Classics of Mexican music such as Cielito Lindo and La Paloma were the vehicle through which he transmitted information from Havana
14ymedio, Mexico City, 26 August 2024 — Classics of Mexican music such as Cielito Lindo and La Paloma were the vehicle through which Humberto Carrillo y Colón, a failed intellectual and press attaché of the Mexican Embassy in Havana, transmitted information to the CIA about Fidel Castro and other communist leaders. The history of encrypted messages and their interception in 1969 by Cuban counterintelligence was released this Sunday by the newspaper Milenio.
The messages were sent at the same time and on the same day of the week: Sundays at 10:00 am, along with the best-known voices in Mexico. La Paloma played on the radio as an instruction; Cielito Lindo preceded a specific order. The radio station that circulated the information – according to the report of the Cuban spies – was broadcasting from Carrillo’s residence.
In the transmissions – which the Island’s counterintelligence, led by Manuel Piñeiro, “Barbarroja,” did not take long to detect – the movements of Party leaders and of Castro himself were documented. Worried about the messages, the caudillo called the Mexican ambassador Miguel Covián Pérez to ask him about Carrillo’s work. They met on September 3, 1969, although nothing is known about the discussion.
Carrillo said that the accusation against him was a machination of Fidel Castro himself
A day later and in the face of Covián’s inaction, Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl Roa summoned the head of the Mexican mission again to pressure him. Roa gave him the file on the Carrillo case, which was sent to Mexican President Gustavo Díaz, who some sources claim was also a CIA asset under the code name Litempo 2.
Carrillo, a frustrated musician and small-time journalist, was sent to Havana under strange circumstances: the office he was going to occupy did not exist and was created for him. This raised the regime’s suspicions as soon as he arrived on the Island, on March 25, 1968. The odd method he found to encrypt his messages was a reason for mockery in a contemporary article on the official State newspaper Granma.
“This CIA fondness for Mexican music, captured by radio listeners, contributed to a large extent to focus suspicions on the new Press Manager of the Mexican Embassy in Cuba,” joked the Communist Party newspaper, after airing the case.
Carrillo’s shortwave radio was installed at number 504 10th Street in the Havana neighborhood of Miramar, where diplomatic residences and the Mexican Embassy are located. State Security also kept eyes on him for his meetings with intellectuals, journalists and leaders in a quite convulsive time for the country. According to the agents, in “his happy moments” he liked to say that he was not “a career diplomat, but on the run.”
On November 25, 1968, the Mexican diplomat made a trip to the United States “with the aim of expanding his training,” according to the report delivered by Havana to the Mexican Government. He returned to the Island a few days later on December 10, “with more modern shortwave radio transmission equipment.”
Another of the accusations launched by the Cuban government against him was his use of the diplomatic pouch to send correspondence that, in reality, contained classified information for the CIA station in Mexico, then directed by Winston Scott.
Another of the accusations launched by the Cuban Government against him was the use of the diplomatic pouch to send correspondence to the CIA
The story of how Carrillo’s espionage work was uncovered was also, as expected, memorable. After the meeting of Castro and Covián, and in the face of the fear that Carrillo would escape, State Security broke into his residence on September 4 and heard a distant voice on the radio – preceded by music, of course – that said: “2928 2437 1499 8990 4670 7058 5289.*”
Immediately, the same voice foolishly declared: “Message thirty-three. Destroy everything, equipment and papers immediately, for security reasons; take precautionary measures but maintain a normal routine so as not to attract attention. You know what’s happening. Regards, Enrique.”
Carrillo was not there – Covián had gone to look for him hours before – but State Security found evidence of his work, such as papers with invisible writing and notes that betrayed him.
After the scandal, Carrillo was expelled from Cuba, and back in Mexico, the Federal Security Directorate (DFS) – the then Mexican counterpart of the CIA – conducted its own investigation. He was questioned by the Mexican political police and by his own director, Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios. It is assumed that Gutiérrez Barrios was also in the service of the CIA under the code name Litempo 4. There is, however, no record of his interrogation of Carrillo.
The case file records that Carrillo denied the accusations of the Cuban Government and said he used his radio – “Zenit brand, model 3001, with modulated frequency of 5 or 6 bands” – only “to listen to the news given by the stations of Mexico, in particular the XEW and the Voice of America of Washington.”
Carrillo said that the accusation against him was a machination of Fidel Castro himself because of the tense relationship that existed at that time between Mexico and Cuba, and that he was always “the scapegoat” for the Cuban Government. After all, the government of Díaz Ordaz never denied or admitted the accusations.
In 2021, Carrillo – then 83 years old – wrote a brief blog where he uploaded some photographs of his life, as a personal memory. In the only post he wrote, which almost works as his will, he says: “I consider that writing a classic autobiography should be done with cunning. In reality, all the truth is not always revealed, because we will never publish something truly intimate.”
*Translator’s note: A “numbers station” uses shortwave broadcasts of numbers, usually preceded by music or certain phrases, which are then decoded by intelligence agents (Wikipedia)
Translated by Regina Anavy
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