ENVOY GIVES ACCOUNT OF MEETING WITH CASTRO BY GEORGE CEDDA WASHINGTON

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000700060041-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2005
• Sequence Number: 41
• Publication Date: August 18, 1984
• Content Type: PREL

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Approved For Release 2005//0A1 ugCrA-Fjl I-00901R000 00060041-3
'BY.-,GEORGE GEDDA
WASHINGTON
By Fidel Castro's count, the CIA has tried on 25 occasions to
him.
Yet when Castro met secretly with Vernon Walters,_a_former deput
the CIA, for six hours 2 1/2 years ago, there was surprisingly little
acrimony.
"It was very cordial," Walters recalled in an interview. "There was no sense
of hostility. He has respect for people who believe in their ideals. He scorns
Americans who are ashamed of being American."
Walters, who has served as ambassador-at-large for the past three years, met
uith Castro in Havana on March 5, 1982. It was a time when the United States,
under strong pressure from Mexico, was trying to seek an accommodation with both(
Cuba and Nicar;igua.
The American and Cuban governments agreed not to disclose that the Meeting
had taken place but word of it leaked out shortly afterward in Europe.; Walters
elaborated on the few details about the encounter that have filtered out.
Walters was the No. 2 official at the CIA from 1972-76 followim_ ~t:he
period in which the agency's attempts on as ra s i e are aed to aye
occurred. In contrast to Castro's claims a Senate commi-thee investigation 10
years apo concludedthat--the-Cuban president-was a araet o eiah.t
CIA -sponsored assassination plots.
Walters said the meeting did not result in any narrowing of Cuban--American
differences.
"He (Castro) held firm to his ideas," Walters said. "He made plain that he
was an intellectually convinced communist, that he had been one since he was 17
years of age."
Some Cuba analysts believe Castro converted to Marxism after the revolution
but Walters said he has no doubt that Castro's own account is the correct one.
Walters said Castro, at 21, was in Bogota, Colombia, in 1948 durin a violent
political uprising that coincided with a meeting of Organization of American
States foreign ministers.
Ironically, Walters was there himself, serving as an aide to then Secretary
of State George Marshall.
Castro, Walters said, "was on the radio exhorting people to break into the
arms stores and take arms."
Ccx+i?nucd
Approved For Release 2005/07/01 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700060041-3
 Approved For Release 20054M%T-AASI-00901
18 August 1984
WALTERS PROFILE
BY GEORGE GEDDA
WASHINGTON
He flits furtively from capital to capital, a self-styled diplomatic "bird of
passage." He can toss off anecdotes in eight languages about his days as a
soldier, spy and special envoy, his dealings with DeGaulle, Churchill, Castro,
MacArthur, Eisenhower, Nixon, Truman, Marshall.
Vernon Walters has known them all.
At an age when most people are slowing down, "Dick" Walters, 67, is speeding
up, spending three days of every four an the road, or, more likely, in; the air,
going to and from meetings, usually unannounced, with kings, presidents and
prime ministers.
His 6-foot-3-inch frame casts a big shadow, but somehow, he has managed to
carry out most of his travels undetected.
No one in government, with the possible exception of diplomatic couriers,
logs more time airborne than Walters. who became President Reams
jmbas ador-at-la[&gin 1981 after service as a three-star Army general and
deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He has translated for
four preside~ncs.
His linguistic skills, honed during his schoolboy education in Europe, are
legendary. Once, when President Nixon delivered a 10-minute toast to a West
German official, the interpreter became incapacitated. Walters came to! the
rescue with an impromptu translation that the Germans said was flawless.
Walters is a travel agent's dream. Since joining the administration, he has
visited 95 countries. This year, he has averaged more than 10,000 miles a week
in the air 300,000 miles, or 60,000 miles more than the distance between the
Earth and the moon.
I
In one eight-day, eye-glazing-exercise in tedium, he had six flights of more
than seven hours each: Washington-South America-Africa-Europe-Los
Ang eles-Europe-Washington.
So where does this jut-jawed jet-setter go and whom does he see on these
journeys? Only about one trip in four is known outside the State Department
because Walters believes discreet contacts are more likely to produce results.
When his feet are not firmly planted in the air, Walters occupies a modest
sixth-floor office at the State Department.
Walters, for the most part, won't say which countries he has visited,
allowing only that some of his trips would raise eyebrows if they were
disclosed. Only rarely, however, is he the bearer of good news.
"I am not sent (on trips) if success is likely," he said in a rare interview.
"Local authorities take care of the easy problems. One of my chief tasks is
administering extreme unction, just before the patient dies.
Contnueed
Approved For Release 2005/07/01 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000700060041-3