Cryptonym: AMCOBRA
Definition:
Paramilitary operation of internal resistance in
Cuba, renamed AMBANTY, rolled up by Castro in 1964. One of the two teams
infiltrated into Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis.
Status:
Documented
Discussion:
John Prados, Safe for Democracy (Ivan R. Dee,
Chicago: 2006) p. 307: "On March 12, 1962, Team Cobra infiltrated Pinar
del Rio province, creating a network active for some time. In June, AMTORRID
went into Oriente, but most of it left in a few months. The one remaining agent
and a fresh radioman set up in Santiago de Cuba as a spy mission." Also
see 124-90139-10130: Cuban headlines of 11/14/62: "Four Hundred Miners
Would Have Died if Terrorist Plan Succeeded", if the Batistiano Lieutenant
Miguel Orozco had succeeded in the plans to blow up the mines in Matahambre and
Nicaro.
Sources:
Pedro Etcheverry Vazquez, 10/8/14, Granma, The
Failure of a Cause That Would Never Triumph:
"In 1962, in the context of the US-led
Operation of Mongoose against Cuba, ...(CIA) created an extensive espionage and
subversion structure dedicated to transmitting political, economic and mainly
military information to the JM / WAVE station in Miami, while creating
conditions to carry out terrorist actions and support an internal uprising or
an invasion from abroad. This clandestine organization, usually made up of
former Batista military personnel, relatives of counterrevolutionary prisoners,
and individuals affected by popular benefit laws, which ran from Guane in Pinar
del Rio to the boundaries of Havana with Matanzas, and included Isla de Pinos ,
received the name of Frente Occidental Unión (FUO). The tasks of this network,
which had its center in Pinar del Río, were to obtain information, train its
members in matters of subversion and terrorism, store weapons and keep the
forces available to take action at the right time. The scenario created in a
region where more than twenty bands of rebels were acting, supported by various
clandestine organizations financed and promoted from Florida, was projected -
in terms of means and methods - similarly to what is now known as "
conventional in limited war scenarios " [1] , based on the concept
that the forces of resistance must limit the open exposure of their
forces and have a support infrastructure that allows the operations to be
sustained for a long time " [2] .
The main leader of the FUO was Esteban
Marquez, a member of the regular army during the Batista tyranny, and
registered as an "electronic technician" on the payroll of the
Instituto Cultural Cubano Norteamericano, based in Vedado, an institution
dedicated to working of influence and penetration in the scientific, academic
and cultural sectors of Cuban society, under the control of the US Information
Agency. With this background, in 1960 Márquez Novo entered the
counterrevolutionary organization Constitutional Recovery Movement (MRC), (see
below)...
Pedro Etcheverry Vazquez, 10/8/14, Granma, The
Failure of a Cause That Would Never Triumph:
Part 2 of story above: "...directed by CIA
agent Ernesto Pérez Morales (Emilio Moreno), who appointed him to head a
so-called "Liberation Army" would dedicate to attacking civilian
targets, to spread panic and to support an invasion. On 2/9/61, Márquez Novo
assumed the nickname of "Comandante Valle" and was at the head of a
group of Batista exmilitary officers...Shortly afterwards, in that same region,
militia units under the command of Captain Manuel Borjas captured four former
Batista exiles and ten collaborators, who revealed that they belonged to the
"Western Front of the Liberation Army." On March 31, CIA agent Emilio
Moreno was detained in the Olan Tower apartment, in front of the United States
Embassy, where a radio plant, number pads, MRC documents and a revolver were
occupied...In early April..."Comandante Valle" left his men in the
mountains and headed for the capital...on May 24 he left by air to Caracas,
Venezuela, where he contacted the American Consul who embarked for Miami. There
he was under the control of "Otto," a CIA officer in charge of
directing his training in espionage and subversion techniques. In March 1962,
after spending a ten-month training in CIA camps in the Everglades, South
Florida, Márquez Novo assumed the pseudonym "Valentín" and headed to
the south coast of Pinar del Rio infiltrating the San Diego River in Los
Palacios, along with the radar Yeyo Napoleón...[4] . He...recruited as his
lieutenant Lázaro Anaya Fernández and selected several members of the MRC for
his staff. From that moment the FUO had a "Regulation of the Vigilance and
Espionage Service" signed with the pseudonym of "Colonel
Abad"...and a "Handbook for Guerrillas" delivered by the CIA.
During the Missile Crisis, in October 1962, "Valentín" and the
radista were located five kilometers from the Entronque de Herradura, in
Consolación del Sur, where they observed movement of troops during the
withdrawal of the rockets and transmitted the information to the CIA."
March 1962: "The original AMCOBRA operation
consisted of a two-man PM team (AMBANTY-1 and 2) recruited and trained in the
U.S. and subsequently infiltrated clandestinely into Cuba March 1962. They
recruited inside Cuba. There were over 400 assets in the intel/resistance
complex as of May 1964 when the operation was rolled up by Cuban
authorities."
