MEMO RE JORGE AJBUSZYC VOLSKY.
Agency: CIA
Originator: CIA
From: MEMO FOR THE RECORD
To: WITHHELD
Document date: 02/14/1977
Document type: PAPER - TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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JFK ASSASSINATION SYSTEM

IDENTIFICATION FORM

AGENCY INFORMATION

AGENCY : CIA

RECORD NUMBER

: 104-10103-10109

RECORD SERIES

AGENCY FILE NUMBER

80T01357A

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

AGENCY ORIGINATOR : CIA

FROM : WITHHELD

TO : MEMO FOR THE RECORD

MEMO RE JORGE AJBUSZYC VOLSKY.

: 02/14/1977

Released under the John

F. Kennedy

Assassination Records

Collection Act of 1992

144 USC 2107 Notel.

Case#:NW 53294 Date:

06-13-2017

SUBJECTS : CUBA

WITHHELD

CASTRO, FIDEL

VOLSKY

SZULC, TAD

DOCUMENT TYPE : PAPEF

CLASSIFICATION : SECRET

RESTRICTIONS

CURRENT STATUS RELEASED IN PART PUBLIC - RELEASED WITH DELETIONS

DATE OF LAST REVIEW

: 07/21/93

: JFK36 : F16 : 1993.07.21.18:32:03:120470

[R]

- ITEM IS RESTRICTED

104-10103-10109

HH 53294

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14 February 1977

MEMORANDUM

SUBJECT: Jorge Ajbuszyc VOLSKY (AMTRUNK-1) (201-352252)

aka George VOLSKY, Zeray VOLSKI, "Chico"

1. VOLSKY, a Cuban citizen of Polish origin, reads,

speaks, and understand Spanish, English, Pölish, German,

Russian and French. He resided in Poland from birth in 1921

to 1939 following studies at Krakow University. He then

reportedly served in the Royal Air Force Polish Group, spent

time in a Russian prison in the 1940's then enlisted in the

Polish Air Force Service under the British Operational Command.

(VOLSKY provided conflicting information concerning this aspect

of his background.)

2. While in London at the end of WW II VOLSKY developed a

pen pal relationshipwith a Cuban girl residing in Cuba. He

allegedly was discharged from the Polish Air Force Service in

1947 at his own request. Unable to obtain a visa for Cuba, he

obtained one for Ecuador. In transit to Ecuador he stopped off

in Cuba, obtained permission through friends to remain in Cuba

and within a year married his pen pal girl friend. He reportedly

owned his own business in Havana, described as a publicity

office named, Dekora Studio S.A., from 1947 until he came to

the U.S. in May 1961. During

residence in Cuba he travelled

frequently to the.U.s.

and Jamaica. He was avidly pro-CASTRO

and publicly said that the future of the world is socialistic.

He allegedly was arrested and imprisoned for a few weeks

following the Bay of Pigs invasion, but was released and

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allowed to leave Cuba because he had a valid U.s. visa in

his passport.

3. Upon arrival in Miami on 22 May 1961, VOLSKY visited

Paul BETHEL, a friend and former Press Attache of

the U.s.

Embassy in Cuba, who was

a suspected informant for the CASTRO

regime

At that time BETHEL was in charge of the Miami Office

of USIA

and contracted VOLSKY to edit a VOA program. (BETHEL

was employed by JMWAVE Station from October through December

1961(as a writer-analyst for a detailed analysis of the overt

Cuban press, on a trial basis, but was terminated following

a Headquarters assessment that his reports contained nothing

not already available through regular established sources.

4. As the result of VOLSKY's cultivation in Cuba of

American journalists, in particular Tad SZULC, VOLSKY had

influence with certain elements of the American press, especially

the New York Times and The Washington Post. VOLSKY and SZULC

had a close relationship in Washington and Miami, were in

touch periodically by phone and personally, and conversed in

Polish. VOLSKY was a source of information for SZULC and

evidently influenced his thinking, manifested in a book written

by SZULC entitled The Cuban Invasion -- The Chronicle of a

Disaster, which was particularly critical of CIA, not only

concerning its failure at Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs), but details

of many other aspècts of CIA.

5. In August 1962 SZULC arranged an interview in Washington

for VOLSKY with Richard N. GOODWIN, advisor to President KENNEDY.

