PART 4 OF 8
Montevideo 15 July 1964
The coup rumours have subsided since the general strike last month but several strikes have continued. Headquarters sent down a strange dispatch that Holman believes is a prelude to getting back into political-action operations. According to him the dispatch, although signed as usual by the Division Chief, was actually written by Ray Herbert ‡ who is Deputy Division Chief and an old colleague of Holman's from their days in the FBI. In rather ambiguous terms this dispatch instructs us to expand our contacts in the political field to obtain intelligence about political stability, government policy concerning activities of the extreme left, and possible solutions to current problems such as constitutional reform. Holman believes that Herbert deliberately did not mentioned political-action operations (as opposed to political-intelligence collection) but that the message to prepare for renewal of these operations was clearly implied.
For preliminary organization Holman has given me the responsibility for reporting progress and for developing new political contacts. He will increase somewhat his meetings with Mrs. Nardone and with Gari and soon will introduce me to yet another Ruralista leader, Wilson Elso, ‡ who is a Federal Deputy. We will not make contact with the other principal Ruralista leader, Senator Juan Maria Bordaberry, because he is already in regular contact with Ambassador Coerr, and Holman wants no problems with him. The importance of the Ruralistas is that they have already announced support for constitutional reform in order to return Uruguay to a strong one-man presidency. The other parties are openly opposed to such reform.
***
In addition to the Ruralistas, Holman asked me to arrange with one of the legitimate political section officers to begin meeting some of the more liberal leaders of the Colorado Party, mainly of the List 15 and the List 99. These two factions will be in the thick of the elections coming up in 1966, and they also constitute an attractive potential for access agents in the Soviet operations programme.
For purposes of political reporting Holman will also have his new contact with Adolfo Tejera, ‡ the Minister of the Interior with Colonel Ventura Rodriguez, the Chief of Police, and with Colonel Carvajal, Chief of Military Intelligence. For the time being he will refrain from reinitiating contact with Colonel Mario Aguerrondo ‡ who was Rodriguez's predecessor as Chief of Police and a close station liaison collaborator, because Aguerrondo is usually at the centre of rumours of a move by Blanco military officers against the government. Also O'Grady will meet more regularly with Juan Carlos Quagliotti, ‡ the wealthy rancher and lawyer who is active in promoting interventionist sympathies among military leaders.
In discussing expansion of political contacts Holman said we have to be very careful to avoid giving the Ambassador any reason to suspect that we're getting back into political-action operations. When the time comes, he said, the decision will be made in Washington and the Ambassador will be informed through department channels.
This is bad news. All the work with political leaders in Quito only emphasized how venal and ineffectual they were and in Uruguay the politicians seem to be even more so. I couldn't be less enthusiastic. I don't want to cultivate senators and deputies -- not even for the Director.
Montevideo 20 July 1964
Another purchase of Chilean currency at the Montevideo branch of the First National City Bank for shipping by pouch to the Santiago station. This time the Finance Officer who is in charge of the purchasing operations in Lima and Rio came to Montevideo to assist in the pick-up from Hennessy ‡ and to count the escudos afterwards. This one was also worth over 100,000 dollars and, according to the Finance Officer, is only a drop in the bucket. He says we are spending money in the Chilean election practically like we did in Brazil two years ago.
We've had serious trouble in the AVENGEFUL/AVALANCHE telephone-tapping operation. AVOIDANCE, ‡ the courier who takes the tapes around to the transcribers, reported to Paul Burns, his case officer, that a briefcase full of tapes was taken from the trunk of his car while he was on his rounds making pick-ups and deliveries. AVOIDANCE has no idea whether the tapes were taken by a common thief or by the enemy. Although he claims he has been very careful to watch for surveillance (negative), the chances are that the tapes will be listened to, even if only stolen by a thief, in order to determine saleability.
After a discussion with Holman and Burns, I advised Commissioner Otero and Colonel Ramirez, Chief of the Metropolitan Guard, that we had lost some tapes and believe all the lines except the Cuban Embassy should be disconnected. Ramirez agreed that the Cuban line should be retained because of our coming OAS meeting and the possibility of a break in relations with Cuba. He is also going to keep several of the contraband lines in operation for cover, although there is no way of denying the targets of the lost tapes.
