COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN: DESTABILIZATION IN THE CARIBBEAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100190003-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 60
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: September 1, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Number 10 ?August-September 1980
Exclusive in This Issue:
CIA MANUAL ON DEEP COVER
$2.00
INFORMATION BULI~TIN
DESTABILIZATION
IN THE
CARIBBEAN
Maurice Bishop of Grenada
Walter Rodney of Guyana
Michael Manley of Jamaica
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Editorial
This is the largest issue of the CovertAction InTormation
Br/lG~tin ever published, with some of the most interesting
and informative material we have ever brought to our
readers. At the same time, for reasons which may be famil-
iar to friends, we are somewhat behind schedule. Several
recent events have unfortunately diverted our energies.
house. As the photograph we reproduce here shows, how-
ever, the bullet holes were in the side of a concrete wall by
the house's garage. Then there was the alleged grenade.
Initial reports mentioned a hole "the size of a basketball" in
the front lawn. Others said it was "the size of a grapefruit."
`JVhatever it was, it was a small hole in the ground dozens of
yards from the house. What is more, no grenade fragments
were found. It might have been the efforts of a dog to bury
a bone!
The comprehensive article in this issue, "Massive Desta-
bilization in Jamaica," covers fully the activities on that
island which led to our on-the-scene investigation, cul-
minating in a press conference at which we divulged the
nam~;s of fifteen CIA people in the U.S. Embassy in Kings-
ton. As we have "named names" for several years, and
done complete analyses of individual stations before as
well (for example, "Room 705, U.S. Embassy: The CIA
Station in Madrid," in CRIB Number 4), we were not
prep;trc;d for the incredible scenario which followed.
Two days after the press conference, when we had all left
the island, reports appeared that there had been a shooting
and ~t ttombing at the: home of the man we had named as
ChieFof Station, N. Richard Kinsman. Initial reports were
replete with inaccuracies, and as we discovered the "attack"
was duestionable to say the least.
The first inaccuracy was the report that the incident
occurred two days after Kinsman had been exposed. He
was, in fact, exposed in CA/BNumber 6, in October 1979,an
exposure which was well covered in the Jamaican media at
the time. Initial reports also expressed relief that the bullets
missed Kinsman, his wife and daughters. It then developed
that the wife and children were not home that night, and
subsequent investigators expressed some doubt that Kins-
man himself was at home. Reports also circulated that the
bullets had whistled through one of the bedrooms of the
To cap everything off, it turned out that both Mr. Kins-
man and his maid, who was sleeping in a room at the rear,
did not hear anything. Mr. Kinsman, amazingly enough,
Bullet Marks on Wall of Kinsman Garage
CONTENTS
Ediltarial
2
Cuban Exiles and "Refugees"
35
Overview: The Caribbean
Ma~~sive Destabilization in Jamaica
4
7
Book Review: "The Spike"
Special Supplement:
36
Guyana: The Faces Behind the Masks 18
The Principles of Deep Cover
45
Vicious Bombing in Grenada
26
Naming Names
55
Strange Activities on Antigua
32
Publications of Interest
60
The "Elections" in Dominica
33
CorertAction /n(ormalion Bu//erin, Number 10, August-September 1980, published by Covert Action Publication. Inc., a District of Columbia
Nonp rofi[ Corporation, P.O. Box 50272, Washington, DC 20004. Telephone: [phone]. All rights reserved; copyright ~` 1980, by Covert Action
Publications, Inc. Typography by Art fi~i People, Washington, DC; printing by Focu/rr Press, Brooklyn, NY. Washington staff: Ellen Ray, William
Schaap, Louis Wolf. Boaird of Advisors: Philip Agee, Ken Lawrence, Karl Van Meter, Elsie Wilcott. Jim Wilcott. The Co1'CrIA('/IUIt /n/i,nnatiun
Bu!/erin is available at many bookstores around the world. Write or call for the store nearest you. Inyuirics from distributors and subscription services
welcome.
Number 10 (Aug.-Sept. 1980)
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did not call the police the following morning; he called the
right-wing opposition newspaper, the Gleaner. Neighbors
ultimately called the police.
