MEXICAN OFFICIAL INTIMIDATED MAGAZINE WASHINGTON POST - 3 OCTOBER 1986

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00561R000100160020-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: October 6, 1986
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160020-2
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160020-2
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160020-2
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1986 E5
JACK ANDERSON and DALE VAN ATTA
Mexican Official Intimidated Magazine
The Central Intelligence Agency has learned
that a Mexican cabinet member's subordinate
tried unsuccessfully to bribe the editors of a
Mexican news magazine to kill a critical report on
the cabinet official.
Informed CIA and Mexican law enforcement
sources have told us that they uncovered an
attempt by the former chief of the Federal
Directorate of Security, Jose Antonio Zorilla, to pay
the editors of Proceso $2 million worth of pesos,
with a promise of $2 million more if they agreed to
spike a story they had obtained on Zorilla's boss,
Interior Minister Manuel Bartlett Diaz.
The story is unfolding for Mexican police and
CIA agents with the publication in Mexico City of
an autobiographical book, "The Presidents," by
Proceso's publisher, Julio Scherer.
As we reported recently, the book contains the
full story that Proceso never printed: the 1983
kid.naping of Bartlett's teen-age niece and nephew
from a religious commune in Venezuela, arranged
by the interior minister as a favor to his sister, the
children's mother.
In his book, Scherer also tells how Bartlett's
minion, Zorilla, succeeded in intimidating Proceso's
editors with threats of violence. Mexican reporters
and columnists have been threatened often in the
past by government officials, and some have been
killed.
But Scherer did not relate the unsuccessful
attempt at a bribe by Bartlett's emissary. Proceso's
editors would not comment on the matter,
"especially to an American reporter," one of them
told us.
However, our CIA and Mexican police sources
said that Zorilla later bragged to fellow police
officials that he had gotten Proceso's editors to kill
the Bartlett story without paying them "a single
peso" of the $2 million pesos he had in cash. It is
not established whether Bartlett had authorized the
bribe attempt.
Bartlett is the "iron hand" of President Miguel de
la Madrid's cabinet and his possible successor. In a
secret profile, the CIA has this to say about hinm:
"A self-described political auinial, Bartlett is
probably one of de la Madrid's closest advisers on
domestic political affairs. [He] has the ear of the
president on a wide range of issues ....
"As de la Madrid's campaign manager and de
facto head of the [ruling party] during 1981-82,
Bartlett established control over many of the party
mechanisms, and he directed the vote-rigging
operation during de la Madrid's election ......
Here's how the CIA report describes the police
force that allowed Zorilla (and Bartlett) to
intimidate Proceso's editors: "Tlhe most effective
civilian internal security force is the Federal
Directorate of Security (DFS), subordinate to
Manuel Bartlett .... The 1)FS tields about ! ,:,, `(o
agents at its ivlexicn City headquarters and at
branches in all of the states .... .
"The directorate's main responsibility is to
monitor suspected dissidents and opposition groups
with a view to discovering and investigating any
possible subversive efforts. The l)FS dues not
hesitate to conduct searches .end seizures avid even
to detain and interrogate individuals suspected of
subversion."
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160020-2
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160020-2
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/23: CIA-RDP91-00561 R000100160020-2