For the time being AVOIDANCE will be eliminated from the operation although he will go through the motions of a daily routine very similar to normal while continuing to watch for surveillance. The tapes of the Cuban line will be sent over to the station with the daily police intelligence couriers and we will give them to Tomas Zafiriadis ‡ who is an Uruguayan employee of the Embassy Commercial Section. He will serve as courier between the station and his wife (AVENGEFUL-3) ‡ who transcribes the Cuban Embassy line. His wife's sister (AVENGEFUL-5), ‡ the transcriber of the PCU Headquarters line, will also help on the Cuban Embassy line since her line is being disconnected. Using an Embassy employee like this is-against the rules but Holman is willing to risk the Ambassador's wrath to keep the Cuban Embassy line going.
Montevideo 25 July 1964
News is in that the OAS passed the motion that all members should break diplomatic and commercial relations with Cuba and that except for humanitarian purposes there should be no air or maritime traffic. It took four years to get this motion passed -- not only CIA operations but all our Latin American foreign policy has been pointing to this goal. The countries that still have relations, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay, voted against the motion, while Bolivia abstained. Whether Uruguay or any other of these countries honour the motion or not is another matter but headquarters' propaganda guidance is certain to call for an all-out campaign to force compliance with the motion.
Perhaps with the vote to break relations the AMHALF agents in the Uruguayan Embassy in Havana, Roosen and Goncalves will be able to get information out of Perez Freeman. Even with the assistance of Inspector Piriz in Miami, the Uruguayan diplomats still were unable to exert enough pressure to force Perez to begin talking about Cuban operations in Montevideo. We need the information to support the campaign for a break by Uruguay with Cuba through Perez's revelations of Cuban intervention here. We could alternatively write our own document based on a little fact and a lot of imagination and attribute it to Perez, whose presence in the Embassy is public knowledge. Such a document could backfire, however, if Perez had actually been sent by the Cubans to seek asylum -- this suspicion grows as he continues to refuse to talk -- because after the document was surfaced Perez could escape from the Embassy and issue a public denial through the Cuban authorities. For the time being Inspector Piriz will return and we will hold up the false document project until we see how our media campaign progresses without it.
Station labour operations limp along with Jack Goodwyn ‡ and the AIFLD ‡ in the lead. This week we had a visit from Joaquin (Jack) Otero, ‡ the representative of the International Transport Workers' Federation ‡ (ITF) who worked with me in Quito last year. Otero is now the chief ITF representative for all of Latin America and the Caribbean, and he came to assist in a boycott against meat exports by non-union packing plants. The hope is that his assistance will help strengthen the democratic unions involved.
Agency-sponsored trade-union education programmes through ORIT are being expanded. Through the ICFTU International Solidarity Fund, headquarters is pumping in almost 200,000 dollars to establish an ORIT training school in Cuernavaca. Until now the ORIT courses have been limited by the space made available in Mexico City by the Mexican Workers' Confederation ‡ which is the most important ORIT affiliate after the AFL-CIO. Opening of the Cuernavaca school is still a year or two away but already the ORIT courses have become an effective combination with the AIFLD programme in Washington.
As if we don't have enough problems with Argentines, Paraguayans and Brazilians now we have Bolivians to worry about. A week or so ago the new Bolivian Ambassador, Jose Antonio Arce, ‡ arrived and the La Paz station asked that we keep up their relationship with him. He has been in and out of various government jobs since the Bolivian revolution, most recently as Minister of the Interior when he worked. closely with the La Paz station. Holman will be seeing him from time to time, probably no more than is absolutely necessary, so that when he returns to La Paz this important supporter of President Paz Estenssoro can be picked up again for Bolivian operations.
Arce's main job here will be to watch the supporters of former Bolivian President Hernan Siles Suazo, and Siles himself if he settles in exile in Montevideo as is expected. Siles aspires to succeed current President Victor Paz Estenssoro in keeping with their custom, since the revolution of 1952, of alternating in the presidency. Paz, however, against the tradition, was re-elected in May and must now contend with Siles's plots against him. The La Paz station is anxious to prevent Siles from returning to the presidency !n Bolivia because of his recent leftward trends, and his friendly relationship with the Soviets when he was Bolivian Ambassador in Montevideo during 1960-62. As an initial move to support the La Paz station I have asked Commissioner Otero, Chief of Police Intelligence, to make discreet inquiries about Siles' plans among his political friends and to watch for signs that he will be settling here.
