Washington,
DC, October 18, 2006 - The CIA's reliance on
high-level informants including the President of Mexico for
"intelligence" about the student protest movement
in 1968 that culminated in the infamous Tlatelolco massacre
misled Washington about responsibility for the repression, according
to documents obtained by journalist Jefferson Morley and posted
today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George
Washington University.
The declassified U.S. documents reveal CIA recruitment of agents
within the upper echelons of the Mexican government between
1956 and 1969. The informants used in this secret program included
President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz and future President Luis
Echeverría. The documents detail the relationships cultivated
between senior CIA officers, such as chief of station Winston
Scott, and Mexican government officials through a secret spy
network code-named "LITEMPO." Operating out of the
U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Scott used the LITEMPO project
to provide "an unofficial channel for the exchange of selected
sensitive political information which each government wanted
the other to receive but not through public protocol exchanges."
This posting also includes the article "The CIA's Eyes
on Tlatelolco," written by Morley and published in the
October 1, 2006 edition of Proceso
magazine. The article uses first-hand accounts from former associates,
friends and family of Winston Scott, detailing how Scott relied
on his friendships with Díaz Ordaz, Echeverría
and other senior Mexican officials to inform Washington about
the student movement whose demands challenged the government's
monopoly on power.
The newly-declassified U.S. government documents and interviews
shed new light on the CIA reporting on the terrible events of
1968. Winston Scott's reliance on powerful government officials
for information led to one-sided reporting on the student movement
of 1968, ending in the 2 October massacre in Tlatelolco. Scott
relied on the government's version of the Tlatelolco killings,
reporting as "intelligence information" its fictional
accounts of the events.
"When the Tlatelolco crisis exploded, the CIA's Mexico
station could not deliver the goods," said Kate Doyle,
Director of the Archive's Mexico Project. "Jefferson Morley's
important research reveals that instead of independently collecting
information and analyzing what happened, the agency served as
stenographer for its friends and allies in the Mexican government.
As a result, the CIA helped protect Mexico's ruling party from
bearing responsibility for the massacre, and delivered a muddled
and misleading account of it to Washington."
LITEMPO:
The CIA's Eyes on Tlatelolco
By
Jefferson Morley
español/Spanish
Newly-declassified U.S. government documents and interviews
shed new light on what the American Central Intelligence Agency
knew--and did not know--about the terrible events of 1968 in
Mexico City.
Winston Scott, the CIA's top man in Mexico at the time, was
a brash and charming 59-year-old American who operated out of
the U.S. Embassy on Reforma. The CIA documents, now publicly
available in the U.S. National Archives in Washington, show
Scott relied on his friendship with President Gustavo Díaz
Ordaz; then-Secretary of Gobernación Luis Echeverría;
and other senior officials to inform Washington about the student
movement whose demands challenged the government's monopoly
on power.
The documents, reported here for the first time, show that
Scott recruited a total of 12 agents in the upper echelons of
the Mexican government between 1956 and 1969. His informants
included two presidents of Mexico, and two men who were later
indicted for war crimes.
------------------------------
The CIA's code name for Scott's spy network was LITEMPO. The
letters LI represented the Agency's code for Mexican operations;
TEMPO was Scott's term for a program that was, in the words
of one secret Agency history, "a productive and effective
relationship between CIA and select top officials in Mexico."
Begun in 1960, LITEMPO served as "an unofficial channel
for the exchange of selected sensitive political information
which each government wanted the other to receive but not through
public protocol exchanges." (Note 1)
 |
| CIA
Chief of Station Winston Scott in an undated family
photo taken in Mexico |
|
Scott's agents were identified in CIA files by specific numbers.
LITEMPO-1 was Emilio Bolanos, a nephew of Gustavo Díaz
Ordaz, Minister of Gobernación and then President
in the 1960s. Díaz Ordaz was LITEMPO-2. Like his predecessor
Adolfo Lopez Mateos, he was a personal friend of Scott's. Both
men attended Scott's wedding to his third wife in December 1962,
with Lopez Mateos standing in as padrino, or chief
witness, to the ceremony.
