By Arthur González on August 30, 2025
US Embassy in Havana
During the administration of President James Carter, on September 1, 1977, the U.S. Interests Section in Havana (SINA) and the Cuban Interests Section in Washington were opened. The Yankees took advantage of diplomatic representation to carry out espionage activities against Cuba, illegally supplying agents they recruited abroad with modern technologies for transmitting and receiving information, mainly about the Cuban economy, a situation denounced by the Cuban government in 1987 on national television, but silenced in the US press so that its citizens would not know about the disaster for the CIA of having believed in its 27 agents, who in reality answered to Cuban State Security and who for years passed on false information to the CIA.
In that denunciation, Cuba demonstrated that at that time, 22 CIA officers were working at the US Interests Section (SINA) as accredited diplomats and 54 as diplomats in transit. It is the most devastating blow the Agency has suffered in its entire history.
Years later, CIA officer Ronald Kessler wrote in his book “Inside The CIA,” “One of the most serious problems facing the CIA is the possibility that its agents are double agents, that is, that they work for the other side.
This happened in Cuba, where most of the agents recruited by the CIA in the early 1960s were planted agents who received instructions from Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Almost all of the agents had taken polygraph tests and passed them satisfactorily. The results of the tests for many other agents were inconclusive, meaning that there was insufficient evidence to prove that they were lying. The allegations sent shockwaves through the CIA, particularly the Latin American Division, which handles Cuban affairs. Virtually the entire agency staff working for the CIA at that time were double agents.
Without abandoning that line of work, they also reinforced ideological subversion with the illusion of subverting the internal order on the island, using the issue of alleged human rights violations raised by President Carter, with counterrevolutionary elements initiating the first complaints.
To this end, they created the so-called Cuban Committee for Human Rights (CCPDH), with Ricardo Bofill Pagés as secretary general and composed of CIA agent Marta Frayde Barraque, Adolfo Rivero Caro, Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz Pacheco, Edmigio López Castillo, and Enrique Hernández Méndez.
With the experience gained by the CIA in its work against Eastern European countries under President Ronald Reagan’s 1983 Democracy Project, Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz was instructed from Miami in 1987 to form the Cuban Commission for Human Rights. but months later, in his eagerness to obtain more money, Elizardo split off and created the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
The Yankees aspired to foster strong internal opposition in Cuba, and in 1988 they instructed Ricardo Bofill to form the Cuban Pro-Human Rights Party. Shortly thereafter, Bofill decided to settle in Miami, and Gustavo Arcos Bergnes took over the leadership of the Cuban Pro-Human Rights Committee.
The Yankee strategy was to multiply counterrevolutionary activity as proof that the popular movement was gaining ground and challenging the government. Department officials declared: “Opponents in Cuba play a key role in our strategy for democratic change on the island.”
In the absence of leadership and to avoid rivalry, the CIA attempted to unify the “opponents” under the leadership of Elizardo Sánchez, creating the Coordinating Committee for Human Rights (CODEHU), composed of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, the Cuban Pro-Human Rights Party, and the nascent Cuban Committee for Human Rights. None of the nearly 40 groups created by the Yankees gained popular support, as they were conceived in the United States and sought easy money without working, as well as obtaining endorsements from the US Interests Section (SINA) to emigrate with political refugee visas.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton approved the first program for Cuba by USAID, allocating millions of dollars for this work, in addition to allocations from the NED and the IRI, among other institutions.
Official US information states that between 1996 and 2006, USAID’s Cuba program supplied 385 pounds of medicine, food, clothing, more than 23,000 shortwave radios, 287,931 books, newsletters, and other materials for the political subversion activities of counterrevolutionary groups, which were brought into Cuba in diplomatic pouches sent to the US diplomatic mission in Havana, in total violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention, which states in Article 27-4: “The contents of the diplomatic bag shall consist only of diplomatic documents or articles for official use.”
Other State Department documents confirm that between 2000 and 2005, shipments to Cuba increased by 200%, from about 23.2 tons to 70.5 tons, including the illuminated sign installed on the facade of the diplomatic mission building to broadcast news and provoke the Cuban government.
