The Counterintelligence Analyst, the Stasi, and the Moles. Excerpts from the Havana-Berlin Connection Investigation. By Jorge L. García Vázquez

 

By Jorge L. García Vázquez 

The Bay of Pigs fiasco exposed two fundamental problems. First, it revealed the CIA's operational ineptitude. Second, it highlighted a glaring lack of coordination between the Agency and the White House. These factors, along with the economic strategy of successive US administrations to isolate Cuba through the trade embargo, allowed Fidel Castro to cultivate a robust anti-American movement, gain allies, and secure economic and military support from the socialist bloc.

U.S. intelligence services long underestimated the training, scientific and technical preparation, ideological approach, and methodology of Cuban analysts and officers, including their knowledge of operational psychology. This was demonstrated in 1987 after Major Florentino Aspillaga defected. The CIA carried out multiple operations aimed at weakening the power of the Communist Party and its intelligence apparatus but was unable to erode its foundation. Ultimately, the Agency's analysts failed to grasp their enemy's modus operandi. However, Cuban counterintelligence and espionage do understand the American mindset and work strategy. This has allowed them to create an effective system of influence and operational disinformation.

A parallel can be drawn between the Cuban Directorate of Intelligence and the former East German intelligence services. The operational conditions were analogous, which elucidates the persistent influence of Stasi methodologies on Cuban intelligence analysis and gathering, double agent training, and infiltration plans within the United States.

                                         Havana-Berlin Connection refers to historical ties between Cuba's intelligence services (MININT) and the former East German State Security (Stasi) during the Cold War. East Germany trained Cuban intelligence personnel, exported operational techniques, and provided equipment for surveillance, eavesdropping, illicit communications, and repression. This collaboration helped Cuba develop a comprehensive intelligence and counterintelligence infrastructure, which was applied domestically and internationally.

Jorge Luis García Vázquez's personal experiences with repression—arrest, interrogation, exile—and later scholarly work illuminate both the operational collaboration and the human cost. His documentation underscores how the Stasi system functioned as a blueprint for Cuban intelligence and repression practices.

 

La inteligencia cubana y la CIA: un conflicto en las sombras. Por Henrik Hernandez

 

En el complejo escenario de la guerra de inteligencia, pocos servicios han logrado generar tanto respeto y temor en sus adversarios como la Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI) de Cuba. Recientemente, el exjefe de Contrainteligencia de la CIA, James Olson, ha reconocido en distintas entrevistas y publicaciones la impresionante capacidad de los servicios de inteligencia cubanos, calificándolos como "los más irritantes" con los que ha trabajado.

El caso más reciente que ha puesto en evidencia la capacidad de la inteligencia cubana es el de Víctor Manuel Rocha, exembajador de EE.UU. en Bolivia, quien fue arrestado en diciembre de 2023 tras admitir haber trabajado como agente no registrado de Cuba durante más de 40 años. Este incidente, junto con el historial de operaciones encubiertas llevadas a cabo por la DGI, refuerza la imagen de Cuba como un actor clave en la inteligencia global.

                              El reconocimiento de James Olson

James Olson, exdirector de Contrainteligencia de la CIA y actual profesor en la Universidad Texas A&M, ha afirmado en múltiples ocasiones que la inteligencia cubana es una de las más eficaces del mundo....https://tocororocubano.com/la-inteligencia-cubana-y-la-cia-un-conflicto-en-las-sombras/

(The United States is losing the counterintelligence war. Foreign intelligence services, particularly those of China, Russia, and Cuba, are recruiting spies in our midst and stealing our secrets and cutting-edge technologies. In To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence, James M. Olson, former chief of CIA counterintelligence, offers a wake-up call for the American public and also a guide for how our country can do a better job of protecting its national security and trade secrets. Olson takes the reader into the arcane world of counterintelligence as he lived it during his thirty-year career in the CIA. After an overview of what the Chinese, Russian, and Cuban spy services are doing to the United States, Olson explains the nitty-gritty of the principles and methods of counterintelligence. Readers will learn about specific aspects of counterintelligence such as running double-agent operations and surveillance. The book also analyzes twelve real-world case studies to illustrate why people spy against their country, the tradecraft of counterintelligence, and where counterintelligence breaks down or succeeds. A “lessons learned” section follows each case study.https://press.georgetown.edu/Book/To-Catch-a-Spy  )

LANCHAS Y ESPÍAS

 

«Panchito» y los autoataques del régimen

Las investigaciones mostradas por Cao revelaron también las acciones del régimen para autoatacarse y acusar a EE.UU. de ello.

