Undercover with FBI Counterintelligence
Spring 1999
The Luis duo (Fernandez and Abierno) were sitting beneath an artificial palm tree in Saigon Gourmet when I arrived to curry them.
Fernandez
launched himself into a tedious spiel about how books like this might only serve to enflame tensions between our countries, and this contradicted Cuba's policy to
promote normalization and not enflame tension.
My misconception, he insisted, was a result
of propaganda disseminated by Cuban émigrés in Miami.
"So
what's the message you guys want to get out?" I posed. "Write it down, maybe we can carve a
book out of it."
"Then
you're not doing your job right," I said.
"You’re in America. You've
got to simplify the issues to get your message understood. Aren’t you familiar with sound-bytes?”
A
waiter served three chicken curries.
Abierno attempted to follow my example and eat with chopsticks. Big mistake.
He quickly tossed them aside.
"Tell
me your objectives," I pressed.
The
problem, said Fernandez, was three Congressmen who have put a lock on
normalizing U.S.-Cuba relations.
"It's
not so simple," said Fernandez.
Wouldn't it be grand, said Fernandez, if somebody investigated them and
exposed their back-door financial contributions?
I
nodded.
"Could
you help us do this?" asked Abierno.
Fernandez
scribbled:
Ross (FL), Menendez (FL), Balart (FL).
The
Cuban DGI was asking me, an American, to investigate three U.S. Congressmen.
I
plucked a notebook from my back pocket and tore out a blank page. "Write down their names."
Unbelievable.
If this were a game of Cuban chess, these quacking Cubans would have just lost because asking me to this was incompatible with their diplomatic status and qualified for expulsion from the USA.
"I
need starting points," I said.
Fernandez
and Abierno exchanged glances.
"You
can go to Cuba." Fernandez nodded
knowingly. "They tell you few
things."
"Okay,"
I said. "But before I go running
off anywhere, show me what you've got so I know it's worth doing."
The
Luis duo shared another glance.
"A
chapter?" I said.
"From
the Ed Howard book."
"Luis,
you have a good memory!" I looked
at Fernandez, my thumb pointed at Abierno.
"He's going to be famous one day." I returned to Abierno. "That chapter is a funny story."
Abierno
was all ears.
"We
hired a ghost writer to help Howard write his book," I said. "After the CIA ordered the classified
stuff cut out, our ghost was so spooked, he burned his copy."
"And
your copy?" said Abierno.
"Yeah,
it's still around somewhere," I said.
"I don't spook easy."
"What's
in the chapter?"
"CIA
operations in Russia."
"And
Howard did not care to lose this chapter?" asked Abierno.
"Ed
was happy just to get his book published."
The
check arrived. I nailed it. Both Luises objected, but I insisted, and
they said next meal would be theirs.
Fernandez
handed me a copy of something called Cuban
Banking and Financial System.
"Presumably," I continued, "your country has already investigated these Congressmen," I said. "Give me some leads."
"We
talk about this," said Abierno.
"We see what we can do. And
remember, you owe me a chapter."
"You will find this interesting," he said. (Wrong, again.) "You have friends in the
media?" Fernandez wanted to expand
his contact list.
"Plenty."
"You
can introduce me?"
"Of
course," I said. "We'll have a
dinner party at a restaurant, your treat."
My
next meeting, two months later, was one-on-one with Luis Abierno at Biddy
Mulligan's, a bar inside the Doyle Washington Hotel on Dupont Circle.
He'd had marching orders, he told me, and would depart
Washington presently, return to Havana.
I
told Abierno I wanted to know about Felipe Perez Roque, who had just become
Cuba's foreign minister.
Roque was the
flavor of the season to succeed Castro one day.
Abierno
confided that he had attended technical college with Roque; that Roque had
scored five, the highest rating, in
every subject, every term; that they'd worked together in youth groups, knew
each other socially as well as professionally.
Abierno questioned the notion of a Roque succession, not because the foreign minister lacked intelligence, but because he lacked charisma.
"Roque knows how to put all the right words together," said Abierno. "But he cannot deliver them effectively."
Is
there a book in Roque? I asked.
Abierno
said it would be difficult to ask Roque to participate in anything that
highlighted himself.
Self-promotion, he confided, was the kiss of death in Castro's Cuba.
Abierno questioned the notion of a Roque succession, not because the foreign minister lacked intelligence, but because he lacked charisma.
"Roque knows how to put all the right words together," said Abierno. "But he cannot deliver them effectively."
Self-promotion, he confided, was the kiss of death in Castro's Cuba.