Montevideo 11 August 1964
Uruguayan compliance with the OAS resolution on Cuba looks very doubtful. The Foreign Minister on his return from Washington announced that the NCG will now have to decide whether the OAS resolution should be passed to the UN Security Council for approval before it can be considered binding. This is only a delaying manoeuvre to avoid a difficult decision but the most damaging developments are that Mexico has announced that it will ignore the resolution and Bolivia is undecided. Unless Uruguay can be made to seem isolated in its refusal to break, the chances are not good. Moreover, although we have intensified our propaganda output on the Cuban issue through ABBUZZ-1 considerably, it's no match for the campaign being waged by the extreme left against breaking relations, which has been carefully combined with the campaign against the government on economic issues.
Today the National Workers' Convention (CNT), formed only a week ago as a loosely knit coordinating organization of the CTU and the government workers, is leading another general strike. Again most of the country's economic activity has stopped: transport, bars, restaurants, port, construction, wool, textiles, service stations, schools and many others. The strike was called to show support for continued relations with Cuba, admittedly a political purpose, but not unprecedented in Uruguay.
Apart from the strike today, the formation of the CNT is a very significant step forward by the communist-influenced trade-union movement, because, for the first time, government workers in the Central Administration (the ministries and executive) and the autonomous agencies and decentralized services are working in the same organization as the private-sector unions of the CTU. With continuing inflation and currency devaluation (the peso is down to almost 23 per dollar now) the CNT will have plenty of legitimate issues for agitation in coming months. Besides the Cuban issue the CNT campaign is currently targeted on pay rises, fringe benefits and subsidies to be included in the budget now being drawn up for next year.
Montevideo 21 August 1964
Through the AVBUZZ media operation we're getting editorials almost daily calling for Uruguayan compliance with the OAS resolution to break with Cuba. President Alessandri in Chile has done this already, instead of waiting until after the elections. Today Bolivia announced it is breaking in accordance with the resolution, leaving only Uruguay and Mexico still with ties to Cuba.
The NCG will surely buckle under such isolation, but getting decisions here is cumbersome. On important matters, the majority NCG members decide their position only after prior decisions within each of the Blanco factions represented on the NCG. Likewise the Colorado factions must decide. Eventually the NCG meets to formalize the positions taken by each faction earlier and a decision may emerge. In the case of Cuban relations the Foreign Minister has yet to present his report on the OAS Conference and related matters even with a month already passed since the Conference.
For additional propaganda, we have arranged for Juana Castro, ‡ Fidel's sister, to make a statement favouring the break during a stopover next week at the Montevideo airport. She defected in Mexico this June and is currently on a propaganda tour of South America organized by the Miami station and headquarters. We'll get wide coverage for her statement, and a few days later still another Miami station agent will arrive: Isabel Siero Perez, ‡ important in the International. Federation of Women Lawyers, ‡ another of the CA staff's international organizations. She'll describe the Havana horror show and emphasize the Soviets' use of Cuba as a base for penetration throughout the hemisphere.
Montevideo 31 August 1964
The Montevideo association of foreign diplomats recently held their monthly dinner and Janet and I went along with several others from the Embassy. By chance we began a conversation with two of the Soviet diplomats and later joined them for dinner. I wrote a memorandum for headquarters on the conversation -- one of the Soviets, Sergey Borisov, is a known KGB officer -- and Holman later asked me to keep up the contact and see if Borisov is interested. Russell Phipps, ‡ our Soviet operations officer, isn't the outgoing type and Holman is clearly not pleased with Phipps's failure to recruit any decent new access agents.
I'll go to the diplomatic association meeting next month but I'm not keen on getting deeply into Soviet operations. Just keeping the telephone transcripts analyzed and the files up to date is deadly dreary and requires far too much desk work. We shall see if Borisov is interested in continuing the contact -- he's the Consul and lives in the Soviet side of the AVERT house.
I decided to try another Cuban recruitment with the possibility that the spectre of a break in relations might help us. The target was Aldo Rodriguez Camps, the Cuban Charge d'Affaires in Montevideo, whose father-in-law is an exile living in Miami. Last year the Miami station sent the father-in-law, AMPIG-1, ‡ down to Montevideo to discover the political views on Castro and communism of the Charge and his wife. He felt from his conversation that neither seemed to be particularly ardent communists although they were clearly loyal to the Cuban revolution. At that time it was decided not to try for the recruitment or defection of either Aldo or Ester but to wait for a future date.
