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• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP89G01321R000700360012-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 28, 2012
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: March 25, 1988
• Content Type: MISC

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/28
CIA-RDP89GO1321 R000700360012-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/28
CIA-RDP89GO1321 R000700360012-4
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/28: CIA-RDP89G01321 R000700360012-4 STAT
The Washington Post G -s
The New York Times
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
Date
JACK ANDERSON and DALE VAN ATTA
CIA, Cubans in Looking-Glass War
.rr
A quiet war of tit-for-tat has been waged for
nine months between the Central Intelligence
Agency and the Cuban intelligence service,
ever since Fidel Castro learned that one of his top
spies had defected to the United States.
Last June 6, the most important Cuban agent
ever to cross over to the CIA took a car from the
Cuban Embassy in Czechoslovakia and drove to
Vienna, where he surrendered to U.S. diplomats.
He was Maj. Florentino Aspillaga Lombard, 40,
who had worked in Cuban intelligence since he was
15.
Our intelligence sources say Castro "went
bonkers" when he heard that Aspillaga had
defected. But CIA officials also had a reason to go
bonkers. As we reported recently, Aspillaga
brought with him the news that the CIA had been
badly outfoxed by Cuba for more two decades.
According to the defector, nearly every spy
recruited by the CIA in Cuba since the Bay of Pigs
invasion had been a double agent working for
Castro.
With Aspillaga in U.S. hands, Castro decided to
one-up the CIA before it could use the defector's
information. On July 13, a Cuban newspaper printed
the names and pictures of U.S. officials it claimed
were CIA agents operating out of our diplomatic
office there, a U.S. interest section in the Swiss
Embassy in Havana.
U.S. officials, angry over the slap at their
diplomats, retaliated on July 16 by expelling two
Cuban officials from their diplomatic office here, a
Cuban interest section.
Castro wasn't finished. He knew that Aspillaga
knew about the double agents and the false
information those agents had fed the CIA over the
years. So he published stories of a half-dozen
"heroic" Cuban double agents whom he had planted
in the CIA.
The most serious aspect of this underground spy
war is that Aspillaga can reveal the names of 350
Cuban agents abroad. Castro knows that and has
called some of those agents back home rather than
risk their exposure. But to pull them all back would
paralyze Cuban intelligence operations for years.
The CIA has picked up important information
from Aspillaga about the hierarchy of the General
Directorate of Intelligence (DGI). He says it is still
under the control of the Ministry of the Interior.
Department ML of the DGI, headed by Col.
Ramon Oroza, is the most important, employing
about 70 percent of DGI case officers and
gathering political intelligence abroad.
Department MZ, headed by Lt. Col. Enrique
Miguel Cicard, is one of the most secret because it
is responsible for recruiting spies in foreign
countries.
Department MG recruits agents in Cuba,
attempting to "turn" foreign diplomats,
businessmen and ships' captains visiting Havana.
Department MQ is the counterintelligence
division, with the job of stopping the CIA from
penetrating the DGI.
Department MLL provides the technical
gadgetry for the agents.
Page I.
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The New York Times
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
Date
?' JACK ANDERSON and-DALE VAN ATfA
Cuban Defector Impeaches CIA Spies
T he Central Intelligence Agency has been
keeping under wraps an embarrassing Cuban
spy who defected to the United States last
June.
The reason is simple. The spy, Maj. Florentino
Aspillaga Lombard, has told the CIA during
intensive debriefings that nearly every spy the CIA
has recruited in Cuba since the early 1960s has
been a double agent, loyal to dictator Fidel Castro.
Aspillaga headed the Cuban General Directorate
of Intelligence (DGI) staff in their Czechoslovakian
embassy. He left his office in an embassy car on
June 6, drove across the border to Austria and
turned himself over to U.S. diplomats in Vienna.
The U.S. government often trots defectors
around like prizes, but it was weeks before word of
Aspillaga's defection leaked out. And when he was
finally produced in public, it was not to a battery of
journalists, but to the tame questioning of an official
arm of the U.S. government: Radio Marti, the
station that Voice of America beams to Cuba.
What he had to say in those programs was
fascinating, but fluff. The best part was unspoken.
