https://amp.dw.com/en/berlin-businesswoman-charged-with-spying-for-russia/a-79258004
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Sunday, September 6, 2026
The Shadow of the Stasi. By Jorge L. García Vázquez
The Shadow of the Stasi
By Jorge L. García Vázquez
The Havana-Berlin Connection
These sources explore the close collaboration between the Ministry for State Security of former East Germany, known as the Stasi, and Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior (MININT).
Declassified documents and Vázquez's research reveal how the East German regime provided technical training in espionage, counterintelligence, communications, document forgery, and operational disguises for agents.
The texts portray MININT as a tool of political control and repression that adopted Stasi methods to monitor dissent and uphold the Castro regime's power structure.
The texts also detail the exchange of intelligence, the supply of weapons, and mutual support agreements that bolstered the operational capacity of the Cuban political police during the Cold War.
Finally, the articles emphasize the lasting impact of these tactics on the Cuban government's infiltration and disinformation activities, both domestically and internationally.
Friday, August 21, 2026
Cuba Archive Accuses State of Using Therapies and Drugs to Punish Opponents
Documents in the archives of the German political police give an account, as late as 1981, of the Cuban request for a list of 16 drugs designed to psychologically destabilize prisoners who had committed crimes against state security, including cocaine, LSD, methadone and various barbiturates.
In a letter to the Stasi, Cuban Colonel Lorenzo Hernando Caldeiro asks “to exchange opinions and experiences in psychology” to “use these branches of science in the fight against the enemy” and confirms an agreement to send psychologists from the island to various institutions in Germany as part of the 1988 “Exchange Work Plan.”
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Our Comrades in Havana
https://youtu.be/--pF1ndld4Q?is=ndQK9Ien7QLcL-H0
Join Radoslav Yordanov (Harvard University) for a discussion on his book, Our Comrades in Havana. In the immediate aftermath of its successful revolution, Cuba was heralded by socialist nations as the vanguard of communism in Latin America. But by the late 1980s, Havana’s relationship with the Soviet-led socialist bloc had soured over its inability to adopt modes of socialist planning and Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms. Yordanov examines Cuba’s ideological, political, and economic relations with the Eastern European states. Eastern European diplomats were entrusted with the task of educating local Cuban leadership in the intricacies of Marxism-Leninism, steering Cuba's governors onto the "correct path of development," helping them eradicate "erroneous ideas" of economic development, and showing them the validity of socialist "morals and ideology." By analyzing Eastern European diplomats' and specialists’ experiences in Havana from the 1959 Cuban revolutionary victory to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, he sheds new light on Cuba's role in the global Cold War
Friday, August 14, 2026
Operational Disinformation
By Jorge L. García Vázquez
Havana-Berlin Connection
The East German intelligence service (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung) advised Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence and Counterintelligence on how to implement disinformation and influence tactics, and how to train double agents. Documents from the Stasi archives confirm this.
I am not referring to the disinformation and propaganda that the regime publicly disseminates through its agents of influence in the media and on social networks or its supporters. Rather, I am referring to those who carry out operational disinformation from strategic positions. This constitutes another category within the processes of disinformation and influence.
The Cuban espionage apparatus remains intact. It has undoubtedly suffered setbacks, but they have not affected its superstructure or weakened its operational capacity. The Directorate of Intelligence has demonstrated its ability to recover quickly and exploit its enemy's weaknesses.
The U.S. intelligence community was slow to react to subversive activities and espionage operations launched from Havana. Cuban infiltration and penetration of government and academic structures has been successful.
February 1987, Excerpt from a letter by Brigadier General Eladio Sánchez, second-in-command of the Counterintelligence Directorate, to the Stasi:
"Our goal is to deepen our understanding of operational activity and the ability of our agents to influence and be influential in the conduct and assessments of enemy intelligence officers and analysts. We also aim to improve the preparation and use of penetration agents in influence and operational disinformation tasks during direct contact with officers and analysts of American intelligence services."
Ana Montes, a Cuban spy, carried out effective operational disinformation activities.
I do not believe the United States can effectively dismantle Cuba's support networks and structures because they are embedded in American society's academic, union, and religious sectors.
Friday, July 31, 2026
"THE CIA'S WAR AGAINST CUBA"
By Jorge L García Vázquez
"The CIA's War Against Cuba" is a series produced by Cuban Television and the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), from 1987.
