A RANKING CUBAN DEFECTS TO THE U.S.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000503850001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 29, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503850001-3
ARTICLE EO
ON PAGE' MEW YORK r1h1ES~~ 2
A RANKING CUBAN
DEFECTS TO THE U.S
Man Described as a General
Flies Family to Key West
By NEIL A.YorLEWIS /qtr A -
Ipecal a mle Nev ! 1,mej
WASHINGTON, May 28 -- A man
identifying himself as a high-ranking
Cuban military official defected to the
United States today, flying a small
plane to a Florida naval base, Adminis-
tration officials said.
The Justice Department said the. de-
fector identified himself as Rafael del
Piibs Diaz, the deputy chief of staff of
the Cuban Defense Ministry and for-
mer chief of the Cuban Air Force. The
defector new to the Key West Naval
Air Station with four family members
aboard a military training plane that
he piloted himself, officials said.
"It he is who he says he is, he is the
biggest Intel etch e've ever
had from uba " said a senior Reagan
Administration official:
Believed at Bay of Pigs
According to a researcher at the
Cuban American National Foundation,
a Washington-based research organi-
zation that opposes the Castro Govern-
ment, Mr. del Pilo is a brigadier gen-
eral with the Cuban Air Force and a
combat instructor with its western air
brigade.
The researcher. Jose Cardenas, said
General del Pifw was 47 or 48 years old,
had flown on the side of the Cuban Gov-
ernment at the time of the Bay of Pigs
invasion of 1961 and is believed to have
fought with Cuban forces in Africa. The
researcher said General del Pilo was
the author of "Dawn at Giron, " a book
about the Bay of Pigs.
WQBA, a Spanish-language radio
station in Florida, said General del
fino fought with the Cuban brigade in
the southern African nation of Angola.
If so. this could prove a valuable area
o inte ligence for the Reagan Adminis-
tration.
The Cubans maintain it force of ap-
proximately 30.000 in Angola in support
of the Marxist Government there. The
Reagan Administration has beets
providing military aid to the rebel
group fighting the Angolan Govern-
ment and its Cuban allies.
Interviewed by the F.B.I.
Administration officials said the de-
fector was being interviewed by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. "The
district director of the Immigration
and Naturalization Service has paroled
him into the United States as a matter
of public interest," according to a Jus-
tice Department spokesman.
He was accompanied by his wife, two
daughters and a son, a State Depart-
ment statement said. Administration
officials said the plane would be re-
turned to Cuba shortly.
The last time a Cuban official flew
himself to the United States appears to
have been in 1969, when Lieut. Eduardo
Guerra Jimenez defected to Home-
stead Air Force Base in Florida aboard
a MIG-17 fighter aircraft. Ten years
later, Lieutenant Guerra hijacked a
commercial jetliner that took off from
New York and forced it to fly to Hava-
na.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503850001-3