At my request the Miami station proposed to the father-in-law that he come back to Montevideo as soon as possible for a more direct approach to his daughter, who appeared to be the more susceptible of the two. If Ester had agreed to defect we would have made arrangements to evacuate her to Miami, but only after she had had a few days to work on Aldo. The key to Aldo, the Charge, is their two young children, to whom he is very attached and when confronted with their flight to Miami he just might have decided to come along.
Unfortunately, this recruitment failed. The father-in-law came as planned and made the initial meeting with his daughter but she cut him off at the beginning and refused any discussion of defection. After two days he went back to Miami, sad and broken, with no idea if he'll ever see his daughter and grandchildren again.
Montevideo 4 September 1964
The main Blanco and Colorado newspapers are carrying a torrent of AVBUZZ-sponsored articles and statements calling for the government to heed the OAS resolution. However, manoeuvring among the different Blanco and Colorado NCG members and their factions is causing the outlook on the break with Cuba to change almost daily. In the past three days there have been a meeting of the NCG Foreign Relations Commission that was scheduled but didn't convene for lack of quorum, new scheduling of debate by the full NCG for 10 September, and finally last night an NCG decision to consider the OAS resolution at a special meeting on 8 September. So far only two of the NCG members have indicated how they'll vote -- one for and one against -- and there is a good chance we'll lose. Nevertheless, relations with Brazil are again at crisis point, and the thesis that Uruguay must go along with the majority in order to assure protection against pressures from Argentina or Brazil is gaining ground.
If they don't break relations this week, I'll write the 'Perez Freeman Report' right away and we'll make it public either through Inspector Piriz or the AMHALF agents, Roosen or Goncalves. The Foreign Minister, who is against the break, is the first guy I'll burn as a Cuban agent -- he probably is anyway.
Returns from the elections in Chile today show Eduardo Frei an easy winner over Allende. Chalk up another victory for election operations. Allende won't be a threat again for another six years.
Montevideo 8 September 1964
A great victory. Forty-four days after the OAS resolution on Cuba the NCG has voted to comply. How the vote would go wasn't known for sure until the last minute when the N CG President changed his position and carried a Counsellor from his faction with him. Final vote: six in favour of breaking (five Blancos and one Colorado) and three against (one Blanco and two Colorados).
While the Councillors were debating several thousand pro- Cuban demonstrators gathered in Independence Plaza in front of Government House where the N CG was meeting. When the vote was announced a riot was on, and the crowd surged down the main street, 18 de Julio, breaking store fronts and clashing with the anti-riot Metropolitan Guard and the mounted Republican Guard. At least ten police were injured and twenty-six demonstrators arrested before the water cannons and tear-gas dispersed the mob. Somehow many of the demonstrators got back to the University buildings further down 18 de Julio, and right now the battle is continuing there with stones and firecrackers being hurled from the roof of the main University building.
I'm spending the night in the station just in case anything drastic happens that has to be reported to headquarters. Tomorrow we'll see if any of the Cubans can be picked off before they leave for home.
Montevideo 10 September 1964
Rioting continues, mostly centred at the University of the Republic buildings on 18 de Julio. Although some demonstrators abandoned the University during the early morning hours yesterday at the urging of Colonel Rodriguez, ‡ Chief of Police, and Adolfo Tejera, ‡ Minister of the Interior, new riots began yesterday morning at about ten o'clock and have continued since. The demonstrators' tactics include, besides the throwing of stones from the University buildings, lightning street riots at different places to throw the police off guard. Shop windows and cars parked at our Embassy have also been stoned.
During the early hours of this morning, several US businesses were attacked. A powerful bomb exploded outside the First National City Bank shattering the huge plate-glass windows and causing the hanging ceiling in the lobby to fall. Another bomb exploded at the Western Telegraph Company while an incendiary device started a fire at the Moore-McCormick Lines offices. General Electric's offices were also damaged.
The Cubans advised the Foreign Ministry that they'll be leaving on Saturday for Madrid. Last night with Roberto Musso, ‡ the chief of the AVENIN surveillance team, I tried to talk to the new code clerk by telephone. Musso, using the name of someone we already know is in contact with the code clerk, got him on the telephone and passed it to me. I said I was a friend of Roberto Hernandez, his predecessor, and would like to make a similar offer of assistance. He told me to kiss his ass and hung up, but I'll try again if I have time after I've done the same with the other three -- two of whom are new arrivals since the Hernandez episode.