We were, and are, convinced that the incident was a
phoney. It may never be proved that the CIA staged the
incident, but it was the most helpful thing for them that has
happened in years. Just as the Welch assassination in
Athens in 1975 brought the Church Committee investiga-
tion of the CIA to a complete standstill, the Kinsman
incident instantly created a wave of sympathy for the CIA,
a barrage of attacks against CRIB, and renewed efforts in
Congress to ban this magazine.
identified an agent in the valid and necessary reporting of
events or in the course of a legitimate study of the CIA."
They went on: "Let us look at laws that might get at them,
but let us not in the process compound the damage they
do."That is, get CRIB, but don't get the New York Times.
In a press conference we called, and in numerous letters
we wrote, we reiterated once again what we had said from
the first day such laws were proposed. Since CRIB does
not obtain the names of CIA officers under diplomatic
cover from classified sources, there is no law that could
"get" us that would not also "get" the NeH~ York Times and
everyone else.
The invective was chilling. Members of Congress came
close to calling us murderers; cub reporter Cord Meyer,
Jr.-perhaps "retired" from his twenty-five years in the
CIA-called us KGB agents in his syndicated column.
Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, speaking of Louis Wolf,
said simply, "I want him put away." The move to pass the
Intelligence Identities Protection Act was revived with a
vengeance.
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act
The most serious threat, not merely to the Bulletin, but
also to freedom of the press, investigative journalism, and
reform of government abuses here in the United States, is
the so-called Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The
Bills (H. R. 5615 in the House of Representatives and S.
2216 in the Senate) criminalize the disclosure of "informa-
tion that identifies" any covert agent of the United States.
Covert agent is defined to include all undercover employees
of the CIA and all undercover foreign intelligence em-
ployees of the military and of the FBI, and any of their
"agents," "informants," or "sources of operational assist-
ance."This includes virtually anyone, U.S. citizen or for-
eigner, who has had any unpublicized relationship with the
U.S. intelligence complex. Moreover, and most impor-
tantly, the Bills are not limited to the disclosure of classi-
fiedinformation. The portions of the Bills which deal with
former government employees who did have access to
classified information identifying covert agents, and who
disclose that information, will have the effect of stifling
"whistleblowers," people within government who seek to
halt abuses. But the unprecedented danger of the Bills lies
in the admitted atempt, for the first time in U.S. history, to
criminalize the analysis and publication by private citizens
of information gathered from unclassified sources.
When the hysterical rush to pass the Bills into law began
in early July, editorial writers jumped on the bandwagon
without thinking. The New York Times, the Washington
Star, the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, and many others
hastened to prove their patriotism by calling for the pas-
sage of the Act. Deference to the First Amendment, to
freedom of the press, was muted. "It's a ticklish task," the
Bulletin admitted, but "we hope Congress can draft a law
that will provide our agents with the carefully defined
protection they need." The New York Times was more
direct., if' also more egotistical: "A law that would punish
Mr. Wolf for publishing secret names in his CovertAction
Information Bulletin could also punish a newspaper that
Number 10 (Aug.-Sept. 1980)
The establishment press shed some of their delusions of
sanctity and began to see the point. The NeH? York Times
actually reversed its stand: "So long as they aren't caught
using secrets that Mr. Agee learned at the agency, or
stealing secret documents, they are free to guess at the
identities of agents and to publish their speculations in
newsletters." The Washington Post agreed: "To the extent
possible, the CIA can remove from the public domain the
materials that permit a Louis Wolf to operate. Beyond
that, however, ...his mischief cannot be the cause of an
abridgment of the freedoms that the population as a whole
enjoys."
The Congress went to extradordinary lengths to draft a
law aimed at CAIB. The key language of the House version
criminalizes one who, "in the course of an effort to identify
and expose covert agents with the intent to impair or
impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United
States, discloses with the intent to impair or impede the
foreign intelligence activities of the United States ...any
information that identifies a covert agent." The Senate
version penalizes one who, "in the course of a pattern of
activities intended to identify and expose agents and with
reason to believe that such activities would impair or
impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United
States discloses .any information that identifies an
individual as a covert agent." The Senate defined pattern
of activities as "a series of acts with a common purpose or
objective."
It is obvious that the contorted language is an attempt to
give the law the appearance of being a threat only to CA 18.