Al respecto, se abordó el caso de Franciso Ávila, «Panchito», jefe militar de Alfa 66 pero doble agente: por un lado, agente de la inteligencia castrista, por otro, del FBI.

https://www.cubanet.org/revelan-grabaciones-sobre-espias-de-cuba-en-ee-uu/

ALERTA DE SEGURIDAD NACIONAL, SIGUE HABIENDO ESPÍAS CUBANOS EN EE.UU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6dsnXEpIQk

 ''One time, I was one of six people aboard a boat belonging to Alpha 66, and I looked around and realized that three of us were from [Cuban] state security,'' Avila said.

 https://stasi-minint.blogspot.com/2026/02/infiltration-seduction-among-cuban-spy.html

Notas del autor:

Ávila no solo era jefe militar de Alpha 66, un grupo anticastrista, sino también agente de la Dirección de Inteligencia. Al mismo tiempo, proporcionó informaciones al FBI. Su última misión fue desenmascarar al diplomático y agente cubano Carlos Collazo Usallan ,en Nueva York  durante un intercambio de informaciónes. La conversación fue filmada en secreto. Esto también confirmó la participación de agentes de la Seguridad del Estado en (auto) ataques armados en Cuba.. "Los cubanos incluso proporcionaron las armas", declaró posteriormente Tony Cuesta, quien participó en varias operaciones. Carlos Collazo, tercer secretario de la misión cubana ante la ONU, fue expulsado de Estados Unidos.

De acuerdo a documentos  del Departamento de Inteligencia germano-oriental, HV A revisados por el autor,la Stasi asesoró a los especialistas cubanos "por la línea de Estados Unidos", en la comprobación de agentes,métodos de exploración indirecta a funcionarios del gobierno norteamericano, aplicación de técnica a instalaciones de intereses operativos y un tema de mucha importancia para la Inteligencia cubana: Cómo trasladar la información urgente de Washington al "Centro Legal" en New York. Fuente: Documento con fecha 23 de abril de 1986 

AGENTES CON FACHADA DIPLOMÁTICA 

RENE JUAN MUJICA CANTELAR es un hombre de éxito, un agente del servicio de inteligencia cubano, convertido en diplomático que lleva décadas realizando operaciones de influencia y desinformación en Europa. Su pertenencia al aparato de espionaje castrista es conocida y ha sido reportada en varias ocasiones,  https://cuba.blogspot.com/2008/03/when-spies-become-diplomats.html?m=

https://stasi-minint.blogspot.com/2013/12/la-embajada-de-cuba-en-alemania-centro.html

https://stasi-minint.blogspot.com/2014/02/la-embajada-de-cuba-en-las-naciones.html

1988: Cubans blame shooting on 'CIA plot' A Cuban diplomat opened fire in a crowded London street because of an American plot to make him defect, his government has said. The shooting occurred yesterday afternoon in Bayswater and left one man slightly injured. The British Government has condemned the behaviour of Cuba's commercial attaché, Medina Perez, and expelled him and the ambassador, Oscar Fernandez-Mell. The Foreign Office has so far refused to comment on the Cuban version of events, but Scotland Yard said the wounded man was a member of the UK security services and not the CIA. Mr Perez was on the way back to his flat when he fired on a group of people who were shadowing him.

....y que los "diplomáticos" cubanos no solo buscan informaciones, sino que también usan la violencia armada para intimidar a los desertores, quedó demostrado en 1988, cuando Carlos Manuel Medina Pérez,  encargado comercial de Cuba en Gran Bretaña, fue expulsado del país. El diplomático y agente de  la Seguridad del Estado cubano disparó, en Londres al exoficial y desertor Florentino Aspillaga Lombard . Poco después, el  agente fue condecorado en La Habana por orden de Fidel Castro.

Infiltration, seduction among Cuban spy tactics in U.S. BY TIM JOHNSON/ Miami Herald, Jun 16.2002

 

EE.UU. POR TIM JOHNSON/ Miami Herald, 16  102juniohe Miami Herald

Jun. 16, 2002

Infiltration, seduction among Cuban spy tactics in U.S.