The Cubans may have made, a serious mistake yesterday, in their haste to tie up loose ends before leaving. They sent the chauffeur, my agent, to send a telegram to Tucuman, Argentina with the message, 'Return for your cousin's wedding'. This can only be a code phrase and the urgency attached to sending the telegram led the chauffeur to conclude that someone is being called for a meeting before Saturday. I've passed the addressee and address by cable to the Buenos Aires station for follow-up and will watch carefully the air and riverboat passenger lists for this and other names of possible Cuban agents. We know nothing about the person this was addressed to, but he is probably involved in the guerrilla activity in the Tucuman area.
Montevideo 11 September 1964
Demonstrators continue to occupy the University and bombings have occurred at the OAS offices, the Coca-Cola plant, newspapers that promoted the break (El Dia, El Pais and El Plata), the homes of four councillors who voted for the break, and several of the neighbourhood clubs of the factions that favoured the break. At the University, which is still sealed off by police, minors were allowed to leave and the Red Cross entered with doctors to distribute blankets and examine the students, who were suffering from cold and hunger. Any who decide to leave, however, will have to be registered, identified and face possible arrest. Colonel Rodriguez's plan is to trap all the non-students among the 400 or so people occupying the University.
Not to be outdone by the students and political demonstrators, the municipal-transit system workers struck for three hours this afternoon and the workers of the autonomous agencies and decentralized services staged a huge demonstration at the Legislative Palace. Again the issue was budget benefits.
I've spoken to all but one of the Cubans and none has been willing to meet me. One of them last night invited me to the Embassy for coffee but I thought it prudent to decline in spite of the freezing wind howling through the telephone booth. When they leave tomorrow I'll be at the airport just in case -- as will Otero, ‡ Piriz ‡ and other police officers who can take charge if a last-minute defection occurs.
Montevideo 12 September 1964
This morning the demonstrators at the University surrendered and were allowed to leave after fingerprints, identification photographs and biographical data were taken. Forty-three nonstudents were arrested among the 400 who came out.
At the airport this afternoon several thousand demonstrators came together to bid the Cubans farewell. When the police began to force the demonstrators back to a highway some distance from the main terminal building another riot broke out followed by a pitched battle. The police won easily, using the cavalry effectively in the open areas around the terminal building, but many were injured on both sides.
All the Cubans left as scheduled. Only one remains behind: the Commercial Counsellor, who is being allowed to stay on for a couple of weeks to close a Cuban purchase of jerked beef.
Of all the Latin American and Caribbean countries only Mexico still has relations with Cuba. If Mexico refuses to break, as seems likely, the Mexican channel could be used for various operational ploys against Cuba -- it's even possible that the Mexican government was encouraged by the station there not to break with Cuba. Here we've done our job, but poor O'Grady will be working until the end of the year to send headquarters all the clips on Cuba we've managed to place in the media.
Efforts by the Miami station to get information out of Earle Perez Freeman through the Uruguayan diplomats, Roosen and Goncalves, have ended, as these agents are returning to Montevideo. Although Switzerland is taking charge of Uruguayan affairs in Havana the Uruguayan Charge is staying to close the Embassy and to transfer the eight remaining asylees, including Perez Freeman, to another Embassy. According to the Miami station Goncalves is too insecure and frivolous to consider incorporating into other operations so I've asked them to forward a contact plan for Roosen only. Just possibly he could develop a relationship with a Soviet officer here, but this will depend on a careful analysis of the possibility that he was known by the Cubans to be working with us.
No sooner do we get the Cubans out than the Chinese communists try to move in. Only yesterday the Foreign Minister told a reporter that the Chicoms have asked permission to set up a trade mission in Montevideo and that as far as he is concerned it would be all right. Holman gave O'Grady the responsibility for following this one up but as in the case of the Brazilians the details are mine because we'll use the police intelligence office to get more information.
Manuel Pio Correa, ‡ the new Brazilian Ambassador, arrives tomorrow. He is pointedly visiting Brazilian military units along the Uruguay-Brazil border on his way here. Holman will establish contact with him next week.
Montevideo 16 September 1964
In spite of the intensity of station operations against the Cubans and other matters like the Brazilians, and local communist gains in the trade-union field we have a serious morale problem that's getting worse as weeks go by. In most stations, I suppose, the day to day demands of work keep personal dissentions to a minimum because one doesn't have the time or energy to feud. But here the problem is with Holman and everyone in the station is affected.
