JOSE MARTIN AIRFIELD, HAVANA, CUBA AT 1605 GREENWICH 14 MARCH 1965 ABOARD AIR FRANCE FLIGHT 6005 WHICH ORIGINATED IN ALGIERS, ALGERIA. GUEVERA’ S ARRIVAL WAS NOT PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED TO THE PUBLIC, THE PRESS WAS EXCLUDED FROM THE DEBARKATION AREA, AND THERE WERE NO OFFICIAL WELCOMING CEREMONIES.
ALEIDA MARCH DE GUEVARA, HIS WIFE; HILDITA GUEVARA, HIS DAUGHTER FROM HIS PREVIOUS MARRIAGE; FIDEL CASTRO; CUBAN PRESIDENT OSVALDO DORTICÓS; CARLOS RAFAEL RODRÍGUEZ; EMILIO ARAGONÉS; ORLANDO BOR-REGO; AND THREE UNIDENTIFIED MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY FUNCTIONARIES WERE THE ONLY PEOPLE GIVEN ACCESS TO THE DEBARKATION AREA.
AFTER A SHORT MEETING OF THE ABOVE WITH GUEVARA, GUEVARA AND CASTRO (ONLY) LEFT THE AIRFIELD TOGETHER, AND WERE DRIVEN TO A MANSION AT CALLE BOLIVAR 117 WHICH IS SET ASIDE FOR CASTRO’S UNOFFICIAL AND PRIVATE USE. IT IS OF INTEREST TO NOTE THAT THE FEMALES WHO CUSTOMARILY RESIDE IN THE MANSION WERE REMOVED EARLY IN THE DAY AND HAVE NOT RETURNED.
THERE IS A CREDIBLE RUMOR CIRCULATING THAT AS A RESULT OF THE ‘THREE VIETNAMS’ SPEECH GUEVARA GAVE TO THE SECOND ECONOMIC SEMINAR OF AFRO-ASIAN SOLIDARITY GUEVARA IS IN DISFAVOR WITH CASTRO BECAUSE CASTRO WAS STRONGLY REBUKED BY THE SOVIET AMBASSADOR FOR THE SPEECH AND/OR CASTRO ALSO DISAPPROVES OF THE BELLIGERENT TONE OF THE SPEECH. THERE IS A FURTHER, LESS CREDIBLE, RUMOR THAT GUEVARA WILL, AT THE SUGGESTION/ REQUEST/DEMAND OF THE SOVIET AMBASSADOR, BE STRIPPED OF HIS POST AS MINISTER OF INDUSTRY SO THAT THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT CAN DENY THAT HE WAS SPEAKING/SPEAKS FOR THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT.
IT IS CONSIDERED UNLIKELY, HOWEVER, THAT ANY OF THE ABOVE WILL AFFECT THE CUBAN OPERATION IN AFRICA, ALTHOUGH GUEVARA’S ROLE IN THAT OPERATION MAY BE LIMITED.
5. IN THE ABSENCE OF SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS TO THE CONTRARY, THE UNDERSIGNED INTENDS TO GO AHEAD WITH THE RELATIONSHIP DESCRIBED ABOVE.
J.P. STEPHENS
STATION CHIEF BUENOS AIRES
TOP SECRET
“I had not seen it, no, sir,” O’Connor said when he had finished reading it.
“The only thing we had on this was a Reliability Three that Guevara was in Havana,” the Director said.
“Yes, sir,” O’Connor said, largely because he could think of no safe comment to make.
“I just told Paul that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Felter already has this information, and is sitting in the Executive Office Building waiting to see how long it takes for us to send it to him.”
“How would he do that, sir?”
“The same way he found somebody who knows the address of the house where Castro gets his revolutionary ashes hauled,” the Director said. “Clean that up, just the intel stuff, nothing about the deal Stephens has struck with Felter’s man down there, and get it over to Felter by officer courier.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you, Paul, you tell the South American desk that I am going to be very interested indeed—perhaps ‘morbidly fascinated’ would be a better choice of words—to see how much sooner Felter sends me stuff like this than our people do.”
“My God, Castro shoots anybody and everybody he thinks might be turned,” the Deputy Director protested.
“Well, I’d say he hasn’t shot enough people, then, wouldn’t you? Felter’s source has got somebody in there, and at the top.”
[SEVEN]
The Hotel du Lac
Costermansville, Kivu Province
Republic of the Congo
0950 19 March 1965
The seven-story Hotel du Lac was the tallest building in Costermansville.
After some rather convoluted business dealings, the sixth and seventh floors had been requisitioned, in the name of the Republic of the Congo, by Colonel Jean-Baptiste Supo, Military Commandant of Kivu Province, for use in military operations.
The requisition did not state that the military operation Colonel Supo had in mind was to provide space—and living accommodations—for Special Forces Detachment 17.
The King Leopold Suite of the Hotel du Lac—two bedrooms, an office, a sitting room, and a reception room, all of whose windows overlooked Lake Albert—had become Detachment 17’s headquarters.
The smaller bedroom was now Major George Washington’s Lunsford’s office. The Detachment’s executive officer, Lieutenant Geoffrey Craig, and the aviation officer, Major Darrell J. Smythe, shared what had once been some dignitary’s private secretary’s office, and the larger bedroom was now the commo center. Cables ran out of one of its windows up the side of the building to the antennae on the roof.
Lunsford, Smythe, Craig, Thomas, Peters, and Mr. Portet of Air Simba all had two-room suites on the seventh floor, which just about filled it up, and the enlisted men were housed on the sixth floor, most of them with rooms of their own.
The management of the hotel was pleased with the arrangement, and not at all upset that some people might think the payment arrangements were questionable, perhaps