On September 1, 1988, the Stasi received copies, which, according to Cuban State Security, presented evidence of "psychological warfare, ideological diversionism and attempted attacks against Comrade Fidel Castro."
In a report dated September 3, 1987, the East German Intelligence Directorate (HVA) reported on a meeting between General Manolo (Manuel Fernández Crespo ), Chief of Counterespionage, and his replacement, Brigadier General Sánchez , with State Security liaison officers from socialist countries stationed in Havana.
According to the report, Cuban counterintelligence had received orders from Fidel Castro, since 1985, to compile film footage and evidence of CIA activities against Cuba, which were not intended to be made public. The report states that the political and operational situation of recent months made its release necessary for the following reasons:
- The CIA's aggressive stance against Cuba, despite Fidel Castro's warnings to the head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana
Ultimately, it was the defection of Major Florentino Aspillaga that led Fidel Castro and the MININT to make this decision, pressured by the tense operational situation unleashed by the Cuban agent, very similar to the damage caused by Stasi spy agent Werner Stiller a few years earlier.
According to the report by Cuban counterintelligence officers, the film footage and the statements of agents and collaborators, the series would have fulfilled its objective.
"General Manolo believes that the political-operational measure dealt a significant blow to Western intelligence services, and especially to the CIA."
The Cuban side stated that "a preliminary analysis of the reaction to the series confirms a strong sense of insecurity among diplomats accredited in Cuba, mutual suspicions, and a avoidance of contact with U.S. diplomats."
Cuban counterintelligence reported that the "success of this operation is due to an operational tactic of State Security, since 1980, against espionage services, which underestimated the technical-operational capacity of Cuban counterintelligence."
General Manolo noted that on Sundays no operational checks were carried out by counterintelligence officers, but this was compensated for by the employment of 2,000 collaborators trained for observation.
"State Security acted in this way for years, which led the CIA to believe that on Sundays or holidays, counterintelligence did not implement strong control measures and there were favorable conditions for operational activities."
Another method employed was the secret search of the homes of "CIA agents." Using collaborators trained for this purpose (the operation lasted 3 to 5 minutes), more than 2,000 important photographs were obtained. The operational technique and the application of nearly 100 observation points were effectively used, which helped to identify the agents, the time, and the location of their activities.
The MININT also reported on the increase in female personnel by the Central Intelligence Agency in recent years, especially the operational participation of the wives of agents stationed in Cuba.
From the Mariel boatlift in 1980, the US invasion of Grenada in 1983, the participation of Cuban troops in the Angolan war, and the defections of officers from State Security and the Armed Forces, Fidel Castro's power began to show cracks.
A short time later came, with Perestroika and Glasnost, the predicted end of socialism in Eastern Europe, the fall of the Berlin Wall and of course the final blow that ended the legend of the invulnerability of the Communist Party of Cuba: the trials and executions of General Ochoa and Colonel Antonio de la Guardia, accused of drug trafficking and corruption.
The arrests and trials ( Noriega in Panama, after the American invasion, and of the Cuban Minister of the Interior, José Abrantes) closed the red circle of the "Cuban revolution." The Castro myth was exposed.
Source: Stasi Archive, Berlin.
Monograph and Research by the author: "Havana-Berlin Connection. State Secrets and Notes on the Collaboration between the Stasi and the MININT."
(The article was published in the Misceláneas de Cuba Magazine, Sweden.2008)
Traducción automática de Google
Friday, May 29, 2026
Saturday, May 23, 2026
When Spies Become Diplomats. By Chris Simmons
When Spies Become Diplomats.
By Chris Simmons
AFIO Weekly Intelligence Notes #11-08 dated 17 March 2008
Since the earliest days of the Castro regime, the Cuban government has used diplomatic cover for its spies. Among them are Felix Wilson and José Imperatori, both of whom served at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C.
However, the choice of René Mujica Cantelar as Cuba's ambassador to the United Kingdom highlights a disturbing new trend. During extensive discussions during the past months, two former Cuban intelligence officers who are now in the United States identified Mujica as a deep-cover spy in Cuba's foreign-intelligence service, the Directorate of Intelligence (DI).
Mujica spent his earlier years in U.S. posts.