How much Scott paid his LITEMPO informants is not disclosed
in the records, but at least two CIA officials thought it was
excessive. In a review of the LITEMPO program in 1963, the chief
of the clandestine services Mexico desk griped that "the
agents are paid too much and their activities are not adequately
reported." (Note 2) One colleague of Scott's
said the LITEMPO agents were "unproductive and expensive."
(Note 3)
Scott ignored such complaints. He met frequently with his agents
who he called LITEMPOs and reported to Washington about his
contacts. In October 1963, he gave Bolanos, LITEMPO-1, a "personal
gift" of 1,000 rounds of .223 Colt automatic ammunition
to pass to Díaz Ordaz. In his monthly report to CIA headquarters,
Scott told his superiors that "changes to the LITEMPO program
may be necessary when LITEMPO-2 becomes the presidential candidate"
in 1964. (Note 4)
Scott also cultivated Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios in
the Dirección Federal de Seguridad who was known
as LITEMPO-4. (Note 5) Scott had known El
Pollo since at least 1960. Gutiérrez Barrios assisted
Scott in the panicky days after the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, by interrogating Mexicans
who had contact with accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
Another one of Scott's agents, according to CIA records, was
Luis Echeverría, a sub-secretary at Gobernación
in the early 1960s, who is identified as LITEMPO-8. (Note
6) Echeverría started out handling special requests
from the American government for visas to assist Cuban travelers
seeking to escape Fidel Castro's socialist revolution. (Note
7) As Echeverría rose in the Mexican hierarchy, so
did his importance to his American friend. He became an occasional
dinner guest at Scott's home in Lomas Chapultepec.
In 1966, an unidentified subordinate of Gutiérrez Barrios,
known as LITEMPO-12, began meeting daily with one of Scott's
most trusted officers, George Munro, to pass copies of reports
from his own agents. According to one CIA document, LITEMPO-12
became one of the U.S. Embassy's most productive sources of
intelligence on "the CP [Communist Party], Cuban exiles,
Trotskyites, and Soviet bloc cultural groups." (Note
8)
In the summer and fall of 1968, LITEMPO assumed even greater
importance in Mexico City and Washington as a spontaneous student
movement convulsed the streets of the capital. Scott relied
on his allies at the top of the Mexican government to monitor
and understand the unfolding events that culminated in the night
of gunfire that claimed scores of lives in Tlatelolco Plaza
on October 2, 1968.
The story of LITEMPO is a previously unknown dimension to that
tragic crime.
One summer night in 1968, one of Scott's sons went out to dinner
in downtown Mexico City with his mother and stepfather, whom
he called "Scottie."
"After we finished," the son recalled in an interview
years later, "we were walking back to the car when Scottie
said, 'Look they have music down there.' We were passing by
what they call a pena, a coffee shop type of place.
He said, 'Let's go listen.'"
While politically conservative, Scott was socially outgoing,
adept at making friends and conversation.
"So we're sitting there drinking our beers and someone
was singing a song about Castro that was popular at that time.
The chorus went, "¿Fidel, Fidel, que tiene Fidel/Que
los Americanos no pueden con el?"
"And Scottie's feeling good, so he starts singing along.
He's holding his beer up and going, "¿Fidel,
Fidel, que tiene Fidel/Que los Americanos no pueden con el?"
According to the son, Scott's wife said, "Scottie do you
know what they're saying?"
"Oh, something about Fidel," he replied.
"She says 'Yeh, they're saying, you can't handle him."
"Scottie said something like, it's only a song, and she
said, 'You know, if somebody didn't know any better and saw
you singing here, they'd think you were some kind of communist.'"
Scott just laughed, the son recalled.
