INFORMATION REPORT:ARMANDO (PATRONYMIC UNKNOWN)
Originator: CIA
Document date: 09/09/1964
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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

CENTRAL iNTELLIGENCE AGENCY

TAS and TA, 1n0 IraDeOlason or reroiation

manner to do unauthor pres la probibited by lou.

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COUNTRY

SUBJECT

Cuba

Armando (patronymic unknown)

REPORT NO.

DATE DISTR

NO. PAGES

REFERENCES

CSCI-316/00718-64

9 September 1964

3

DATE Of

INFO.

1984

PLACE &

Washington, D. C.

DATE ACQ.

September 1964

FIELD REPORT NO.

THIS IS UNEVALUATED INPORMATION. SOURCE GRADINGS ARS DRPINITIVE. APPRAISAL OR CONTENT IS TENTATIVE.

• SOURCE,

A former Cuban IS officer who served with the Cuban Intelligence

Service until April 1964.

Headquarters Comments

The following report is one of a series containing personality

information provided by one source and includes supplemental

Information from the records of this Agency.

It Is requested that the addressees take no action on any of the

individuals mentioned in the personality reports without first

checking with this Agency.

1. Armando (patronymic unknown), pseudonym "Frances, "

works at the Special School of the Direccion General de Inteligencia

(General Directorate of Intelligence - DGI) where guerrilla warfare

training is given foreigners; he is in charge of classes in

explosives.

Armando is a captain in the rebel army.

an aide to Raul CASTRO and fought with his group in the

mountains.

2. Source described Armando as a Cuban citizen who was

born about 1929. He is about live feet seven or eight inches call,

155 pounds, and has it medium build.

He has a fair complexion,

black, short, hair, slightly bald in front, small eyes, a hawk •

nose, and Lean d5,o, to tays wears an army

uniform.

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Headquarters Comments

1.

Armando (Patronymic unknown) is probably Identical with Armando

TORRES who is velleves to be identical with Armando TORRES Mesones.

The main basis for this assumption

1y that all have boen identified

as hides to Raul CASTRO and i1 would seen unlikely that he would

with such similar namcs.

Also, as can be scen by

the following traces, their backgrounds appear to be similar in

2.: A usually rellublo source, in a report dated 29 September 1947,

•stated that Armando TORRES vas a member of the Fedcracion Estudiant11

•Universitaria (University Students' Federation - FEU) of the

He was Involved in sending

letters to obtain ald in the campaiin against the Trufillo "tyranny."

3. A fairly reliable source in a report dated 16 April 1948, said that

Armando TORRES was one of the persons personally contacted by

Vassill BOGATYREV and Ivan MISHINSKY in regard to the establishment

of a Cominform Bureau in Habana:

Though TORRES was to work for the

Cominform, it did not, according to course, necessarily mean he

was & Communist.

4. A fairly reliablo source, in a report dated 7 Say 1948, Identifled

Armando TORRES as a Cuban pro-Communist delegate to the Latin

Amerlean Youth Congress held in Mexico in late April 1948. He was

an FFU representativo to the Congress.

5. An untested source in a report dated 9 July 1958, said that Armando

TORRES, also referred to as "Buffalo Bill,'

claimed he was Cuban

born, but had studded in Spain and France.

6. In a report dated ll July 1958, an unknown source listed the most

important people surrounding Raul CASTRO.

aide to CASTRO,. and described as having been born in

studied in Paris, traveled to Spain and called

Frenchman."

In this same report

an untested source said that

Armando TORRE, aka "Buffalo Bill,"

wis born in Habana about 1926,

uns five feet

six inches tall, 110 pounds, had black hair and an

7.

Two usually reliable sources, in a report dated 3 and 10 July 1958,

described Armando TORRES, an aide to Raul CASTRO, as a suspected

Communist who had returned to Cuba from Spaln and Hungary ten months

TORRES was identified as one of the persons

responsible

rebel decision to abduct American citizens in June 1958.

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8. A source whose reliability is uninown said that Armando TORRES.

born in Camagucy

about 1033 and

who studied in Parls.

ne had intervlowed the ex-Costa Rica:.. President, Jose FIGURES

Germany

Rovolution he (TORRE)

went to Vienna to ald Hungarian refugoes and clandestinely entered

Hungary where he remained for seventeen hours before returning to

Vienna. The report was dated 11 July 1958.

9:

An untested source with

excellent contacts in Haltian exile circles,

• 1n a report dated 3 July 1959, stated that Captain Armando TORRES

"was the Cuban Military Attache to Haiti.

10. An untested source, in a report dated 3 May 1960, said that Armando

TORRE, Cuban Ambassador,

arrived in Rome on

10 April 1960, and left

for New York on 26 April 1960 via Pan American Airlines.

11. The records of this Agency revealed a copy of a passport for

Captain Armando TORRE Mesones, Issued in Habana on 6 April 1960,

with the designiation, •Embajador Extroordinario.

was a Cuban Revolutionary Identification card for Armando TORRES

y Mesones showing he held the rank of captain in the Direccion

Inteligencia - G-2 and that he

was born in Canoguey, Cuba, on

26 September 1930. TORRES was in Rome on an arms buying mission.

12. In a report dated 20 April 1962, a fairly rellable source gave

followang Information on Armando TORRES, nickname "El Francis:, the

He was born in 1931, Is married and has one child.

and his wife are French Nationals.

TORRES 13 a good friend

of Vilma ESPIN and Raul CASTRO and always lives very close

to the latter.

He 1s live feet ten Inches tall, weighs

between 145 and 150 pounds, has greenish

brown eyes,

black hair,

a thin faeo and 1s white.

He was in the Sierra Maestra with

Raul CASTRO. TORRES speaks French, English, Italian, German.

Jamaican,

Russian, and Portuguese.

His speciality is ciphers

and translations and he has

an assessor of all the

departments of G-2. In G-2 he is in charge of training

military attaches. TORRES, who is adventurous and brave, is

100% Communist.

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