Discussion of April 1962 meeting. This DIA memo was
a look at AMCOBRA. It discusses Commander Harold Feeney's Operation COBRA, a
plan to use military aircraft in Guatemala to attack strategic sites in Cuba.
He used his ONI credentials, and had the cooperation of Guatemala's President
Ydigoras.
"File opened Oct 62. PM Operation. Original
AMCOBRA operation consisted of a two-man PM team (AMBANTY-1 and 2) recruited
and trained in the U.S. and subsequently infiltrated clandestinely into Cuba
March 1962. They recruited inside Cuba - There were over 400 assets in the
intel/resistance complex as of May 1964 when the operation was rolled up by
Cuban authorities." Radio traffic for years is reported, commencing during
August, 1962.
"On October 15, the day Kennedy was told that
U-2 photographs confirmed the existence of Russian missiles in Cuba, (Rolando
Martinez, one of the Watergate burglars) and his boat crew were called to their
base at Summer Land Key and told that they would leave immediately on a
mission. For several months, they had been preparing for one of their biggest
missions -the destruction of the Matahambre copper mines in Pinar del Rio
province. The ore from the mines, which accounted for 1 per cent of Cuba's
gross national product, was carried to the Port of Santa Lucia along a
twelve-kilometer elevated cable car system, supported by giant towers. CIA
planners had determined that production could be halted for a full year if the
towers were knocked out...(on October 16) Martinez, his boat crew, and the
eight commandos left base on the Agency's 150 foot mother ship. By the time
they left the mother ship for Martinez's intermediary boat on October 18, one
of the largest amphibious invasion forces since World War II was beginning to
assemble in Florida and neighboring states...in all, the Army gathered 100,000
troops in the southern United States..." Martinez's commandos reached the
shore of Pinar del Rio, but were spotted before they were able to plant C-4
charges on the towers.
Harold Feeney Obituary:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/8572-harold-hal-feeney/?page=2
During the Cuban missile crisis, Feeney was
appointed the head of the Cuban branch of the DIA. He served as an advisor of
the Executive Committee of the National Security Council chaired by JFK at the
White House.
UPI, November 1962 "Castro Claims CIA Tried to
Blow Up Mines":
"A government statement said secret police
captured Miguel Angel Orozco Crespo, described as 'the CIA's main leader in
Cuba', Nov. 2 in Pinar del Rio. He was described as a former Cuban Army career
officer...also captured with Mr. Orozco was a man identified as Pedro Vera
Ortiz...the plot to blow up the formerly US-owned Matahambre copper mines in
Pinar del Rio was foiled when workers spotted explosives in two towers
supporting a cable railway...the group (also) planned to blow up the former-US
government-owned Nicaro nickel mines in Oriente province...the government
statement said the CIA had a special Cuba group in Miami headed by a
"Robert Wall" identified only as a close friend of Attorney General
Robert Kennedy...
Fabian Escalante, The Secret War (Ocean Press, 1995)
After his capture, Orozco Crespo said he had
conducted 25 similar special missions against Cuba in 1962 , and that his
chiefs in Florida were CIA officers, "Rip" Robertson and Robert Wall.
(William "Rip" Robertson was one of the Americans who landed with the
mercenary brigade of Playa Girón, on April 17, 1961 ). He also said that he had
recruited people for Alpha-66 and participated in the training of these forces.
AP, November 13, 1962, "Cuba Reports Plotters'
Arrest; Charges US Trained Saboteurs:
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP75-00149R000800010016-9.pdf
This version mentions Robert Wall, but does not
identify him as a friend of Robert Kennedy. It adds the portion folded-over and
hidden in the UPI clipping above: "The CIA is preparing a force of Cuban
exiles for a simulated invasion of Nicaragua in connivance with President Luis
Anastasio Somoza Deboyle to provide an excuse for the invasion of Cuba by
accusing Premier Fidel Castro's regime of aggression."
178-10003-10297: Outline of Covert Actions.
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32113008.pdf
10/31/62, Col. Edward Lansdale Memo for the Record:
"I talked to Bruce Cheever (who was acting for Bill Harvey while Harvey
was out of town. (The purpose was) to get a fix for Gilpatric as one of the US
negotiators with the Soviets on whether or not all actions (sabotage, etc.) had
come to a stop...I asked about covert operational assets both inside Cuba and
outside, if they had stop orders on actions." Cheever wasn't sure if the
Cubans would abide by such an order. Cheever said the only assets were
"the two action teams, a small one (Central Cuba) and the big one (200-man
in Western Cuba, but they were definitely on intelligence collection...CIA
couldn't guarantee any groups not under CIA control."
May 1963: The AMCOBRA operation is described as
"an Agency on-island intel/resistance complex...one Juan Reyes Martinez
was reportedly chief of the AMCOBRA operation in the Vinales area of Cuba in
May 1963, assigned the war name "Poncho Villa" and cited in FEDGUR
and HUZNUG (AMCOBRA op) radio traffic...rolled up by the Cuban authorities in
May 1964."
See Also:
Contributors:
No comments:
Post a Comment