On the job, Scott obsessed about the possible influence of
communism and Cuba in Mexico but reluctantly conceded that the
student movement was not communist controlled. That summer the
U.S. Embassy compiled a list of 40 separate incidents of student
unrest since 1963. Twenty three of the incidents were motivated
by school grievances; eight protests concerned local problems.
Six were inspired by Cuba and Vietnam. Four of the demonstrations
put forth demands related to the authoritarianism of the Mexican
system. (Note 9)
In June 1968, U.S. Ambassador Fulton "Tony" Freeman
called a meeting with Scott and other members of the Embassy
staff. France had just been engulfed by student demonstrations
so massive that the government fell. Freeman wanted to discuss
whether the same thing could happen in Mexico. Because of his
contacts in Los Pinos (the Mexican White House), Scott's
views carried a lot of weight.
Scott and his colleagues concluded Díaz Ordaz could
maintain control.
"The government has diverse means of gauging and influencing
student opinion, and it has shown itself able and willing, when
unrest exceeds what it considers acceptable limits, to crack
down decisively, to date with salutary effects," Freeman
cabled the State Department after the meeting. "Furthermore,
student disorders, notwithstanding the wide publicity they receive,
simply lack the muscle to create a national crisis." (Note
10)
Scott spoke frequently to Díaz Ordaz. Ferguson Dempster,
a top British intelligence operative in Mexico and a longtime
friend of Scott's, told one of Scott's sons that Scott delivered
a daily report on "enemies of the nation" to the Mexican
president.
Philip Agee, then a young officer in Scott's operation, told
much the same story when he broke with the agency a few years
later and published a book exposing its operations. Agee described
Scott's service to Los Pinos as "a daily intelligence
summary" with a section on activities of Mexican revolutionary
organizations and communist diplomatic missions, and a section
on international developments based on information from CIA
headquarters.
Scott, in turn, relayed the views of Díaz Ordaz and
other top officials to Ambassador Freeman and to CIA headquarters.
The Mexican authorities' public position "regarding disturbances
is they were instigated by leftist agitators for purpose [of]
creating [an] atmosphere [of] unrest," Freeman said in
a cable to Washington. "Embassy concurs in this general
estimate."
But Scott's inclination to see the student movement as a communist
controlled rebellion was not borne out by the station's reports
from its many informants. Declassified CIA records show that
Scott had a network of sources at the UNAM (National University
of Mexico) and other schools called LIMOTOR that kept him well-informed
about campus politics. (Note 11) He noted
that students at the UNAM wrested control of student activities
from the communist youth faction by creating a new National
Strike Council. "Those who are advocating violent action
are still in the minority," (Note 12)
he reported.
In conversation with his LITEMPO agents, Scott realized that
the desire of top Mexican officials to blame the communists
for the burgeoning protests in the streets coexisted with a
kind of passive uncertainty about what was really going on.
In late August Díaz Ordaz named Luis Echeverría
to head a new "Strategy Committee," created to design
the government's response to the student disturbances. But DFS
chief Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios confided that the government
did not have any plans in place to deal with student unrest,
according to a confidential CIA cable. (Note 13)
Scott himself was uncertain. His frequent "situation reports,"
known informally as Sitreps, emphasized the communist background
of the professors leading the student movement. In an August
1968 report, entitled Students Stage Major Disorders in
Mexico, he argued that the riot in the Zocalo represented
"a classic example of the Communists' ability to divert
a peaceful demonstration into a major riot." (Note
14)
But which communists? Díaz Ordaz was sure the Mexican
Communist party and the Soviet Union were involved. Scott wanted
to believe it but could find no evidence.
"Although the government claims to have solid evidence
that the Communist Party engineered the fracas on 26 July and
reportedly has indications of Soviet Embassy complicity,"
he told CIA headquarters, "it is unlikely that the Soviets
would so undermine their carefully nurtured good relations with
the Mexicans." (Note 15)
Among the LITEMPO sources, Scott said, uncertainty about the
student movement was giving way to anger.
