By Philip Agee
Part Two (Cont.)
Quito 11 May 1963
Today a sensational new case has solved at least some of the recent bombings
and kept the city in a commotion all day. It started just after midnight this morning when four terrorists (two from URJE) hailed a taxi, overpowered and
drugged the driver, tied him up and placed him in the trunk. The terrorists then
drove around town passing various embassies where they intended to throw the
bombs they were carrying—along with a quantity of weapons and ammunition.
Because of recently increased police protection at the embassies, however, they
decided against the bombings. Just after dawn the driver regained consciousness
and after slipping out of his ropes managed to open the trunk of the taxi. The
terrorists saw him escaping but he got away and went for the police.
Major Pacifico de los Reyes took charge of the case. The terrorists panicked
and drove to the edge of town where they tried to escape on foot up the volcano
that rises on one side of Quito. The manhunt during the day caused widespread
alarm and exaggerated fears in Quito but eventually the terrorists were captured.
They have already confessed to various recent bombings and armed robberies,
through which they were raising funds to finance guerrilla operations. Most
sensational of all, however, is that their leader is Jorge Ribadeneira of Santo
Domingo guerrilla fame and another member is Claudio Adiego Francia, the
Argentine who was arrested in 1961 for training URJE members.
We didn't know about this new Rivadeneira group, and I've told de los Reyes
to try to determine if there is any connection between them and the Echeverria
group.
Quito 17 May 1963
Major de los Reyes has arrested Francia but Ribadeneira is still in hiding. He
has also arrested Echeverria and Carlos Rodriguez, Echevarria's chief lieutenant
for Indian affairs, but they protested their innocence and he had to let them go.
Propaganda play on the case is sensational, with photographs of the weapons and
ammunition spread all across the newspapers. Dean wants to press ahead with
propaganda exploitation of every possible case: Layedra, da Cordova, this one—
also the current trips of Araujo, Roura and Flores. Somehow Arosemena has got
to be forced into taking repressive action.
It's too soon to be sure but perhaps a change of policy is already under way.
Today Pablo Maldonado's Immigration Service denied passports to ten young Ecuadorians who have scholarships to 'study' in Cuba. I've given Maldonado this
type of information before but this is the first time he has taken strong action and
it may work. The students asked for passports saying they were only going to Mexico (where they would arrange visas and onward travel). The protests have
already started and we shall see how long del Hierro, Maldonado's superior, takes
to weaken.
Quito 19 May 1963
Roura's hooked! Juan Sevilla, ‡ Minister of the Treasury, called me this
morning to advise that Roura arrived at the airport and was discovered to be
carrying 25,000 dollars in cash. Carlos Rendon, Sevilla's personal secretary, was
at the airport and made the body search, and right now Roura is being held
incommunicado by the police with the money impounded. I suggested to Sevilla
that he add to the sensation of the case by starting a story that Roura was also
carrying false documents, compromising papers and other similar material. This
is going to be a big one.
***
Jorge Gortaire ‡ was back here in Quito a couple of days ago. He has
finished his trip to the military garrisons in the south and on the coast—making
several long delays through breakdowns. He's going to write up a complete report
back in Ambato, but he said there is very considerable disgust with Arosemena in
the military commands. If it weren't for Reinaldo Varea, in fact, there would be
nothing to keep the military leaders, once they got organized, from forcing
Arosemena's resignation. For now they see nothing to do because they still
favour constitutional succession. Varea is still the fly in the ointment, because the
junk swindle led to so much ridicule of the military. All the officers with whom
Gortaire spoke seriously are concerned about communist infiltration in the
government and preparations for armed action, but something more serious will
have to happen before they begin to move against Arosemena. So we must keep
up the pressure, exploiting every case to the maximum through propaganda
media and political-action agents. On Varea, Dean is considering whether or not
to ask him to resign, with encouragement in the form of a generous termination
bonus, but he hasn't decided.
Quito 21 May 1963
The Roura case is headlines—super sensational! Everyone in the country is
talking about it. Jaime del Hierro has taken charge and is keeping up the
suggestions about 'compromising documents'. He told the press that Roura's
documents are more important than the money and relate to recent reports from
the US that Che Guevara is leading guerrilla-warfare planning for several South
American countries including Ecuador. The documents are also said to include a
'secret plan' for guerrilla warfare and terrorism in Ecuador.
Last night del Hierro asked me if I could get someone in Washington to
determine whether the bills are counterfeit because the Central Bank experts here
believe they're real. I suppose he and his friends. want to keep the money, so I
cabled headquarters to see what can be done.
Del Hierro's action puzzles me somewhat because of his sudden enthusiasm.
Perhaps Sevilla is pushing him hard because he was responsible for the arrest, yet
del Hierro still refuses to give the go-ahead on interrogation of the Cuban, July
da Cordova Reyes.
Quito 23 May 1963
Del Hierro is getting worried because the press and others keep urging him
for the compromising Roura documents. There aren't any, of course, and now
Roura's lawyers are beginning to move. Nevertheless both del Hierro and Sevilla
are keeping the publicity going by calling the Roura case an example of the
importation of foreign ideology to enslave the country. Del Hierro is also citing
the case of the ten students who were refused passports as another example of
falsification of documents for travel to Cuba for guerrilla-warfare training.
Yesterday Sevilla's secretary, who made the airport arrest, said in a press
statement that the Roura documents include instructions on how to organize a
Marxist revolution, how to intensify hatred between classes, and how to organize
campesinos and salaried agricultural workers.
Yesterday del Hierro ordered the arrest in Guayaquil of the local
correspondent of the New China News Agency, whose press carnet was in
Roura's pocket when he arrived. The correspondent only returned from Europe a
few days ago, and his trip must have been related to Roura's.
Roura's defence began yesterday with publication of a statement that shows
he is worried about repercussions from Saad and the PCE leadership in
Guayaquil. He defended having the money, saying that he had been invited to
London by Gouzi Shudian (International Bookstore of Peking) and that his trip
was sudden and without authorization of the PCE. Because of recent
confiscations by the government of material purchased for sale in his bookstore,
Roura said, he had obtained 25,000 dollars for a printing shop to reproduce the
materials provided by Gouzi Shudian. From London he went to Peking, he said,
and he denounced the confiscation of his notes on visits to communes and other
sites.
No doubt Roura will end up in terrible trouble with the PCE—possibly even
expulsion like Ribadeneira. More important, his arrest will drive the wedge
deeper between the Saad and the Echeverria groups. What a ridiculous cover
story.
Quito 24 May 1963
Roura has had a bad day all around. He made his formal declaration to the
court alleging that he discussed the new printing facility in Peking with one Chan
Kung Wen. The money, however, was given to him, so he said, in Berne on his
return by someone named PoI Fo. We're checking these unlikely names with
headquarters—Roura's imagination knows no bounds.
Roura's lawyer also had a session before the Council of State (the highest
body for appeal against government violation of personal liberties) which refused
Roura's plea for liberty and took under advisement Roura's charges against
Sevilla and del Hierro for violating the Constitution. Now he'll have to stand trial
on the basis of the 'documents' and the money. We'll have plenty of time to
fabricate appropriate documents for del Hierro to use against Roura but first
we're working on something else.
John Bacon, the Station Reports Officer, and I suggested to Dean that we
prepare an incriminating document to be used against Antonio Flores Benitez—to
be planted on Flores when he arrives at the airport. There's a chance, of course,
that he'll come overland from Colombia or that he'll arrive in Guayaquil, but
Dean likes the plan and asked us to go ahead. The document will appear to be
Flores's and Echevarria's own report to the Cubans on the status of their
organization and on their plans for armed action. We are describing what we know about the organization, filling in with imagination where necessary, on the
basis of the information from the ECWHEAT telephone tap and reports from
Cardenas and Vargas, our two best penetrations of the Echeverria group. We are
emphasizing (for propaganda afterwards) Flores's penetration agents in the
Ministry of Defense, Army communications, the presidential bodyguard and the
presidential archives. We are also planning to mention relations with Araujo's
group and Gonzalo Sono Mogro, who seems to be training a separate
organization in explosives and weapons.
Quito 26 May 1963
It has been a busy weekend. Bacon and I finished the 'Flores Report'
yesterday and he took it out to Mike Burbano ‡ to put in final form, correct
Spanish and proper commie jargon. He knows this usage best because he's the
cutout for Cardenas and Vargas. No question but that we've got a really
sensational and damaging document.
Bacon included in the report a general analysis of the Ecuadorean political
scene with appropriate contempt for the Saad PCE leadership for its 'reformist'
tendencies. He infers that the Echeverria group has already received funds from
Cuba and that this report is the justification for new funds. The date for
commencing an all-out terrorism campaign will be late July (since we already
have a report that the CTE plans to announce a general strike for that date).
Bombing targets and guerrilla attacks will be set for the homes of police and
military officers as well as key installations such as the water-works and the
telephone and electric companies.
