Training
Originator: CIA
Document date: 02/18/1963
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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176-10036-10067

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

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RECORD NUMBER : 176-10036-10067

RECORD SERIES : National Security Files

AGENCY FILE NUMBER :

ORIGINATOR : CIA

FROM :

TO :

TITLE : Training

DATE : 2/18/1963

PAGES: 9

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CURRENT STATUS :

DATE OF LAST REVIEW : 9/10/2000

OPENING CRITERIA :

2/18/1963. Box 1

COMMENTS : National Security Files, Box 59: Cuba Subjects, Cuban Subversion,

M--++-117171061

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DRAFT BRIEFING NOTES

18 February 1963

TRAINING

1.

We estimate that at least 1,000, and perhaps as many

as

1,500 persons came to Cuba during 1962, from all

the other Latin American countries with the possible

exception of Uruguay, to receive ideological indoc-

trination or guerrilla warfare training or both.

More have gone in 1963 despite the limited facilities'

for reaching. Cuba at present.

A. The largest contingents. have come from Venezuela,

Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, and Bolivia.

B.

Some of the courses are as short as four weeks,

designed to let it appear that the trainees had

merely attended

some conference or celebration

and done a little sightseeing:

C. Other courses last as long as a year, and may

include intensive training in such things as

sabotage, espionage, or psychological warfare.

Many trainees have stayed on in Cuba indefinitely.

II.: We have devoted

a great deal of effort to monitoring

Latin American travel to Cuba at the main jump-off

points such as Mexico and Curacao.

We have to do this

because the Cubans go to great lengths to conceal the

fact that some

of these trainees have ever been to Cuba,

and how long they stayed.

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A.

We know a great deal about this travel from our

penetrations of the Communist parties, from con-

trolled agents we have been able to maneuver into

the training courses in Cuba, and fron coopera-

tive travel control authorities in Latin American

countries.

B.

The Cuban Embassy in Mexico City gives the trainee

a visa on a separate piece of paper, so that his

passport, when he goes home, will only show that

he has been in Mexico. We have a record, however,

of those who fly on to Cuba.

C.

In other cases, particularly in the case of travel

through Montevideo before the quarantine, the Cu-

bans furnished passports

under other names for

travel by way of Curacao.

D. : We derive some of our figures from travel control

points, and another set from the information we

receive from penetration agents of established

reliability in the Communist parties. Sone of the

Latin American governments are also able to main-

tain fairly accurate lists of their nationals

known to have been in Cuba. We get a certain

amount of crosschecking from lists of names fur-

nished us by several of our agents who have

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E.

F:

G.

undergone training, and in confessions of cap-

tured guerrillas who had been in Cuba.

Thus in the case of Peru, for instance, we come

up with a list of 235 names of individuals known

to have made extended stays in Cuba in 1961 and

1962.

We have to make allowance for some who

did not receive guerrilla training, and allowance

in the opposition direction for those whose names

have escaped our surveillance. But we are guided

in these adjustments by the cross-checking infor-

mation I have mentioned.

Some of the trainees arrive, and many go home,

by way. of the Iron Curtain and Western Europe,

using Soviet, Czech, or Cuban aircraft and prob-

ably shipping as well for the trip between Cuba

and the Bloc. This is another attempt to conceal

their movements, and in some

cases permits fur-

ther indoctrination and training in Bloc countries.

We feel fairly certain that under the circum-

stances our estimate of 1,000 to 1,500 guerrilla

warfare trainees in 1962 is an accurate one. We

also believe that the tempo of this training is

being stepped up, just as we know that it increased

in 1962 over 1961:

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III. The basic training covers cross-country movement of

guerrillas, firing, care of weapons, and general

guerrilla tactics. One of our Brazilian agents took

such a four-week course more than a year ago, ostensi-

bly going to Cuba for a convention, and returning to

his Havana hotel every few days during the course to

spread the word that he had been sightseeing.

A. An Argentine trainee who took a longer course

and then was sent home by way of Europe has

given us a

great deal of detail on the type of

training. He reports that some of the trainees

remain indefinitely. The Cubans sometimes re-

fer to these men as their International Brigade.

Sometimes they are formed into national units

from a particular country, in effect

forming a

packaged cadre which can be returned to the home-

land to lead a "Liberation Army."

B.. A trainee who recently returned to Peru after

several months of training Cuba, ((a controlled

agent even before his departure for Cuba, who

is still being debriefed)) said that all his

fellow trainees were asked to mark bridges and

other similar demolition targets on detailed

maps of Peru. They were also required to fill

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out a lengthy questionnaire on sabotage targets,

possibilities for subversion of police, methods

for illegal entry and travel, suitable drop

zones for air supply, possible points of attack

against police and military posts, and similar

information necessary for directing subversion

and insurrection.

IV. We keep getting reports that in such countries as

Colombia, Venezuela, and Peru, where there are guer-

rilla forces either in action or in being in the hills,

the Cubans carry on their training by providing instruc-

tors or advisors for these forces. These reports are

invariably second-hand, and we have not been able to

confirm any of them.

A. In some cases, it has turned out that a reference

to "a Cuban" with the guerrillas referred to

someone who had been trained in Cuba and was

training others, rather than a Cuban national..

We know positively that three Cuban nationals

were involved

in the strike violence at La Oroya,

Peru, last December, which culminated in some

four million dollars worth of damage to the

smelter of the American-owned Cerro de Pasco min-

ing company. One of these Cubans has also been

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C.

D:

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directing the armed invasions of big ranches in

the Andean highlands by land-hungry Indians. This

information contributed to the decision of the

Peruvian junta to crack down on Communists in Jan-

uary. Unfortunately, by that time the Cuban na-

tionals had either gone underground or fled the

country, and the Peruvians are still looking for

them. • We have no direct reports that these Cu-

bans have worked with the Peruvian guerrillas.

In Brazil, in fact, the complaint of guerrillas

in training camps there was that they had been

recruited by a promise of Cuban instructors, but

found there were none. This came to light when

the report of a Cuban intelligence agent, relay-

ing their complaints to Havana, turned up in the

wreckage of the Varig airliner which crashed in

Peru in November.

We do not rule out the possibility that there are

Cubans in the field with active guerrilla forces,

but we have no evidence at present to prove it.

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