"The Office of the Presidency is in a state of considerable
agitation because of anticipated further disturbances,"
Scott wrote in early August. "The pressure on Díaz
Ordaz to restore calm is particularly intense because of Mexico's
desire to project a good image internationally." (Note
16)
From his conversations with Díaz Ordaz, Scott began
to get a sense of how the president was going to respond. Tourist
and commercial interests were calling for "early action,"
he told Washington. Scott suspected that the president might
be planning to use Mexico City mayor Alfonso Corona del Rosal
as a scapegoat. Corona del Rosal was a former general with a
reputation for toughness. Much to Díaz Ordaz's annoyance,
he was advocating a conciliatory stance toward the students.
From long experience, Win knew how Díaz Ordaz operated.
"A politician's inability to preserve the peace in the
area of his charge has more than once provided the President
with an excuse to abort a political career," Scott wrote.
"Corona del Rosal has been mentioned as Díaz Ordaz'
possible successor, and it is possible that the President has
decided to 'burn' him.'" (Note 17)
The next demonstration was the largest yet--but also peaceful.
Reforma Avenue was jammed with a joyous throng headed for the
Zocalo. People were shouting, applauding, laughing and crying
too. The cathedral bells pealed and, even inside the Lecumberri
prison, jailed men could heard the crowd. Mexicans were liberating
themselves from fear of their government.
"We don't want the Olympics," the marchers chanted.
"We want revolution."
Scott informed Ambassador Freeman that Díaz Ordaz was
deeply offended that the students had flown the red and white
strike flag in the Zocalo. He was ordering army riot police
and police to use force if necessary to break up all "illegal
activities and gatherings." (Note 18)
Win Scott was not a man who lacked confidence in his ability
to correct a difficult situation. He had been the CIA's chief
of station in Mexico City since 1956, spoke decent Spanish,
and knew how to get his way with Mexican officialdom. One of
his teenage sons got a glimpse of the father's authority when
he got into a traffic accident on Reforma and wound up in the
police station in Chapultepec Park. The cops suggested the young
man make a phone call to get some money for the mordida
that would secure his release. The son called Scott who said
he would be right over.
"Next thing you know, Scottie pulls up in his big black
Mercury," his son recalled. "It had these red diplomatic
license plates for the Olympics which meant it was the car of
someone important and this big American gets out with a teenage
girl. Scottie had brought my sister along for some reason. The
Mexican cops started rethinking their position. Ah chihuahua,
quien es eso?
"Scottie hands the first cop he sees a hundred peso bill.
He hands the second cop he sees a hundred peso bill. He asks
me if I was OK. Was the car OK? I said I was fine and that he
only had to pay the jefe. But he didn't care. He went
around the room, shook everybody's hand and gave everybody a
hundred peso bill. He gave the jefe about four hundred.
Then he looked around and said, "Todos contentos?"
"Everybody was very happy. That was Scottie in his prime,
this American who could do anything."
As the student protests grew larger, Scott's information from
the LITEMPO agents informed Ambassador Freeman's increasingly
dire cables to Washington, which noted that Díaz Ordaz
and the people around him were talking tougher. The government
"implicitly accepts consequence that this will produce
casualties," the ambassador wrote. "Leaders of student
agitation have been and are being taken into custody….In
other words, the [government] offensive against student disorder
has opened on physical and psychological fronts." (Note
19)
Scott knew that Díaz Ordaz thought the application of
force was the only solution.
"The government policy currently being followed to quell
the student uprisings, calls for immediate occupation by the
army and/or police of any school which is being used illegally
as a center of subversive activity. This policy will continue
to be followed until complete calm prevails," (Note
20) he told his superiors in Washington.
In late September, Scott reported that the government was "not
seeking compromise solution with students but rather seeking
to put end to all organized student actions before Olympics….Aim
of Gov[ernment] believed to be to round up extremist elements
and detain them until after Olympics," (Note
21) scheduled to open in mid-October.