Burbano passed it back and I typed it this morning—it filled five sheets of
flimsy blue copy paper. Then Dean came to the office and we agreed that Juan
Sevilla, the Minister of the Treasury, would be better for getting it planted than
Jaime del Hierro, the Minister of Government. I went to see Sevilla; he agreed
immediately and said he'll use Carlos Rendon, the same secretary and customs
inspector who nailed Roura. When I got back to the Embassy Dean was acting
like a little boy. He had gone over to the 'Favorita' to buy a tube of toothpaste and
had spent three hours squeezing out the paste and cleaning the tube. Then he
crumpled the papers, ground them a little with his shoe, folded them to fit into
the tube and pronounced the report genuine beyond doubt. I took the tube, now
with the report neatly stuffed inside, back over to Sevilla and tomorrow he will give it to Rendon who will plant it if possible. Rendon won't move from the
airport until Flores arrives, and if he comes via Colombia or Guayaquil, we'll
figure out some other way to get the document out. One way or another this one
should really provoke a reaction.
Quito 29 May 1963
Yesterday still another sensation broke when Araujo arrived back from his
trip to Cuba. Too bad we didn't have a document prepared for him but he did just
what we wanted. Sevilla's customs people, whom I had advised through Sevilla
of Araujo's imminent return, tried a body search but Araujo provoked such a
scandal that he was taken to the central immigration offices for the search. He
only had forty-one dollars, however, and was later released—but his screams at
the airport that revolution will occur very soon in Ecuador were prominently
carried in this morning's newspapers.
Other propaganda is coming out nicely. The Council of State meeting on the
Roura case was in the headlines, featuring Sevilla's very effective condemnation
of communism and Cuba in defence of his action against Roura. The case of
Guillermo Layedra, who blew his hand off training URJE members to make
bombs, is in the courts, and Jorge Rivadeneira latest caper is still causing
sensation. Still, we haven't been able to get an interrogation of the Cuban woman.
Quito 31 May 1963
First try at the Echeverria bugging was a near disaster. The audio technicians,
Larry Martin ‡ and an assistant, came back from Panama during the week and I
worked out an elaborate plan for security and cover. Gil Saudade brought up
from Loja one of his agents who works in Catholic student activities there,
Cristobal Mogrovejo, ‡ who is the only agent we have who could easily rent the
Loja Club which occupies the floor underneath Echevarria's apartment. I brought
up Julian Zambianco from Guayaquil to be team leader and to direct Mogrovejo
as the shield for cover. Luis Sandoval and I were in the OP-LP across the street
observing and communicating with Zambianco via walkie-talkie. I also arranged
for two getaway vehicles through Pepe Molestina. ‡
Mogrovejo earlier this week arranged to rent the entire club for this
afternoon, a Friday, and to have an option to rent it for the rest of the week-end if his 'business conversations' with the foreigners required additional meetings.
From observation we knew which room Echeverria uses as a study and we
selected the proper spot beneath from which to drill up.
The team entered the club about ten o'clock this morning and Martin and his
assistant began quietly drilling, slowly and by hand in order not to arouse
Echeverria or his wife who were coming and going. About four o'clock this
afternoon the club manager burst in with about a dozen flower-hatted ladies to
whom, he said, he wanted to show the club. Mogrovejo protested that he had
been promised absolute privacy but because of the insistence of the club manager
and the ladies, Zambianco had to intervene to keep them from proceeding to the
room where the drilling was going on. The incident produced enough suspicion
in the club manager and enough panic in Mogrovejo to warrant calling the
operation off for now. I radioed to Zambianco to have the technicians fill in their
holes with plaster and to paint over. This only took a few moments and shortly
the team had evacuated the building.
For the time being we'll let this one cool off while I try to discover another
way to get access to the Loja Club. Mogrovejo was a bad choice. We won't forget
it because Echeverria, according to Cardenas, has given several indications that
he has some kind of communications with Cuba—possibly, one would suppose,
with a secret writing and radio link. A photo technician from Panama was
recently here and he said that TSD has large lenses that could be used to 'see
through' the curtains Echeverria sometimes draws in front of the table where he
works so that readable photographs of documents on the table might be
obtainable. This would be one way to read his communications.
Quito 2 June 1963
Flores is hooked and we've got another big case! Juan Sevilla and I were
playing golf together this morning when a caddy came running out to call him to
the telephone. We rushed into the clubhouse and sure enough it was Carlos
Rendon, his personal secretary, calling to say that Flores had arrived and that the
plant had worked perfectly. Sevilla rushed straight to the airport and I went home
to wait. Late in the afternoon he telephoned and when I went to his house he
explained that Rendon had seen Flores arrive and had put the toothpaste tube up
his sleeve. He let it fall out carefully while he was reviewing Flores's luggage, 'found it' and began to examine it, finally opening it and' discovering' the
concealed report.
Arriving with Flores was another well-known communist, Hugo Noboa, who
was discovered to be carrying 1,400 dollars in cash in a secret pocket. This
money, propaganda material, and phonograph records of revolutionary songs
were confiscated along with the Flores report, and both Flores and Noboa were
taken under arrest to the political security offices for questioning.
Now to get the publicity going.
Quito 3 June 1963
We're going to have to fight for this one. Only a small notice appeared in the
press today on the Flores and Noboa arrests, and the only reference to the 'Flores
Report' was an allegation that microfilm had been found in his suitcase. Flores,
according to this notice, is protesting that if any microfilm was found it was
planted either in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he was in transit, or here in Quito.
I checked with Juan Sevilla and he told me that he thinks Arosemena is going
to try to quash the whole case including the false document. This is why,
according to Sevilla, Flores is still in custody of the political security office
instead of the police investigations department under Major Pacifico de los
Reyes. He added that the key figure is Jaime del Hierro, the Minister of
Government and added that if I know del Hierro, I should confirm the importance
of Flores and the document. (Neither Sevilla nor del Hierro knows that I am in a
working relationship with the other.)
For most of the afternoon I've tried to get either del Hierro or Manuel
Cordova, the Sub-Secretary of Government, by telephone. It's not like them to
avoid me like this, and Dean is about to blow up because the report hasn't been
surfaced.
Quito 4 June 1963
There's no doubt now that Arosemena has tried to cover up the case and
protect Flores, but we're prying it loose almost by the hour. Sevilla threatened to
resign if the case were suppressed and the rumours of a new Cabinet crisis were
so strong yesterday and today that the Secretary-General of the Administration
made a public denial of the crisis.
Del Hierro finally called me back today, and when we met at Cordova's
house he gave me the 'Flores Report' asking that I check it for authenticity
because it is so grave. I couldn't simply give it a moment's look and pronounce it
genuine so I took it back to the station. When I told Dean of this he went into a
fury, stamped up and down and said I'd better get that report surfaced or else.
He's really disgusted with del Hierro, whom he thinks is trying to delay making it
public in order to protect the Liberal Party from embarrassment; the document,
after all, is pretty damaging to the government, even though it is primarily aimed
at exposing the Echeverria group.
A positive sign is that Flores has been passed from the political security
office to the police, which places him directly under del Hierro. In his declaration
Flores only said that he had been in Europe on a forty-five-day trip as a journalist
(he writes for the leftist weekly La Manana) with no mention of travel to Cuba.
Quito 5 June 1963
Dean's fit of temper shows no signs of diminishing. This morning he
demanded Jaime del Hierro's private telephone number at the ministry, which I
gave him. He called del Hierro and told him angrily that of course the document
is authentic and that every Ecuadorean should read it. Dean was careful to record
this call on his dictaphone just in case del Hierro complains to the Ambassador.
Then I proposed to Dean that I give a copy of the document to Jorge
Rivadeneira Araujo, the brother of Rodrigo Rivadeneira—the transcriber of the
Flores telephone tap. Jorge has long participated in the clandestine printing
operation, along with his brothers, and is a writer for El Comercio, Quito's
leading daily. We don't usually place propaganda through Jorge, but Dean agreed
since it is the fastest way to put pressure on del Hierro to release the original
document. Later I took a copy to Rodrigo which he is passing to Jorge who will
show it to his editors at the newspaper. This may destroy my relationship with del
Hierro and Cordova but Dean doesn't care—he doesn't think Arosemena and the
Liberals can last much longer anyway.
Quito 6 June 1963
Our ploy against del Hierro worked liked a charm. This morning about ten
o'clock Cordova called me from the Embassy receptionist's desk and when I went down he took me out back to del Hierro who was waiting in his car. He said he
urgently needed back the Flores document because the press had somehow got a
copy and he would have to release the original later today. I rushed up for the
document, returned it to del Hierro and told Dean who whooped for joy. Then I
called Rodrigo Rivadeneira to alert his brother Jorge that the Ministry of
Government would release the document later today. It may not be printed in
today's evening newspapers but already the whole town is buzzing about it.