The problem is that Holman expects all the station officers to give outstanding performances in their particular areas of responsibility but he's not willing to exert very much effort himself. Besides that he is a great player of favourites, and for better or worse he's chosen me as his favourite. He invites me to lunch several days each week and practically insists that I play golf on Saturday afternoons with his crowd out at the Cerro Club even though I've made it clear I'm not enthusiastic. When we're alone he speaks derisively of the other station officers, especially O'Grady, Phipps and Zeffer. O'Grady, in fact, has turned into a bundle of nerves under Holman's criticism, which he's sure is the cause of his increasingly frequent attacks of hives. Usually Holman's criticisms are about shortcomings in language or failure to make new recruitments but sometimes he even criticizes the wives.
His attitude would be understandable, perhaps, if his own work habits were more inspiring, but he avoids work as much as possible and requests from other stations like Rio or La Paz or Buenos Aires seem like personal insults to him. Just the other day when we were playing golf, Holman told me that in fact he was rather relieved when the recruitment of Hernandez, the Cuban code clerk, failed. He said he came to Montevideo for a relaxing last four years before retiring and only hoped to keep operations to a minimum and the Ambassador happy. If Hernandez had been recruited, headquarters would have bothered us constantly with advice and probably would have sent down' experts' to tell us how to run the operation.
Holman is not only determined to keep operations to a minimum. At night or on week-ends when priority cables are received or have to be sent Holman refuses to go to the station to take action. He either sends O'Grady in to bring the cable out to his house in Carrasco -- against all the rules of security -- or he has the communications officer bring it out to him. If another officer has to take action he simply calls that officer to his house.
I'm not sure what to do since I'm the only officer Holman thinks is doing a good job -- nothing to be proud of, it could even be the kiss of death. Warren Dean told me before leaving Quito that Holman isn't considered one of the more outstanding Chiefs of Station in the Division, but he's apparently protected by Ray Herbert, the Deputy Division Chief, who is Holman's best friend.
Montevideo 25 September 1964
Today the Congress approved the new budgets for the state-owned banks with provisions for a 30 per cent salary increase retroactive to January of this year plus improved fringe benefits. Political motivation prevailed at the last moment 'ven though the NCG had previously rejected such generous increases, which is not to say they aren't justified when inflation is taken into account. The main problem is that this increase of 30 per cent will set the standard for demands by all the other government employees which in turn will accelerate inflation with new budget deficits.
The new National Workers' Convention, heavily influenced by the PCU, is also intensifying its efforts to unify the government and private-sector workers through a series of rallies and marches in coming weeks, culminating in a mass meeting in early December to be called the Congress of the People with representation from the trade unions and other popular mass organizations. At the Congress of People they will formulate their own solutions to the problems afflicting this country -- not a bad idea what with the mess they're in.
Relations between Uruguay and Brazil are back at boiling-point. Police in Porto Alegre, the capital of the Brazilian state bordering Uruguay, have just discovered a new plot by Goulart and his supporters to foment a communist-oriented takeover. A written plan, supposedly found on a university student, included the formation of terrorist commando units. Earlier, another plot was discovered in Porto Alegre involving Army officers loyal to Goulart. Here in Montevideo, the 300 Brazilian exiles have formed an association to help those unable to get along financially. However, at the first meeting considerable discussion was devoted to ways in which the military government could be overthrown, and Brizola's wife, who is Goulart's sister, was elected to the association's governing board.
In tracking down the possibility that the Chinese communists will establish a trade mission here, we discovered that permission has in fact been granted, not to the Chinese but to the North Koreans. They have just arrived and are taking a house on the same street as the Soviet Legation. Holman asked Tejera, ‡ the Minister of the Interior, what could be done to keep them from staying permanently, but Tejera made no promises. Already head-quarters is asking for a programme to get them thrown out.
Two recent developments of note have occurred in our otherwise stagnated student operations. A new publication aimed at university and secondary students is now coming out: it's called Combate ‡ and is published by Alberto Roca. ‡ Also, at the Alfredo Vazquez Acevedo Institute, which is the secondary school associated with the University and as such the most important on that level, the student union supported by the station has just defeated the FEUU-oriented candidates for the fifth straight time. Sooner or later our work with this group, the Association of Preparatory Students, ‡ is bound to be reflected in the FEUU.
