Spy vs. Spy: Scenes from the Cold War in Colombia, 1963-72

A “fairly reliable” intelligence source for the West German government has said that Cuban intelligence (G-2) official Maximo Gruber “has been appointed technical leader of the Communist guerrillas in Sumapaz, Colombia,” according to this CIA Information Report. Gruber is “a Polish Jew” who “carries a Bolivian diplomatic passport identifying him as ‘traveling inspector of the Bolivian Foreign Ministry.’” In Colombia, Gruber is working with insurgent leader Jaime Guerra, also known as “Captain Veneno” and he is linked to the Colombian Communist Party through “Blanca Diaz y Collazo, a lawyer and former member of the Cuban Embassy in Bogota, trained in Prague in 1952.”

This finished intelligence report is the CIA’s effort to summarize what it has learned on Cuba’s efforts to train and equip “subversives” in Latin America just a little more than five months since the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 (and nearly two years since the disastrous CIA-led invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs).

A special section on Colombia presents the results of CIA efforts to track the travel of Colombian citizens to Cuba. Of 400 Colombians who went to Cuba in the past year, “37 are reported to have received training in guerrilla warfare, one in counterintelligence,” and another that “attended a staff or cadre school,” according to the CIA report. Most were members of the FUAR or MOEC groups, characterized in the report as “revolutionaries, dissident Communists, and recruits from the ranks of labor, students, and the unemployed lower classes.” The groups are said to be receiving “Cuban financial support” and are “attempting—without appreciable success to date—to coordinate operations with the bandit gangs terrorizing the violence areas of Colombia.”

A U.S. Army report on U.S. government efforts against “Cuban subversion” for spring 1963 includes a short section that describes a range of CIA activities in Colombia. Colombia’s customs chief believed that his agency had “identified a courier operating between Colombia and Cuba” and had “mounted an operation to uncover his Colombian contacts.” The CIA Station in Colombia had one “asset”—a controlled, undercover agent—“in Cuba attending guerrilla warfare training.” Another CIA “asset” was “being debriefed after his recent return from Cuba,” while a third would “depart soon for two months training in Cuba.”

Leads developed by agents sent to Cuba led the CIA station to open investigations on Colombian Congress members and officials from the Bogota city government. Meanwhile, the CIA office in Colombia was funding and directing the activities of a “Colombian Civic Action Group, composed of influential local businessmen,” that had “established an anti-Castro propaganda unit” and that was “actively collecting evidence of Cuban subversion in Colombia to support its propaganda campaign.”

CIA interception of Cuban message traffic in and out of Colombia and elsewhere helped the Agency identify the sender of some of the messages as Manuel Pineiro, a high-ranking Cuban intelligence official whose duties included aiding revolutionary movements in other parts of Latin America. The cable describes how one CIA analyst, identified as “Mrs. Anita Potocki,” had determined that an individual that had been sending messages to Cuban agent in Panama as “Patronio” was actually Pineiro. One of the recipients of the messages was an apparent Cuban agent living in Colombia near the border with Venezeula. An intercepted letter from that agent combined with Cuba’s radioed response (to reprimand the agent for including too much information in the letter) was also intercepted help to identify Pineiro as origin of the messages from Cuba.

James B. Noland, who would the next year become the CIA’s Mexico City station chief, describes how information collected by the Mexico CIty station led to the late-April arrests of senior FARC official Feliciano Pachon and one of his associates after returning to Colombia by air from Mexico City. Noland writes that the tipoff that led to the arrests came from Adelmo Urrea Garcia, a Colombian Communist Party member “whose motives are as yet unclear.”

Noland says that “cryptic notes” were found in Pachon’s suitcase, including the address of Soviet Press Attache Nikolay Leonov, who was “[known] to be a KGB officer, known to have handled CP [probably Communist Party] operations in the past.”