  BY TIM JOHNSON

  WASHINGTON - Ana Belen Montes' confession in March brought the latest evidence of how Fidel Castro's regime seeks to spy on the United States, targeting the Cuban exile community, Capitol Hill, the military and CIA, and universities, experts say.

  Time after time, Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence has run double agents, letting them fall into U.S. hands, or wash up on U.S. shores, as presumed

 defectors.

  After insinuating themselves into exile groups, Radio Martí or federal agencies, they would sow discord, or bolt back to Havana to publicly discredit the U.S. government.

  Cuban spies based in the United States are ''very smooth, very acculturated and really very, very professional,'' one retired counterintelligence official said.

  They operate from the Cuban Interests Section in Washington and the huge Cuban mission to the United Nations in New York City, which has more than 70 accredited diplomats.

  ''I'll just flatly tell you that almost every one of them are intelligence officers,'' the retired official said.

  At Cuba's mission in New York City, intelligence gathering is such a principal task, another U.S. official said, that many of the Cuban personnel ``frankly  don't even know where the U.N. is.''

  By the mid-1970s, Cuban operatives were gathering information not only for Havana but also to pass on to the Soviet spy agency, the KGB.

  ''The Cubans were much more successful at bringing people aboard and gathering information,'' the official said. ``They were Latin and they were kind of  glamorous. We're much more open to Latins than we are to people with steel teeth and a Slavic accent.''

  Cuban intelligence agents practice literal and figurative seduction, spending months and even years looking for weak points in their targets, experts say.

  ''They investigate everything,'' said Francisco Avila, a former Cuban double agent who came clean in 1992 and now lives in South Florida. ``Do you like to  smoke? Do you like to fish, hunt? Go to the movies? Or maybe a man is a real womanizer, and they send a woman to seduce him.''

 Avila, who was tasked by Cuban intelligence with infiltrating Alpha 66, a Miami exile paramilitary group, voiced amazement at how many Cuban agents

 penetrated the group.

  ''One time, I was one of six people aboard a boat belonging to Alpha 66, and I looked around and realized that three of us were from [Cuban] state security,'' Avila said.

  Before his break with Havana, Avila said, he would receive instructions in Miami every three months or from a contact, who would give him a large hollowed-out bolt with a paper inside.

  The paper would instruct him on how to meet his Cuban intelligence handler in New York City.

  'It would say something like, `We'll see each other in Queens at such and such an hour in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken,' '' Avila said. When Avila would show up there, ''almost always it was the first secretary of the U.N. Interests Section'' waiting for him.

  The FBI counterintelligence unit has about 40 to 50 agents nationwide assigned to watch Cuban spies -- not nearly enough to keep tabs on every Cuban diplomat who wanders the streets of New York, Washington and Miami.

  ''It's not like the movies,'' the security official said.

``You put two people out on somebody and they'll lose him. It's very hard to surveil somebody.''

THE LESSONS OF THE STASI/ GIVE ME LIBERTY BY DAVID HOFFMANN

  

THE LESSONS OF THE STASI

Fidel Castro’s intelligence services had long used subversion, deception, informers, and psychological pressure tactics. But Castro wanted to find new ways to suffocate any opposition in Cuba. He turned to the Stasi, the feared Ministry of State Security in East Germany. They had refined methods to detect opposition and nip it in the bud, including a type of psychological warfare known as Zersetzung, or “decomposition.” The Stasi tutored Cuba’s state security in these methods, including wiretapping, which were later used against Oswaldo.

GIVE ME LIBERTY

By David Hoffmann 

https://www.davidehoffman.com/oswaldos-quest/

LA RED TELEFÓNICA DEL MININT Y EL APOYO TECNOLÓGICO DE LA STASI

 

           LA RED TELEFÓNICA DEL MININT  Y EL APOYO TECNOLÓGICO DE LA STASI

           ANATOMÍA DE LA REPRESIÓN Y EL ESPIONAJE CASTRISTA

            JORGE L. GARCÍA VAZQUEZ

                                           Foto: antiguo Ministerio de la Seguridad del Estado, Berlín

                                                     https://www.stasimuseum.de/index.htm

                                                     

Dieter Volkel, oficial y especialista en comunicaciones de la Stasi, llegó a Cuba con la misión de modernizar la Red Telefónica MININT y, según los documentos de la policía política de Alemania Oriental, permaneció en el país desde el 26 de septiembre de 1986 hasta el 12 de mayo de 1989.El convenio para la realización del proyecto fue firmado el 27 de junio de 1986.