But, as the more astute observers noted, the language is so
vague and so slippery that it could be applied to almost any
investigative journalist. A "series of acts" could be two
stories on Watergate. One person's intent to reform could
be another's intent to impair. An effort to stop unlawful
activity in Angola could be considered an effort to impede
foreign intelligence activities.
We do not care that the Times calls us "contemptible
scoundrels;" that the Star calls us "facile anti-Americans;"
that the Post calls us makers of "ugly mischief." (It is
ironic, of course, that all of these publications, as well as
the networks and the major newsweeklies, have come to us
for help whenever they wanted to know who the CIA
personnel in a certain country were.) What concerns us isthe
apparent apathy on the part of leading investigative jour-
nalistsand their publishers. Some of our friends are simply
scolding us, saying that we are making life difficult for
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them. It would be much easier for them if we did not
publish the magazine. Then Congress would not be
attempting, unconstitutionally, to ban it. This is the same
argument that was made to us when we were planning the
publication of "Dirty Work." People said that if we pub-
lished abook with a list of the names of CIA officers,
Congress might try to make that illegal. Wonderful, we
resp~~nded; if we didn't publish the book, they wouldn't
even have to try. The point is that journalists, publishers,
and X11 civil libertarians should be screaming against these
Bills. I~or the first time ever, Congress is contemplating
pass ing an Official SE;crets Act, trying to make it a crime to
publish something which isn't secret in the first place.
We should make it clear that we don't intend to break
this ~~r any other law. If the Bills are passed we will imme-
diatf~ly challenge them in the courts and ask that they be
decl~~re;d unconstitutional. We will continue to publish
CA l B regardless; if we must temporarily suspend the Nam-
ing Flames column during the court battle we will. But we
don't think we should have to reach that stage. Everyone
who realizes the dangers of these Bills must let their repre-
sentatives in Congress know.
We remain convinced that the Caribbean is one of the
most crucial areas in the struggle between reaction and
progress. The United States government admits that it is
one of the major "trouble spots" in the world, but does not
expl~iir- why the Caribbean is viewed in that light. Events in
Jamaica, Grenada, Nicaragua, El Salvador and elsewhere
make: clear that the c~ra of the Somozas and the Gairys is
endi~ig. The days when U.S. multinationals ran countries,
not merely companies, are numbered.
W e present an in-depth review of the events in Jamaica,
as forces in the U.S. government desperately try to topple
Mictiaf;l Manley's government of democratic socialism.
We reprint in full the stirring speech which Maurice Bishop
gave to the people of Grenada hours after the unsuccessful
attempt on his life. W e also publish an analysis of events in
Guyana over the past several years, as the regime of Forbes
Burnham advances from repression to outright terrorism,
culminating in the murder of Dr. Walter Rodney.
The Caribbean:
AN OVERVIEW
by Samori Marksman
Rum and reggae-rhythms, calypso and coke, beaches
and bongo-drums, hot-sun and hedonism.... By now the
average North American is already familiar with these
standard depictions of "the Caribbean reality." Unfortun-
ately, however, life for the overwhelming majority of Car-
ibbean people is far from pleasureful. These "nativistic,"
tropical-paradise images are more figments of a tourist
imagination than true reflections of the day-to-day rigors
of human survival in these poor, undeveloped Third-
World societies. Had this misperception also been perva-
sive among U.S. government officials, then those Carib-
bean patriots who are merely seeking to rearrange their
societies to provide basic human needs for their people,
would not be faced with the degree of U.S.-engineered
intrigue and sabotage against their respective efforts that
we are witnessing today.
The real "Caribbean realities" are very much on the
minds of those who formulate U.S. policy for the region.
Recent political changes in Grenada and Nicaragua, the
social leanings of the People's National Party of Jamaica,
the potential for radical social change in El Salvador and
Guyana, and the success of the Cuban revolution are all
studied and perceived in Washington as "threats to the
national security of the United States of America." And
U. S. reaction to these changes has been swift and vicious-
sometimes naked and ugly-as in Guyana, beginning with
the CIA's toppling of the Jagan government, the installa-
tion of the Burnham regime, up to the recent assassination
of Dr. Walter Rodney; in Cuba, with the "permanent plot"
of assassination, economic strangulation, and political de-
stabilization against the government; and recently, in
Grenada, with the attempted assassination of that coun-
try's entire leadership.
