CUBAN AMERICANS FIGHT FOR CONTRAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605070018-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 20, 2013
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: October 25, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/02/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605070018-8
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WASHINGTON POST
2 5 October 1986
Cuban Americans Fight for Contras
,
Bay of Pigs Survivors, 25 Years. Later, Still Battling Leftists
emerged to link the secret air re-
supply operation directly to the
U.S. government. The Cuban
Americans were acting, each in a
different way, on their own initia-
tives, friends and associates said.
Contra leaders have refused to
say who controlled and paid for the
flights. The Reagan administration,
forbidden by Congress in October
.1984 from giving military aid to the
contras, has denied any direct in-
volvement.
But the three Cuban Americans,
along with others active with the
contras, share political roots in the
Bay of Pigs assault against Cuban
communist leader Fidel Castro or-
ganized by the Central Intelligence
Agency. The downed plane._ re-
vealed a new aspect of the-careers
of a number of Cuban exiles who
view themselves as combating a
communist threat, sometimes with
the backing of the U.S. government
but often without it.
The Cuban exiles were well
suited to help the contras when the
Reagan administration was barred
from helping to overthrow the San-
dinista government militarily but
not from encouraging private vol-
unteers. Felix Rodriguez, for exam-
ple, worked for more than a decade
with the CIA before retiring in the
mid-1970s and had so many con-
tacts in the U.S. government that
many people he met in Central
America, including prisoner Hasen-
fus, simply assumed he was still op-
erating covertly for Washington.
Rodriguez's friends said he didn't
say who he worked for and they,
knowing his history, didn't ask.
Contra leaders welcome the Cu-
bans' help. "They have been ex-
tremely important to us in terms of
material assistance and moral sup-
port because of the degree of their
commitment," said Leonardo So-
:marriba, a coordinator in Miami for
the main contra alliance, the United
Nicaraguan Opposition. "They help
By Julia Preston
N.7 WaShiligtiiri Post-Staff Writers -
MIAMI?In the sweltering trop-
ical forests of southern Nicaragua,
about two dozen Cuban Americans
are acting as military advisers to
guerrillas battling to oust the leftist
Sandinista government, according
to Nicaraguan rebel ,commanders
and Cuban community leaders here.
In the two years since Cuban
Americans first shouldered assault
rifles to participate directly in fire-
fights in Nicaragua, one has been
killed in combat, two have been cap-
tured by Sandinista forces and two
remain in jail in Costa Rica after-im-
migration authorities there ar-
rested them en route to the Ni-
caraguan border, their Cuban spon-
sors in Miami said.
The. Cuban Americans who
signed on to fight with the Ni-
caraguan rebels, known as contras
or counterrevolutionaries, are ded-
icated activists with roots in the
1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, com-
mitted to backing anticommunist
causes in the hemisphere. Cuban-
American support for the contras
has also included raising at least $1
million in aid through radio mara-
thons and private contributions, and
donations of nonlethal goods such as
shoes, uniforms, compasses and
canteens, according to interviews
with members of this community.
The Oct. 5 downing of a C-123K
cargo plane carrying arms for the
contras in southern Nicaragua un-
expectedly cast a spotlight on the
Cuban-American involvement in
Central America's conflict.
"We would prefer to dedicate all
our efforts to liberating Cuba. But
the reality is there are no guerrillas
there now," said Juan Perez-Franco,
president of the 2506 Brigade, an
association of veterans of the ill-
fated, U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs in-
vasion and the group sponsoring the
Cuban Americans in Nicaragua.
The number 2506 was the identi-
fication number of the first man
killed in the 1961 operation.
"We have to support others who
are opposing communism, and the
nearest fight now is in Nicaragua,"
Perez-Franco said.
Cuban Americans who assist the
contras run the gamut from a self-
made wealthy banana importer
lauded for his business record in
President Reagan's 1984 State of
the Union message to a free-lance
guerrilla fighter who organized a
shipment of goods that the Federal
Bureau of Investigation is examin-
ing for possible weapons-related vi-
olations.
Eugene Hasenfus, 45, the Amer-
ican crewman who survived the
Oct. 5 crash and was captured by
Sandinista troops, said the secret
air resupply operation for the con-
tras was run from the Ilopango mil-
itary airfield in San Salvador by two
Cuban Americans who he thought
"worked for the CIA."
Controversy has swirled around
the elusive Felix Ismael Rodriguez
Mendigutia, 45, known in El Sal-
vador as "Max Gomez," described
by his friends in Miami and by Ha-
senfus as the main coordinator of
the clandestine contra arms mis-
sions.
Rodriguez has met with Vice
President Bush at least twice in
Washington?although Bush says
they did not discuss the contras?
and is a longtime friend of Bush's
national security affairs adviser,
Donald P. Gregg.
