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With respect to Cuba: Is Obama Guileful, Duped or a


Dim Bulb?

By Jerry Brewer

An interview with Pedro Riera Escalante, a former Cuban


spymaster now living in exile, as regards to U.S.-Cuba
dtente

On July 1, President Barack Obama formally announced that the United States and
Cuba have agreed to open embassies in each others capitals.
President Obama stated, This is a historic step forward in our efforts to normalize
relations with the Cuban government and people and begin a new chapter with our
neighbors in the Americas.
He continued to say that, later this summer Secretary (John) Kerry will travel to Havana
formally to proudly raise the American flag over our embassy once more. He did
acknowledge somewhat contritely that, Not everyone is on board with the U.S.-Cuba
thaw.

In announcing his own trip, Secretary of State John Kerry stated: This will mark the
resumption of embassy operations after a period of 54 years. It will also be the first visit
by a Secretary of State to Cuba since 1945. The reopening of our embassy, I will tell
you, is an important step on the road to restoring fully normal relations between the
United States and Cuba. Coming a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War, it
recognizes the reality of the changed circumstances, and it will serve to meet a number
of practical needs.
While this controversial hype on establishing a new era in U.S.-Cuba relations sounds
promising, there is much history and a factual basis to believe that the players in this
agreement may have easily duped each other and created a false sense of security by
quite possibly ignoring the intelligence and true motives of a knee-jerk and intentionally
weak quid pro quo agreement.
Perhaps much of this navet and public doubt can simply relate to John Kerrys recent
remarks, when he said that, The resumption of full embassy activities will help us
engage the Cuban government more often and at a higher level, and it will also allow
our diplomats to interact more frequently, and frankly more broadly and effectively, with
the Cuban people.
The decades of oppression and violence, as well as civil and human rights violations, by
Cubas Castro regime against its people, plus the failed economic system and misery
caused by forced Communist doctrine, can most certainly create sincere doubt that the
Cuban citizenry will not continue to be intensely controlled and monitored. Nor will the
door to capitalism see the light of day on the distressed island, as evidenced by the
record of documented statements by both of the Castro brothers on these subjects.
A U.S. embassy on the island will be a convenient means for Cubas aggressive and
savvy security apparatchik and spy services to keep close tabs on issues of interest,
and to isolate and contain U.S. diplomatic movement by intense overt security and
covert tradecraft.
Pedro Riera Escalante served the Castro regime as part of Cuban intelligence for nearly
24 years (1969-1993); in Mexico City, under the guise of a diplomat, from 1986-1991.
Riera was the Group Chief of Section Q-1, in charge of operations against the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
He was placed there, at the highest level of Fidel Castros government, via the head of
the General Directorate of Intelligence, or DGI (today Directorate of Intelligence, DI),
General of Division Luis Barreiro Carames; and after a proposal by Brigadier General
Matos Ezequiel Suarez, 2nd Chief of Intelligence for foreign counterintelligence.

Riera told this interviewer: I was sent to develop and implement the same methodology
that was developed for the recruitment of CIA officers, which had been approved as the
official doctrine for (Soviet/Cuban) Intelligence.
Riera eventually denounced the Fidel Castro dictatorship and was imprisoned. He
called for a shift towards respect for human rights and democracy, before, during and
after his sentence to prison in Cuba. His revelations of his orders from Cuba, and his
actions in the secret war that has pitted Cuba versus the U.S. for decades in intelligence
and espionage tradecraft, reveal a continuing process of Cuban subversion in this
hemisphere.
Brewer: What was the mission and importance of the Cuban DGI intelligence service
during the period of your service?
Pedro Riera Escalante (PRE): The first priority of the DGI, from 1969 through 1993,
was penetration and opposition to the United States government and the CIA.
In my opinion it continues right now. The United States was always considered the
main enemy, and the policy of Fidel Castro was to maintain, at all costs, the
confrontation and to prevent normalization of relations, this insofar as having a powerful
foreign enemy served Castro to justify his economic failures and his foreign policy of
supporting guerrilla movements in other countries.
At one of the previous times, when they were close to the resumption of relations with
Cuba, during the administration of Gerald Ford, Castro in late 1975 broke off [talks] due
to the Cuban military intervention in Angola. In 1977, with the entry of Cuban troops in
Ethiopia, again the process that was developing with Jimmy Carter ground to a halt.
During the Reagan administration Cubas military expansion accelerated in Angola,
Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and El Salvador.
The facts prove that during most of the years since 1959 the policy of Cuban military
intervention in different parts of the world has been the principal obstacle for the
normalization of relations between the two countries.
Now, thanks to President Obama closing his eyes to Cuban intervention in Venezuela
and internal repression against democratic opponents and dissidents in Cuba, what has
been conceded completely is that the United States has accomplished the restoration of
diplomatic relations.
In all those years the mission of the DGI, until 1968, was to train [and] support
guerrillas and urban guerrilla movements materially and politically in most countries
where they existed.