Today the Council of State formally rejected Roura's case against del Hierro
and Sevilla, which wasn't unexpected. Roura will be on ice for a long time and
now Flores's chances of getting off are nil. Tomorrow, Sevilla's formal statement
to the Council of State will be published in the newspapers—a full page which
we're paying for and which includes PCE data like membership figures and
recruitment priorities that I passed to Sevilla for documentation.
Both Mario Cardenas and Luis Vargas report that Echeverria has been
crushed psychologically by this blow. He fears that with the Roura arrest and
now Flores he'll surely be reprimanded by the Saad leadership, possibly even
expelled from the PCE. He has now gone into hiding and the agents are trying to
find out where.
Quito 7 June 1963
Finally it's in print and the sensation is immense. Everything's included:
description of Saad and the PCE Guayaquil leadership as 'old bureaucrats full of
bourgeois vices, faithful to the Moscow line and acting as a brake on revolution'.
Also: 'We (the Echeverria group) are faithful to the experiences of the Cuban
revolution and the necessity to prepare for armed insurrection'. Araujo is
described as having a good number of trained and armed teams and the
Ribadeneira group is cited as possibly useful for 'our' purposes. All the different
critical government offices where Flores has his contacts are mentioned—
including the Presidential Palace—and the date for commencing operations
(urban terrorism and rural guerrillas) is given as late July to coincide with 'our'
urging of the CTE to call a general strike for that time.
As if this document weren't enough in itself, by sheer coincidence the CTE
yesterday announced a general strike for late July. Our agents had reported that
this announcement would come some time and we had included it in the Flores
document. This announcement was carried in the press today, alongside the Flores document, as proof that the latter is genuine. Moreover, Sevilla's statement
to the Council of State also came out this morning.
Quito 15 June 1963
Several pieces of good news. First, I've just received my second promotion
since coming to Quito, to GS-11 which is about equivalent to captain in the
military service. The other is that I'm being transferred to Montevideo, Uruguay,
at the end of the year—this I learned informally in a letter from Noland the other
day. I had asked to be transferred to Guayaquil as Base Chief if the job became
vacant, but the Montevideo assignment is good news because we'll be near the
seashore again. These mountains are getting oppressive lately, and besides,
Noland says Montevideo is a great place to live with good operations going.
Meetings between Zambianco and Medardo Toro, ‡ the Velasquista gunman,
have been fruitful but Dean is getting nervous about collecting timely
intelligence on Velasco's plans to return for next year's elections. Through
Zambianco I have worked out a plan to send Toro to Buenos Aires under cover of
medical treatment for a back injury that has needed special attention for some
years. Toro will take the treatment in Montevideo but will contact Velasco in
Buenos Aires and stay as close to him as possible. Our hope is that Velasco will
take Toro into his confidence as a kind of secretary and general handyman—this
shouldn't be difficult as Toro was at Velasco's side with two sub-machine-guns
draped over his shoulders up to the moment Velasco left the Presidential Palace.
I've notified the Buenos Aires station, set up a contact plan for an officer of that
station, and requested that Toro be placed on the list for the polygraph the next
time the interrogators come around. Hopefully Toro will have his affairs arranged
so that he can leave by the end of the month.
Over the week-end I'm going to Guayaquil and to the beach for a day—then
to Manta and Portoviejo, the two principal towns of Manabi province just north
of Guayas. In Portoviejo I'll introduce Julian Zambianco to Jorge Gortaire's
brother, Frederico Gortaire, ‡ an Army lieutenant-colonel and commander of the
Army units in the province. Because of the extreme poverty in Manabi province,
even by Ecuadorean standards, communist activities there have prospered in
recent years. Zambianco has been working several operations in the province
including support of a well-known anti-communist priest, and he'll be able to
handle contact with Gortaire on his frequent trips there. Contact arrangements were made by Jorge Gortaire when he was in the province last month, so getting
this new operation going will be easy. The purpose is to be able to pass
information on communist activities in Manabi to Lieutenant-Colonel Gortaire
who, according to his brother, will not hesitate to take strong and prompt action
unfettered by the political restraints often imposed on Colonel Lugo in
Guayaquil.
Warren Dean is leaving shortly for six or eight weeks' home leave. Too bad
about Gil Saudade. Normally when a Chief of Station leaves the Deputy simply
takes over as Acting COS. But with all the tension and instability right now Dean
asked for a temporary replacement from headquarters. It'll be Dave McLean, ‡ a
Special Assistant to Colonel King, ‡ the Division Chief who, surprisingly,
managed to survive the head-rolling exercise after the Cuban invasion. While at
headquarters Dean is going to push for one or two more slots for case officers
under Embassy cover.
Quito 22 June 1963
The struggle is growing within the government among the factions favouring
different lines of action in the face of the growing tension and fear of imminent
insurgency. Juan Sevilla, the Minister of the Treasury, is the leader of the hardliners while Jaime del Hierro, Minister of Government, is somewhere in between,
trying to manoeuvre so that the Liberals can stay in the government and retain
their emoluments. Arosemena leads the doves, who refuse to see the danger, and
the leftists, who would like to see the power of the traditional parties broken.
Thus the cooperation we're getting from del Hierro in the security field is mixed.
Today, for example, the government finally announced a programme that I've
been pushing since last year to restrict travel to Cuba. From now on travel to
Cuba by Ecuadorians is formally banned and all passports will be stamped 'Not
Valid for Travel to Cuba'. This programme is the work of Pablo Maldonado who
told me only recently that such a drastic measure would still be very difficult to
get approved. On the other hand del Hierro still evades all my requests for access
to the Cuban woman who was training in Guayaquil—now she's been sent to
Tulcan which is practically isolated and a place from which she could 'escape'
and disappear across the border in Colombia.
In Guayaquil two days ago, an anti-communist television commentator
narrowly escaped when a bomb demolished his car. Yesterday Colonel Lugo's police raided a bomb factory and storage facility at the isolated house of Antonio
Chang, a militant of an URJE faction, following a lead provided by a base agent.
Chang's wife, two sons, a Spanish bomb technician and a helper were all arrested
and have made sensational declarations, including the fact that they were trained
by a Cuban. (The Cuban hasn't lived in Cuba since the 1940s but this item was
hidden in small print in the propaganda coverage.)
Meanwhile we're trying to keep media coverage going on all the cases, old as
well as new, and stations in countries nearby are helping. As each case breaks we
advise Caracas, Bogota, Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago and others, mailing
immediately the clips of what's been published. These stations generate editorial
comment on the communist danger in Ecuador and send clips back to us which
we use to generate still more comment based on the Ecuadorean image abroad.
Dean has made one last effort before going on home leave to salvage a little
mileage from Reinaldo Varea, our discredited Vice-President. He told Varea to
get going on speeches related to all the recent cases revealing communist plans
for action and the bombings. Yesterday Varea began with a speech at the national
convention of the Chamber of Industries, denouncing communism as a cancer
seeking to destroy the national life. Hopes for his succeeding Arosemena are ever
so slim but three days ago the Supreme Court began hearing charges against three
persons in the junk swindle and Varea, happily, wasn't one of them.
Quito 25 June 1963
Yet another sensation broke today: this one without our help. The case began
this morning when one of the revolutionary paratrooper group led by Lenin
Torres, still under arrest since they were discovered last year trying to help the
guerrillas they had arrested to escape, themselves escaped and joined with three
others in order to hijack one of the Area Airlines DC-4's that fly between here
and Guayaquil. The plan was to fly over Quito distributing fly-sheets from the
aircraft telling people to mass at the Presidential Palace and demand the release
of Torres and the other paratroopers still being held. Also while the aircraft was
circling URJE members would have carried out a series of intimidation bombings
and would have demanded the release of Flores, Noboa and Roura as well as the
paratroopers. They would have landed, taken aboard the released prisoners and
flown to Cuba.
The paratrooper who escaped had been outside the prison under guard on an
urgent family matter, but the guard, who was overpowered, tied and gagged, and
left behind, got loose and reported the planned hijacking which he had overheard.
Pacifico de los Reyes, ‡ Chief of Criminal Investigations in Quito, placed some
of his men in maintenance uniforms at the airport and when the four hijackers
arrived they were immediately taken into custody. Seized with them were arms,
bombs, tear-gas canisters, walkie-talkies, and TNT—as well as the fly-sheets.
After their arrest they implicated Araujo and Ribadeneira in the plan, although
this may well be a little provocation by de los Reyes. The whole episode, in fact,
may have been staged or at least well-penetrated.
The story is headlines in the afternoon papers and has sent another shockwave across the country as it's the first political hijacking here.