Montevideo 29 September 1964
Montevideo was alive with new rumours this morning that senior Blanco military officers are planning a coup against the government. Cause of the rumours is a dinner given last night by Juan Jose Gari, the long-time station agent in the Ruralist League and currently President of the State Mortgage Bank, in honour of Mario Aguerrondo, ‡ former Montevideo Police Chief, who was recently promoted from Colonel to General. Among the guests at the dinner were other Ruralista leaders and practically all of the top military commanders from the Minister of Defense down. Holman checked out the rum ours with Gari and with Adolfo Tejera, the Minister of the Interior, while I checked with Colonel Roberto Ramirez, Chief of the Metropolitan Guard, who was also there. The dinner was simply an expression of homage to Aguerrondo but the rumours, entirely unfounded, reveal just how nervous people are that a military takeover may occur, what with the increasing strength of the PCU-dominated unions and the government's incapacity to slow inflation. New strikes are being planned.
Holman thinks he has at last got agreement from the Minister of the Interior, Adolfo Tejera, for setting up a Public Safety mission for work with the police under AID. For some time Colonel Rodriguez, the Chief of Police, has wanted the programme but the delicate question of foreigners working openly with the police has caused Tejera to delay his decision. No wonder Tejera has now finally decided. He has just testified before the Budget Commission of the Chamber of Deputies that his ministry is too poor to buy paper, the police lack uniforms, arms, transport and communication, and the fire departments lack hoses, chemicals, trucks and other equipment.
It's not just a question of money and equipment for the police; they are also very poorly trained. Not only are bank robberies frequent, for example, but successful escapes often involve not only stolen cars but motor scooters, bicycles, trucks, buses -- even horses. In one recent robbery the getaway car wouldn't start so the robbers simply walked down the street to the beach and disappeared into the crowd. In August four thieves were caught robbing a house on the coast near Punta del Este but escaped to the nearby hills, and after a two-day gun battle they slipped through a .cordon of several hundred police. Their escape car, however, got stuck in the sand and they walked down the beach, robbed another house, were again discovered, but this time escaped in a rowing-boat. For six days the police chased them in cars, helicopters and on foot but they finally escaped completely -- carrying their loot on their backs as they rode their bicycles down the main highway into Montevideo.
The competence of the AVALANCHE service is similarly limited in its attempts to suppress terrorist activities. Undoubtedly some of the bombings at the time relations with Cuba were broken were the work of the terrorist group led by Raul Sendic. Last March Sendic returned from several months in hiding in Argentina after an arms theft from a shooting club in Colonia. He arrived in a light aircraft at a small airport near Montevideo, but when discovered he simply rushed past the police guard and escaped in a waiting truck. The following month 4000 sticks of dynamite were stolen from a quarry and a few days later enough caps and fuses to explode it disappeared from another site. All the police could report was that these thefts may have been the work of the Sendic band.
Building up the police is like labour operations -- we're still at the beginning with a long road ahead requiring training, equipment, money and lots of patience.
Montevideo 7 October 1964
This is the final day of the forty-eight-hour strike in the autonomous agencies and decentralized services. Only the electric company and the state banks have been operating although the banks have been stopping work for one hour each shift in solidarity with the others. Yesterday the striking government workers, CNT unions and FEUU held a demonstration at the Legislative Palace to demand salary increases equivalent to the 30 per cent won two weeks ago by the government bank workers.
Two days ago all the privately owned gasoline stations were closed indefinitely in an owner's strike against the government for a higher profit margin from the state-owned petroleum monopoly, ANCAP, which also has a large number of gasoline stations. As the ANCAP workers are participating in the forty-eight-hour government workers' strike, no stations were open yesterday or today. More strikes and demonstrations coming up: teachers, the ministries, postal workers and some unions in the private sector.
Montevideo 17 October 1964
Commissioner Otero and others have had a stroke of luck against the Sendic group of terrorists. Two leaders of the group, Jorge Manera, an engineer in the electric company, and Julio Marenales, a professor in the School of Fine Arts, were arrested in an unsuccessful bank robbery. They confessed that their purpose was to aid the sugar-cane workers of Bella Union and that the focal point for their activities is the School of Fine Arts. Police seized arms and are searching for two other members of the group. Otero's leads from these arrests are very important because this is the only active armed group. If he can get good information from the interrogations we may be able to target some recruitment operations against them. So far they've been completely underground.