Several other articles report on events in Antigua,
Dorr~inica, Florida and elsewhere, as they relate especially
to the activities of the U.S. intelligence complex. We also
presf:nt: Fred Landis's comprehensive review of "The
Spike,"with a detailed analysis of the massive disinforma-
tion campaign led by Robert Moss.
Finally, we include a Special Supplement with an aston-
ishing document, the CIA training manual, "The Princi-
ples of Deep Cover."' This manual reached CAIB anony-
mou~~ly, but we have investigated it, and are convinced that
it is genuine. We believe it makes extremely important and
interesting reading.
4 CovertAction
At times U.S. reaction has been much less overt, more
sinister, as in the CIA's protracted campaign of destabiliza-
tionagainst the government of Jamaica's Michael Manley;
the application of the strategy of "new-diplomacy," that is,
deploying a younger, "more hip," more physically attrac-
tive corps of diplomats to the region; offering liberal sums
of money and special training programs to trade union
leaders from the region; or acts of economic destabilization
via U.S.-based or U.S.-controlled transnational lending
institutions, such as the U.S. Agency for International
Development, the International Monetary Fund, the Car-
ibbean Development Bank and so on.
Samori Marksman is a.journalist in New York Cit ti~, and Chairperson of
the Caribbean People's Alliance.
Number 10 (Aug.-Sept. 1980)
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Why Such Hysteria in Washington?
The reaction of the U.S. and other North Atlantic gov-
ernments toprogressive changes in the Caribbean, changes
which take some of these states onto a path of non-capital-
ist development, could, perhaps, be explained on two lev-
els: 1)The "natural"systemic reaction, that is, the reaction
of the capitalist bloc to what it perceives as contradictory
tendencies within its "own" historic hemisphere-of-influ-
ence; and 2) The strategic reaction to what the North
Atlantic bloc perceives as "an intrusion" by the Soviet
Union into their traditional domain.
In neither case are those factors pertaining to the human,
social and historic desires and interests of the Caribbean
people themselves taken into account.
Foremost is the desire to assume full responsibility for
determining their own destiny. To be able to feed, clothe,
shelter and develop themselves. And to work alongside all
decent human beings to bring about a more humane global
order.
Washington these days pertaining to the "new communist
threat" in the Caribbean and, therefore, the need for the
U.S. government to "become involved" in countering this
threat, one might be misled into thinking that active U.S.
intervention in this area is a new development.
U.S. interventionist policies date back to the eighteenth
century when George Washington, while in the process of
trading Black slaves from the North American mainland-
in exchange for rum in Barbados-- attempted to under-
mine British authority over the island. It evolved with U.S.
military/ merchant fleets and traders competing fiercely
with the Spaniards, Dutch, French and English for mo-
nopoly of the slave traffic and control of markets and
contested territories such as Haiti and Cuba.
In 1823, with the introduction of the hegemonistic Mon-
roe Doctrine, U.S. authorities now had "legitimate"
grounds to lay claim and domination over the Americas,
including the Caribbean.
U.S. de facto colonization of Cuba after the so-called
"Spanish-American War" and the subsequent seizure and
colonization of Guantanamo and Puerto Rico is now
common knowledge.
The Caribbean islands are not economic monstrosities
poised to devour the capitalist metropolis. They do not
have multi-billion dollar trade surpluses with Western Eu-
rope and North America. They do not (with the exception
of Trinidad) possess any known, large quantities of oil or
natural gas. Nor do they own or control transnational
lending institutions and industrial conglomerates.
These are basically poor, undeveloped, agricultural
economies which do not perceive the primary contradic-
tion inthe world today as that of "East vs. West" but rather
as one between the advanced North Atlantic capitalist
countries of the so-called "First World" on the one hand,
and those of the underdeveloped "Third World" on the
other. In other words, they perceive it as a "North vs.
South" contradiction.
In the smaller islands which make up the Eastern Carib-
bean Common Market (Antigua, Dominica, Grenada,
Montserrat, St. Lucia, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, and St.
