San Francisco Chronicle
January 10, 1977 Front page
1971 Mystery
CIA Link to Cuban
Pig Virus Reported
New York
With at least the tacit backing of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
officials, operatives linked to anti-Castro terrorists introduced African
swine fever virus into Cuba in 1971.
Six weeks later an outbreak of the disease forced the slaughter of
500,000 pigs to prevent a nationwide animal epidemic.
A U.S. intelligence source told Newsday last week he was given the virus
in a sealed, unmarked container at a U.S. Army base and CIA training ground
in the Panama Canal Zone, with instructions to turn it over to the
anti-Castro group.
The 1971 outbreak, the first and only time the disease has hit the
Western Hemisphere, was labeled the "most alarming event" of 1971 by the
United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. African swine fever is a
highly contagious and usually lethal viral disease that infects only pigs
and, unlike swine flu, cannot be transmitted to humans.
All production of pork, a Cuban staple, halted, apparently for several
months.
A CIA spokesman, Dennis Berend, in response to a Newsday request for
comment, said, "We don't comment on information from unnamed and, at best,
obscure sources."
Why the virus turned up in Cuba has been a mystery to animal
investigators ever since the outbreak. Informed speculation assumed that the
virus entered Cuba either in garbage from a commercial airliner or in
sausages brought in by merchant seamen.
However, on the basis of numerous interviews over four months with U.S.
intelligence sources, Cuban exiles and scientists concerning the outbreak -
which occurred two years after then-President Nixon had banned the use of
offensive chemical and biological warfare - Newsday was able to piece
together this account of events leading up to the outbreak.
The U.S. intelligence source said that early in 1971 he was given the
virus in a sealed, unmarked container at Ft. Gulick, an Army base in the
Panama Canal Zone. The CIA also operates a paramilitary training center for
career personnel and mercenaries at Ft. Gulick.
The source said he was given instructions to turn the container with the
virus over to members of an anti-Castro group.
The container then was given to a person in the Canal Zone, who took it
by boat and turned it over to persons aboard a fishing trawler off the
Panamanian coast. The source said the substance was not identified to him
until months after the outbreak in Cuba. He would not elaborate further.
Another man involved in the operation, a Cuban exile who asked not to be
identified, said he was on the trawler when the virus was put aboard at a
rendezvous point off Bocas del Toro, Panama. He said the trawler carried the
virus to Navassa Island, a tiny, deserted, U.S.-owned island between Jamaica
and Haiti. From there, after the trawler made a brief stopover, the
container was taken to Cuba and given to other operatives on the southern
coast near the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in late March, according to
the source on the trawler. The base is 100 miles due north of Navassa.
The source on the trawler, who had been trained by the CIA and had
carried out previous missions for the agency, said he saw no CIA officials
aboard the boat that delivered the virus to the trawler off Panama, but
added: "We were well paid for this and Cuban exile groups don't have that
kind of money . . ."
He said he was revealing the information because he is a member of an
exile group being investigated by the United States in connection with
terrorist activity in Florida. His account was confirmed by another
intelligence source in Miami. The source said he had no proof that the
operation was approved by CIA officials in Washington, but added: "In a case
like this, though, they would always give them (CIA officials in Washington)
plausible deniability."
The investigation referred to by the operative on the trawler involves a
federal inquiry into terrorist acts allegedly carried out by Cuban exiles.
Those include bombings and assassination attempts in the United States and
Venezuela. Trained originally by the CIA for operations against Cuba, the
exiles have become more restive as they view what they believe to be an
increasing move toward rapprochement between Fidel Castro and the United
States.
Newsday
Source:
http://www.maebrussell.com/Health/CIA%20Pig%20Virus.html
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jim Devine
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 9:18 AM
To: Progressive Economics
Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Swine Flu & Cuba
Michael Perelman wrote:
> When did the US try to spread swine flu in Cuba?
I don't know, but it's likely a different strain than the current one.
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