The leaders of the student movement called for a public meeting.
Depleted by arrests, confronted by a hard-line government, and
facing the opening of the Olympic Games in less than two weeks,
they wanted to convene on the afternoon of October 2, at the
Plaza de Las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco housing
complex to announce their next move. Scott reported that morning
that the Mexican government's determination to hold a successful
Olympic Games would probably preclude any major incidents. However,
random, unsuspected acts could not be ruled out, he warned.
"Any estimate, such as this one, of the likelihood of
intentional acts designed to disrupt the normal course of events
must take into account the presence of radicals and extremists
whose behavior is impossible to predict. Such persons and groups
do exist in Mexico," (Note 22) he wrote
on October 2.
That might have been the voice of Scott's considerable experience
in Mexico. But it might have been passed along to him by friendly
LITEMPOs who had reason to believe that "radicals and extremists"
whose behavior was "impossible to predict" were about
to act.
The rally in Tlatelolco began around five p.m. Tanks surrounded
the plaza and soldiers sat on the tanks cleaning their bayonets,
but it was not a particularly tense situation. Between five
and ten thousand people had gathered by late afternoon.
Military commanders on the scene had just received orders to
prevent the meeting from taking place. They were ordered to
isolate the leaders of the meeting, detain them and turn them
over to DFS. A group of officers in civilian clothes, known
as the Olympic Battalion, had their own instructions. They were
to wear civilian clothes with a white glove on the left hand
and post themselves in the doorways of the Chihuahua building
overlooking the plaza. When they got the signal, in form of
a flare, they were to prevent the entrance or exit of anyone
to the plaza while the student leaders were being detained.
Finally a group of police officers got orders to arrest the
leaders of the National Strike Council.
What virtually no one knew until more than thirty years later
was that Luis Gutiérrez Oropeza, the chief of staff of
the Mexican military, had posted ten men with guns on the upper
floor the Chihuahua building and given them orders to shoot
into the crowd. He was acting on orders of Díaz Ordaz,
according to a revelatory account published in Proceso
in 1999.
Oropeza was the link between Díaz Ordaz and Echeverría,
according to Jorge Castañeda's book about the Mexican
presidency. Gutiérrez Oropeza was also a friend of Scott's
who had dinner at his home at least once, according to a log
of guests kept by the Scott family. There is no evidence that
Gutiérrez Oropeza was a LITEMPO agent or that he acted
at the CIA's behest on October 2.
Just as a student speaker announced that a scheduled march
on the Santo Tomas campus of the Politecnico would
not take place because of the threat of Army violence, flares
suddenly appeared in the sky overhead and everyone automatically
looked up. That's when the shooting began.
A wave of people ran to the far end of the plaza only to meet
a line of oncoming soldiers. They ran the other way into the
free fire zone. It was, in the words of historian Enrique Krauze,
a "closed circle of hell," a "terror operation."
Win Scott filed his first report around midnight. It was massaged
at headquarters and passed to the White House where it was read
the next morning. Something big had happened at Tlatelolco.
"A senior [classified source] counted 8 dead students,
six dead soldiers but a nearby Red Cross installation had 127
wounded students and 30 wounded soldiers.
"A classified source said the first shots were fired by
the students from the Chihuahua apartments."
An American classified source "expressed the opinion this
was a premeditated encounter provoked by the students."
Another classified source said "most of the students present
on the speaker's platform were armed, one with a sub-machine
gun…troops were only answering the fire from the students."
None of Scott's reports turned out to be true. His only accurate
observation was that "this is the most serious incident
thus far in the rash of student disturbances which began in
late July." (Note 23)
His next situation report cited "trained observers"
who believed the students instigated the incident. He said that
the Tlatelolco incident raised questions about Mexico's ability
to provide security for the Olympics. (Note 24)
Agents of the American FBI in Mexico City who worked closely
with Scott reported that the Trotskyite students had formed
an armed group called the Olympia Brigade to provoke an attack.
