General Intelligence Directorate
Encyclopedia
The Intelligence Directorate is the main state intelligence agency of the government of Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

. The DI, under the big umbrella of the MININT, was founded in late 1961 by Cuba's Ministry of the Interior shortly after the Cuban Revolution
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...

. The DI is responsible for all foreign intelligence collection and comprises six divisions divided into two categories, which are the Operational Divisions and the Support Divisions. Manuel "Redbeard" Piñeiro
Manuel Piñeiro
Manuel Piñeiro Losada , known as Barba Roja , was a Cuban political and military figure, a leading character of the Cuban Revolution, as the first head of Fidel Castro's security apparatus...

 was the first director of the DI in 1961 and his term lasted until 1964. Another top leader who directed the famous office, located on Linea and A, Vedado, was the now retired Div. General, Jesus Bermudez Cutiño. He was transferred from being the Chief of the Army Intelligence ( DIM ) to the Ministry of Interior, because of the big shake-up due to the Ochoa-Abrantes affair in 1989. The current head of the DI is Brig. General Eduardo Delgado Rodriguez. The total number of people working for the DI is about 15,000.

Recruiting Techniques

New recruits do research within the Ministry, mostly on counter-intelligence
Counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence or counter-intelligence refers to efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent hostile or enemy intelligence organizations from successfully gathering and collecting intelligence against them. National intelligence programs, and, by extension, the overall defenses of...

 fields (which has its own five years career academy) and also, over regular college students, who are recruited around the second year on their programs. Those students mostly study languages, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, communications and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

. Once they get their diplomas, they undergo several months of official intelligence training, and a year or so after, they receive the rank of lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

.

KGB relationship

The relationship between the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

's KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...

 and the Cuban DI was complex and marked by times of extremely close cooperation and times of extreme competition. The Soviet Union saw the new revolutionary government in Cuba as an excellent proxy agent in areas of the world where Soviet involvement was not popular on a local level. Nikolai Leonov
Nikolai Leonov
Nikolai Sergeyevich Leonov is a Russian nationalist politician and was a senior KGB officer and Latin America expert in the USSR. In 1953, at the age of 25, Leonov was posted to Mexico City, where he learned Spanish at the Autonomous University. In the course of the sea voyage, he met Raúl Castro,...

, the KGB Chief in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

, was one of the first Soviet officials to recognize Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

's potential as a revolutionary and urged the Soviet Union to strengthen ties with the new Cuban leader. Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 saw Cuba as having far more appeal with new revolutionary movements, western intellectuals, and members of the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...

 with Cuba's perceived David and Goliath
Goliath (Bible)
Goliath , جليات Ǧulyāt ) known also as Goliath of Gath is a figure in the Hebrew Bible . Described as a giant Philistine warrior, he is famous for his combat with the young David, the future king of Israel...

 struggle against US imperialism. Shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...

 in 1963, Moscow invited 1,500 DI agents, including Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...

, to the KGB's Moscow Center for intensive training in intelligence operations.

Dismayed by Cuban debacles in Zaire
Zaire
The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...

 and Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

 as well as a perceived growing independence from Moscow, the Soviets sought a more active role in shaping the DI. In 1970 a team of KGB advisors led by General Viktor Semyonov was sent to the DI to purge it of officers and agents considered anti-Soviet by the KGB. Manuel Piñeiro
Manuel Piñeiro
Manuel Piñeiro Losada , known as Barba Roja , was a Cuban political and military figure, a leading character of the Cuban Revolution, as the first head of Fidel Castro's security apparatus...

, becoming increasingly upset at the co-optation of the DI by the Soviets, was removed during the 1970 purge and replaced with the pro-Soviet José Méndez Cominches as head of the DI. Semyonov also took this opportunity to oversee a rapid expansion of the DI's western operations. By 1971, 70% of the Cuban diplomats in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 were actually DI agents and proved invaluable to Moscow after the British government's mass expulsion of Soviet intelligence officers.