In a memo to a senior FBI official, Sam Papich reports that the CIA’s deputy director of plans has turned over a list of serial numbers from the U.S. currency found in the possession “two individuals in Colombia who clandestinely brought into the country a large sum of U.S. currency slated to be delivered to the Communist Party of Colombia.” Papich indicates that the “Soviet Section” would check to see if the money had gone “through Soviet intelligence channels” and notes that the list had been made available to the Central Investigative Division in case they wanted to see whether it matched “any identified currency utilized by James Earl Ray,” the suspected shooter in the April 4, 1968, assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

This fascinating cable from the CIA’s Bogota Station (marked “MHSPAWN,” a cryptonym used for covert propaganda) describes status of a CIA “prop play” (propaganda operation) in Bogota. The purpose of the operation was to secretly influence Colombian and other news organizations to report information identifying Nikolay Leonov, a longtime Soviet intelligence agent operating under diplomatic cover in Mexico, as a key figure behind efforts to fund Communists and revolutionary groups in Colombia. Here, the Bogota station calls attention to a May 24, 1968, article that appeared in El Tiempo, Colombia’s leading newspaper, that followed “two days of distorted, fuzzy, conflicting articles appearing in all Bogota dailies” about the April arrest of Feliciano Pachon Chaconta and an associate at El Dorado Airport in Bogota.

Previous articles in the Colombian media had linked the arrests to the subsequent “roll up” of the Colombian Communist Party leadership, and, the cable notes, included the “insertion” (presumably by the CIA) of information about “the uncovering of vast Latin American subversive net involving Colombia, Bolivia, Mexico [and] Venezuela.” The new article in El Tiempo, apparently based on information planted by CIA, further reported that Pachon had “confessed” to having received the $101,000 (USD) that was seized from him at the Bogota airport from “a functionary of the Soviet Embassy in Cuba” whose mission was to see that the money reached the emerging FARC revolutionary forces in southern Colombia, according to portions of the article quoted (in Spanish) in the CIA cable.

The Bogota station adds that it “has more than enough ammunition to keep prop play boiling along lines this case dramatic proof Soviets have not only not changed their ways but have no intention of doing so.” Colombia and the USSR had renewed their official ties in January 1968 after a 20-year break in diplomatic relations, and “timing most propitious,” according to the CIA station, since the article linked the Soviets to Communist revolutionaries in Colombia on the same day that the new Soviet ambassador, Nicolas Belous, was due to arrive in Bogota, “oozing sweetness and good fellowship” and vowing that the Soviet Union “would never interfere in internal Colombian affairs.” Colombians would the same day learn that the same Soviet government “was secretly pumping in funds, material support, and propaganda materials for subversive use in undermining Colombian government,” according to the cable.

Recognizing the obvious political sensitivities for the Colombian government, which had only recently reestablished relations with Moscow, the Bogota station “cautions against attacking or accusing President Lleras personally … since he reacts unpredictably and sometimes rashly to personal criticism” and further requests “that Colombian personalities be kept out of any prop play since current situation inevitably will present Lleras with extremely difficult and embarrassing political pill to swallow.”

The Bogota station is also concerned that allowing the story to “break in all its glory” without concern for Lleras or other top government figures could lead to the “dismissal” of a CIA-associated entity identified in the message as “GISOY-92.” “Station urged GISOY-92 to release as factual a presentation as possible,” according to the cable, and depending on “whether or not station recommendations had any weight in producing wide-scale publicity, station could well be made scapegoat by Lleras and GISOY-92.” The station says that it is keeping the U.S. Embassy Bogota (“LNPURE”) “closely informed” on the case and that it has “alerted REELFOOT and other station sources with access to the Palace to keep us informed on Lleras’ reactions.”

Regarding the covert propaganda operation referred to in the previous document, the CIA’s Mexico City Station advises that Leonov be identified as the Soviet diplomat who gave the money Feliciano Pachon and whose address was found in his possession when he was arrested upon his April return to Bogota. The Mexico station recommends that the Bogota station “tell press contacts address belongs to Leonov,” who is “a KGB officer who uses the cover of second secretary and press attache of the [Soviet Embassy] in Mexico” and “the mastermind for Soviet clandestine support, direction and financing” of communist revolutionaries in Latin America. 

In a memo to Ambassador Charles Freeman, the CIA’s Mexico City station chief provides some details on how its surveillance of Soviet official Nikolay Leonov in Mexico City led to a big intelligence haul against the clandestine leadership of the FARC and the Colombian Communist Party.