Vincent), the magnitude of their poverty is staggering
and is exacerbated further by their almost total dependen-
cy upon foreign financial support. Local consumption (in
many cases) absorbs in excess of 100% of the Gross Domes-
tic Product. Which means that virtually all investments are
financed by external sources. Even the state (public) sec-
tors of these economies rely upon external sources for no
less than 85% of their investment capital. Many of these
primitive economic circumstances are not dissimilar to
those existing in the "more developed" Caribbean states of
Jamaica, Guyana and Barbados. The economic conditions
and their negative social spin-offs are, for the most part,
colonial inheritances handed down by the capitalist Eu-
ropeanstates and later (after independence) aggravated by
the avaricious economic and political policies of the U.S.,
Canada, the U.K., and France toward the region.
If one is to believe the policy utterances coming from
It established a military base at Chagaramus on the
island of Trinidad. It overturned a popular regime and
installed aright-wing dictatorship in Guatemela in 1954. It
invaded Cuba in 1961, the Dominican Republic in 1965,
sent military ships to Trinidad and Tobago in 1970 to quell
"See any foreigners around here?"
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a popular uprising, .and U.S.-based corporations set up
milit,ir:y installations in Antigua and Barbados in the mid-
1970's, and used thf;ir facilities in Antigua to tranship
milit,iry hardware to the fascist regime in South Africa.
And, more recently, iiirect U.S military assistance to Bar-
badosand other islands have become an integral part of its
new :strategy for the region.
"Nothing to Lose"
The prevalance of unemployment rates over 50%among
adult workers in most of the territories (over 75%among
the youth), primitive health facilities (where they exist),
high illliteracy rates, non-existent Social Security pro-
grams, cave-age developmental "strategies," and regimes
which see their role as that of state watchmen for expatriate
financial interests, on yserve as politic?a/mobilizing factors
-around which the workers, youth, peasants, declasses
and revolutionary intelligentsia can-and are rallying.
And i n those territories where these forces have rallied and
orgariiz.ed to redress these conditions, the statal and para-
statal gendarme machinery, trained and equipped by U.S.,
Canadian, British and French police and intelligence agen-
cies,unleash their brutal repression against the people-as
was seen in Grenada. under Gairy, in Nicaragua, Haiti,
Trini~jad and Tobago and elsewhere.
Thy tide of radial social change currently surging
through the Caribbean basin is, unfortunately, seen by
U.S. ~ruthorities through eyes blinded by neo-Kiplingesque
paternalism and afflicted by Soviet/Cuban phobia. One
example is that after the social and economic devastation
left behind in Grenada from years of being in the eye of
what the Grenadians knowingly call "Hurricane Gairy,"a
devastation which the courageous leadership of the New
Jewel Movement is attempting to correct, U.S. authorities
have only been able to come forward with paternalistic
counsel: "Don't establish relations with Cuba ... or else!"
"Don't deal with East European and Arab countries!"
"Don't go to the Non-Aligned Summit Conference!" etc.;
and pocket change: a few $5,000.00 "development" pro-
jects. Yet the changes in Grenada are seen as "Soviet and
Cuban expansionism," the fulfillment of the Kremlin's
manifest destiny.
Regrettably, this view is shared by many leftists and
academicians in North America. Some irresponsibly and
piously sling "analytical" terms and descriptions of the
emerging progressive Caribbean states--"Bonapartist,"
"surrogate states," etc.-which only serve to splinter, con-
fuse and weaken international support for these popular
movements and strengthen reaction. Others-betraying a
sense of eternal faith in imperialism's "good side" and who
subscribe to the theory ofinfra-bourgeois-party ambidex-
terity-sit and wait, lethargically. for "progressive ele-
ments"within the dominant, explicity pro-imperialist par-
ties in the U.S., Canada, U. K., and France to rise and
implement new policies.
The mortal reality in the Caribbean today is that a
profound, dynamic, mass-based revolution is taking place
throughout the region. U.S.-led counterrevolution in the
area is equally widespread. "Stop Jamaica before it's too
late," "Don't let Grenada provide an example," "Stifle
Cuba," are strategies all in full operation. North Ameri-
cans, especially U.S. citizens who profess a sense of inter-
nationalgoodwill and concern for humanity, must view it
as their duty and responsibility to call a halt to their gov-
ernment'sand some private institutions interference in the
internal affairs of Caribbean countries whose people arc
crying out: "We are more than beaches ... v