In 1962, the Soviet Union opened its largest foreign SIGINT site in Lourdes
Lourdes SIGINT Station
The Lourdes SIGINT facility, located near Havana, Cuba, was the largest facility of its kind operated by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service or FIS, outside of Russia. Located less than from Key West, the facility covered . Construction began in July 1962...

, Cuba, approximately 30 miles (50 km) outside of Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...

. The Lourdes facility is reported to cover a 28 square mile (73 km2) area with 1,000-1,500 Soviet and later solely Russian engineers, technicians, and military personnel working at the base. Those familiar with the Lourdes facility have confirmed that the base has multiple groups of tracking dishes and its own satellite system, with some groups used to intercept telephone calls, faxes, and computer communications, in general, and with other groups used to cover targeted telephones and devices. http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/c80_04.htm

The Soviets also collaborated with the DI to assist Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 defector Philip Agee
Philip Agee
Philip Burnett Franklin Agee was a Central Intelligence Agency case officer and writer, best known as author of the 1975 book, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, detailing his experiences in the CIA. Agee joined the CIA in 1957, and over the following decade had postings in Washington, D.C., Ecuador,...

 in the publication of the Covert Action Information Bulletin.

Operations abroad

Throughout its 40-year history the DI has been actively involved in aiding leftist movements, primarily in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

, Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

. There have also been allegations that Cuban DI agents interrogated US POWs held at the Cu Loc POW camp in North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...

.

Chile

Shortly after the election of Salvador Allende
Chilean presidential election, 1970
A presidential election was held in Chile on 4 September 1970. A narrow plurality was secured by Salvador Allende, the candidate of the Popular Unity coalition of leftist parties...

 in November 1970, the DI worked extremely closely to strengthen Allende's increasingly precarious position . The Cuban DI station chief Luis Fernandez Oña married Allende's daughter Beatriz, who later committed suicide in Cuba.

Grenada

Shortly after a popular bloodless coup in Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...

, led by Maurice Bishop
Maurice Bishop
Maurice Rupert Bishop was a Grenadian politician and revolutionary who seized power in a coup in 1979 from Eric Gairy and served as Prime Minister of the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada until 1983, when he was overthrown in another coup by Bernard Coard, a member of his own...

, the Cuban DI sent advisors to the island nation to assist the new government. The DI was also instrumental in convincing the Soviet Union to aid Grenada, aid which Grenadian General Hudson Austin
Hudson Austin
Hudson Austin is a former general in thePeople's Revolutionary Army of Grenada. After the killing of Maurice Bishop, he formed a military government with himself as chairman to rule Grenada.-History:...

 called essential to the success of the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

 anti-imperialist movement. The DI coordinated 780 Cuban engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

s and intelligence operatives.

Nicaragua

Beginning in 1967 the DI had begun to establish ties with various Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

n revolutionary organizations. The Soviets were upset at what they saw as Cuba upstaging the KGB in Nicaragua. By 1970 the DI had managed to train hundreds of Sandinista guerrilla leaders and had vast influence over the organization. In 1969 the DI had financed and organized an operation to free the jailed Sandinistan leader Carlos Fonseca
Carlos Fonseca
For the Brazilian boxer with the same name see Carlos Fonseca .Carlos Fonseca Amador was a Nicaraguan teacher and librarian who founded the Sandinista National Liberation Front...

 from his prison in Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

. Fonseca was captured shortly after the jail break, but after a plane carrying executives from the United Fruit Company
United Fruit Company
It had a deep and long-lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries. Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the...

 was hijacked by the Sandinista National Liberation Front
Sandinista National Liberation Front
The Sandinista National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas in both English and Spanish...

 (FSLN), he was freed and allowed to travel to Cuba.

DI chief Manuel Piñeiro commented that "of all the countries in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

, the most active work being carried out by us is in Nicaragua".