He charged that the Castro regime is corrupt.
He claimed Castro has a $4.2 million Swiss bank
account, that his four children live in luxury in
Moscow, and that Castro has lavish homes in
Cuba's 14 provinces, yachts, and so on.
In a time of housing shortages, Aspillaga said
"hundreds of houses" were confiscated for use by
Castro's security guards and aides in Havana.
The most important scoop from Aspillaga was
not for public consumption. In top-secret
debriefings, he has described in embarrassing detail
the Cuban penetration of the CIA's anti-Castro
operations.
Aspillaga has spilled enough names and dates
that CIA sources know he is telling the truth.when
he says that most of their agents were loyal to
Castro from the beginning or were later turned by
the DGL He maintains this has been the case since
the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961.
Fabricated information from those double agents
was eaten up by the CIA and passed on to
Presidents Reagan, Carter and Ford, according to
our CIA sources. The CIA now must reevaluate its
view of Castro to separate truth from fiction.
By contrast, another Cuban spy who defected nine
days before Aspillaga had the red carpet rolled out.
Gen. Rafael del Pino was allowed to speak at
length in public about Cuba's involvement in
Angola, revealing that 10,000 Cubans had either
died or disappeared in that country.
Del Pino said Cuba had sent 40,000 troops to
-Angola to reduce unemployment, to punish
insubordinate and inferior officers, and to pay back
debts to the Soviets.
Aspillaga's spicy stories about corruption and
high living in the Castro regime are golden
propaganda, too, but if the CIA makes a big deal
out of his revelations, that will give credibility to
Aspillaga's more important news that the CIA was
lead around by the nose by Castro for at least two
decades.
Page 23.
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/28: CIA-RDP89G01321 R000700360012-4
.. -mviun POST
The New York Times
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
STAT
'RICH VA New s - 4ead- e --c
Date /Q RA
Pleased to Oblige
Florentino Aspillaga, 40, fled the
Cuban intelligence service last year
after a quarter-century of service, mak-
ing his way from his post in Czechoslo-
vakia into Austria. Doubt came to
Aspillaga during service in Angola a
decade earlier. He told The Washing-
ton Post: 'I saw how our people were
dying. I wondered, Are we defending
Cuba? What are we defending?' "
Once in the United States, he talked to
the CIA - and the press.
Aspillaga told a by-now-familiar
tale about - the relationship between
Fidel Castro and Manuel Noriega, the
Panamanian hombre the Reagan ad-
ministration has struggled so pitifully
to depose. Apparently Noriega is no
Communist. Instead, his "ideology" is
making money. Cuba and the Soviet
Union have cash, but need U.S. tech-
nology, such as computers.
Noriega can help. Panama's laws
make it easy for Cubans (1) to organize
dummy companies with no apparent
ties to their nation, (2) to order equip-
ment, (3) to trans-ship it to Cuba or the
Soviet Union, and then (4) to fold the
companies. In much the same way
arms from the United States and other
Western countries flow through Pana-
ma to Leninist guerrillas across Latin
America.
Among other Aspillaga revelations:
? Many Cubans recruited by the
CIA remain loyal to their country and
wocfc as double agents. Aspillaga spent
about about a dozen years as boss of
such agents.
? Cuban spies work for the Soviets
in the United States. According to
Aspillaga, most diplomats assigned ei-
ther to the Cuban interests section in
Washington or to the Cuban UN mis-
sion are not diplomats but spies.
Aspillaga covers territory that has
become abjectly familiar. Castro and
Noriega - and the victorious Sandi-
nistas, and the Democratic Congress
- have created for the Reagan admin-
istration a horror that will-haunt future
Presidents. The Reagan administration
is dying of a thousand cuts - some
inflicted with relative honor by avowed
enemies; some by supposed friends.
Now, at this late hour, it can do little
except stand idly by.
Acquiring the technology the Sovi-
ets so desperately seek remains a valu-
able by-product of American impo-
tence. Castro and Noriega are pleased
to oblige.
Page 3 7?