These students were allegedly connected to Guatemalan communists
and had supposedly fired the first shots.
The FBI reported that Díaz Ordaz had told an "American
visitor," who may have been Scott, that he believed the
disturbance had been "carefully planned."
"A good many people came into the country," the president
reportedly said. "The guns used were new and had their
numbers filed off. The Castro and Chinese Communist groups were
at the center of the effort. The Soviet communists had to come
along to avoid the charge of being chicken." (Note
25)
In Washington, Walt Rostow, national security adviser to President
Lyndon Johnson, sought to clarify the contradictory reports.
He sent a series of questions to Scott who went to see Díaz
Ordaz. He returned with answers that revealed how little he
knew.
Were Mexican students using new rifles with numbers filed off
from Chinese sources?
No verification to date, Scott said.
Did individuals from outside Mexico participate in the student
movement?
Three students, a Chilean, French and an American, were arrested
on July 26 and deported. Two other French students were not
apprehended, he noted.
In other words, there had not been single report of foreign
involvement in the previous five weeks. While the Mexican press
continually played on the theme of foreign involvement, Scott
said "no conclusive evidence to this effect has been presented."
Could he verify the FBI's story of a leftist Olympic Brigade
that provoked the gunfire?
A small group of Trotskyite university students had formed
a group called a "Brigada Olympia," he said. One source
said they planned to blow up transformers to interfere with
Olympic events and to seize buses carrying Olympic athletes.
The White House and CIA headquarters did not fail to notice
that Scott seemed to know very little about what had happened
at Tlatelolco, save that reports of Cuban and Soviet involvement
were overblown and the government's claim of a left-wing provocation
could not be proved.
Wallace Stuart, a counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City,
later said the CIA station had submitted 15 differing and sometimes
flatly contradictory versions of what happened at Tlatelolco,
"all from either 'generally reliable sources' or 'trained
observers' on the spot!" (Note 26)
Scott had fallen into a classic trap of spies. He had become
too dependent on his well-placed sources. He had no independent
means of getting information about a hugely important political
event.
The massacre at Tlatelolco, says historian Sergio Aguayo, parted
"the waters of Mexican history. It accented the turbulence
of those years, served to concentrate power in the intelligence
services dominated by a small group of men, hard and uncontrolled."
With Win Scott's assistance, those men had entrenched themselves
in power over the course of a decade, acting with impunity against
an opposition that was, in Aguayo's words, "weak but each
time more bellicose and desperate to rebel against the apathy
of an indifferent, if not complicitous, international community."
A week after the massacre, Win took time out from his duties
to write a thank you note to Luis Echeverría. The interior
minister had just given him a gift: a large framed electronic
map of the world that displayed the correct time in every time
zone in the world.
"The marvelous clock you sent to me recently is a wonder
to all who see it," Win wrote in a note that Aguayo found
in the Archivo General de la Nación.
In Win's hour of need after the Tlatelolco massacre, his most
trusted agents had delivered fictional accounts and then a bauble.
The master of LITEMPO had become its prisoner. The puppetmaster
had become the puppet.
Eight months later, Scott was forced to retire from his job
as CIA chief of station. His ouster didn't have anything to
do with the events of October 1968, according to William Broe,
the chief of the CIA's Latin America division at the time.
"He was one of our outstanding officers. It was a strong
station. He ran a very good shop," Broe said in a recent
telephone interview. The reason for his removal, he explained,
"was his long tenure. That was what we decided to do, to
start changing and moving people. It wasn't because he had done
something wrong. We just felt that we shouldn't have individuals
there as long as that. Thirteen years is a long time."
In June 1969, Scott went to CIA headquarters in Washington
to receive one of the Agency's highest honors, the Distinguished
Intelligence Medal. The citation accompanying the medal alluded
to the LITEMPO program as one of his greatest accomplishments.
