CUBAN NAMED IN PROBE SAYS HE TIPPED REAGAN TEAM ON WEAPONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404330001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 26, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000404330001-8
Cuban named in nrobeq
Aft 1 I CLE. APPEARED
')N FAGE 9 -1
Raymond Molina, -a 'wealthy
Miami ? real : estate. 'developer and
Bay, of Pigs veteran, traveled to
Key West as a volunteer in 1980
'to translate -' for and ' "orient
arriving Mariel refugees.'
Instead, Molina says; he 'got an
unexpected, orientation : from.' the
refugees, who' gave him what he
calls "extremely explosive" infor-
mation about Cuba's alleged pos-
session' of. nuclear :weapons -and.,
chemical warfare equipment. -
?: Molina says he'gave the infor-
mation to ' the. '. CIAj - and then
turned over the'same material to
Reagan campaign, officials days'
later because he 'felt the' Carter
administration ".was. not going to
.
do anything."",.
The four-year-old incident` is.,
now stirring up controversy. In
Washington, ',where it 'recently
came to the attention 'of' a-H dose
subcommittee `investigating the
passing of inside information from:.
the' Carter White' House to the
tipped Reagan team'. on weapons
. 26 May 1984
ments, three ? Reagan campaign
aides were'aware of the informa-
tion: 'Richard Allen, Roger Fon-
taine and Belle..
Allen later 'became ? Reagan's
national security, adviser and Fon
.taine served as a Latin America
analyst 'on the National Security.
Council.. Neither is' now .with the
administration.`:
The subcommittee concluded
that although it appeared. that
Reagan campaign aides. "did not
trust" Molina, they had not "dis- !
couraged Molina from providing
sensitive. intelligence information
to the campaign; ' even though he,
may have had access, to govern-
ment intelligence sources."
The panel ' has recommended
that other congressional. commit-
.tees involved in intelligence mat-
ters review the affair.
To Molina, there's no conflict.
"I was the owner of the informa-
tion," he said. "I could do with the
'info whatever I wanted."
Molina, a tall, ' balding, blond-
haired man who spent two years in
a Cuban prison for his role in the
ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, said
he came across the information
'when he and friends from Miami
interviewed three Mariel refugees
getting off the boats in Key West.
One, Alarcon Roman Ramacrish
na, claimed he had been an official
translator for Fidel Castro during
trips of the Cuban leader to the
Soviet Union.
During conversations that Ra-
macrishna translated for Castro,
Molina said, the Cuban leader
discussed the presence of nuclear
missiles and -chemical weapons in
Cuba. .
Since- 1962,`? when the Soviet
Union removed nuclear missiles
from Cuba after a confrontation
with the Kennedy administration,
U.S. officials have traditionally held
that there is no evidence that Cuba
still harbors nuclear weapons.
A second refugee, Armando Rom-
ero Rivas, claimed to have been a
lieutenant in a- chemical warfare
battalion stationed in Havana.
-"He gave precise descriptions of
Cuba's chemical warfare capabili-
ties, training that the Russians gave
them and the objectives they had in
different U.S. scenarios," Molina
said. _ '
A third refugee, Walfrido Ulises
Rosel, was either a captain or a
lieutenant in the Cuban army
stationed in caves near Havana
where chemical inventories were
stored, Molina said. Rosel had. also
been stationed with one of the
companies guarding nuclear mis-
siles. .
Rosel, Molina said, identified two
locations where nuclear weapons
were stored, Arroyo Arena and
Managua, both near Havana, and
described arrangements made for
security, including ground-to-air
protection. -
Molina said he and his friends,
among them other Bay of ' Pigs
veterans, interviewed the three
refugees, who arrived within two
days of each other, for a total of
about 10 to 12 hours each.
Molina then wrote a five-page
report that he turned over to CIA
contacts in Key West and to Reagan
aides Fontaine and Belle several
days later.
Molina says he knew.Belle and
Fontaine from the three years he
spent in Washington in the 1970s
acting as a registered representative
of the government of then-Nicara-
guan strongman Anastasio Somoza.
Although Molina says. he was
'impressed by the refugees' sincerity
and precise descriptions, he made
no decision as to their veracity and
had even, considered that they could
be Castro agents planting disinfor-
mation.
"I didn't come to believe any-
thing," he said. "I just wrote it-
down. It's up to the intelligence.
agencies to determine if it's true or .
snot."?
-According to Molina, the CIA"
took the trio to debrief them and ?
later returned them to the South
Florida area. He -has never heard
.from them again. -
,By JAY' DUCASSI',.: `..
Herald scat writer ? `
from providing
`discourage. Molina:.
ot.-,, .-
aides did not.-,,,
:.Reagan campaign'
.Reagan
concluded that
subcommittee .f
A congressional .
sensitive intelligence
'information.to t h e . .
campaign.'
1980 Reagan campaign.
A 2,400-page report recently
issued by the subcommittee in-
cludes 'a section : on the incident,
and contains a memo written by
'Reagan campaign aide Belden
Belle partially' describing the In-,
formation received. from Molina
and the Mariel.refugees.
According to the panel's doctl
Continued
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000404330001-8