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Defie*
is
"solid catch,'
agencies say
Envoy describes
Castropxo'
He-dd Scoff WPNev . - r-- nl; ' - `,
U.S.Inteffig `f It
go Lombal'd: `.'6d
a "solid catch" with. eX
knowledge about Cuba -t teN-
gence operations in the 'United
States and around the world. ?
officials familiar with U.S. intelli-
gence information said Tuesday.
"He is a real solid catch." said
one of the sources familiar with
recent CIA, FBI and State Depart- The Miami Herald
ment assessments of the 40-year- Wednesday. September 23. 1987
old Azpillaga, who defected June 6
by driving across the border into
Austria from Czechoslovakia,
where he was based.
"We've been told that his infor-
mation is first class," said a
congressional official who had
been briefed recently by CIA
counterintelligence officers.
In an interview broadcast late
Monday by the U.S. government's
Radio Marti, Azpillaga asserted
that President Fidel Castro, ignor-
ing the pleas of his Foreign
Ministry, has packed the Cuban
mission in Washington with Intel-
ligence agents while shutting out
career diplomats.
Azpillaga said Castro has made
the Cuban Interests Section a
centerpiece of his vast spy recruit-
ment network in the United States
- a move that has made the
Foreign Ministry "jealous."
-When Vice President Carlos
Rafael Rodriguez suggested plac-
ing a diplomat at the mission,
Castro warned subordinates to
"stop pestering him with this,"
Azpillaga said. "This brought cer-
tain friction."
Azpillaga described for Radio
Marti a spy recruitment effort in
the United States that has spread
to university campuses and Cuban
exile groups, trying to win the
favor of U.S. journalists, scholars
and others.
Azpillaga has not been made
available to the U.S. press, and
neither the White House nor the
State Department made any com-
ment about the defector or his
allegations.
A spokesman for the Cuban
Interests Section denounced Azpil-
laga's charges as "totally false"
and said the mission's activities // / , we -2)
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/28: CIA-RDP89G01321 R000700360012-4
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/28: CIA-RDP89G01321 R000700360012-4
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/28: CIA-RDP89G01321 R000700360012-4
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/28: CIA-RDP89GO1321 ROOO7OO36OO12-4
`solid catch' for U.S.
Nino Pimentel: Cuban
efforts 'obvious.'
Ex-newsman:
Cuba tried
to recruit me
By JAY DUCASSI
Herald Stall Writer
Cuban authorities never ap-
proached Nirso Pimentel directly
with a request that he work for
the Castro government. but their
Intent to recruit him was "obvi-
ous." the former Miami TV news
director said Tuesday.
Pimentel. 52, now a spokesman
for Metro-Dade's Transit Agency.
found himself a celebrity of sorts
Tuesday when a Radio Marti
broadcast said he was one of the
targets Cuban intelligence has
sought to recruit.
"f realized what their Intentions
were." Pimentel said Tuesday.
As news director of WLTV-
Channel 23, Pimentel flew to Cuba
in 1978 to cover the dialogue that
Fidel Castro sought to establish
with Miami's Cuban exiles.
During the flight from Jamaica
to Havana. Pimentel said. he was
approached by a Cuban official
named Virgilio Lora. .
"He started talking about the
beauties of Cuba. and I thought to
myself. 'I don't want to talk to this
guy,' " Pimentel remembered.
Lora was "very interested" in
details about Channel 23. at the
time Miami's only Spanish-lan-
guage TV station, Pimentel said.
Pimentel said he thought any
direct effort to recruit nim would
come after he had accepted "gifts
and favors" from the government.
So. he said. he never accepted
anything.
Then, sometime in 1985. Lora
dropped in for a surprise visit -
at Pimentel's Southwest Dade
home. At the time, Pimentel was
working as a radio reporter.
Pimentel said he declined an
invitation to have dinner with
Lora. and the consular officer left.
In July. the State Department
ordered Lora and another Cuban
diplomat to leave the country.
Pimentel said there was never
any direct approach by Cuban
officials to give him money in
exchange for Information or for
doing stories favorable to the
Castro government.
"I would never have allowed It."
he said. "But everything was very
obvious."
DIPLOMAT/from IA
are "totally legal."
"We are not involved In any
activity w4tddf at.our~aormal
diplomatic Prxction&" the
spokesman said?"adding that
Azpillaga "Is trying to sell
himself hiRQRrlW:,it
Paying kf
wo a
Information about covert Cebu
operations In the United Stat"
and else en. 1.