Surveillance of Leonov conducted by the station “determined that he had a clandestine meeting with a Latin American male” and that Leonov had “passed a bundle to this individual.” After following the individual to his hotel, agents discovered he was registered under the name Feliciano Pachon Chaconta and that a woman named Librada Moreno Leal was registered to the same room. Both were later determined to be members of the Colombian Communist Party and were arrested upon return to Bogota on April 20, 1968, carrying a total of $100,000 (USD).

Pachon and Moreno are said to have “broke and provided considerable information,” including the identities of “the entire clandestine leadership of the PCC and FARC,” FARC “personnel and plans,” information about previous financial support from the Soviets, including a $200,000 (USD) payment in June 1967, and the “address and identification of the PCC clandestine printing press,” which was used to forge “false documents and passports,” according to the person who ran the installation. The captured couriers said that all of the clandestine Soviet support received by the FARC and PCC came through the Soviet Embassy in Mexico and that Leonov was the “regular contact” on such matters.

The cable from CIA headquarters deals with several aspects of the coordinated “prop play” among various CIA stations to undermine Soviet diplomatic efforts and specifically to plant damaging information about the activities of Nikolay Leonov, a KGB agent under diplomatic cover in Mexico City. Regarding Leonov, stations are advised that any information tying him to the Pachon case should be pegged to the discovery of Leonov’s address in Pachon’s suitcase. Additionally, stations are advised of the importance of “keeping Pres. Lleras’ name out of it.” Attached comments indicated that the Bogota station “will continue to attempt placement of Leonov’s connection in the case in Bogota press.”

A CIA-associated individual or entity known by the cryptonym “GIWREN” has reported to the Agency’s Bogota station that Jose Arizala Posso, chief of the Novosti office in Bogota, has asked the presidential press secretary whether Soviet official Nikolay Leonov can travel to Bogota on way to Lima. The cable notes that Leonov was “once stationed Mexico City as Soviet Embassy press attache and known RIS [Russian Intelligence Service].”

This cable from CIA headquarters suggests that the Lima Station plant stories in the local press connecting Soviet official Nikolay Leonov to Peruvian guerrillas as was done previously in Colombia after the arrest of Feliciano Pachon in April 1968. The cable refers to three previous cables, one of which (Bogota 2114) “outlines prop play being conducted by Station Bogota in connection with recent discovery of an ELN cache.” Another reported the “[a]rrival of Leonov in Lima,” describing him as “a Soviet RIS [Russian Intelligence Service] officer who is under cover of Second Secretary of Soviet Embassy in Mexico City.” A third reported on the “connection between Leonov and Pachon.”

The CIA Station Bogota reports that it “placed articles ‘La Republica’ and ‘El Siglo’ 17 May which identify Nikolay Leonov as diplomat who passed one hundred thousand plus US dollars to Colombian Feliciano Pachon in Mexico City in April 1968.” The articles “tie Leonov to Pachon by revealing that scrap of paper in possession Pachon when captured had notation of ‘Avenida Mazatlan,’” which was Leonov’s address as Soviet press attaché in Mexico City. The cable adds that Leonov transited through Bogota airport April 23 where he met with “several members of clandestine apparat.”

A cable from the CIA station in Bogota sheds considerable light on the Agency’s targeting of Soviet communications in Colombia. Here the station reports that it “has learned of space becoming available” in a “GICITRON target building,” using the Agency cryptonym associated with the Colombia-based communications interception operation. Shifting operations to the new building “should improve reception and therefore take considerably,” according to the station. The station recommends that the new space should be rented and set up by “Errol R. Lythgoe,” the cover name used by Manuel Villafana Martinez, a former Cuban military attaché who defected to the U.S. in 1960 and participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. The cable notes that “Lythgoe” (Villafana) was previously known by the Cryptonym “LITAINT-1” when he was handled by the Mexico City station.