Quito 27 June 1963
Today is a bigger day for propaganda than most but it illustrates how our
campaign to arouse concern over the communist problem has been going. The
front page of El Comercio carries four articles related to it. The headlines report a
press conference yesterday by Reinaldo Varea ‡ in which he condemned
communism for threatening the country with organized subversion, including
acts of terrorism and massacre. He also pointed to Cuba, supported by Russia and
China, as the focal point for communist terror in America, adding that when the
Congress convenes in August a special law against terrorism should be passed,
possibly to include the outlawing of communism. A second article reports a press
conference by Jaime del Hierro, in which he promised to exterminate every
centre of communist terrorism in the country. A third article describes follow-up
raids of Colonel Lugo's police in Guayaquil and the discovery of another bomb
factory from which 150 bombs were seized—it also reports a strategy meeting
held two days ago between Colonel Lugo, Manuel Cordova, the Commanding
General of the National Police and the Governor of Guayas province. A fourth
article describes the latest revelations in the frustrated airliner hijacking. Not to
be forgotten, of course, is the junk swindle, and a fifth front-page article relates
the latest development in this case. Aside from the front page, the lead editorial
expresses alarm over the recent terrorist cases and still another editorial wishes
success to some Cuban exiles who recently landed a raiding party in Cuba.
Quito 28 June 1963
Police in Guayaquil under Colonel Lugo seized some 300 more bombs in
raids yesterday, and arrests of terrorists there now number nineteen.
Also yesterday, Juan Sevilla, ‡ Minister of the Treasury, was honoured at a
banquet given by the Chambers of Industry and Commerce and the Textile
Association. In condemning communism Sevilla said: 'The country is suffering a
grave moral crisis. It is discouraging to walk through government offices and see
how moral values have deteriorated. It is indispensable that we reestablish moral
values. ' He was given a parchment in appreciation of his 'clear democratic
position in defence of free enterprise and of our country's Western ideology'.
Media exploitation of the airliner hijacking continues as does the Roura case.
Today it was announced that the money taken from Roura will be examined by
experts to see if it is counterfeit. This is a delaying formality because I've already
told Jaime del Hierro that the Treasury Department in Washington has refused to
certify that the US currency is counterfeit.
Quito 5 July 1963
The chain of recent cases, particularly the Roura and Flores cases, has
produced one of the results we wanted. At a special meeting of the PCE Central
Committee the whole Pichincha Provincial Committee under Echeverria was
dismissed, with Roura expelled from the party and Echeverria suspended.
Already Jaime Galarza, one of Echevarria's lieutenants, has published an article
suggesting that Pedro Saad, PCE Secretary-General, was behind the revelations
in the Flores document and Roura's arrest, because such information could only
come from highly placed party members.
The momentum of the last three months' campaign is having other effects.
Most of our political-action agents, particularly the rightists in the ECACTOR
project, are reporting improving disposition to a military rather than a
Congressional move against Arosemena, what with the alarm and gravity of the
current situation. At the Ambassador's reception yesterday, moreover, the
politicians talked considerably of their surprise that communist preparations have
progressed so far. Moreover, everyone seemed to be apprehensive over the
spectre of Velasco's return and the probability that he'll win again next year.
Some members of Congress are anxious to begin proceedings against Arosemena, but many realize the odds favour Arosemena and his patronage over
a weak and divided Congress.
Quito 8 July 1963
Rafael Echeverria is still hiding and has seen our agents only rarely. In order
to get closer monitoring of his activities, and possibly to discover his hiding place, I've arranged to turn over the Land Rover bought for Jorge Gortaire's trip
to Luis Vargas, a PCE penetration agent. I gave the car to Jose Molestina, ‡ a
support agent and used-car dealer, to place on sale, and at the same time John
Bacon sent Vargas around to make an offer. Molestina doesn't know Vargas,
much less as a communist, and when he told me of the offer I told him to take it.
Now Vargas will probably be asked by Echeverria (who has no private
transportation) to drive him around for his meetings.
Media exploitation continues on the recent cases as well as on efforts to
salvage Varea. The Guayaquil base placed an editorial in El Universo, the main
daily there, praising Varea for his recent anti-communist speeches. We replayed
the editorial here in El Comercio. We've also used the CEOSL to condemn
communist plans for terrorism.
Operations at the Georgetown station (British Guiana) have just brought a
big victory against the Marxist Prime Minister, Cheddi Jagan. Jagan has led that
colony down a leftist-nationalist path since coming to power in the 1950s on the
strength of Indian (Asian) predominance over blacks there. The Georgetown
station operations for several years have concentrated on building up the local
anti-Jagan trade-union movement, mainly through the Public Service
International ‡ (PSI) which is the International Trade Secretariat for public
employees. Cover is through the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees, ‡ the US affiliate of the PSI.
Last year through the PSI the Georgetown station financed an anti-Jagan
campaign over the Budget that included riots and a general strike and precipitated
British intervention to restore order. This past April, with station financing and
direction, another crippling strike began, this one led by the Guiana civil servants
union which is the local PSI affiliate, and it has taken until just now to force
Jagan again to capitulate. Visitors here who have also been to the Georgetown
station say eventually the Agency hopes to move the leader of the black community into power even though blacks are outnumbered by Jagan and the
Indians.
Quito 11 July 1963
Arosemena's out and a four-man military junta is in.
It began last night at a banquet Arosemena gave for the President of the
Grace Lines—W. R. Grace and Co. has large investments in Ecuador—to which
high-ranking Ecuadorean military men were invited because the Grace Lines
President is a retired US Navy admiral. During the toasts Arosemena made
favourable commentary about US business operating in Latin America but he
insulted our Ambassador by derisive reference to US diplomatic representatives.
In his drunkenness Arosemena also demonstrated incredible vulgarity and finally
left the banquet and his guests.
This morning the chiefs of the military services decided at a meeting at the
Ministry of Defense to replace Arosemena with a junta and about noon the
Presidential Palace was surrounded by tanks and troops. I went down to the Hotel
Majestic just in front of the Palace where Jorge Andino, ‡ a support agent and
owner of the hotel, arranged a room where I could watch the action. I also
monitored the military intelligence radio and reported by telephone and walkie talkie back to the station where frequent progress reports on the coup were being
fired off to headquarters and to Panama (for the military commands there who
receive all Agency intelligence reporting in Latin America).
Several hours of tension passed as Arosemena, known to be armed, refused
to receive a delegation from the new junta. He remained in the presidential living
quarters while the junta members arrived and went to work in the presidential
offices. Eventually Arosemena was disarmed by an aide and taken to the airport
where he was placed on a military aircraft for Panama—the same place that
Velasco was sent to less than two years ago.
As the coup was taking place a leftist protest demonstration was repressed by
the military with three killed and seventeen wounded but these figures will
probably be much higher if an accurate count is ever made. Also during the coup
Reinaldo Varea tried in vain to convene the Congress in order to secure his
succession to the Presidency, but it's no use—he's finished.
The junta is composed of the officers who commanded the Army, Air Force
and Navy plus a colonel who was Secretary of the National Defense Council. The Navy captain is the junta chief but Colonel Marcos Gandara ‡ of the Defense
Council is said unanimously to be the brains and main influence. No question
that these men are anti-communist and will finally take the kind of action we
want to disrupt the extreme left before they get their serious armed operations
underway.
Quito 13 July 1963
No problem for the junta in consolidating power. Loyal messages were
received from military units throughout the country, civil liberties have been
suspended, and communist and other extreme leftists are being rounded up and
put in jail, more than a hundred in Guayaquil alone. Communism is outlawed
(the junta's first act), censorship has been imposed, there is a curfew from 9 p.m.
to 6 a.m., and next year's elections are cancelled.
It will take some days for formal US recognition of the junta but we've
already started passing data from the Subversive Control Watch List to Major de
los Reyes here in Quito and to Colonel Lugo in Guayaquil which they are using
with military colleagues in the arrests campaign. For the time being we'll keep
working with these police agents, and after US recognition of the junta and
Dean's return, decisions will be made on new contacts in the government. The
most likely liaison contacts are the Minister of Defense, Colonel Aurelio
Naranjo, who was chief of the Cuenca garrison and leader of the movement that
forced Arosemena to break with Cuba; the Minister of Government, Colonel Luis
Mora Bowen; ‡ and the junta leader, Colonel Marcos Gandara.
Besides outlawing communism the junta is looking favourably at the reforms
that the civilians were never able to establish. In their first statement the junta
said its purpose is to re-establish moral values because the country had reached
the brink of dissolution and anarchy. Their rule will be limited to the time
necessary to halt the wave of terrorism and subversion and to resolve the
country's most urgent problems. They have also declared that their government
will not be oligarchic and will have policies designed to stimulate economic and
social development in order to raise the standard of living—not just through
development, however, but also through the redistribution of income. Among its
highest priorities are agrarian, tax and public administrative reforms.
In a press conference Colonel Gandara said that reforms will be imposed by
decree and that after repressing the extreme left the junta will call for a constituent assembly, a new Constitution and elections. However, he added, the
junta might stay in power for two years to accomplish these plans—which
immediately caused a cry of outrage from politicians in all quarters. Today, rather
sheepishly, the junta issued a statement saying that they will 'not be in power for
a long time'.
In justifying their takeover the junta said that Arosemena had spotted the
national honour with his frequent drunkenness and his sympathy for communism.
