Agent ‘Fernando’ Insisted on Approaching Felipe Gonzalez and Gave Him Cuban Cigars

Agent ’Fernando’ of Cuban State Security insisted on meeting the former Spanish president Felipe González. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 3 November 2021 — Dr. Carlos Leonardo Vázquez González, agent Fernando of Cuban State Security, insisted on meeting former Spanish President Felipe González while he was participating in a workshop at Saint Louis University in Madrid. The oncologist gave the socialist politician a box with cigars that he brought from Cuba.

Vázquez entered Spanish territory in September 2019, allegedly to attend the workshop “The role of the armed forces in a transition process,” sponsored by the Madrid branch of the American university. But in reality, as Cuban Television revealed last Monday, he was doing intelligence work.

The doctor gathered information about the event and especially about the playwright Yunior García Aguilera, whom he now accuses of being a manufactured leader outside the island and of having committed in Madrid to dedicating himself to “the counterrevolution” after his return to Cuba.

The official press reports the presence of Felipe González, a former ally of the Cuban regime, now presented as the creator of a criminal group dedicated to physically eliminating ETA’s Basque terrorists in the 1980s.

During the workshop Vázquez showed great interest in getting closer to González. “It was the last day and I was in another room talking when the doctor came and insisted that I introduce him to the former president,” recalls journalist Reinaldo Escobar, editorial chief of 14ymedio, who also participated in this workshop.

On the left, the journalist Reinaldo Escobar, in the center Felipe González and on the right, agent ’Fernando’. (14ymedio)

“He knew that I knew Felipe González from previous trips and he strongly insisted that I introduce them,” he explains. “His persistence caught my attention because during the previous days it was an open secret in the group that Vázquez behaved strangely and was always taking photos of others. We even made jokes when he approached, nobody trusted him.”

Escobar took the oncologist to meet the former Spanish president, introduced them, and lent his camera to a third party to take pictures of the moment. “I did the same thing to him that he had been doing to the others: I took numerous photos of him,” he explains. Vázquez then gave González a small cardboard box with 10 mini Cohibas.

“Felipe González was a bit surprised because that gift was not given by the group but was something personal from the doctor and that he had not previously mentioned to the others. It was very strange and the former president kept the box in his hand without knowing very well how to react. A somewhat uncomfortable situation.”

“Afterwards, the doctor did not leave him, it was evident that he had a great interest in González and even suggested that he smoke a cigar right there — I was struck by the fact that an oncologist encouraged him to smoke — but the politician only smiled. It was a closed place and smoking was forbidden, but the insistence with which he told him to try them never ceased to amaze me, they were one of the best in Cuba. “

In retrospect, after watching the Cuban Television program, Escobar wonders if the undercover agent Fernando was acting on his own account or if he was obeying orders from the island’s intelligence services when he approached the former Spanish president.

Yunior García Aguilera, who has mocked the alleged agent, has indicated in his Facebook account that, when a year ago he began to be attacked for his presence at this event, the doctor wrote to him asking him not to mention his name “for anything in the world,” about which he reassured him.

Although he does not remember his presence very specifically, he does point out as striking that he was dedicated to taking multiple photos and was silent, which led to some jokes among the attendees.

The playwright does not wish him any harm, but he does hope that he is a “better doctor than an undercover agent” and that he does not “go around betraying the doctors and nurses at his hospital and that his colleagues do not stray too far when they are going to be honest about the terrible situation of our hospitals.”

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