From 1968 to 1975, the Department of National Liberation was separated from the DGI
[and] charged with support to guerrillas in different parts of the world, under the
command of Comandante Manuel Pieiro.
The missions of the DGI, with respect to the United States from 1969 to 1989, were
developed by three sub-leaderships and military intelligence, they being charged with
penetrating the United States government, first the State Department, embassies,
universities, media, [and] diplomatic mediums in Washington and New York. In 1985, it
may have been (Cubas military intelligence) that recruited the U.S. Defense Intelligence
Agency official, Ana Belen Montes.
[Two DGI] sectional departments, Q-1 and Q-2, [were] in charge of work against the
CIA. The first with three directorates, subdivided into sections: penetration of CIA
headquarters by infiltration or the introduction of agents recruited at universities and
directed to join the CIA; penetration in third countries; [and] harassment operations
dedicated to propaganda and psychological war against the CIA, therein a fundamental
pillar was the former CIA officer and Cuban intelligence agent Philip Agee, who died in
2008.
There were also other former officers, like John Stockwell, the ex-chief of station of the
CIA in Angola during the war; [and] Phil Roettinger, a CIA officer who played an
important role in Guatemala in 1954, who died in 2002.
Following instructions from Cubas leadership, I contacted Phil Roettinger during my
time in Mexico approximately between the years 1988-1990, and traveled to the city of
San Miguel de Allende and visited him at home in order to coordinate his activities and
a trip to Cuba with a group of senior officials of the CIA and the armed forces,
supporters of improving relations with Cuba.
Since the 80s the DGI had two important programs to influence government policy of
the United States towards Cuba. () The Section responsible for the United States was
directed to contact, recruit and use State Department officials, journalists and prominent
personalities in different mediums in order to exert influence actions on the United
States government in favor of improving relations with Cuba.
Moreover, Section Q-1 was in charge of harassment [and] directed to denounce CIA
plans and reveal the identity of CIA officers through the actions of Philip Agee and his
publication Covert Action and a group of disgruntled CIA officers who travelled to Cuba
and took action or did publications favorable to the interests of Cuban Intelligence.
[Several] wrote books revealing information, means and methods of the CIA, violating
their contracts with the CIA, which were used in some manner by Philip Agee or the
DGI, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously.

I attended to Philip Agee in Cuba during the years 1974 and 1975, to advise and
support him in developing his book Inside the Company: CIA Diary, and later I
contacted him in late 1989 when his book became the centerpiece of the Moncada
operation, aimed at recruiting the secretary of the CIAs deputy chief of station [in
Mexico City]. [Information from that first contact] revealed data on the most important
counterintelligence operation carried out by the Station in order to recruit a Cuban
intelligence officer; the facts I knew subsequently allowed me to verify that the
information was true and the operation continued, and finally allowed intelligence heads
to take preventive measures with the implicated Cuban intelligence officers.
Double agent Donato Poveda located in the Office of Merchant Marines in Tokyo in
1974-1976 provide misinformation to the CIA on troops and military equipment being
transported on Cuban civilian ships into battle in the war in Angola.
BREWER: How much of this was the doctrine of Russia and their collaboration?
PRE: They developed and initiated special espionage tradecraft and operations for
Cuban officials with access to information from interests of the CIA located in Cuban
missions abroad that were directed so that the CIA would recruit [them] to misinform,
know their means and methods, and study and engage officers that they attended in
order to recruit them. In early 1976 I received the task to draft the first tradecraft
methodology for the DGI, for which I was provided records of all tradecraft developed
empirically or with basic past concepts; advice from the KGB was an important leg-up in
the work, we considered Soviet Intelligence our teachers.
Colonel Victor, Section Chief of tradecraft of the KGB, along with Colonel Pavel
Yatzcov, lectured me several times on Soviet methodology. From the notes I took
during these conferences, and analyses of the four most important [operations]
developed to that date by Cuban intelligence, in Japan, Spain and Mexico. I compiled
the first methodology. The first two successes of the new methodology were the
projections and recruiting so that the CIA would recruit [two] agents.
The CIA harassment work developed with Philip Agee was prepared in coordination and
with the support of the KGB.
BREWER: What do you think of the mutual opening of embassies between Cuba and
the U.S.?
PRE: First of all, the reciprocal opening of embassies benefits the Cuban government
and hurts the Cuban peoples struggle for the democratization of the country. It can
benefit U.S. sectors and entrepreneurs interested in the Cuban market. But by no
means is this opening and the development of tourism going to produce an impact that
helps the democratization of the country, insofar as what the government has done has