Arosemena, for his part, is saying in Panama, as Velasco did, that he still hasn't
resigned. Varea is also in Panama now, but he had a happy departure. At the
Quito airport where he was taken under arrest yesterday he was given an
envelope from the junta containing a month's pay.
Quito 31 July 1963
The first three weeks of junta rule have been rather mild as military
dictatorships go, in fact after all the crisis and tension in recent months one can
even note a feeling of euphoria. Today the junta was recognized by the US but all
along we've kept busy getting information to Major de los Reyes and Colonel
Lugo. Goes to show how important station operations can be at a time when
conventional diplomatic contacts are suspended. Even so, the most important
communist leaders from our viewpoint, Echeverria, for example, have eluded all
efforts to catch them. Very possibly some have even left the country.
At least for the time being the junta has considerable political support from
Conservatives, Social Christians and others - not formally as parties but as
individuals. How long this will last is unknown because the junta is obviously
determined to end the power struggle between Velasco and Ponce and the
instability such caudillismo brings. Moreover, by stressing that they intend to
wipe out special privilege and the rule of oligarchies while pledging projects in
community development, housing, public-health and education, the junta is
attracting considerable popular support.
From our standpoint the junta definitely seems to be a favourable, if
transitory, solution to the instability and danger of insurgency that were blocking
development. By imposing the reforms this country needs and by taking firm
action to repress the extreme left, the junta will restore confidence, reverse the
flight of capital and stimulate economic development.
Quito 15 August 1963
Dean is back from home leave and is moving fast to get established with the
junta. Already he is regularly meeting Colonel Gandara, the most powerful junta
member, Colonel Aurelio Naranjo, the Minister of Defense and Colonel Luis
Mora Bowen, the Minister of Government. With Gandara he is using as bait the
weekly Latin American and world intelligence summaries (cryptonym PBBAND)
that are received from headquarters each Friday, translated over the week-end
and passed to Gandara on Monday. Already Gandara has given approval in
principle to a joint telephone- tapping operation in which we will provide the
equipment and the transcribers and he will arrange the connections in the
telephone exchanges and provide cover for the LP. Tentatively they have agreed
to set up the LP at the Military Academy. What Dean wants is a telephone tapping operation to rival the one in Mexico City where, he said, the station can
monitor thirty lines simultaneously. After this operation gets going we'll save
Rafael Bucheli for monitoring sensitive political lines without the knowledge of
the junta.
Gil Saudade has been transferred to Curitiba, Brazil (a one-man base in the
Consulate) and his replacement, Loren Walsh ‡ doesn't speak Spanish. Walsh,
who transferred to WH from the Far East Division after a tour in Karachi, had to
cut short his Spanish course in order to take the interdepartmental course in
counter-insurgency that is required now for every officer going out as Chief or
Deputy Chief of Station. What this means to me is that I've got to take over most
of Saudade's operations: Wilson Almeida ‡ and Voz Universitaria; the CEOSL
labour operation with Matias Ulloa Coppiano, Ricardo Vazquez Diaz and Carlos
Vallejo Baez; and the media operation built around Antonio Ulloa Coppiano, the
Quito correspondent of Agencia Orbe Latinoamericano. Most of these agents are
also leaders of the Popular Revolutionary Liberal Party and Antonio Ulloa runs
the PLPR radio-station that we bought through him and Juan Yepez del Pozo, Jr.
as a media outlet. This development is more than a little aggravating because the
new deputy won't be able to take over any of these operations as none of the
agents speaks good English. Dean said relief will come soon because he got three
new Embassy slots; two will be filled in coming months and one early next year.
All I can do with these new agents is hold their hands until somebody with time
can really work with them.
Right now there are about 125 political prisoners in Quito, including not only
communists but Velasquistas and members of the Concentration of Popular
Forces. The junta policy is to allow them to go into exile, although some will be
able to stay in Ecuador depending on their political antecedents—judgement of
which, in most cases, is based on information we're passing to Colonel Luis Mora
Bowen, the Minister of Government. Processing these prisoners, and others in
Guayaquil and elsewhere is going to take a long time because of interrogations
and follow-up. Although Dean is working closely with the Minister of
Government in processing the prisoners, he hopes to use these cases to start a
new unit in the Ministry of Defense that will be solely dedicated to anticommunist intelligence collection - basically this is what we had previously set
up in the police. In fact the Ministry of Defense will be better because politics
sooner or later will come back into the Ministry of Government and the police,
while the military unit should be able to remain aloof from normal politics,
concentrating on the extreme left.
First on the junta's programme of reforms are the universities and the
national cultural foundation called the Casa de la Cultura, both of which have
long traditions as centres of leftist and communist agitation and recruitment.
Several station and base operations are focused on giving encouragement to the
junta for university reform including agents controlled through Alberto Alarcon
in Guayaquil and the student publication Voz Universitaria published by Wilson
Almeida. According to Gandara the first university reform decree will be issued
in a few days with the important provision that student participation in university
administration will be greatly reduced.
Quito 30 August 1963
Labour operations always seem to be in turmoil but now and then they
produce a redeeming flash of brilliance. Ricardo Vazquez Diaz, one of the labour
agents I took over from Gil Saudade, told me the other day that his mistress is the
official shorthand transcriber of all the important meetings of the Cabinet and the
junta and that she has been giving him copies so that he can be well-informed for
his CEOSL work. He gave me samples and after Dean saw them he told me to
start paying her a salary through Vazquez. From now on we'll be getting copies of
the record of these meetings even before the participants. In the Embassy we'll
make them available just to the Ambassador and the Minister Counsellor, and in Washington short summaries will be given limited distribution with the entire
Spanish text available on special request. The Ambassador, according to Dean, is
most interested in seeing how the junta and Cabinet members react to their
meetings with him and in using these reports to plan his meetings with them.
Eventually we'll try to recruit Vazquez's mistress, ECSIGH-1, ‡ directly, but for
the moment I'll have to work this very carefully in order not to jeopardize the
CEOSL operation. Vazquez claims he's told no one of the reports, which I
believe, because, if he told anyone, it would be one of the other CEOSL agents
who probably would have mentioned it to me. These reports are jewels of
political intelligence—just the sort of intelligence that covert action operations
should produce.
(There has been a change, incidentally, in terminology: the operations that
used to be called PP operations—labour, youth and students, media, paramilitary,
political action—are now called covert action, or CA, operations. In headquarters
this change in terminology was made at the same time the old PP staff was
merged with International Organizations Division to form what is now called the
Covert Action Staff.)
In labour operations themselves we've had serious problems with the new
government, partly as a result of the junta's arbitrariness -- the right to strike, for
example, is suspended. In this respect the junta tends to treat the CEOSL trade union movement much in the same fashion as it treats the CTE. This general
trend is aggravated by the Minister of Economy, Enrique Amador Marquez, ‡
who is one of the former labour agents of the Guayaquil base terminated last year
for regionalism. Amador is doing all he can to promote decisions favourable to
his old CROCLE and COG friends and detrimental to CEOSL.
Right now the most serious case involves the junta's attempts to reorganize
the railways which are one of the many inefficient government autonomous
agencies that together spend about 65 per cent of public revenues. The lieutenant colonel appointed to run the railways is favouring the CEDOC (Catholic) railway
union which is backed by COG and CROCLE against the other railway union
which is part of CEOSL and is an affiliate of the International Transport Workers
Federation ‡ (ITF) in London.
I arranged for Jack Otero, ‡ the Assistant Inter-American Representative of
the ITF and one of our contract labour agents, to come to Quito from Rio de
Janeiro to help defend the CEOSL railway union. He is here now but instead of
following my instructions to approach the matter with restraint he started threatening an ITF boycott of Ecuadorean products. The spectre of boatloads of
rotten Ecuadorean bananas sitting in ports around the world provoked counter threats from the junta and we've had to cut Otero's visit short. The ITF railway
union may have to suffer for a while but we're going to get action now from
Washington, probably from someone like Andrew McClellan ‡ who replaced
Serafino Romualdi as the AFL-CIO Inter-American Representative when
Romualdi set up the AIFLD. What the junta needs is a little education on the
difference between the free trade-union movement and the CTE, but. this may
not be easy with Amador working behind the scenes for CEOSL'S rivals.
The Minister of Government is very cooperative in following our advice over
the matter of the political prisoners. We have a special interrogation team here
now from the US Army Special Forces unit in the Canal Zone: they're from the
counter-guerrilla school there and are helping process the interrogation reports
and prepare follow-up leads. The results aren't especially startling but they are
providing excellent file information. As a result the prisoners are being released
in a very slow trickle and most are choosing exile in Chile. Araujo is one of the
big fish that was able to hide, but, a few days ago he and six others got asylum in
the Bolivian Embassy. Chances are he'll be there a long time before the junta
gives him a safe conduct.