In Managua, Sandinista intelli-
gence officers have said the second
Cuban named by Hasenfus?a man
known in El Salvador as "Ramon
Medina"?was in fact Luis Posada
Carriles, a fugitive terrorist sought
for his alleged role in the 1976
bombing of a Cubana airlines pas-
senger plane.
The Nicaraguan officers also
mentioned Gustavo Villoldo, a
Cuban American said to have ad-
vised contras based in Honduras in
1984.
From interviews with friends and
acquaintances of the three Cuban
Americans as well as community
leaders in Miami who support the
anti-Sandinista rebels, no evidence
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us not to make the same mistakes
they made, to deal in realities."
Cuban Americans who 'participate
directly in the anti-Sandinista cause
are heroes to many in the Miami
community. To their critics, they
are anti-Castro fanatics and mer-
cenaries.
The Hasenfus incident drew at-
tention to the Cuban Americans'
role just as it is becoming more
symbolic than significant because of
Reagan administration preparations
to deliver the first installments of
$100 million in new military and
non-lethal aid to the contras.
The small Cuban unit on the con-
tras' southern .front bordering Cos-
ta Rica is providing "professional in-
struction" to several hundred Ni-
caraguan guerrillas, according to
their commander, Fernando (El Ne-
gro) Chamorro. From Miami, 2506
Brigade leaders 'maintain contact
with the Cuban unit by means of a
ham radio the group donated, Cha-
morro said.
One Cuban, whose name the
2506 Brigade did not release, killed
himself in May after he stumbled
into a Sandinista minefield and was
badly wounded, according to Perez-
Franco. Two Cubans captured in
June by Sandinista infantrymen,
when presented to the press by Ni-
caraguan officials, said they went to
the United States in the chaotic
1980 NIariel boatlift and agreed to
join Chamorro's fighters because
they were broke, homeless and job-
less in Miami.
By contrast, Felix Rodriguez is a
legend for his lifelong, single-mind-
ed dedication to anticommunist
campaigns. "He is a great patriot, a
professional soldier," said Jorge
Mas Canosa, chairman of the
Cuban-American National Founda-
tion, the most influential lobbying
group of its kind in the country.
Mas Canosa has been a friend of
Rodriguez since they fought togeth-
er at the Bay of Pigs. Friends said
Rodriguez was in Miami when Ha-
senfus blew his El Salvador cover
and that he has remained in touch
with them from an undisclosed lo-
cation.
"We see Felix as an asset?doing
what many of us would like to do
but we might not have the time or
the courage," said fellow Bay of
Pigs veteran Rolando Eugenio Mar-
tinez, who was convicted and later
pardoned in the 1972 burglary that
exposed the Watergate scandal.
? Rodriguez's involvement with the
CIA began when he was infiltrated
into Cuba prior to the April 1961. in-
vasion, in one of the most perilous
phases of the Bay of Pigs assault. ,
After the invaders were routed,
Rodriguez assisted until 1969 with
covert missions to smuggle out
stranded fighters, according to
Martinez, who coordinated the op-
eration. Even then, Martinez said,
lie was never certain which U.S.
agency detailed Rodriguez to his
operation, though they were close
friends.
In the early '60s Rodriguez was
in officer in a special army unit of
Ray of Pigs exiles at Fort Benning,
Ga. He was one of a handful of Cu-
bans working for the U.S. govern-
ment in the 1967 Bolivian jungle.
manhunt that killed Cuban commu-
nist revolutionary Ernesto (Che)
Guevara, according to Miguel Al-
varez, a Rodriguez friend and for-
mer 2506 Brigade president. In the
early '70s he went to Vietnam as a
CIA airmobile counterinsurgency
expert, said Theodore Shackley, a
former top CIA official and a friend
of Rodriguez.
Rodriguez injured his back in a
combat helicopter crash and could
hardly walk. He retired in the mid-
'70s from the CIA on disability.
Friends say they think he relies on
his pension to support his wife and
two teen-aged children.
Rodriguez sought, with moderate
success, to parlay his government
contacts into business deals in Latin
America. He became a partner of
Gerard Latchinian, 48, a Miami-
based arms broker convicted last
February of conspiring in 1984 to
assassinate the former president of
Honduras, Roberto Suazo. Latch-
Man is serving a 30-year sentence.
Latchinian's lawyer, Laurel
Marc-Charles, said in 1979 her cli-
ent took the unusual step of allow-
ing Rodriguez to hold stock in his
company because the Cuban Amer-
ican had "golden" connections in the
CIA and other U.S. agencies.
Jose Basulto, a construction con-
tractor, recalled a chance encoun-
ter iri..early 1985 in a Miami hos-
pital between Rodriguez and Adolfo
Cater% a leader of the United Ni-
caraguan Opposition. Rodriguez
told Calero that he was going to El
Salvador to advise its military be-
cause his combat skills made him
more useful there than with the
contras.
