[News] The CIA File on Luis Posada Carriles
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Wed Jan 12 19:16:02 EST 2011
THE CIA FILE ON LUIS POSADA CARRILES - A FORMER
AGENCY ASSET GOES ON TRIAL IN THE U.S
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 334
By Peter Kornbluh and Erin Maskell
Posted - January 11, 2011
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB334/index.htm
Washington, D.C., January 11, 2011 - As the
unprecedented trial of Cuban exile Luis Posada
Carriles begins this week in El Paso, Texas, the
National Security Archive today posted a series
of CIA records covering his association with the
agency in the 1960s and 1970s. CIA personnel
records described Posada, using his codename,
“AMCLEVE/15,” as “a paid agent” at $300 a month,
being utilized as a training instructor for other
exile operatives, as well as an
informant. “Subject is of good character, very
reliable and security conscious,” the CIA
reported in 1965. Posada, another CIA document
observed, incorrectly, was “not a typical ‘boom and bang’ type of individual.”
Today’s posting includes key items from Posada’s
CIA file, including several previously published
by the Archive, and for the first time online,
the
<http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB334/doc08.pdf>indictment
from Posada’s previous prosecution--in Panama--on
charges of trying to assassinate Fidel Castro
with 200 pounds of dynamite and C-4 explosives (in Spanish).
“This explosive has the capacity to destroy any
armored vehicle, buildings, steel doors, and the
effects can extend for 200 meters
if a person
were in the center of the explosion, even if they
were in an armored car, they would not survive,”
as the indictment described the destructive
capacity of the explosives found in Posada’s
possession in Panama City, where Fidel Castro was
attending an Ibero-American summit in November 2000.
The judge presiding over the perjury trial of
Posada has ruled that the prosecution can
introduce unclassified evidence of his CIA
background which might be relevant to his “state
of mind” when he allegedly lied to immigration
officials about his role in a series of hotel
bombings in Havana in 1997. In pre-trial motions,
the prosecution has introduced a short
unclassified
<http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB334/doc01.pdf>“summary”
of Posada’s CIA career, which is included
below. Among other things, the summary (first
cited last year in Tracey Eaton’s informative
blog,
<http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/>“Along the
Malecon”) reveals that in 1993, only four years
before he instigated the hotel bombings in
Havana, the CIA anonymously warned former agent
and accused terrorist Luis Posada of an assassination threat on his life.
A number of the Archive’s CIA documents were
cited in articles in the Washington Post, and CNN
coverage today on the start of the Posada trial.
“The C.I.A. trained and unleashed a
Frankenstein,” the New York Times quoted Archive
Cuba Documentation Project director Peter
Kornbluh as stating. “It is long past time he be
identified as a terrorist and be held accountable as a terrorist.”
Posada was convicted in Panama in 2001, along
with three accomplices, of endangering public
safety; he was sentenced to eight years in
prison. After lobbying by prominent
Cuban-American politicians from Miami, Panamanian
president Mireya Moscoso pardoned all four in
August 2004. A fugitive from justice in Venezuela
where he escaped from prison while being tried
for the October 6, 1976, mid air bombing of a
Cuban jetliner which killed all 73 people on
board, Posada showed up in Miami in March 2005.
He was arrested on May 17 of that year by the
Department of Homeland Security and held in an
immigration detention center in El Paso for two
years, charged with immigration fraud during the
Bush administration. Since mid 2007, he has been
living on bail in Miami. In April 2009, the Obama
Justice Department added several counts of
perjury relating to Posada denials about his role
in organizing a series of hotel, restaurant and
discotheque bombings in 1997. Since mid 2007, he
has been living on bail in Miami
According to Kornbluh, “it is poetic justice that
the same U.S. Government whose secret agencies
created, trained, paid and deployed Posada is
finally taking steps to hold him accountable in a
court of law for his terrorist crimes.”
----------
Read the Documents
<http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB334/doc01.pdf>Document
1: CIA, Unclassified, “Unclassified Summary of
the CIA’s Relationship With Luis Clemente Posada Carriles,” Undated.