University reform continues. Already the universities in Loja and Guayaquil
have been taken over and Central University here in Quito is due next. What this
means is the firing of communists and other extreme leftists in the university
administrations and faculties. The same process is under way in the primary and
secondary schools and is in charge of the military governors of each province.
Reforms in the government administration are also widening. Already the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economy are being reorganized.
So far the junta's not doing so badly—tomorrow Teodoro Moscoso, the
Coordinator of the Alliance for Progress, arrives to negotiate new aid agreements.
Quito 8 September 1963
These labour operations are so messy they're forcing me to put practically all
my other operations on ice for lack of time. No wonder Saudade had so few
agents: they talk on and on so that one agent-meeting can fill up most of an
afternoon or morning.
Our call for help from McClellan backfired. He sent a telegram to the junta
threatening AFL-CIO efforts to stop Alliance for Progress funds and appeals to
the OAS and UN if the junta doesn't stop its repression of trade unions. Three
days ago the Secretary-General of the Administration denounced McClellan's
telegram and showed newsmen documents from CROCLE and COG backing the
junta and the colonel in charge of the railways. Now the junta is going to suspend
the railway workers' right to organize completely. Somehow we have to reverse
this trend and we asked for a visit from some other high-level labour figure from
Washington, hopefully William Doherty, ‡ the former PTTI Latin American
Representative and now with the AIFLD. Doherty is considered to be one of our
more effective labour agents and Dean thinks he might be able to change the
junta's attitude towards our organizations.
Not long ago the CA staff sent two operations officers to the Panama station
to assist in labour operations throughout the hemisphere much as the Technical
Services Division officers in Panama cover the area. They came for a short visit
to Quito, more for orientation than anything else, but they're going to get ORIT to
send someone to see the junta about these problems. Recently, according to Bill
Brown ‡ who is one of the labour officers, the Secretary-General of ORIT, Arturo
Jauregui, ‡ was fully recruited so that now he can be guided more effectively.
Before, our control of ORIT in Mexico City was exercised through Morris
Paladino, ‡ the Assistant Secretary-General and the principal AFL-CIO
representative on the staff. Possibly we will get Jauregui himself to intervene.
We've also had two polygraph operators here for the past week testing agents.
I decided finally to meet Atahualpa Basantes, ‡ one of our PCE penetration
agents who has been reporting since 1960 but who had never been met directly
by a station officer, using the polygraph as the excuse.
The interview with Basantes was interesting because it showed how useful
the LCFLUTTER is for things other than determining honesty in reporting and
use of funds. In the case of Basantes, which· is not unusual according to the
operator, the polygraph brought out a flood of remarks about his motivation and
his feeling towards us and his comrades in the party. He's certainly a confused
man, drawn to us by money yet still convinced that capitalism is destructive to
his country. Why does he work for us? Partly the money, but he rationalizes that
the PCE leadership is rotten. From now on I'll try to see him at least once a
month. His reporting has fallen off during the last six months, mostly because Dr
Ovalle ‡ is such a poor agent handler, so I'm now looking for a new cutout. Instead of a raise in pay, which could be insecure, I've agreed to pay the premium
on a new life-insurance policy for Basantes—it's expensive because he's in his
late forties and his health is poor, but it'll be one more control factor.
The polygraph operator who worked with me on the Basantes case is Les
Fannin. ‡ Fannin was arrested in Singapore in 1960 while he was testing a local
liaison collaborator whom the station was trying to recruit as a penetration agent
of the Singapore police. The Agency offered the Singapore Prime Minister some
three million dollars as a ransom for Fannin and Secretary of State Rusk even
wrote a letter of apology in the hope of getting Fannin out. Nevertheless, he spent
months in the Singapore jail before being released. He told me the Agency
analysis of the case suggested that the British MI-6, which controlled the
Singapore service at the time because Singapore was still a British colony, had
been aware of the attempted recruitment from the beginning. In a strong reaction
to this violation of the long-standing agreement that the CIA refrains from
recruitments in British areas except when prior permission is granted, MI-6,
according to Fannin, arranged for the Singapore security official to play along,
and then at the moment of the polygraph they had Fannin arrested.
One of Saudades agents whom he sent to Cuba has just been arrested on his
return to Guayaquil and nobody seems to know what to do about him. The agent
is Cristobal Mogrovejo, ‡ the same Loja agent whom we used to front for the
near-disaster audio installation in the Loja Club beneath Rafael Echevarria's apartment. Dean is taking a hard line on Mogrovejo because the agent was told
not to return to Ecuador when he was met by officers from the Miami (exHavana) station after leaving Cuba. We had sent that instruction precisely to
protect Mogrovejo, but since he refused to comply, Dean isn't anxious to spring
him loose. He was arrested because he had Cuban propaganda material in his
baggage (incredibly stupid) on his arrival. Already the arrest is causing wide
comment in Loja where Mogrovejo is President of the University of Loja law student association and well known as a staunch Catholic.
For the time being the audio operations against Echevarria's apartment and
Flores's apartment are suspended. Sooner or later Flores will go into exile and
Echeverria is still hiding. The audio-photo operation at the PCE bookstore is also
suspended since the junta closed the bookstore right after the coup. Now we'll
have to take out the audio equipment with more pounding and squealing of
spikes.
Quito 20 September 1963
This has been a month of constant movement of people: agents, visitors and
new station personnel. The first of the new station operations officers has arrived
—he's Morton (Pete) Palmer ‡ and his cover is in the Embassy economic section.
Unquestionably he'll be an excellent addition to the station and I'm already
beginning to unload some of the covert action operations on him.
Dean appointed me to look after another visitor: Ted Shannon, ‡ the former
Chief of Station in Panama and now Chief of the section of the CI staff in
headquarters responsible for CIA officers under AID Public Safety cover.
Shannon was the founder of the Inter-American Police Academy ‡ in Panama
(which, incidentally, will be moving next year to Washington with a new name:
the International Police Academy ‡) and he was rather upset that we haven't been
fully using our Public Safety cover officer, John Burke. ‡ Dean explained to
Shannon his fears about Burke's getting into trouble through his over-eagerness,
but after Shannon left Dean told me to start thinking about what operations we
can give to Burke. Dean is worried about criticism in headquarters that he's not
using his people, but in fact there's lots of work Burke can do. The first thing will
be to integrate him with the Special Forces interrogation team working on the
political prisoners.
Reinaldo Varea ‡ returned to Ecuador yesterday but his troubles are far from
over. Immediately after the coup the junta cancelled the impeachment case
against Varea but announced that he would have to stand trial if he ever returned.
His return means that his trial begins again, and he has also agreed to refrain
from political activity. From Panama he had gone to Houston where a
headquarters' officer gave him termination pay, but if Dean needs to see him he
can establish contact through Qtto Kladensky. ‡
Manuel Naranjo was replaced as Ecuador's UN Ambassador and has also
returned. Headquarters was highly impressed with his work for us at the UN, and
Dean feels the same—in fact he's going to nominate Naranjo, who is now back at
work in the Socialist Party, for Career Agent status which would mean
considerable income, fringe benefits, job tenure and retirement pay.
Juan Sevilla, ‡ Arosemena's Minister of the Treasury, is the only one of our
political-action assets in the old government to get a new job with the junta.
Probably because of his firm action during the months before the junta took over,
he's been named by the junta as Ecuador's new Ambassador to West Germany.We're forwarding the file to the Bonn station and making contact arrangements in
case they want to use him in Germany. A few weeks ago I gave Sevilla money for
Carlos Rendon, ‡ his private secretary, who caught Roura and made the plant on
Flores. Apparently Rendon has been threatened and is going to leave the country
for a few months.
Lieutenant-Colonel Federico Gortaire was reassigned from Army commander
in Manabi province to Military Governor of Chimborazo Province. For the time
being we'll communicate with him through Jorge Gortaire in order to save time,
but Dean wants to have one of the new officers begin going directly to Riobamba
to see Colonel Gortaire as soon as possible.
Dean still refuses to intercede with the Minister of Government, Colonel Luis
Mora Bowen, on behalf of Cristobal Mogrovejo. Mogrovejo told the police that
he went to Cuba on our behalf, and his mother even came to see the Ambassador
but Dean is playing real dumb. I think he ought to help the poor guy out of that
stinking, miserable jail.
The country's honeymoon with the junta is fading fairly fast. The traditional
political parties are getting worried that the junta may stay in power longer than
they've admitted, and their massive promotions of military officers haven't been
very popular. Especially since among the first to be promoted were the junta
members themselves: now they are one colonel, one admiral and two generals.
Quito 15 October 1963
Labour operations are still unsettled because of the junta's arbitrary actions.
Since last month, a new national traffic law has been in preparation but the junta
refuses to consult the national drivers' federation (taxi, truck and bus drivers),
which will be the organization most affected by the law. Everyone understands
the need to stop the general traffic chaos and the carnage that so frequently
occurs on the roads, especially when overcrowded buses roll off the
mountainside because of their poor mechanical condition: traditionally, the
driver, if he's alive and can move, flies from the scene as fast as he can go. But
the drivers' federation is our top priority to woo away from the CTE and
eventually into the CEOSL. So we called Jack Otero ‡ back from Rio de Janeiro
to see if he could intercede with the junta on the traffic law question, even though
the drivers' federation isn't affiliated with the ITF. Something may come from the
effort, perhaps not with the junta but with the drivers' federation.