We've decided to hook up the AVENGEFUL lines again on the Soviets and the PCU. I'll also put a line on Prensa Latina and another on the Czech Embassy which has taken over the Cubans' affairs. If the transcribers can manage I'll also put a tap on the telephone of Sara Youchak, a young activist in the FIDEL political front who has all the marks of being a Cuban intelligence agent.
Still no sign of who was behind the theft of the tapes from AVOIDANCE'S car. He'll now take over the courier duties again so that we can stop using the Embassy employee. Colonel Ramirez, Chief of the Metropolitan Guard, is really happy about AVENGEFUL. A few days ago his men, acting on data from telephone taps, intercepted a truck containing 600 transistor radios that had been off-loaded from a light aircraft running contraband from Argentina. The 300,000 pesos that the haul is worth will be divided among Ramirez and his men.
Meanwhile the government announced that they simply had no money to start paying September salaries -- even the police and the Army, always the first to be paid -- have received nothing for September. Nevertheless, the NCG has just approved the 30 per cent increase for employees of the state-owned telephone, electricity and petroleum monopolies.
Montevideo 25 October 1964
Perez Freeman has been killed trying to escape from the Uruguayan Embassy in Havana! The story was carried in wire-service reports this morning and said that he had been trying to hold the Uruguayan Charge, who is still trying to arrange for another Embassy to take over the asylees, as hostage. The Miami station is attempting to check the story but no confirmation so far. If only the Mexico City station had handled his defection correctly in January we would have all his information and he'd be basking in the Miami sun.
Montevideo 31 October 1964
On the Perez Freeman case the Foreign Ministry received what is being called the longest cable in its history -- some 1300 groups in code from the Embassy in Havana. The communications office of the Foreign Ministry, however, was unable to decode it for 'technical' reasons -- meaning, probably, that too much effort was involved -- so the Foreign Minister called the Embassy by telephone to get the story the Charge had put in the cable.
Perez Freeman, according to the Charge, was the leader of a group of four asylees who took the Charge hostage and escaped from the Embassy in the Charge's car. Cuban security forces gave chase and when the escaping group arrived at a roadblock Perez Freeman jumped out of the car and was shot running away. The others were taken to the fortress where executions are normally held. I've asked the Miami station to try to verify the Charge's version.
Hernan Siles Suazo, the former Bolivian President, was caught plotting and was deported by President Paz Estenssoro. He's arrived back in Montevideo and we're supposed to report any signs that he may be returning to Bolivia. Paz Estenssoro is in serious trouble right now, and the La Paz station wants to head off any complications from Siles. Holman continues to meet with Jose Arce, the Bolivian Ambassador, to pass tidbits from police intelligence. Yesterday Arce gave a press conference to assure everyone that the rebellion now underway against Paz Estenssoro is communist-inspired and doomed to failure. He emphasized that Paz has the full support of the Bolivian people and that current problems have been blown all out of proportion -- adding that the minority groups opposing Paz are so few in number that they could all be driven off together in a single bus. So far ex- President Siles hasn't moved from Montevideo but Otero has posted a special 'security' guard for Siles in order to watch him more closely.
Montevideo 6 November 1964
In Bolivia President Paz has been overthrown by the military and allowed to go to Lima in exile. Ambassador Arce has resigned and has announced that he plans to continue living in Montevideo for a while. Meanwhile ex-President Siles has started to pack and will be leaving for Bolivia within a few days. Holman's not very happy, though, because rumours are strong that Paz Estenssoro is coming to live in Montevideo -- meaning exile-watching will continue, only with new targets.
Late tonight the Budget was finally passed by the Chamber of Deputies, ten minutes before the final constitutional deadline and after forty hours of continuous debate. Passage was made possible by a last-minute political pact between the Blancos, who lack a majority in the Chamber, and the Ruralistas, Christian Democrats and a splinter faction of the Colorados. Opinion is unanimous, .even among Blancos, that the Budget is unworkable because of its enormous deficit and that not even the devaluation of the peso included in the Budget exercise -- the third devaluation since the Blancos took over in 1959 -- will allow for printing enough new money to cover the deficit.
I've seen my Soviet friends at several recent diplomatic receptions and have become acquainted with a couple of Romanians and Czechs as well. Headquarters has reacted favourably and asked that I develop the relationship further with the Soviet Consul, Borisov. Tomorrow night I go to the Soviet Embassy as the Ambassador's representative for their celebration of the October Revolution. Phipps tells me to expect plenty of vodka, caviar and singing.