“Lythgoe” told the station that “he had already formed” a front company that could provide cover for the operation “in conjunction with Manuel Machado Llosa,” the “Cuban manager for Colombia of Galas y Cia.,” a printing company based in Mexico. Machado is a “long-time friend of Lythgoe who performed ops tasks for RVROCK [CIA] in Mexico and is aware of Lythgoe’s operational history.” The station requests that “headquarters obtain clearance [on] priority basis” for Machado “to provide cover for Lythgoe’s business and funds.” Machado would “not to be involved directly in operating,” but “it must be expected that, Cubans being Cuans, he will be more than generally aware of what is going on.” Machado would later be assigned the cryptonym “GICITRON-4.”

Referring to the January 20 cable of the same subject (Bogota 3483) which asked the Agency to clear Manuel Machado Llosa for use by the CIA station in Bogota, CIA assigns him the cryptonym “GICITRON-4” and file no. 201-267298. The cable says Machado “was original member of 26th of July Movement,” in Cuba, “but became disillusioned with administrative incompetence of Castro regime” and the “Sovietization of Cuba.” He worked with Cuban counter-revolutionary groups (including on the CIA’s AMWAIL operation), “had excellent contacts in Cuban diplomatic circles and with Cuban United Nations and Mexican police officials,” and “was rated a reliable source by Station Mexico City,” although he had not been a useful contact for Mexico City since 1963.

Regarding the CIA listening post in Bogota, headquarters agrees “that improvement GICITRON reception could improve product and, hence, worth pursuing,” but there were also some concerns about operational security vis a vis an unknown individual assigned the Agency cryptonym GISOY-92. “Thought occurs to HQS that GISOY-92, being aware GICITRON operation, would probably suspect proposed Lythgoe cover office in GICITRON building in new LP [listening post].” Headquarters asks whether the Bogota station planned “make GISOY-92 witting of Lythgoe role?” If not, “would he be piqued if he later learned of it?” “What repercussions could this have on Station/GISOY relations?”

This short cable indicates that on March 6 “a POA [Provisional Operational Approval] was granted GICITRON-4 (Manuel Machado Llosa) to permit him to form a corporation to provide funding cover for Errol R. Lythgoe.”

Operational approval is granted to CIA Station Bogota for use of “GICITRON-4” in Colombia by CIA headquarters.

In a cable to the CIA station in Bogota, CIA headquarters says it is trying to assess the threat for Cubans employed by the CIA created by the “growing PBRUMEN [Cuban] diplomatic presence in hemisphere.” Agency records list “Errol A. Lythgoe, Reginald M. Daciek, GICITRON-4 and GICITRON-5 in Bogota,” according to the cable. “Pls indicate if station has additional PBRUMEN assets we unaware of, or others whose files should be reviewed.”

In apparent reply to the CIA headquarters cable of August 7 on the recommended reduction in reliance on Cuban agents, this memo describes how the individual known as GICITRON-4, Manuel Machado Llosa, is used by the Bogota Station. Machado provides “cover, status and funds for an operation handled by Errol R. Lithgoe,” the pseudonym of Manuel Villafana, “also a Cuban, who is nominally Subject’s partner in the business enterprise.” Although “he was involved in several clandestine Cuban activities while treasurer of the 26th of July Movement during 1957-58,” the CIA says that Machado “has received no training in clandestine operations” from the CIA. In any case, since Machado “provides cover for LITHGOE, he is not required to utilize any tradecraft,” adding that, “Having his own company provides for adequate cover.”

This strange document—marked both as a “memo draft” and as an “extract” and containing what appear to be pasted-together, non-contiguous sections—notes concerns raised by the Lima chief of station about the security of Agency operations that rely on Cuban assets in countries where Cuba has recently established diplomatic relations. In response, the undisclosed author of the memo asserts that: “[W]e would do well to begin a gradual cut-back in our use of Cubans, given the targetting [sic] that we presume will be made on them as the Cuban CI [counter-intelligence] effort begins in the various countries,” but the reduction in the use of Cuban agents should be “keyed initially to where the official Cuban presence is” and should therefore start with Peru. A seemingly disconnected section indicates that, “GICITRON-4, who has been Treasurer of the 26th July movement in the period 1957-58 provides cover for LITHGOE.”