The public belief of a cover-up and conspiracy in the 1976 Cubana Flight 455 twin bombing persists – fuelled by the preferential American treatment of the two prolific terror masterminds and their shielding from justice. But based on the online evidence now available, it appears unlikely the United States (US) Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had a direct hand in the tragedy.
Sifting through hundreds of diplomatic cables and declassified material, including various documents for this impromptu Cubana memorial sequence of 11 symbolic articles since October 6, 2016, the 40th anniversary, I conclude it is evident the Cuban extremist emigres organised the mass murder. Eleven Guyanese were among the 73 passengers killed in the blasts and crash off Barbados.
The surviving chief architect Luis Posada Carriles and the now dead Orlando Bosch clearly had the personal expertise, ready financial and varied resources, and important contacts to plan and execute the crime without outside help, and to escape any proper punishment.
Posada almost 89, and ailing with heart associated and dementia issues prayed to outlive his arch-enemy former Cuban President Fidel Castro who just died of natural causes on November 25, aged 90. Both Posada and Bosch were allowed by the US to live freely as holy heroes in the close-knit Cuban stronghold, Miami.
The umbrella Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU) was established by a grand gathering of para-military cabals in Bonao, Dominican Republic with money channelled from donors among them wealthy US-based Cubans just three months prior to the deadly mid-air blasts.
Financing a nearly immediate wave of “terrorist operations” directed at the Communist island, CORU headed by hardliner Bosch launched “violent attacks against other countries he believed supported Cuba” ranging from Colombia, Mexico and Panama to Guyana, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said.
Well-schooled by the CIA in the subversive arts in the 1960s, Bosch and Posada worked for the spy organisation throughout the period. Bosch was in contact several times as recorded by the private non-profit institution, the National Security Archive (NSA). “Vehemently anti-Castro” Posada trained with the Agency for its aborted Bay of Pigs Cuba invasion in 1961 but never saw live action.
Subsequently recruited as a Maritime Training Branch Instructor, Posada became a deadly explosives expert, a seasoned purveyor of torture, terror and murder, like his fellow psychopathic partner, Bosch who had no compunction either about massacring civilians, in their united quest to garner international publicity and hurt Castro’s Cuba. The CIA largely left the dangerous duo to their own devices in the mid-70s which in the case of the Cubana detonation meant two powerful incendiary weapons concealed in a toothpaste tube and a camera, tapping the men when it suited the office.
“CIA’s relationship with Posada, who more and more appears to be the person who planned the bombing, could possibly lead to some misinterpretation and embarrassment in that he provided unsolicited information on significant extremist planning, most recently in February and June of this year,” a comprehensive October 22 1976 memo found.
Ordered by Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, into furious allegations of American involvement in the Cubana DC 8 airliner’s destruction, made by Castro during a passionate October 15 1976 speech, the brief was prepared by Director, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Harold Saunders and Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (ARA), Harry Shlaudeman. It is in the US Office of the Historian’s collection since complete declassification in June 2015, because of the NSA’s efforts.
“Posada was the source for the two CIA reports concerning planned operations by Bosch’s organisation. The first issued on February 19, 1976 concerned a plan to assassinate (slaughtered Chilean leader) Salvador Allende’s nephew in Costa Rica. The second, based on information acquired on June 22, 1976 reported a plan to place a bomb on a Cubana Airline Flight travelling between Panama and Havana on June 21.”
The officials noted, “CIA says it has had no relationship with Posada’s investigative agency (in Caracas, Venezuela) or any other business venture” and that “the Agency has never had any involvement in the activities of CORU…”
According to the CIA, a representative of a group of Cuban exiles did telephone the Agency in September 1976 requesting contact for an unspecified reason, but this did not take place and the callers were discouraged from further attempts.
Saunders and Shlaudeman admitted the CIA continued to have “occasional contact” with compensated snitch Posada until February 1976 “when a formal written agreement of termination was signed.” They surmised that “Posada’s reasons for volunteering this kind of information after he had been terminated as a paid informant are unknown. He could have been trying to remain in CIA’s good graces, hoping to use the relationship on (friends and family) visa requests and such.”
Suggesting Posada may have been probing the CIA’s reaction to CORU efforts to harass the Cuban Government, the diplomats relayed that the Agency ruled out any chance Posada could have misinterpreted its response to his approaches. They however cautioned that the attack highlighted the dangers the radical Cuban community posed for the US.
“Regardless of the circumstances, we can be made to appear to be somehow implicated for the reason that ultimately we often have to concede past associations with them,” they recognised. Earlier, the high-ranking State Department team accepted that the CIA’s contact with the accused individuals would “be susceptible to varying misconstructions by those who want to see the worst.”
