/0/MRD/T335-63, 26 November, TOP SECRET DINAR)

The director of the Cuban Government - owned Consolidated

Petroleum Enterprise, Salvador Salas Portuondo, 1s scheduled

to travel to Georgetown, British Guiana, on a Cuban vessel.

On 21 November Cuban shipping headquarters in Havana informed

the captain of the BAHIA DE TANAMO that Salas would be

traveling to Georgetown from Santiago de Cuba.

Meanwhile, an

untestéd

source who is a member of the board of the British

Guiana Electricity Corporation reports that GIMPEX has been

awarded the contract to provide fuel oll for the electricity

Coto patron.

GIMPEX, Jagan's party's trading enter-

gripe, reportedly latends to import the oil from Cuba. TusM-

electricity corporation will pay $240,000 for the oil.

SECRET SABRE; and CIA TDCS.

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NON-BLOC RELATIONS - cont 'd

Cuba may establish diplomatic relations with Somalia

and

is attempting to improve its relations with Tanganyika

and Ghana, according to intercepted communications.

In a

27 November intercepted message, the Somali Government in-

formed its United Nations representative that the Council of

Ministers had approved the establishment of relations with

Cuba, and instructed him to determine the level at which the

Cubans wanted to exchange representatives.

In a 26 November

message, the Cuban Foreign Ministry requested its Prague

embassy

to obtain customs exemptions for three personnel who

were on their way to Tanganyika. Cuba does not currently have

diplomatic representatives in Tanganyika and the Cubans may be

on a good-will mission which is expected in that country. (See

article above on good-will mission to Morocco.) The three

Cubans--Juan Felipe Benemelis Varona, second secretary of the

Cuban Embassy in Accra, Nevris Vernier, attache at the embassy

In Accra, and Jose Antonio Benitez Cabrera, an attache of the

Cuban Embassy in Prague-were scheduled to arrive in. Prague on

27 November. In another intercepted message of 25 November,

¡avana instructed its ambassador in Ghana to sign a cultural

pact with Ghana during the first part of December. The Cuban

representative was told to sign the Ghanaian-inspired pact "out

of political considerations."

(NSA 3/0/SOD/T202-63, 27 November,

TOP SECRET DINAR; NSA 2X/0/CUB/12439-63, 21 November, SECRET

SABRE; NSA 3/0/CUD/T1385-63, 27 November, TOP SECRET DINAR)

The Cuban Government requested Chilean visas for two

members of National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) --

Juan Jorge Valdez Paz and Adello Martin Barrios--to attend

a "cooperative seminar" (sic; possibly, seminar on coopera-

tives) to be held in Santiago.

An 11 November intercepted

message stated that their visit would last 15 days.

3/0/CLD/T1086-63, 27 November, TOP SECRET DINAR)

(NSA

NON-BLOC COMMERCIAL RELATIONS:

Cuba 1s continuing negotiations for the purchase of large

amounts of construction equipment, probably from the Varmi

company of Brussels.

see Daily summary of " November fol

details of Varni's offer.)

According to an employee of

the Spanish export-import firm CILASA who has access to the

company's files, a seven-man Cuban delegation was expected

to arrive in Brussels on 30 November with authorization to

let contracts.

The group reportedly plans to examine, dis-

assemble, and test the equipment and has a total budget of

$3.5 million.

(It was previously reported that Varmi has

offered to sell $1 million worth of construction equipment.)

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NON-BLOC COMMERCIAL RELATIONS - cont'd

The delegation is also interested in visiting European

manufacturers of spare parts for the machines; they were

principally interested in visiting Spain. The members of

the delegation are Rene Narbona from the Cuban enterprise

for the import of machinery, in addition to representatives

named Respall, Hernandez, Rodriguez, Alemida (siC), Duran,

They were to stay at the Hotel Metropole in

and MeIS e(CIA Madrid IN 69382, 28 November, SECRET NO FOR-

Brussels.

EIGN DISSEM)

CUBAN SUPPORT OF EXTERNAL SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES:

The discovery of a large cache of weapons of Cuban origin,

announced by Venezuelan authorities on 28 November, provides

Sue an ent

the best evidence in recent years of major Cuban support for

Latin American subversives.

The Venezuelan foreign minister has

announced that Caracas

will lay formal charges concerning the arms cache before a

special meeting of Latin American Foreign Ministers scheduled

for December. Following this, Caracas will ask that the Coun-

cil of the Organization of American States be convoked for con-

sultation on the matter.

There is definite proof to support the Venezuelan claim

that the weapons came from Cuba.

The approximately three tons

of weapons include light automatic rifles and submachine guns

identified as among those shipped to Cuba from Belgium in 1959

and 1960.

. There were also mortars, bazookas, recoilless rifles,

and

ammunition of Us manufacture.

Communist documents setzed by Venezuelan authorities

earlier this month indicate that the equipment was destined

for the Venezuelan Communists' paramilitary arm, the Armed Forces

of National Liberation.

The cache was found on l November on a beach in Falcon

State, scene of the most active guerrilla effort.

The Vene-

zuelan Government assumes that the weapons were sent from Cuba

by sea.

This is not confirmed, but Cuban fishing vessels were

used to transport weapons to South America during the latter

part of October, according to several recent clandestine re-

ports.

For more than three years, the Castro regime has tried to:

avoid actions that would clearly implicate it in direct sup-

port of latin American subversives.

This exception seems to

demonstrate either the high degree of urgency which Castro

now gives to his subversive effort, or his estimate that the

Venezuelan situation now is ripe for a final offensive..

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CUBAN SUPPORT OF EXTERNAL SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES - cont'd

A Havana radiobroadcast immediately denied that Cuba

involved in the arms-infiltration attempt.

The broad-

cast, which quoted no official source, stated that "this

new campaign of President Romulo

Betancourt against

cuba and its revolutionary government, blaming the Cubans

for the explosive situation in his country and the instabil-

ity of his government."

(SECRET)

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