Even the AIFLD operation is beset with problems. The country programme
chief here isn't an agent and so we can't guide him (except through Washington)
so that his programme harmonizes nicely with ours. Doherty finally came to help
straighten out the AIFLD programme for us, but this isn't the end of it. He's going
to arrange to have Emilio Garza, ‡ the AIFLD man in Bogota who is a recruited
and controlled agent, come here for as long as is needed to make sure the AIFLD
programme is run the way Dean wants it run. Mostly it's a question of personnel
assignments through which we want to favour our agents. Sooner or later all the
AIFLD programmes will be run closely by the stations—until now the expansion
has been so fast that in many cases non-agents have been sent as AIFLD chiefs
and can only be controlled through cumbersome arrangements of the kind we've
had here.
Political prisoners are being released to go into exile as their cases are
reviewed. There are still well over one hundred of them—Flores and Roura are
both going to Chile in exile. Araujo finally got a safe conduct and left for Bolivia
a week ago. Echeverria is still in hiding, rejecting the bait we set with the Vargas
‡ Land Rover. Cardenas, Vargas, Basantes ‡ and our other penetration agents
have somehow managed to avoid arrest.
For a few days last week our Popular Revolutionary Liberal Party agents
were also taken as political prisoners. They held a meeting in violation of the
government's prohibition of all political meetings without prior permission, and
among those arrested were Juan Yepez del Pozo, Jr., Carlos Vallejo Baez ‡ and
Antonio Ulloa Coppiano. ‡ They were only held for a couple of days and later
Vallejo and Ulloa admitted to me that they staged the whole thing for publicity.
Pete Palmer ‡ is going to take over these agents so that next time they will
discuss this sort of caper with us first—otherwise they can't expect us to bail
them out if the junta is slow in letting them go.
Another new station officer arrived: Jim Wall, ‡ an old friend who went
through the training programme with me at Camp Peary. Wall has just finished
two years under non-official cover in Santiago, Chile, as a university student.
He's going to take over some of my operations too—probably the ECACTOR
political-action agents His cover will be in the Embassy economic section, along
with Palmer.
The polygraph operators are now in Buenos Aires and Dean wants to be sure
that Medardo Toro ‡ is 'fluttered'. Our impression is that the Buenos Aires station
isn't taking this case very seriously—undoubtedly they have plenty of Argentine problems to worry about. In order to see why production from the operation is
not better, Dean asked me to go to Buenos Aires to interpret for the polygraph
examination of Toro. I'll also go to Montevideo because Toro is taking the
treatment for his back there and has made contact on behalf of Velasco with an
officer of the Cuban Embassy in Montevideo.
Moscoso's visit brought good news for the Ecuadorians—ten million dollars
in new loans from the Inter-American Development Bank have been announced
this month.
Quito 7 November 1963
It was a strange trip, disappointing on the Toro case but very encouraging for
my coming assignment in Montevideo. In Buenos Aires the station considers the
Toro case something less than marginal, just as we had suspected. About all we
can hope for is to have an officer from the station meet Toro occasionally to
receive his reports and pay his salary. In Montevideo it's worse—the Chief of
Station there, Ned Holman, ‡ doesn't want anything to do with Velasco. Holman
was Noland's predecessor as Chief of Station in Quito so he's had plenty of
chance to get soured by Velasco. Even so, the case is interesting because Velasco
is opening a channel to the Cubans through Toro who has already met Ricardo
Gutierrez two or three times. Gutierrez is carried by the Montevideo station as
the Chief of the Cuban intelligence operation which the station believes is
targeted in large part towards Argentina and the guerrilla operations now going
on there. It will be interesting to see whether Velasco gets money from the
Cubans—it wouldn't be too unlikely, if he were to become a candidate again for
President, because he refused to break with Cuba and has often spoken highly of
Castro.
In Buenos Aires, besides interpreting on the Toro case I interpreted on two
other cases: one was a labour leader who is one of the station's best penetrations
of the Peronist movement and the other was an Argentine Naval intelligence
officer and his wife who are working together as a penetration of the Naval
intelligence service.
Quito 10 November 1963
On 31 October, the national drivers' federation was required by the
government to undergo 'fiscal analysis', which means they're going to bring under
control the one organization that can stop the country completely. It'll be a long
time before this union can be brought into the ITF. In fact it's not really a union
because many of its members are owners of taxis, trucks and buses and even
gasoline stations. Its orientation, then, is middle class rather than working class
but for our long-range planning it's the most important of the organized trade
groups to be brought under greater influence and control.
Bill Doherty ‡ arranged for Emilio Garza, ‡ the Bogota AIFLD agent, to
come to help us smooth out the problems between our CEOSL agents and the
AIFLD operation. The agent was an excellent choice and I've already
recommended that he be transferred to Ecuador when his assignment in Bogota
ends. He's the most effective of the career labour agents that I've worked with.
For the past six weeks there have been regular terrorist bombings, mostly
against government buildings. They started in Quito—five occurred in one week
in mid-October—but now they've spread to Guayaquil. None of our agents seems
to know what group is behind the bombings and Dean's getting jittery. It's
embarrassing because the bombings make the junta look inept in spite of all the
arrests and forced exiles.
The day after tomorrow I'm going to try to recruit Jose Maria Roura who's
been rotting away in the Garcia Moreno prison since May. He's being allowed to
leave the country and will fly to Guayaquil, then to Lima, La Paz, and eventually
to Chile.
Colonel Lugo has been in Quito for the past few weeks and he told me that
the police interrogators report that Roura is very depressed, even disillusioned,
about his political past. He is also extremely concerned about his family which is
completely destitute and living on the charity of friends. This information
coincides with what we've learned from the interrogation reports received
through other sources and from information on Roura's family obtained through
the PCE penetration agents. Lugo suggested to me that Roura may be ripe for a
recruitment approach but he doesn't think it should be made in the prison.
After discussing the possibilities, Dean asked me take the same Guayaquil Lima flight as Roura and to try my luck on the plane. We've arranged for
ECBLISS-1 ‡ the Braniff manager in Guayaquil, who is an American and a base support agent, to have me seated next to Roura. Headquarters' approval just came
in and the Lima station is going to get the police to allow Roura to stay over for a
few days if he wants because he only has about two hours between arrival from
Guayaquil and departure for La Paz. For our purposes any possible follow-up
after the flight should be in Lima rather than La Paz. When I talk to him I'll invite
him to stay in Lima at my expense. After all these months in one of the world's
gloomiest prisons he might just accept. In any case it's worth the risk of a scene
on the plane—Roura is known to be extremely volatile—because we need a
penetration of the exile community in Santiago and Roura would be an excellent
source when he eventually returns here.
Quito 13 November 1962
It didn't go perfectly, but it wasn't a disaster either. I took the noon flight to
Guayaquil and to my surprise Roura was on the same flight under police guard.
Colonel Lugo had told me that Roura was going on the morning flight and the
last thing I wanted was to be seen in Quito by Roura or in any connection with
him at all. Arrangements by the base with the Braniff manager were perfect—he
was waiting for me at the airport at three o'clock this morning and gave me the
seat right next to Roura who would be released from his police guard when he
boarded the aircraft.
When I walked on the plane I was shocked to see that there were only about
ten passengers in the whole cabin. The stewardess conducted me to the seat next
to Roura, who was already there, and my planned introduction and cover story
began to crumble. I had wanted to begin the conversation as some anonymous
traveller striking up a conversation with another anonymous traveller. And I
wanted the seat next to Roura in case the flight were crowded—so that someone
else wouldn't be sitting in that seat. But now it was too obvious.
A seemingly endless silence followed after I sat down next to Roura. I tried
desperately to think of some new excuse to ease into a conversation—somebody
had to say something because I was clearly there for a purpose. Suddenly the
stewardess returned and suggested that I might like to move to where I could
sleep since row after row was vacant. Time for recovery and a new plan. I went
forward to a different seat, maybe ten rows ahead and began to get depressed.
We rolled down the runway and into the air. As the minutes began to go by,
five, ten, twenty; I felt more and more glued to my seat. I was going into a freeze and beginning to think up excuses, like bad security, to offer later for not having
talked to Roura. But somehow I had to break the ice and I finally stood up and
began walking back to Roura's seat, in mild shock as when walking into a cold
sea.
I introduced myself, using an alias and Roura agreed nonchalantly as I asked
if I could speak with him. I sat down and went into my new introductory routine,
relaxing a bit as I went on. I was an American journalist who had spent the past
few weeks in Ecuador studying the problems of illiteracy, disease and poverty for
a series of articles. At the airport before the flight, I learned to my happy surprise
that he was going to be on the same flight and I wondered if he would mind
discussing Ecuadorean problems with me from the point of view of a communist
revolutionary. I added that I knew of his arrest earlier in the year and I expressed
wonderment that such arbitrary and unfair proceedings could occur.
