Castro brothers helped KGB, files show

Washington Times ^ | October 6, 2005 | Bill Gertz

[Tailgunner Joe]

New details of Moscow's intelligence work in Cuba were disclosed by Vasili Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist who defected to Britain in 1992.

...Russian KGB officer Nikolai Leonov became "firm friends," with Mr. Castro's younger brother Raul in Prague in 1953 and then worked together with Fidel from 1956 and after he took power in 1959.

The book, the second volume of what is known as the Mitrokhin archive, also reveals how Moscow sought to indirectly defeat the United States during the Cold War through large-scale "disinformation" and influence operations in the developing world.

"The KGB really believed they could win the Cold War in the Third World," said Christopher Andrew, a Cambridge history professor and co-author of the new book, "The World Was Going Our Way." Mr. Mitrokhin died last year.

Among the thousands of classified KGB files provided by Mr. Mitrokhin were documents related to Americans who traveled to Cuba beginning in 1969 as part of the pro-Castro Venceremos Brigade.

The KGB helped set up Cuba's DGI intelligence service, which imposed draconian controls on Cuban society and also arranged for the visits of Americans.

The book reveals that Fidel Castro publicly supported the American activists but privately "looked askance at the presence of gay and women's liberation movements among his American New Left supporters," the book stated.

According to the authors, the DGI complained to its KGB counterparts that "the New Left brigadistas were homosexuals and drug addicts."

"Venceremos gays, the DGI bizarrely reported, saw 'the possibility of using homosexuality to bring about the physical degeneration of American imperialism,'?" the authors write, quoting the Cuban memo to Moscow.

"The Brigade however, proved a valuable source of U.S. identity documents for use in [undercover] intelligence operations," the authors said, noting that the American travelers were "an important propaganda asset."

[Tailgunner Joe]

As I have pointed out before, Communists promote degenerate homosexuality in countries they are trying to overthrow, even while suppressing it in their own countries.

[Siena Dreaming]

I have said before that I believe Castro will be gone before the end of George Bush's Presidency.

Another stellar item to add to his legacy.

[Vaquero]

All in all it would have been better if MLB had gotten Fidel into the majors.

[yarddog]

I can remember as a young boy around 1956, I wanted to go join Castro to fight for freedom. Such was the disinformation provided by our media.

That is also the first time I heard of the John Birch Society. They were saying Castro was a Communist. I still don't know much about them but it really stuck in my mind that they were about the only ones who were right about him.

[dynachrome]

"Castro brothers helped KGB, files show" Breaking: Sun rises in the east.

[Gay State Conservative]

Fidel Castro publicly supported the American activists but privately "looked askance at the presence of gay and women's liberation movements among his American New Left supporters..."

Translation:He saw them all for what they really were.. useful tools....and held them in contempt for being such.

[piasa]

Didn’t know the Venceremos Brigade was based in New Jersey.

But, going to add here that LA Mayor Karen Bass is a Venceremos Brigadista and Organizer who made at least 15 of these Cuba trips in the 1970s, so it is no wonder that she is such a help to the rioters out there.