Theo said thabiil-
lags had been a major In the
Cuban counterintelligence ser`
vice and served as chief of
intelligence services In Czecho-
slovakia, with a base at the
Cuban Embassy in the capital,
Prague.
Other administration and
congressional. officials said that
at one time in Havana, Azpilla.
ga had been head or a member
of the so-called American tar-
gets unit of the Cuban General
Intelligence Directorate (DGI).
The unit directs efforts to spy
on the U.S. Interests Section In
Havana.
European spymaster?
The congressional official
briefed by U.S. intelligence
officials said Azpillaga also
might have run Cuban agents
based In Western Europe from
Czechoslovakia.
The official said the Czecho-
slovak city of Bratislava. just 35
miles from Vienna. the Austrian
capital. is considered to be a
base for officers who direct
agents operating in Western
Europe and, sometimes, the
United States.
From Bratislava, the source
said. Soviet bloc case. officers
visit Austria to meet with
agents. pass instructions to
them and receive information
from them.
A source close to the Cuban
government said Azpillaga had
been based in Bratislava but
only as a low-level consular
official who "took care of the
consular needs" of Cuban stu-
dents in the area.
With a population of 281.000.
Bratislava is an important oil.
chemical and textile center in
Czechoslovakia where young
Cubans often are trained in
industrial activities. U.S. offi-
cials said.
The officials said that Azpil-
laga also served in Prague.
In his earlier interviews with
Radio Marti. Azpillaga said he
had run Cuban agents in several
countries and that he. was
prepared to identify for U.S.
officials the names of 350
Cuban agents in a number of
countries, including the United
States.
The Cuban also said that he
had' participated In at least 55
counterintelligence operations
against the CIA. working with
double agents, had worked as
chief of Cuban radio counterin-
telligence and had served in
Angola for a year.
On Radio Marti Monday.
Azpillaga said that Cuban Intel-
Ilgence officers did mecb. os
their recruiting through such
organization as Arelto, a mag-
azine sympathetic to, Castro
iL
artists to. Cuba. (The center is
not'related to Mlanti's Institute
for Cuban Studies.)
The claims were hotly denied
by Andrea Gomez, the editor of
Areito.
"I do not know the reasons
why this person who says he is
a major in Cuban intelligence is
saying these things," he said.
"Everything we have done
throughout these years is legal.
I'm sure if it had not been legal.
the U.S. Intelligence service
would have acted a long time
ago.
"This is for political con-
sumption in Miami. No one else
would believe this except peo-
ple in Miami. Two months ago
he would have been regarded as
a criminal by most people in the
Cuban community and the ad-
ministration. Now everything
he says is believed as the
absolute truth."
Shortly after Azpillaga began
airing his allegations through
Radio Marti, U.S. Intelligence
sources told reporters in Wash-
ingtdn that Azpillaga had told
them that a number of Cuban
government officials the CIA
believed were working for the
United States were in reality
Cuban agents who had fed
misleading information to the
CIA.
'More like a cop'
But one former U.S. counter-
intelligence expert warned that
Azpillaga could be misleading
U.S. officials. The expert, who
once held a high level U.S.
intelligence position, said he did
not believe Azpillaga's activi-
ties denoted a high-ranking
Cuban intelligence officer. but
more likely a security specialist
in charge of ensuring the safety
of Cuban diplomats and other
Cuban personnel in Czecho-
slovakia.
"He sounds more like a cop to
me than a major counterintelli-
gence agent," the expert said.
The expert compared Azpilla-
ga to Anatoly Golitsyn, a fa-
mous Soviet defector who
showed up at the home of the
CIA station chief in Helsinki,
Finland, on Dec. 22. 1961.
Golitsyn was later accused of
having been a disinformation
agent of the KGB because he
made often unsubstantiated al-
legations that the CIA and other
Western intelligence services
were riddled with Soviet moles.
Staff writers Lourdes Meluzo
in Miami and R.A. Zaldivar in
Washington contributed to this
report.
WlkIcw.. ocg
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/28: CIA-RDP89G01321 R000700360012-4