Win Scott, it was said, "initiated and bought to fruition
an international alliance in this hemisphere which constitutes
a foundation stone for achievements of great significance."
Scott died of a heart attack in his home in Lomas Chapuletepec
on April 26, 1971. He was 62 years old.
Documents
Note:
The documents cited in this Electronic Briefing Book are in PDF
format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view.
Document
1
16 November 1978
[Mexico City Station History]
CIA secret report (excerpts)
Source:
The declassified portions of the Mexico City station history
are found in CIA records known as the Russ
Holmes Work File in the JFK Collection at the National Archives.
This excerpt comes from a highly secret three-volume history
of the Mexico City station written by Win Scott's assistant
Anne Goodpasture. Less than half of the history's 494 pages
have been declassified.
Document
2
4 March 1964
[Job Evaluation of Anne Goodpasture]
CIA secret fitness report
Source: National Archives, JFK Collection
HSCA CIA Segregated Collection
This job performance evaluation of Win Scott's assistant, Anne
Goodpasture, comments on the LITEMPO program in 1963. The reviewing
official, John Whitten, describes the projects concerning Goodpasture
as mostly being "cost conscious," with the exception
of the LITEMPO project in which "the agents are paid too
much and their activities are not adequately reported."
Document
3
7 November 1963
LITEMPO/Operational Report 1-31 October 1963
CIA secret report
Source:
National Archives, JFK Collection, HSCA CIA Segregated Collection
Scott reports on his "personal gift" of weapon ammunition
to LIEMPO-1 in this operational report. In his personnel description
Scott states that there may be some changes in the LITEMPO project
"when LITEMPO-2 becomes the presidential candidate."
This description of the 1964 presidential candidate makes it
clear that Interior Minister Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, who
became the ruling party's presidential candidate in 1964, was
in fact LITEMPO-2.
Document
4
19 September 1964
[Interrogation of Sylvia Duran]
CIA secret message (extract)
Source: National Archives, JFK Collection
The identification of LITEMPO-4 as Fernando Gutiérrez
Barrios comes from the combination of this document with Document
5, below.
This is a secret cable sent by the Mexico City CIA station
to headquarters in September 1964 stating that an intelligence
source known as LITEMPO-4 personally participated in the interrogation
of Silvia Duran, a Mexican woman who had contact with accused
assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
Document
5
Date unknown
Sylvia Duran's Previous Statements Re Lee Harvey Oswald's
Visit to the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City
Warren Commission unclassified exhibit 2121 (extract)
Source:
House Select Committee on Assassinations review summary of Warren
Commission Report, Vol. XXIV, p. 587
This document comes from a summary of the 1964 Warren Commission
documents, which states that Silvia Duran was interrogated by
Captain Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios, Assistant Director
of the Federal Security Police. Therefore, Barrios was LITEMPO-4.
Document
6
11 April 1964
[Mexico City Station Summary of Activities]
CIA
secret chronology (extract)
Source: National Archives, JFK Collection HSCA
CIA Segregated Collection
The identification of Luis Echeverría as LITEMPO-8 is
found in two records. This long Mexico City Station Summary
of Activities comes from a comprehensive review of the
contents of Win Scott's files on the Kennedy assassination,
carried out by Ray Rocca, a senior counterintelligence official.
The extract included here states that three members of the Warren
Commission visited with LITEMPO-8 at 11:30 a.m. on April 10,
1964, as part of their investigation. The summary notes various
points of conversation such as the need to submit their questions
in writing to the Foreign Minister.