He served at the Cuban Interests Section in 1977-1986 and then at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations (CMUN) in 1990-93. Juan Antonio Rodriguez Menier - who served with the DI's predecessor, the Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI), for 28 years - noted that both of Mujica's U.S. postings carried the rank of first secretary. Historically, the DI uses senior diplomatic positions only for its higher-ranking officers.
Additionally, Mujica is apparently highly trusted by Raúl Castro, given that his CMUN assignment followed a devastating 1989 restructuring and downsizing of the DGI into the DI.
In the wake of the 1989 arrest and execution of Division Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, Castro and the Ministry of the Armed Forces took control of the Interior Ministry (MININT). Army Corps Gen. Abelardo Colome Ibarra became the interior minister and conducted a massive purge. Armed forces officers loyal to Castro replaced hundreds of MININT/DGI officers who were jailed, fired or retired.
After a few years back at DI headquarters, Mujica was transferred to Europe, where he spent six years as ambassador to Brussels (1996-2002) and another three as deputy director of the Europe Division. There, he worked for better E.U.-Cuban relations and recommended the E.U. rethink its position on Cuba. Mujica sees signs of warming European-Cuban relations but fears that E.U. enlargement may slow rapprochement since some new pro-American members tend to take a hard-line position.
Since his posting to London, Mujica is focused on stronger bilateral relations with the United Kingdom. He is a strong and vocal critic of Bush administration measures intended to hasten the end of the Castro brothers' rule, including tightened restrictions on family visits and remittances from Cuban Americans - funds now critical to the regime's survival.
According to former DI officer Juan Reyes-Alonso, Mujica's diplomat postings were intended to improve his cover for intelligence missions. Now, he enjoys the best of both worlds. As a deep-cover DI officer, he does not meet with regular DI assets like traditional intelligence officers at an embassy. This has kept him ''off the radar'' of foreign counterintelligence services and their surveillance teams. As a result, he is living the dream of DI officers and diplomats - he has little direct supervision and enjoys considerable freedom of movement. [Simmons/MiamiHerald/11March2008]
- The shoot-down was a conspiracy. The indictment accuses Raúl Castro and several Cuban military officers of participating in a conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals by targeting Brothers to the Rescue aircraft in February 1996.
- The operation was ordered at the highest levels of the Cuban government. According to prosecutors, all orders flowed through the Cuban military chain of command with Raul and Fidel Castro “as the final decision makers.”
- By Antonio María Delgado/ Miami Herald
- ‐--------
Saturday, May 16, 2026
Former CIA Director Robert Gates says the biggest national security risk posed by Cuba to the U.S. is "another Mariel evacuation… that has tens of thousands of Cubans heading to the United States out of desperation."
https://x.com/i/status/2055374398891110691
"They have been involved in ways that have impacted our national security and our interests in their engagement in other countries for a long time," he tells @margbrennan, noting how Cuban security forces were in Venezuela protecting then-President Nicolás Maduro.
"But, are they an imminent threat to the United States? Other than in these, if you will, peripheral ways, I think the main threat is, frankly, is collapse," he says.
CUBA- Double Agents During the Cold War
How East Germany Exported Its Repressive Stasi Security System to Cuba
"Havana-Berlin Connection: State Secrets and Notes on the Collaboration Between the Stasi and the Cuban Ministry of the Interior."
By Jorge L. García Vázquez
Saturday, April 7, 2018
According to declassified documents from the archives of the German Democratic Republic's political police, the Cuban Counterintelligence Directorate investigated the training of double agents and the refinement of operational games (operativnye igry) in 1989.
In March 1989, Lieutenant Colonel José Manuel Pérez Cernada of the Ministry of the Interior requested the support of the Stasi Counterintelligence Department. He wanted to obtain information on confessions from former CIA officers and agents discovered by the security agencies of socialist countries as soon as possible.
Pérez Cernada also requested information on the system of measures applied by the CIA in vetting agents of the security services of socialist countries involved in operational games.
Pérez Cernada requested examples of closed cases and operational criteria on the fundamental differences in the behavior of CIA vetting agents who reside permanently abroad versus those who travel abroad and contact the US special service.
He also wanted information on the training of operational game agents to evade enemy vetting.
