The Washington, DC-based investigative nonprofit National Security Archive released several documents on Oct. 6 written by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1965 and 1966 about its Cuban-born longtime "asset" Luis Posada Carriles, who currently lives in Miami under indictment after entering the US illegally in 2005. The Archive's Peter Kornbluh obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The documents show that in the middle 1960s Posada was reporting to the CIA about the activities of other right-wing Cubans, including the late Jorge Mas Canosa, who founded the influential Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) in the 1980s. In July 1965 Posada reported that he had completed two 10-pound Limpet bombs for a Mas Canosa operation against Soviet and Cuban ships in the port of Veracruz, Mexico, using eight pounds of Pentolite explosives and a pencil detonator. Current CANF president Francisco Hernandez told the Associated Press that he found the story difficult to believe. "The fact of the matter is that Jorge was never a man who believed in terrorism," Hernandez said.

Posada's CIA handler, Grover Lythcott, described Posada as "not a typical 'boom and bang' type of individual." Posada was "acutely aware of the international implications of ill-planned or over-enthusiastic activities against Cuba," Lythcott wrote. A CIA personnel record suggested that Posada would be "excellent for use in [a] responsible civil position in [Cuba] should the present government fall." Posada was subsequently implicated in several terrorist acts, including the 1976 bombing of Cubana de Aviación flight 455, in which 73 people were killed. Kornbluh released the documents on Oct. 6 to coincide with the 33rd anniversary of the bombing, which Posada has been repeatedly accused of masterminding. (National Security Archive electronic briefing, AP, Oct. 6)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct. 11

See our last post on Washington's ongoing anti-Cuba campaign.