been to intensify repression, which is going to increase its income and strengthen it in
order to be able to repress better.
And I want to point out that this statement is made not because I believe the embargo
should continue, and that relations should not be normalized. I have always been in
favor of these, but with conditions that guarantee the Cuban people will truly benefit and
on a base of real democratic opening and not one of trickery.
Fidel Castro and Raul have said in years past that, when the hostile policy of the
United States would end and relations normalized, the relationship could bring about
openings in Cuba, but none of this has happened. To the contrary, repression has
intensified, they have changed their ways of great trials and convictions to brief
detentions, but all of the repressive system continues intact and will be strengthened in
order to have total control over the new North American diplomats that arrive in the
country.
BREWER: Do you think that Cuban espionage will proliferate in the US with their new
embassy on U.S. soil?
PRE: As is known, espionage is a state policy, and it will continue, they might be more
careful, but it will be perfected.
Moreover, in recent years the degree of penetration of Cuban intelligence within the US
government is very high. As well, I am convinced that after years the fruits of dozens of
agents who were recruited while studying at universities in order to later penetrate the
CIA and the State Department must have harvested fruits. When I contacted the CIA in
Mexico in 1999 and 2000, to seek political asylum, the CIA counterintelligence officials
were convinced that they had a spy within the CIA and it was not the case of Ana Belen
Montes in the Defense Intelligence Agency.
My opinion is that Ana Belen Montes was used in a very risky way, putting her life at
risk in order to exert favorable influence towards Cubas in the US government, but Ana
Belen did not belong to the CIA.
All those agents within the US government and the CIA should have provided valuable
information so that Raul Castro would have firsthand information and impose his
principles in the negotiations with Obama.
BREWER: Do you think Cuba will end/curtail surveillance/monitoring of the new US
embassy in Cuba?
PRE: Of course the current monitoring will be increased. All Cuban personnel now
working in the Interests Section work for Cuban State Security. All housing for officials
may have microphones and other devices installed. All records of refugees that have

been and are being processed are first reviewed by Cuban personnel who are security
agents that [give] detailed information to officials.
BREWER: Is Cubas mission in Venezuela a threat to the US and Venezuela, and
other democracies in the Americas?
PRE: The Government of Venezuela is acting in full coordination with the Cuban
government. Its repressive bodies and armed forces are under the control of Cuban
officials. Venezuela is not a danger to the United States today, but it could become one;
in these times it is a government in a situation that poses a danger for having brought
the nations economy to crisis, and it is losing more popular support on a daily basis.
They have established a very effective repressive system to weaken the opposition and
impede them from reaching government office. Castro will guarantee oil and revenue in
Venezuelan dollars at all costs; supporting these with all his intelligence resources in
order to keep President [Nicolas] Maduro in power, or the generals who remain loyal to
Castro in case of crisis.
The danger to the United States is how far will it allow the Cuban government and
Cuban intelligence in Venezuela to continue giving orders to repress its people; in this
lies the danger. As well, how far will Maduro go in his military alliance with Russia?
BREWER: Any comments or warnings to the U.S. on this diplomatic interaction
between the U.S. and Cuba?
PRE: The image and foreign policy of the United States have apparently improved, with
President Obama defining his new policy of establishing relations and rejecting the
politics of aggression and pressure that were ineffective; and his position against
the embargo.
Obama has acted in accordance with Castro and his interests, but against the
legitimate interests of the Cuban people, the facts will demonstrate that the Castro
regime will not stay in power forever, and in the present and future it will show that this
regime will not change its dictatorial essence as long as the Castro brothers are in
power, even while the United States has changed its policy and even eliminated the
embargo.
Obama, apparently, must have been tranquilized by Raul Castros promise that he will
not continue to rule when his current mandate ends, but he will guarantee that his may
persist even after, like what happened in China after the death of Mao; and with normal
relations with the US, the struggle of the Cuban people for freedom and democracy will
be more repressed, difficult and painful.

I am confident that the US Congress will make the best decisions, so that the embargo
will be lifted only after Raul Castro eliminates the embargo on the rights and freedoms
of the Cuban people. The embargo was unproductive and it was an erroneous policy
that punished the Cuban people, but after so much time it would be more erroneous and
more punishing on the Cuban people to suspend it without Raul Castro making a real
democratic opening in Cuba.

Jerry Brewer is CEO. of Criminal Justice


International Associates, a global threat mitigation
firm headquartered in northern Virginia. His website
is located at cjiausa.org BREWER Published archives
TWITTER: CJIAUSA

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