CUBAN LOWDOWN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100030012-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 12, 2007
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: August 15, 1976
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

_77CrE App. Approved For Release 2007/06/14: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100030012-8
ON PA GE 1 15 AUGUST 1976
1 J
CUBAN
LO D WM
Central Intelligence Agency di-
rector, George Bush, reported
in a confidential briefing to
presidential candidate Jimmy
Carter that Castro's troops in Angola so far have
suffered more than 3000 casualties.
There will remain between 14,000 and 1.7,000
Cuban troops in Angola, according to Bush. The
number of troops has remained stable because
replacements are ferried in by air by the Soviet
Union, which has assigned 200 Russian pilots and
a flotilla of Soviet cargo planes to the job.
A steady stream of planes maintain daily and
oftentimes hourly communication between Luanda
and Havana, according to Bush.
Castro's sudden Napoleonic complex serves him
many purposes. It not only locks in continued
Soviet support of the tottering Cuban economy
but it removes tens of thousands of Negroes from
Cuba and cuts the surging Negro birth rate there.
Virtually all troops sent to Africa are Negroes;
STAT
the Whites are sta ,o .. , UUMKINg rurit--an-a
coca-cola. At least 500 conscientious objectors who
refused to serve in the Cuban expeditionary force
sent to Angola, however, have been imprisoned.
Many others have tried to escape the island and
a definite increase in refugees from Cuba has
been noted by U.S. authorities.
In addition to Castro's operations in Angola, he
now has "several hundred" advisers and military
technicians in Peru, as well as espionage agents
in virtually every Latin American country, and be
operates several training schools for Puerto Rican
terrorists.
Castro's role as the main ba;e for Soviet naval
operations in the Atlantic cannot be discouzited.
Soviet subs armed with nuclear-tipped missiles
are tethered to Cuban bases an,l the :t:rc>rrulin has
also implanted nuclear rnissiles in a vast network
of concrete undersea silos off the coast.
Approved For Release 2007/06/14: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100030012-8