Weekly Summary

Approved for Releases: 2023/03/28 C03154550
EC'R~EL
(“X3
Manuel Pineiro Losada, who also functioned as
the chief of the foreign intelligence apparatus
(DGI), retained the DGI under his general com-
mand but turned over direct responsibility for its
management to Major Joaquin Mendez Com-
inches, a former comrade-in-arms of Raul Castro.
Pineiro’s title is now first vice minister and techni-
cal vice minister. Major Jose Abrantes Fernandez,
who as chief of the Department of State Security
(DSE) was charged with counterintelligence and
security responsibilities, apparently was “kicked
upstairs” and has been identified since last Sep-
tember as vice minister and chief of the general
staff. Like Pineiro, Abrantes presumably still has
the DSE under his command but may have turned
over direct control to an as yet unidentified in-
dividual.
room for doubt concerning Cuba’s continued ad-
herence to armed struggle and violent revolution.
At the conference of the Economic Commission
for Latin America held in Lima in April 1969,
Rodriguez answered Venezuelan charges that
Cuba was still supporting guerrillas by saying that
“Cuba has the conception that for the develop-
ment of the revolutionary process of most of the
countries of Latin America, armed struggle is the
fundamental instrument. We continue to hold to
that conception.” To those delegates who talked
of resuming relations with Cuba if the Castro
regime would publicly reject export of the revolu-
tion, Rodriguez replied: “Cuba is not going to
change its__position to enter into relations with
any Latin American government.”
The new MININT hierarchy consists of (from left to
right) Majors Pineiro, Abrantes, Mendez Corninches,
and Leyva and Captains Pupo, Aguilera, and Franco.
POLICY REAPPRAISED
Both the reorganization of MININT and the
reassessment of Cuba’s policy of subversion were
probably completed by late 1969 or early 1970.
There apparently never was any intention of dis-
carding armed struggle; the reappraisal seems to
have addressed only the problem of how and
when to employ it.
With Fidel Castro’s almost total preoccupa-
tion with domestic problems, Minister without
Portfolio Carlos Rafael Rodriguez emerged as a
key spokesman for the regime on foreign policy
matters after late 1968. His statements leave no
Special Report ‘-
3
In an interview published in a leftist Chilean
magazine in September 1969, Rodriguez sought
to clarify “Cuba’s position with respect to the
revolutionary struggle in Latin America,” which
he said had “often been the object of inexact
interpretations....” He said: “Cuba conceives of a
‘continentalization’ of strategy. That strategy is
based fundamentally on the use of armed struggle
and, in particular, guerrilla warfare in the major
part of the countries of Latin America, but it
does not exclude other forms of revolutionary
violence or even of nonviolent political struggle.”
He characterized as remote and difficult, how-
ever, the possibility of attaining power without
violence or previous armed struggle. Regarding
" 8 May 1970
‘SEGKEJL
Approved for Release: 2023/03/28 C03154550