“The problem is especially serious in the context of US-Cuba relations. Fidel Castro from long memory automatically assumes that significant exile activity against him is either US–directed or US-condoned. His past experiences probably make it hard for him to imagine that people like Bosch and Posada operate independently of the US. Given Castro’s memories of past CIA operations and the limited information probably available to him concerning the bombing, it would have been very difficult for him to accept at face value US denials of any involvement in the crash” Saunders and Shlaudeman deduced.
Acknowledging previous ties with Posada and Bosch, the firm maintained “any involvement that these persons may have had with the crash was without CIA’s knowledge. They had provided information to the Agency at various times in the past and requested assistance on visa(s)…and related matters.”
The CIA claimed the leak revealing Posada’s infamous remarks that “we are going to hit a Cuban airliner” and “Orlando (Bosch) has the details” in late September was only acquired after the disaster, and there are suggestions this oversight may have been deliberate.
Posada hired two lackeys to plant the C-4 bombs on the four-engine jet, Venezuelans, Hernan Ricardo Lozano, 21, an employee trained by him to handle and use explosives, and Hernan’s friend Freddy Lugo, 34, They were identified early by Barbadian authorities, arrested and hurriedly sent to Trinidad for further questioning.
Before he returned to his homeland, Lozano wavered between euphoria and despair, bragging to accomplice Lugo of killing all the 73 Cubana passengers – far more victims than the Venezuelan mercenary, Carlos the Jackal. Following an apparently unsettling telephone conversation with the acting Venezuelan Attorney General, he broke down crying, slitting his left forearm in a suicide attempt and begged for asylum in Trinidad and Tobago (TT), declaring he feared going back to Venezuela. Lozano had attested to TT police that he was a CIA agent and with Lugo his recruit, took orders from Posada, but then retracted his statement.
The bombers would serve 20 years for their deeds. Lugo is now a taxi driver in Caracas and Lozano was reportedly with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), but his trail went cold.
CIA Chief (acting), Latin America Division, George Lauder told an October 8 closed session to discuss the aircraft sabotage, his organisation worried about the growing potential of the US-based Cuba militants for violence. Stating the CIA had no immediate data on Lozano and Lugo, he insisted: “The CIA has been out of the Cuban exile business for a long time. Many of the Cuban exiles are now American citizens, others have green cards. There are a problem, therefore, for the FBI.”
At the weekly CIA/ARA meeting, Lauder warned, “we may be in for a rough time with the Cubans. In retaliation for violence against them they could, for example blow up a TWA plane or kill somebody in one of our embassies.”
“The FBI and the Department of Justice must come to grips with the problems that the exile organisations are causing. If they can’t stop the violence we will be in deep trouble,” he said.
Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, ARA, Williams Luers felt, “we should get him (Bosch) back and put him in jail. Bosch is now in Venezuela (words censored). It would be helpful if the CIA could find out about Bosch and the two persons (Lozano and Lugo) in Trinidad.”
Days subsequently, Assistant Secretary Shlaudeman, advised Secretary of State, Kissinger that the Caribbean press and Governments were “increasingly suspicious that the CIA may have had a hand in the affair. Guyanese leaders are particularly upset about the event and the allegations of USG (US Government) involvement,” in a reference to firebrand Prime Minister, Forbes Burnham.
Shlaudeman counselled: “I believe it is important that we re-emphasise at a high level our strong opposition to all kinds of terrorism from any source, thus making clear that there was no USG involvement in the crash. I recommend that you send letters to the Foreign Ministers of Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana for that purpose.” A revised version of the correspondence was dispatched as telegram 254013, October 14, 1976 to the three capitals.
Many files were deliberately destroyed while more remain off-limits or redacted including a CIA detailed interview dossier on Posada. In 1978, investigators for a House Select Committee probe into US President John F. Kennedy’s assassination conducted a comprehensive review of CIA, FBI, DEA and State Department chronicles relating to the life, operations and violent activities of Posada, which were not fully released.
Another set cover some intriguing as yet unrevealed 600-odd pages of records on the schizophrenic Bosch, connected to the November 22 1963 unsolved death of the 35th President, among thousands of papers sealed until October next year.
When Bosch expired in April 2011 at 84, the British Independent newspaper remembered in his obituary: “some researchers claim to have spotted Bosch in Dealey Plaza,” where Kennedy was mysteriously shot.
Are you a relative or close friend of any of the 11 Guyanese victims of the Cubana tragedy? How were you affected? Please share and record your stories, memories, precious photographs or any other relevant information with Stabroek News at stabroeknews@stabroeknews.com or stabroeknews@hotmail.com or in writing at 46-47 Robb Street, Lacytown, Georgetown or contact columnist Indranie Deolall through her Facebook account, Indranie Deyal.
ID finds most appropriate, the names of two terrorist CORU founding arms, Alpha 66 and Omega 7, as the title for her final piece in the Stabroek News 2016 Cubana Commemoration Series. Bosch recalled “Our war strategy was created there—everything. All the top leaders of the paramilitaries in Miami were there” while Posada thinks: “If there is no publicity, the job is useless.”