El objetivo de esta cooperación era mejorar las comunicaciones entre los centros del MININT a nivel nacional, lo  que también aumentaría la efectividad operativa de la Seguridad del Estado.

Las tareas realizadas, según el documento firmado el 4 de mayo de 1989 por el coronel Luis Delgado Rodríguez*, jefe de la Dirección de Comunicaciones y el teniente coronel Wolfgang Kirchner, Representante del MfS en la Habana, fueron las siguientes:

     -Central Telefónica Plaza 1/Occidente del MININT en La Habana

    - Zonal Centro: Centrales telefónicas Villa Clara I y II

    - Conexión entre las centrales telefónicas

Modificaciones en la instalación vieja del MININT, automatización de las comunicaciones de Villa Clara con las delegaciones provinciales del MININT en Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus y Ciego de Ávila.

             Santiago de Cuba, delegación provincial. Instalación de la central telefónica   

             tipo ATZ 65 N/B.  (Fue puesta en funcionamiento el 15 de enero de 1989).

            En Guantánamo, Holguín, Granma y Las Tunas se crearon las condiciones de

            "enlace" de los canales de larga distancia y su conexión con la Central de Santiago

             de Cuba.

            Modificaciones técnicas, lo que contribuyó al ahorro de una cantidad considerable

          de materiales y recursos. Asesoramiento y traducción de la documentación técnica

           e impartió cursos al personal técnico.

 

VALORACIÓN DEL MININT: “La Jefatura de la Dirección de Comunicaciones del MININT considera que las tareas emanadas del acuerdo anteriormente mencionado han sido cumplidas, por lo que estima que el trabajo del coronel Volkel ha concluido exitosamente.”

 

FROM BERLIN TO HAVANA

 

By Jorge  L. García Vázquez

ESPIONAGE
E. Germans drew blueprint for Cuban spying (2007)

A once-jailed Cuban exile's research reveals how East Germany exported its repressive Stasi security system to Cuba, where it lives on

BY MICHAEL LEVITIN
Special to The Miami Herald

BERLIN 

https://havana-berlin-connection.blogspot.com/2011/05/east-germans-drew-blueprint-for-cuban.html

Cuban spies received secret messages by old-time short-wave

By Juan O. Tamayo

Every week, one short wave radio station in Cuba broadcasts 97 messages coded in fax-like tones. A computer program easily available to the public changes the tones into numbers, and the Cuban spies then decode the numbers into words.
A second Cuban spy station transmits 16 messages per week in the dots and dashes of the 175-year-old Morse code – secret messages to Havana spies who may be older or less technologically savvy.

Cuba’s most famous numbers station, known as “Atención” because of the opening line of the deadpan female voice in Spanish that started its transmissions, went off the air just late last year, Smolinski.

The lack of any accent in the voice of the Atención station was explained in December by Jorge García Vázquez, a Cuban in Berlin who has been researching the links between Havana and the STASI, the former East Germany’ intelligence service. A Jan. 10 1977 letter in the STASI archives shows Cuban intelligence Maj. Eddy Herrera had requested the equipment for a numbers station, preloaded with the Spanish words for one through zero, Attention, Goodbye and Final, Garcia Vázquez reported.

https://havana-berlin-connection.blogspot.com/2014/02/cuban-spies-received-secret-messages-by.html

The training of Cuban intelligence and counterintelligence officers in the techniques of the East German “counterintelligence state” was evident in many ways. The demise of the German Democratic Republic in 1990 and consequent access to Stasi files confirmed and expanded the understanding of the relationship. Regarding guerrilla CI, this relationship is important because Cuban trainers played substantial roles in passing on their knowledge to Latin American and other insurgent groups. Cuban researcher Jorge Luís Vázquez, 33 ..." 

http://www.slideshare.net/CIARO/jsou-guerrilla-counterintelligence

From Berlin to Havana: The Secret Stasi–DGI Axis

https://youtu.be/VT7YciPY_vw