SZULC claimed that he had had a standing invitation for direct

2

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contact with President KENNEDY and others in the White House

on Cuban matters since November 1961. During the missile

crisis, in October 1962, VOLSKY had contact with Major Manuel

PINEIRO Losada, Chief of the DGI, the Cuban external service.

6. In late 1962 VOLSKY devised a plan to split the

CASTRO regime. SZULC got the State Department and the White

House to buy it, and it was referred to CIA for consideration.

Because SZULC's opinions carried weight with the Administration

he sat in on State/CIA meetings concerning the plan. His

influence is believed to be the primary reason the plan was so

quickly adopted by CIA. In 1963, a State Department official

in Miami was a frequent visitor of VOLSKY and kept him informed

of State Department affairs.

7. VOLSKY's contacts in Miami included a Raul CHIBAS

Rivas, member of the executive committee of JURE (Junta

Revolucionaria Cubana - Cuban Revolutionary Junta) a Cuban exile

organization. (CHIBAS, an early idol of Fidel CASTRO, defected

to the U.S. in 1960 and was suspected by the FBI of being a

CASTRO plant in the U.S.Jf In March 1963 JURE created an intelli-

gence group to infiltrate agencies of the U.S. Government. A

JURE official, named Jose AGUIAR, was making a list of CIA

agents and their assigned tasks for JURE files and VOLSKY

assisted him. On 6 June 1963 the head of JURE arrived in Miami

from Puerto Rico, contacted CISNEROS of the executive board

of JURE, and ordered that no further attacks be made on the

U.S. Government as he was to talk to Robert KENNEDY in Washington

3

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the following day. On 27 June 1963 RAY returned to Miami

from Washington, went directly to JURE offices, held a meeting,

and said that he had gained more from his Washington contacts

in the last month than he had in the

two previous years. He

later had a conversation with VOLSKY that lasted over a half

hour. On 18 July 1963 RAY said that CIA agents are more

dangerous than the KENNEDY Administration as the Administration

will end but CIA agents

always stayed and their memory is

longer than that of elephants; they never forget or forgive.

In January 1964 JURE completed plans to send youths to all

Latin American universities to lecture concerning CIA betrayal

of U.S. policy. On 8 January 1964 a source reported that

VOLSKY diverted refugees from contacting or reporting any

information to CIA by informing them that CIA was the enemy

of the Cubans who wanted to fight CASTRO. In 1964 VOLSKY was

a stringer for the Washington Bureau of The Times which is

believed to have been a special SZULC-engineered deal.

8. Other Government Agencies' Knowledge of VOLSKY:

a. USIA - VOLSKY was cleared in December 1961 for

"unlimited purchase order use" as a writer. (This is the

category of a stringer.) He apparently had no access to

classified information.

b. IGNS - In 1965 IGNS requested name checks on

VOLKSY and his son. A SPECIAL - PRIVATE BILL had been

submitted to grant VOLSKY U.S. citizenship. Unfortunately

the CIA response on VOLSKY senior was "N.D." (no derogatory)

4

ЗЕСЛЕТ

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which obviously was not a true statement. VOLSKY

became a naturalized U.S. citizen on 10 April 1969.

c. FBI - An FBI report of January 1974 re Orlando

BOSCH Avila, indicates that VOLSKY, of the New York

Times, was collecting money from Cuban doctors on

behalf of BOSCH. On 14 August 1974, the Miami Station

provided the Miami FBI Office comprehensive traces on

VOLSKY, in response to a July 1974 FBI request, for

any action the Bureau deemed necessary. Miami Station

advised the FBI that the Agency had not conducted any

investigation, and that the information included in the

trace was in Agency files because at the time of

collection it was considered foreign intelligence.

9. Attached is a comprehensive CI study of VOLSKY pre-

pared by a JMWAVE Station analyst in 1964, from which the

information in this memorandum was taken. The analyst specu-

lated that VOLSKY's knowledge of clandestine methods of opera-

tions, together with his Russian prison: background and. his

ingenuity as a middleman in U.S. Government/CIA activities,

made him an excellent candidate for a Communist penetration

agent, and that the possibility existed that he might be a

singleton, sleeper, or stringer for the RIS. Further, that if

that theory proved false, VOLSKY violated his USIA position by '

reporting to JURE and damaging the U.S. and CIA by his propa-

ganda programs.

IAD/JIG TaSk Force 1977/elipe Acereão, IN

Copy filed:

201-352252

5

Attachment: l

UFGA- 17410,

1904

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