Source: Stasi Archive
https://stasi-minint.blogspot.com/2015/11/la-preparacion-de-los-agentes-dobles.html
Fischer, B. B. (2016). Doubles Troubles: The CIA and Double Agents during the Cold War. International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 29(1), 48–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/08850607.2015.1083313
The Jackal's" commando had contacts with officers of Cuban intelligence, the DGI."
"Una vez más se evidenció que la Isla no alberga, no apoya, no financia ni permite organizaciones terroristas o extremistas; ni existen bases militares o de inteligencia extranjera en su territorio, y nunca ha apoyado ninguna actividad hostil contra EE.UU. ni permitirá que desde Cuba se actúe contra otra nación"
Información del gobierno revolucionario : A partir de la solicitud presentada por el gobierno de EE.UU. de que se recibiera en La Habana una delegación presidida por el director de la CIA, John Ratcliffe.
Jorge L. García Vázquez
Investigación Conexión Habana-Berlín
Las actividades de Roque* se hicieron públicas cuando el terrorista de Alemania Occidental Johannes Weinrich* , que ya había viajado a Cuba en 1980 y era miembro del Grupo de Carlos*, fue juzgado en el año 2003.
Dos cartas de Roque a la Stasi revelaron que se había reunido con Weinrich y Gerd Albartus*, alias "Kai ", miembro de las Células Revolucionarias (RZ), en la primavera de 1984.
Dado que Roque no estaba disponible como testigo para el tribunal de Berlín, fue citado a declarar el General de División Damm, antiguo jefe del Departamento X (Relaciones Internacionales) de la Stasi. Damm confirmó que Roque era oficial del servicio de inteligencia cubano.
Entrevista*/ Polos Opuestos/ Maria Elvira Salazar/ García Vázquez ( 2008)
Roque regresó a La Habana en 1986 y continuó sus actividades operativas, pero como jefe de un departamento en la Dirección de Radio- Inteligencia del MININT.
* Juan Miguel Roque Ramírez. Coronel de la Seguridad del Estado de Cuba.
El Palestino: Historia de un infiltrado
Contexto histórico
El 31 de diciembre de 1983, a las 20:09, la zona de consigna de equipajes de la estación de tren de Saint-Charles quedó devastada por la explosión de una bomba. El atentado causó la muerte de tres personas. Unos minutos antes, otra bomba había explotado en el tren Marsella-París, cerca de Tain-L'Hermitage, matando a dos personas e hiriendo a unas treinta.
Estos ataques se produjeron tras una serie de atentados contra Francia, tanto en su territorio como en el Líbano, el año anterior. Todo comenzó con un atentado con bomba en el Capitole, el tren que conecta Toulouse y París, el 29 de marzo de 1982, que causó la muerte de cinco personas. El atentado fue reivindicado por la Organización de la Lucha Armada Árabe, un grupo clandestino que había alcanzado notoriedad en 1975. Este grupo había exigido, en vano, al ministro del Interior, Gaston Defferre, la liberación de Magdalena Kopp y Bruno Bréguet, dos terroristas detenidos en París en febrero. Menos de un mes después, el mismo día en que fueron condenados a cuatro y cinco años de prisión, respectivamente, las oficinas del periódico Al Watan Al Arabi , en la Rue Marbeuf de París, fueron blanco de un atentado que dejó un muerto y alrededor de sesenta heridos. Este periódico había implicado a Siria en el asesinato del embajador francés en el Líbano en septiembre de 1981. Unos meses más tarde, el 9 de agosto, el restaurante Goldenberg, en la Rue des Rosiers, fue blanco de terroristas del grupo Abu Nidal, quienes mataron a seis personas e hirieron a una veintena.
Pero en aquel momento, los autores de los atentados del 31 de diciembre de 1983 eran desconocidos. Como suele ocurrir, surgieron diversas reivindicaciones de responsabilidad. No fue hasta el 4 de enero de 1984 que la Organización de Lucha Árabe se atribuyó la autoría. Detrás de este acrónimo se encontraba Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, conocido como Carlos, un terrorista de notoria reputación. Originalmente revolucionario sudamericano, se convirtió al islam en 1975 y se benefició del apoyo de varios servicios de inteligencia de Europa del Este y Oriente Medio. El motivo de los atentados no estaba claro. Francia se veía desafiada por su presencia en el Líbano, pero también porque mantenía en prisión a Magdalena Kopp, amante y cómplice de Carlos. Gastón Defferre, ministro del Interior, era un objetivo directo. Los atentados también pretendían contribuir a envenenar el clima político en Francia. Estos ataques se produjeron en un contexto de gran tensión, ya que el gobierno de izquierda atravesaba dificultades. La oposición, desplegando todos sus recursos, acusaba al gobierno de negligencia. El Frente Nacional aprovecha la oportunidad para exigir el restablecimiento de la pena de muerte. Para evitar la instrumentalización política, Gaston Defferre prohíbe todas las manifestaciones.