Vicki Huddleston, head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana (1999–2002), was prominent in these actions contrary to diplomatic norms. In her statements, she acknowledged that the strategy followed by her country and that of allied governments consisted of supporting and financing “non-governmental organizations” to send ‘opponents’ material, information, and computers, as they did in Eastern European countries until their fall in the 1990s. This aid was intended to enable the “opponents” to make their ideas known to the Cuban people.
Her work was characterized by public and notorious support for small groups serving the United States, her travels within the country, and her attendance at public events without prior notification to the Cuban Foreign Ministry.
She was replaced by James Cason (2002-2005), who was sent to Havana with precise instructions from the State Department to provoke the Cuban government in order to seek his expulsion and lead to the closure of the Interests Sections, according to information provided by Roger Noriega, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs under the Bush administration, during the radio program “Lo que otros no dicen” (What Others Don’t Say) on WQBA 1140AM in Washington.
James Cason offered his residence and the Section’s premises for counterrevolutionary meetings. In continued violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention, he opened three illegal centers with Internet access to train and guide this “dissidence,” violating Article 41-3, which states: “The premises of the diplomatic mission shall not be used in a manner incompatible with the functions of the mission as set forth in this Convention, other rules of general international law, or in the particular agreements in force between the sending State and the receiving State.”
In addition, it installed the aforementioned illuminated sign, brought into Cuba by diplomatic pouch, to display news on the facade of the building, in a clear provocation to the Cuban government.
Forty-eight years have passed since the opening of the SINA, which became an embassy on July 20, 2015, when President Barack Obama reestablished diplomatic relations, but despite the failure of all their plans, they have not changed their course of action and are repeating the same provocations as their predecessors. None of the 20 diplomats appointed to head the mission managed to see the fall of the Cuban Revolution and they return to their country frustrated and recognizing that the supposed “opposition” are all hunters of easy money, without ideals or popular support.
On August 22, 2025, Roy Perrin arrived in Havana as Deputy Chief of Mission, supporting Mike Hammer, number 20 on the list, who has dedicated himself to copying the strategy of the failed James Cason, nicknamed in Cuba as “Cabo Cason.” According to the State Department, his role will be to direct the daily operational activities of the headquarters, coordinate the political, economic, consular, security, and public affairs sections, and ensure that initiatives respond to the priorities of the State Department. He will also serve as a bridge between Washington and Havana, conveying strategic assessments of the situation on the island and strengthening bilateral cooperation on sensitive issues such as migration, consular procedures, and human rights.
His first activity was on August 23, prepared by his boss Mike Hammer, who organized a reception for him with supposed “representatives of Cuban civil society,” activists, “dissidents,” human rights activists, economists, artists, journalists dependent on the Yankees, religious representatives, and relatives of “political prisoners,” in other words, the cream of the internal counterrevolution funded by the US regime.
So as not to be deceived, it would be very convenient for Roy Perrin to read some of the secret cables that previous heads of that diplomatic mission sent to the CIA and the State Department, including one that clearly reflects the truth about that “opposition,” which reads as follows:
Reference: 09HAVANA221
ID: 202438
Date of cable: 2009-04-15
“With the Cuban government appearing to have consolidated a position of unchallenged authority internally, it is worth asking what the Cuban political opposition is doing and what role it may play in the future. Many opposition groups are dominated by individuals with inflated egos who do not work well as a team and can therefore be easily manipulated by Cuban security. […], we see little evidence that the main dissident organizations have much impact on ordinary Cubans. Informal surveys we have conducted among visa applicants and refugees show that dissident personalities or their agendas are virtually unknown.
[…] they need to start by achieving a certain degree of unity of purpose as an opposition, or at least stop spending so much energy undermining each other. Despite their claims to represent “thousands of Cubans,” we see very little evidence of such support, at least from our limited perspective in Havana. When we question dissident leaders about their programs, we do not see platforms designed to reach broad sectors of Cuban society, but rather they direct their greatest efforts toward obtaining sufficient resources to meet the day-to-day needs of the main organizers and their key followers…”
This document, prepared by the US diplomatic mission, reflects the objective reality that the US regime does not want to acknowledge, especially now with Marco Rubio at the helm of the State Department, as it will only lead to more failures and the loss of a lot of money.
Let us remember José Martí when he said: “If there is anything sacred under the sun, it is the interests of the homeland.”
Source: El Heraldo Cubano, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English