This unclassified summary of the relationship
between Luis Posada Carriles and the CIA, which
was provided to the court by the US Justice
Department, says the CIA first had contact with
Posada in connection with planning the Bay of
Pigs invasion in 1961. He remained a paid agent
of the CIA from 1965-1967 and again from
1968-1974. From 1974-76, Posada provided
unsolicited threat reporting. (Additional
documents introduced in court show that he
officially severed ties with the CIA in February
1976.) According to this document, the CIA last
had contact with Posada in 1993 when they
anonymously contacted him in Honduras by
telephone to warn him of a threat to his life.
(This document was first cited last year in
Tracey Eaton’s informative blog,
<http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/>“Along the Malecon.”)
<http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB334/doc02.pdf>Document
2: CIA, "PRQ Part II for AMCLEVE/15," September 22, 1965.
"PRQ Part II," or the second part of Posada's
Personal Record Questionnaire, provides
operational information. Within the text of the
document, Posada is described as "strongly
anti-Communist" as well as a sincere believer in
democracy. The document describes Posada having a
"good character," not to mention the fact that he
is "very reliable, and security conscious." The
CIA recommends that he be considered for a civil
position in a post-Castro government in Cuba (codenamed PBRUMEN).
<http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB288/posada3.pdf>Document
3: CIA, Cable, "Plan of the Cuban Representation
in Exile (RECE) to Blow Up a Cuban or Soviet
Vessel in Veracruz, Mexico," July 1, 1965.
This CIA cable summarizes intelligence on a
demolition project proposed by Jorge Mas Canosa,
then the head of RECE. On the third page, a
source is quoted as having informed the CIA of a
payment that Mas Canosa has made to Luis Posada
in order to finance a sabotage operation against
ships in Mexico. Posada reportedly has "100
pounds of C-4 explosives and some detonators" and
limpet mines to use in the operation.
<http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB288/posada1.pdf>Document
4: CIA, Memorandum, "AMCLEVE /15," July 21, 1966.
This document includes two parts-a cover letter
written by Grover T. Lythcott, Posada's CIA
handler, and an attached request written by
Posada to accept a position on new coordinating
Junta composed of several anti-Castro
organizations. In the cover letter, Lythcbtt
refers to Posada by his codename, AMCLEVE/I5, and
discusses his previous involvement withthe
Agency. He lionizes Posada, writing that his
''performance in all assigned tasks has been
excellent," and urges that he be permitted to
work with the combined anti-Castro exile groups.
According to the document, Lythcott suggests that
Posada be taken off the CIA payroll to facilitate
his joining the anti-Castro militant junta, which
will be led by RECE. Lythcott insists that Posada
will function as an effective moderating force
considering he is "acutely aware of the
international implications of ill planned or over
enthusiastic activities against Cuba." In an
attached memo, Posada, using the name "Pete,"
writes that if he is on the Junta, "they will
never do anything to endanger the security of
this Country (like blow up Russian ships)" and
volunteers to "give the Company all the intelligence that I can collect."
<http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/19720417.pdf>Document
5: CIA, Personal Record Questionnaire on Posada, April 17, 1972.
This "PRQ" was compiled in 1972 at a time Posada
was a high level official at the Venezuelan
intelligence service, DISIP, in charge of
demolitions. The CIA was beginning to have some
concerns about him, based on reports that he had
taken CIA explosives equipment to Venezuela, and
that he had ties to a Miami mafia figure named
Lefty Rosenthal. The PRQ spells out Posada's
personal background and includes his travel to
various countries between 1956 and 1971. It also
confirms that one of his many aliases was "Bambi Carriles."
<http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB334/doc06.pdf>Document
6: CIA, Report, "Traces on Persons Involved in 6
Oct 1976 Cubana Crash," October 13, 1976.
In the aftermath of the bombing of Cubana flight
455, the CIA ran a file check on all names
associated with the terror attack. In a report to
the FBI the Agency stated that it had no
association with the two Venezuelans who were
arrested. A section on Luis Posada Carriles was
heavily redacted when the document was
declassified. But the FBI retransmitted the
report three days later and that version was
released uncensored revealing Posada's relations with the CIA.
<http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB334/doc07.pdf>Document
7: CIA, Secret Intelligence Report, "Activities
of Cuban Exile Leader Orlando Bosch During his
Stay in Venezuela," October 14, 1976.