Carlos fue arrestado el 15 de agosto de 1994 en Sudán y extraditado a Francia, donde permanece encarcelado desde entonces. El Tribunal Especial de París lo condenó a cadena perpetua en diciembre de 1997 por los asesinatos de dos agentes de la DST (Dirección de Vigilancia Territorial) y un informante, ocurridos en 1975. Está previsto un nuevo juicio por estos otros delitos, pero no por los atentados de Marsella, que han prescrito.
Monday, April 27, 2026
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Your FBI: Counterintelligence - Cuba: The Neighborhood Spy
The small island nation of Cuba sits 90 miles from the United States, utilizing effective counterintelligence strategies to thwart American assets. #YourFBI Counterintelligence and Espionage Division shares how they are safeguarding our nation’s secrets, crushing threats, and stopping weapons from falling into the wrong hands in this roundtable discussion. Learn more and watch the full discussion:
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
MIAMI — A House Republican chairman accused US intelligence agencies on Tuesday of “definitely” being implicated in a “cover up” concerning “Havana Syndrome,” the strange illness that has afflicted hundreds of US officials — both at home and abroad.
Monday, March 9, 2026
The East German State Security as mentor of the Cuban political police
By Jorge L. García Vázquez
The MININT Archive (statistics 1980)
Jorge Luis Garcia Vázquez author of the blog STASI-MININT, is a Cuban exile living in Berlin. In his blog he provides lots of information about the relationship between the STASI & the MININT. In his paper “El Archivo del MININT y el asesoramiento de la STASI.” (The MININT Archive and the advice of the STASI), he provides the followings statistics :
Until 1980 the MININT had prepared a total of:
2,088,571 records or documents of the State Security6,056,847 records
pertaining to Internal Order
"This total quantity of documents: 8,145,418, was the main
problem of the MININT, their classification, organization and conservation,
especially of 160,000 pre-1959 records...
. The Stasi report describes the exact location of the Archive, the status
of the personal Card Index, which contains “all the Counterintelligence
materials, for example the data on informants, operations carried out or
documents of operational importance.”
In this card index alone were registered 4 million people with the following
personal data: surname, first name, date of birth, gender, skin color, codified
fingerprints and registration number....
Archivo de la Stasi/Berlin
Foto J.L.García Vazquez
"This total quantity of documents: 8,145,418, was the main problem of the MININT, their classification, organization and conservation, especially of 160,000 pre-1959 records...
.
The Stasi report describes the exact location of the Archive, the status of the personal Card Index, which contains “all the Counterintelligence materials, for example the data on informants, operations carried out or documents of operational importance.”
The Stasi report describes the exact location of the Archive, the status of the personal Card Index, which contains “all the Counterintelligence materials, for example the data on informants, operations carried out or documents of operational importance.”
In this card index alone were registered 4 million people with the following personal data: surname, first name, date of birth, gender, skin color, codified fingerprints and registration number.
Monday, March 2, 2026
The Counterintelligence Analyst, the Stasi, and the Moles. Excerpts from the Havana-Berlin Connection Investigation. By Jorge L. García Vázquez
By Jorge L. García Vázquez
The Bay of Pigs fiasco exposed two fundamental problems. First, it revealed the CIA's operational ineptitude. Second, it highlighted a glaring lack of coordination between the Agency and the White House. These factors, along with the economic strategy of successive US administrations to isolate Cuba through the trade embargo, allowed Fidel Castro to cultivate a robust anti-American movement, gain allies, and secure economic and military support from the socialist bloc.