Document
7
22 April 1964
Trip to Mexico City
Warren Commission top secret memorandum (extract)
Source:
National Archives, JFK Assassination Collection, Records of
the Assassination Records Review Board, 1996 release, "Memoranda
for the Record, "Trip to Mexico City," by W. David
Slawson, April 22, 1964, pp. 33-36
The second document comes from a report prepared by David Slawson,
one of the Warren investigators who visited Mexico City. In
the report, Slawson states that he and two colleagues visited
with deputy interior minister Luis Echeverría between
11:15 and 11:45 am on April 10, 1964. He recorded the same points
of conversation attributed to LITEMPO-8. Therefore Echeverría
was LITEMPO-8
Document
8
24 October 1963
LITEMPO/Operational Report 1 August-30 September 1963
CIA secret report
Source:
National Archives, JFK Collection
In the inception of the project, LITEMPO agents provided assistance
to US officials in Mexico City by helping get transit visas
to Cuban travelers seeking to escape the new Castro government.
This report, prepared for the Mexico City station by agent Jeremy
K. Benadum, shows the building of a relationship with LITEMPO-8
(Echeverría), who in turn requests information on "the
names of terrorists and communists from Venezuela and other
Latin American countries who might be likely to travel to or
through Mexico."
Document
9
25 October 1963
LITEMPO/Procedure for Obtaining Mexican Transit Visas for
Cubans
CIA secret report
Source:
National Archives, JFK Collection
This report further details how Echeverría made the
final decision as to who was granted visas through this process.
Specific conditions were established for the solicitation of
each visa through the LITEMPO program. These conditions were
set in order to maintain the secrecy of the project and to avoid
giving the political opposition fuel to criticize the Interior
Minister for "working for the Yanquis [sic]."
Document
10
21 September 1963
Operational/LIMOTOR/Plans Further Life of the LIMOTOR Project
CIA secret report
Source: National Archives, JFK Collection
This is a report on the intelligence gathering procedures of
the LIMOTOR project in Mexico City, arguing for its renewal.
This report details how Scott maintained a network of sources
at the National University (UNAM) and other schools in Mexico
to gather information on communist influence in the student
movement. During the period from August 1962 to July 1963 the
LIMOTOR project produced 103 personality reports focusing on
those "suspected to belong to or be identified with pro-communist
political grouping or philosophies."
Notes
1. The quotes come from a highly secret three
volume history of the Mexico City station written by Win Scott's
assistant Anne Goodpasture. Less than half of the history's
494 pages have been declassified. [See Document
1]
2. John Whitten made the comment in a job
evaluation of Anne Goodpasture who occasionally handled LITEMPO
activities for Scott. [See Document 2]
3. Anne Goodpasture made this comment in the
Mexico City station history.
4.See the LITEMPO operational report 1-31 October,
1963. [Document 3]
5. Gutiérrez Barrios's identity as
LITEMPO-4 is confirmed by comparison of two documents: A secret
cable sent by the Mexico City CIA station to headquarters in
September 1964, notes that LITEMPO4 interrogated Silvia Duran,
a Mexican woman who had contact with accused presidential assassin
Lee Harvey Oswald. The Warren Commission's documents on Duran
state that her interrogator was Gutiérrez Barrios. Therefore,
he was LITEMPO-4. [See Document 4 and Document
5]
6. The identification is found in two records.
A comprehensive and reliable summary of Win Scott's files, written
by a senior agency official named Ray Rocca, states that three
members of the Warren Commission visited with LITEMPO-8 at 11:30
on the morning of 10 April 1964 as part of their investigation
and notes various points of conversation such as the need to
submit their questions in writing to the Foreign Minister. The
next document, written by one of the Warren investigators David
Slawson, reported of their visit to Mexico City. He stated they
visited with deputy interior minister Luis Echeverría
at 11:30 on the morning of 10 April and recorded the same points
of conversation. Echeverría was LITEMPO-8. [See Document
6 and Document 7]
7. See Document 8 and Document 9.
8. The quote comes from declassified portions
of the Mexico City station history.
9. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
9.
10. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
1.
11. See Document 10.
12. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
46.
13. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
47.
14. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
53.
15. Ibid.
16. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
56.
17. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
60.
18. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
99.
19. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
12.
20. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
70.
21. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
16.
22. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
7.
23. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
74.
24. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
77.
25. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
102.
26. See National
Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 99, Document
20.