Over coffee we passed the flight discussing Ecuador. Roura spoke openly and
relaxedly and we seemed to be developing a little empathy. About twenty
minutes before we were to land in Lima I shifted the conversation to Roura's
personal situation. He told me that he was taking a connecting flight to La Paz
and after a few days would proceed to Santiago. He was bewildered over what to
do about his family and was expecting hard times in exile.
Now I had to make my proposal, ever so gently, but clear enough for Roura
to understand. I said I would be seeing friends in Lima who are in the same
profession, more or less, as I am. They too would probably like to speak with him
and I was certain that they would offer him a fee for an interview since they
represent a large enterprise. He was interested, but said he had permission from
the Peruvians only to remain in the airport until the connecting flight. I said my
friends could probably arrange permission for him to remain a few days and that
he should ask the immigration authorities if he could spend at least the day in
Lima and proceed to La Paz on a later flight perhaps tonight or tomorrow. Who
knows, I said, whether some kind of permanent financial support might be
arranged for him in Santiago and for his family in Quito. Perhaps, even, he could
arrange for the family to go to Santiago to live with him. I sensed he was taking
the bait and was beginning to understand.
When the 'fasten seat belt' light came on I took out a piece of paper with my
alias typed on it and the number of a post-office box in Washington. I said I
would be staying in Lima at the Crillon Hotel and if he was able to stay for a few
days he could call me at the hotel and we would continue talking. If not, he could always reach me through the post-office box. He didn't say he would ask the
airport authorities for permission to stay, but he didn't say no either. I thought he
was deciding to stay. As a final touch, something I hoped would convince him I
was knowledgeable, in fact I now hoped he realized I was CIA, I bade farewell
pointedly calling him 'Pepito', which is the name his PCE comrades call him. I
returned to my other seat for the landing.
At the terminal building I walked down the steps and headed for the entrance
where I was met by the Lima station officer who is in charge of liaison with
immigration authorities. He had arranged for permission to be granted if asked by
Roura, and indeed offered if Roura didn't ask—without, of course, creating
suspicion that we were trying to recruit Roura. From just inside the terminal
building we watched the Braniff aircraft because Roura had delayed inside.
Eventually he appeared, descended the steps, but suddenly turned and rushed
back up the steps and into the aircraft. At that moment about ten uniformed
police who had been striding swiftly, practically rushing, towards the aircraft
arrived at the steps. The leader boarded the aircraft and a long delay followed.
The Lima station officer went to see his airport police and immigration contacts
to find out what happened, and I went to the station offices in the Embassy to
await news from the airport. If Roura stayed, I would check into the Crillon and
wait for his call. If he proceeded to La Paz I would take the noon Avianca flight
back to Quito.
When I reached the Embassy they gave me the bad news. Roura had been
frightened by the police when they rushed towards him and thought something
terrible might happen. In the aircraft he refused to descend to the terminal until
the flight continued. Then he was extremely nervous in the terminal and
interested only in being sure he didn't miss the flight to La Paz which he took as
planned.
The Lima Chief of Station; Bob Davis, ‡ apologized for the over-enthusiasm
of their liaison service—the police approaching the aircraft were only trying to
give him a warm welcome in preparation' for immigration's offer of permission to
stay for a few days. The Lima station botched the operation—I am convinced that
Roura would have stayed—and now we can only wait for a telegram or letter to
the post-box. On the other hand Dean is thinking of a follow-up visit to Roura
once he gets to Santiago.
At the Lima station I asked how the penetration operation of the MIR is
progressing—the one I had started in Guayaquil with the recruitment of Enrique Amaya Quintana. The Deputy Chief of Station, Clark Simmons, ‡ is one of my
former instructors at Camp Peary and is in charge of the case. He told me that
Amaya's information is pure gold. He has pinpointed about ten base-camps and
caching sites plus identification of much of the urban infrastructure with full
details of each phase of their training and planning. The Lima station has a
notebook with maps, names and addresses, photographs and everything else of
importance on the MIR which the station considers to be the most important
insurgency threat in Peru. The notebook is in Spanish and is constantly updated
so that just at the right moment it can be turned over to the Peruvian military.
At the Lima station I sent a cable on the Roura recruitment to headquarters
with information copies to Quito and La Paz. Dean had already seen the cable
when I got back this afternoon and he's elated even though we can't be sure yet
that Roura has accepted. Tomorrow I'll get Bolivian and Chilean visas for quick
departure when Roura sends a telegram to the Washington post-box.
Quito 17 November 1963
It didn't take long to resolve the Roura recruitment. This morning we had a
cable from the La Paz station with the special RYBAT sensitivity indicator,
reporting that Roura was in a secret meeting with two of the leading Bolivian
communists. At the meeting he told them of my attempt to recruit him and he
said if he ever sees me again he'll kill me. One of the two Bolivians is an agent of
the La Paz station, it would seem, although possibly the source is an audio
operation. I won't need the visas now, but Dean still thinks Roura may change his
mind in six months or a year or two. At least he knows we're interested and he
has the post-box number.
I only have about three more weeks before leaving and as I turn over
operations to the three new officers I am also terminating a number of the
marginal cases—with provision, of course, for picking them up again if needed.
Among those I've terminated is Dr Philip Ovalle, Velasco's personal
physician and the cutout to Atahualpa Basantes, the PCE penetration agent.
Ovalle is getting senile and is probably the main reason why Basantes reporting
has been in such a slide. Before termination I was able to get the Ambassador to
have Ovalle placed back on the list of approved physicians for visas (the consular
section had thrown him off because he sent some people with syphilis to the US),
or otherwise he might have been difficult. The chances of Velasco's coming back are now so slight that there's no reason to waste time seeing Ovalle for
information on the Velasquistas. I recruited a new cutout for Basantes who I think
can get the agent's reporting jacked up. He's Gonzalo Fernandez, ‡ a former
Ecuadorean Air Force colonel who was military attache in London until he was
forced to retire for political reasons. As Basantes is also a former military officer
the chances are that they will work well together.
I also terminated the letter intercepts which I had taken back when the
administrative assistant left a couple of months ago. The agents were pretty
rattled at first but after I explained that we just don't have time for opening,
reading, photography, closing, plus the two meetings for pick-up and return—
they seemed to accept it. They liked the termination bonus and we made
arrangements for meetings every two or three months to pay for propaganda
they've burned. Not too bad at a couple of hundred dollars a ton. These postal
intercepts are a waste of time, in my opinion, and only the headquarters desks
that are ready to take anything, like the Cuban branch, will waste effort poring
over letters and testing for SW.
Tampa 10 December 1963
On the flight home I compared the existing situation in Ecuador with what I
met when I first arrived there. Noland practically wouldn't recognize the place
with all the growth. In the Quito station we now have eight officers, including
Gabe Lowe ‡ who will arrive in the spring to fill the last new slot, as opposed to
five when I arrived, plus two additional secretaries, several new working wives
and an additional communications officer. In Guayaquil we still have only two
officers inside the Consulate but have added one officer outside. Now Dean plans
to add even more officers under non-official cover, particularly in Guayaquil. The
station budget has also risen dramatically—from about 500,000 dollars in 1960,
to almost 800,000 dollars now.
Operations are better now, too. The counter-insurgency programme has
improved, helped along by all the arrests, the exiling and the general repression
undertaken by the junta. We have some new operations under way—particularly
the new telephone tapping and military intelligence unit that Dean is setting up.
Many of these activities are carried out in cooperation with the junta which, in
turn, we have managed to penetrate through police and military officers and the
junta's chief stenographer whom we have on our payroll. It looks as if operations in the student field are going to improve, and in our labour operations, both
CEOSL and the AIFLD are well established in spite of all the problems they have
had to face. The best of our PCE penetration agents have survived and we have
added several more, including those of the Guayaquil base.
So far as the general political situation is concerned the position is even more
favourable. When I arrived in Ecuador, Araujo was Minister of Government and
for two and a half years the traditional parties made a mess of things, thus
encouraging the people to look for extremist solutions. All politicians, Velasco
and his followers, the Conservatives, the Social Christians, the Liberals and the
Socialists, had struggled for narrow sectarian interests, sometimes under the
leadership of our agents and close liaison contacts. But they failed to establish
through the democratic process the reforms to which they all paid at least lip service. Now, at last, these reforms can be imposed by decree and it seems
certain that the order imposed by the junta will speed economic growth. Land
reform is still the greatest need. In a report published earlier this year, the UN
Food and Agricultural Organization noted that some 800,000 Ecuadorean
families (over three million people) live in precarious poverty while 1000 rich
families (900 landowners and 100 in business and commerce) enjoy inordinate
wealth.
next
Part3
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