Rodriguez switched to coordinat-
ing contra arms flights early this
year, Basulto said. Rodriguez's
friends say he is not paid by the CIA
or the Salvadoran military. Rodri-
guez told Basulto the air resupply
flights were privately financed.
Friends said they occasionally
gave Rodriguez airplane tickets and
cash.. to return to Central America
from Miami.
The second Cuban to make his
way to El Salvador early this year,
was former CIA operative Luis Po-,
sada, who escaped in August 1985
from a Venezuelan prison after
eight years awaiting trial on
charges linked to the Cubana air-
liner bombing, which killed 73.
In a letter Posada wrote in May
from Central America to a friend in
Venezuela, he said he went there to
pursue his "war to the death and
without quarter against Fidel Cas-
tro." He underwent plastic surgery,
grew a beard, and was wearing mil-
itary fatigues when he was inter-
viewed in May by a Venezuelan
journalist,. 'Rafael del Naranco.
Cuban associates of Posada told del-
Naranco he chose El Salvador be-
cause his contacts in the military
made it "a calm place" for him.
Posada and Rodriguez served to-
gether at Ft. Benning. Unidentified
sources told the Miami Herald that
in El Salvador Posada used the
name "Ramon Medina," the same
name cited by American prisoner
Hasenfus. Basulto said a "partici-
pant" in the contra air resupply op-
eration told him "Medina" was not
Posada but another Cuban Amer-
ican at the Ilopango base.
The third Cuban mentioned in
connection with the downed plane,
Gustavo Villoldo, crossed paths
with Rodriguez in Bolivia in 1967,
friends of both Cubans said. A con-
struction engineer in Miami, Vil-
loldo approached contra field com-
manders in Honduras in 1984
boasting of links to Washington of-
ficials and asking to join the fight, a
contra official said. Former spokes-
man Edgar Chamorro, who has
since broken with the contras, said
the CIA warned contra leaders at
the time that Villoldo was untrust-
worthy and could sow dissension.
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The first Cuban-American guer-
rilla advisers went to Costa Rica
two years ago. When Perez-Franco
became president of the 2506 Bri-
gade last spring he made the mil-
itary effort in Central America of-
ficial, and put Rene Corvo in charge
of relations with the contras.
Until this year only Cubans who
fought at the Bay of Pigs could be
brigade members, Perez-Franco
said. In an unprecedented move, he
extended the membership to in-
clude "all freedom fighters," includ-
ing Nicaraguans fighting the San-
dinista government.
He said the Cuban Americans de-
cided to concentrate their efforts in
southern ?Nicaragua because it was
less developed than the northern
front, where more than .10,000 reb-
els operate out of bases in Hondu-
ras.
A March 1985 plane shipment to
the contras by a group of Cuban
Americans that included Corvo
prompted the FBI to investigate al-
legations that the cargo included.
automatic rifles and other weapons.
The organizers of the flight deny
the allegations and no charges have
been filed.
That shipment and one in June
1985 were flown from Fort Lauder-
dale, Fla., to the Ilopango air base
in San Salvador in a Convair cargo
plane. owned by Florida Aircraft
Leasing Corp., according to its
president, Thomas Boy. Boy said on
both occasions the plane was leased
for about $16,000 to Daniel Vaz-
quez Jr., who operates a separate
air charter business. Vazquez said
that the money for both flights
came from Corvo and that no weap-
ons were aboard.
Corvo refused comment last
week.
Among the Cuban-American or-
ganizations providing strictly hu-
manitarian assistance to the contras
is a nonprofit group called "Con-
cerned Citizens for Democracy,"
headed by Carlos M. Perez, a Re-
publican who runs a Miami-based
banana import business. Perez said
his group raised about $125,000 in.
funds, clothing and shoes for the
contras.
A list of the group's directors
provided by Perez includes .a num-
ber of Cuban-American business-
men, a former Reagan speechwri-
ter, and retired Maj. Gen. John K.
Singlaub, the contras' well-known
private fund-raiser, who is listed as
an advisory board member.
The close relationship between
many pro-contra Cuban-American
leaders, most of whom are Repub-
lican, and Miami-area Republican
chairman John E. (Jeb) Bush, the
son of the vice president, has fueled
speculation that the vice president
quietly assisted Rodriguez's work
with the contras.
Jeb Bush denied any role in the
resupply. operation. "I support the
contras, but I have not been in-
volved in aiding them directly," he
said. One Cuban-American leader
he has worked with closely is lob-
byist Mas Canosa. He is one of us,"
Mas Canosa said of Jeb Bush. It was
at a Cuban-American celebration
last May 20 organized by Mas
Canosa that the vice president, a
former CIA director, last shook
hands with Rodriguez.
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