The DI, with Fidel Castro's personal blessing, also collaborated with the FSLN on the botched assassination attempt of Turner B. Shelton, the US ambassador in Managua
Managua
Managua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is the largest city in Nicaragua in terms of population and geographic size. Located on the southwestern shore of Lake Xolotlán or Lake Managua, the city was declared the national capital in...

 and a close friend to the Somoza
Somoza
The Somoza family was an influential political dynasty who ruled Nicaragua as an hereditary dictatorship. Their influence exceeded their combined 43 years in the de facto presidency, as they were the power behind the other presidents of the time through their control of the National Guard...

 family. The FSLN managed to secure several hostages exchanging them for safe passage to Cuba and a one million dollar ransom.
After the successful ousting of Anastasio Somoza
Anastasio Somoza Debayle
Anastasio Somoza Debayle was a Nicaraguan leader and officially the 73rd and 76th President of Nicaragua from 1 May 1967 to 1 May 1972 and from 1 December 1974 to 17 July 1979. As head of the National Guard, he was de facto ruler of the country from 1967 to 1979...

, DI involvement in the new Sandinistan government expanded rapidly. An early indication of the central role that the DI would play in the Cuban-Nicaraguan relationship a meeting in Havana on 27 July 1979, at which diplomatic ties between the two countries were re-established after over 25 years. Julián López Díaz, a prominent DI agent, was named ambassador to Nicaragua.

Cuban military and DI advisors initially brought in during the Sandinistan insurgency, would swell to over 2,500 and operated at all levels of the new Nicaraguan government. Sandinista defector Alvaro Baldizón confirmed that Cuban influence in Nicaragua's Interior Ministry (MINT) was more extensive than was widely believed at the time, and Cuban "advice" and "observations" were treated as though they were orders.

Puerto Rico

The DI sought to aid the growing Puerto Rican separatist movement.
Dr. Daniel James testified before a U.S. Senate Subcommittee that the DGI, working through Filiberto Ojeda Ríos
Filiberto Ojeda Ríos
Filiberto Ojeda Ríos was the commander-in-chief of the Boricua Popular Army , a clandestine paramilitary organization that considers United States rule over Puerto Rico to be oppressive colonization and advocates the latter's independence.Ojeda Ríos was a...

, organized and trained the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN) in 1974. In October 1974, Ojeda was arrested and charged with terrorist acts against American hotels in Puerto Rico. Authorities found a substantial amount of Cuban government documents and secret codes in his possession. Shortly after his release on bail he disappeared but was credited with the 1979 unification of Puerto Rico's five principal terrorist groups into the Cuban-directed National Revolutionary Command (CRN).

According to the former chief investigator of the U.S. Senate, Alfonso Tarabochia, the DGI began directing criminal activities in Puerto Rico and the eastern and midwestern United States as early as 1974. That June, the secretary general of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party
Puerto Rican Socialist Party
The Puerto Rican Socialist Party was a Marxist and pro-independence political party in Puerto Rico seeking the end of United States of America control on the Hispanic and Caribbean island...

, Juan Marí Bras
Juan Mari Brás
Juan Mari Brás was an advocate for Puerto Rican independence from the United States who founded the Puerto Rican Socialist Party...

, met in Havana with Fidel Castro to consolidate party solidarity.

Beginning in September 1974, the incidence of bombings by Puerto Rican extremists, particularly the FALN, escalated sharply. Targets included U.S. companies and public places. The FALN was responsible for a bombing that killed four and wounded dozens at the historic Fraunces Tavern
Fraunces Tavern
Fraunces Tavern is a tavern, restaurant and museum housed in a conjectural reconstruction of a building that played a prominent role in pre-Revolution and American Revolution history. The building, located at 54 Pearl Street at the corner of Broad Street, has been owned by Sons of the Revolution in...

 in lower Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 on January 25, 1975. Later that year, Fidel Castro sponsored the First World Solidarity Conference for the Independence of Puerto Rico in Havana.

Ríos was killed by the FBI on Friday, September 23, 2005 in a rural village in the town of Hormigueros, Puerto Rico.

Camp Mantanzas

Camp Mantanzas is a training facility operated by the DI and is located outside Havana since early 1962. It has hosted the likes of Carlos the Jackal
Carlos the Jackal
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez , better known as Carlos the Jackal, is a Venezuelan pro-Palestinian currently serving a life sentence in France for shooting to death two French secret agents and a Lebanese informer in 1975....

.

External links

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