U.S. intelligence services long underestimated the training, scientific and technical preparation, ideological approach, and methodology of Cuban analysts and officers, including their knowledge of operational psychology. This was demonstrated in 1987 after Major Florentino Aspillaga defected. The CIA carried out multiple operations aimed at weakening the power of the Communist Party and its intelligence apparatus but was unable to erode its foundation. Ultimately, the Agency's analysts failed to grasp their enemy's modus operandi. However, Cuban counterintelligence and espionage do understand the American mindset and work strategy. This has allowed them to create an effective system of influence and operational disinformation.
A parallel can be drawn between the Cuban Directorate of Intelligence and the former East German intelligence services. The operational conditions were analogous, which elucidates the persistent influence of Stasi methodologies on Cuban intelligence analysis and gathering, double agent training, and infiltration plans within the United States.
Thursday, February 26, 2026
Infiltration, seduction among Cuban spy tactics in U.S. BY TIM JOHNSON/ Jun 16 2002 Miami Herald
The Miami Herald
Infiltration, seduction among Cuban spy tactics in U.S.
BY TIM JOHNSON
WASHINGTON - Ana Belen Montes' confession in March brought the latest evidence of how Fidel Castro's regime seeks to spy on the United States,
targeting the Cuban exile community, Capitol Hill, the military and CIA, and universities, experts say.
Time after time, Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence has run double agents, letting them fall into U.S. hands, or wash up on U.S. shores, as presumed
defectors.
After insinuating themselves into exile groups, Radio Martí or federal agencies, they would sow discord, or bolt back to Havana to publicly discredit the
U.S. government.
Cuban spies based in the United States are ''very smooth, very acculturated and really very, very professional,'' one retired counterintelligence official
said.
They operate from the Cuban Interests Section in Washington and the huge Cuban mission to the United Nations in New York City, which has more than
70 accredited diplomats.
''I'll just flatly tell you that almost every one of them are intelligence officers,'' the retired official said.
At Cuba's mission in New York City, intelligence gathering is such a principal task, another U.S. official said, that many of the Cuban personnel ``frankly
don't even know where the U.N. is.''
By the mid-1970s, Cuban operatives were gathering information not only for Havana but also to pass on to the Soviet spy agency, the KGB.
''The Cubans were much more successful at bringing people aboard and gathering information,'' the official said. ``They were Latin and they were kind of
glamorous. We're much more open to Latins than we are to people with steel teeth and a Slavic accent.''
Cuban intelligence agents practice literal and figurative seduction, spending months and even years looking for weak points in their targets, experts say.
''They investigate everything,'' said Francisco Avila, a former Cuban double agent who came clean in 1992 and now lives in South Florida. ``Do you like to
smoke? Do you like to fish, hunt? Go to the movies? Or maybe a man is a real womanizer, and they send a woman to seduce him.''
Avila, who was tasked by Cuban intelligence with infiltrating Alpha 66, a Miami exile paramilitary group, voiced amazement at how many Cuban agents
penetrated the group.
''One time, I was one of six people aboard a boat belonging to Alpha 66, and I looked around and realized that three of us were from [Cuban] state
security,'' Avila said.
Before his break with Havana, Avila said, he would receive instructions in Miami every three months or from a contact, who would give him a large
hollowed-out bolt with a paper inside.
The paper would instruct him on how to meet his Cuban intelligence handler in New York City.
'It would say something like, `We'll see each other in Queens at such and such an hour in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken,' '' Avila said. When Avila
would show up there, ''almost always it was the first secretary of the U.N. Interests Section'' waiting for him.
The FBI counterintelligence unit has about 40 to 50 agents nationwide assigned to watch Cuban spies -- not nearly enough to keep tabs on every Cuban
diplomat who wanders the streets of New York, Washington and Miami.
''It's not like the movies,'' the security official said.
``You put two people out on somebody and they'll lose him. It's very hard to surveil somebody.''
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
THE LESSONS OF THE STASI/ GIVE ME LIBERTY BY DAVID HOFFMANN
THE LESSONS OF THE STASI
Fidel Castro’s intelligence services had long used subversion, deception, informers, and psychological pressure tactics. But Castro wanted to find new ways to suffocate any opposition in Cuba. He turned to the Stasi, the feared Ministry of State Security in East Germany. They had refined methods to detect opposition and nip it in the bud, including a type of psychological warfare known as Zeresertzung, or “decomposition.” The Stasi tutored Cuba’s state security in these methods, including wiretapping, which were later used against Oswaldo.
GIVE ME LIBERTY
By David Hoffmann
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