A source in Venezuela supplied the CIA with
detailed intelligence on a fund raiser held for
Orlando Bosch and his organization CORU after he
arrived in Caracas in September 1976. The source
described the dinner at the house of a Cuban
exile doctor, Hildo Folgar, which included
Venezuelan government officials. Bosch was said
to have essentially asked for a bribe in order to
refrain from acts of violence during the United
Nations meeting in November 1976, which would be
attended by Venezuelan President Carlos Andres
Perez. He was also quoted as saying that his
group had done a "great job" in assassinating
former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier in
Washington D.C. on September 21, and now was
going to "try something else." A few days later,
according to this intelligence report, Luis
Posada Carriles was overheard to say that "we are
going to hit a Cuban airplane" and "Orlando has the details."
<http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB334/doc08.pdf>Document
8: First Circuit Court of Panama, “Fiscalia
Primera Del Primer Circuito Judicial De Panama:
Vista Fiscal No. 200”, September 28, 2001.
This lengthy document is the official indictment
in Panama of Luis Posada Carriles and 4 others
for the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro
at the 10th Ibero-American Summit in November
2000. In this indictment, Posada Carriles is
accused of possession of explosives, endangerment
of public safety, illicit association, and
falsification of documents. After traveling to
Panama, according to the evidence gathered, “Luis
Posada Carriles and Raul Rodriguez Hamouzova
rented a red Mitsubishi Lancer at the
International Airport of Tocumen, in which they
transported the explosives and other devices
necessary to create a bomb.” (Original Spanish:
“Luis Posada Carriles y Raul Rodriguez Hamouzova
rentaron en el Aeropuerto Internacional de
Tocumen de la referida empresa el vehículo marca
Mitsubishi Lancer, color rojo, dentro del cual se
transportaron los explosives y artefactos
indicados para elaborar una bomba.”) This bomb
was intended to take the life of Fidel Castro;
Castro was to present at the Summit on November
17th, and what Carriles had proposed to do
“wasn’t easy, because it occurred at the Summit,
and security measures would be extreme.”
(Original Spanish: “lo que se proponía hacer no
era fácil, porque ocurría en plena Cumbre, y las
medidas de seguridad serían extremas.”)
After being discovered by agents of the
Explosives Division of the National Police, they
ascertained that “this explosive has the capacity
to destroy an armored vehicle, buildings, steel
doors, and the effects of an explosive of this
class and quality can extend for 200 meters.”
Additionally, “to a human, from a distance of 200
meters it would affect the senses, internal
hemorrhages, and if the person were in the center
of the explosion, even if they were in an armored
car, they would not survive
the destructive
capacity of this material is complete.” (Original
Spanish: “Este explosivo tiene la capacidad de
destruir cualquier carro blindado, puede destruir
edificios, puertas de acero, y que la onda
expansiva de esta calidad y clase de explosive
puede alcanzar hasta 200 metros
Al ser humano,
sostienen, a la distancia de 200 metros le
afectaría los sentidos, hemorragios internos, y
si la persona estuviese en el centro de la
explosion, aunque estuviese dentro de un carro
blindado no sobreviviría
la capacidad destructive de este material es total.”)
The indictment states that when Posada was “asked
about the charges against him, including
possession of explosives, possession of
explosives that endanger public safety, illicit
association, and falsification of documents
he
expresses having fought subversion against
democratic regimes along several fronts,
specifically Castro-sponsored subversion.”
(Original Spanish: “Preguntado sobre los cargos
formulados, es decir Posesión de Explosivos,
Posesión de Explosivos que implica Peligro Común,
Asociación Ilicita, y Falsedad de
Documentos
Expresa haber combatido en distintos
frentes la subversión contra regimens
democráticos, ‘quiero decir la subversión castrista.’”)
Posada and his accomplices were eventually
convicted of endangering public safety and
sentenced to 8 years in prison. He was pardoned
by Panamanian president, Mireya Moscosa, after
only four years in August 2004 and lived as a
fugitive in Honduras until March 2005 when he
illegally entered the United States and applied for political asylum.
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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