re: Whitewash

From my in box:

From: Antonio de la Cova
Subject: Whitewash
Date: August 9, 2008 10:41:57 PM EDT
To: undisclosed-recipients:

Alfonso Chardy
The Miami Herald

Dear Mr. Chardy:

I have previously indicated to you factual errors and important omissions in your articles, which I described as “selective reporting and slipshod journalism.” Your latest article “Spy catcher claims four are agents for Cuba,” is another classic example of this negligence.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/633389.html

You have narrowed down more than a decade of overt pro-Castro activism by Dr. Marifeli Perez-Stable to only one sentence describing her as a founder of “the pro-Castro Antonio Maceo Brigade.” According to public documents on a website link that I sent to you
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/marifeli.htm Perez-Stable was also a founder of the pro-Castro Areito magazine in 1974; four years later she founded the Cuban-American Committee for Normalization of Relations with Cuba and participated with the Committee of 75 in the so-called “dialogue” with Fidel Castro; and in 1980, Pérez-Stable created the Círculo de Cultura Cubana, a Castro propaganda front that took tourists to Cuba and Sandinista Nicaragua during the 1980s. She also organized conferences that included the participation of Cuban government officials in New York City in 1979 and in Halifax, Canada, in 1989.

You also omitted from your article reference to the congressional document “The Role of Cuba in International Terrorism and Subversion,” which indicates that on March 4, 1982, Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) officers Sergio Piñón and Daniel Benitez testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on security and terrorism and declared under oath that the Committee of 75, Areito magazine, and the Antonio Maceo Brigade were "sponsored and headed by the Cuban DGI" intelligence agency. Dr. Perez-Stable had a leadership role in all of these groups.

In my e-mail to you on August 1, 2008, I wrote that DGI defector “Jesús Pérez Méndez presently resides in Puerto Rico and can be reached to verify the statements in his FBI debriefing” of July 15, 1983. You apparently did not contact him, even though Pérez Méndez stated in the debriefing that DGI officials Isidro Gómez and Jesús Arboleya Cervera, both high ranking DGI officials, “placed Marifeli in charge of the Círculo de Cultura Cubana.” According to the defector, Pérez-Stable substituted Rutgers University Professor Lourdes Casal, “who was a DGI agent.” Pérez Méndez went on to say that "the annual plans of Marifeli are prepared by the DGI and ICAP” and that “she receives $100 for every tourist that travels to Cuba with the Círculo de Cultura Cubana." It is not known if Pérez-Stable has reported this income on her annual tax returns. Pérez Méndez indicated that Pérez-Stable “infiltrated” the Cuban Studies Institute directed by María Cristina Herrera, and “turned its position more favorable to Cuba.”

Lt. Col. Christopher Simmons, a U.S. Army Counterintelligence officer who for years worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency dealing with Cuban spies, has recently publicly stated that the last DGI case officer who handled Dr. Pérez-Stable “recalled meeting with her in Ottawa, Canada, in mid 1991, and she was still an active agent of Cuban intelligence.” After the case officer defected, he gave U.S. intelligence copies of his notebook detailing Pérez-Stable’s covert activities. Simmons had access to these notes. You also selectively omitted these facts from your article.

On August 1, 2008, you e-mailed me and later telephoned me to ask about the Pérez Méndez debriefing and an article that I “wrote that contained pictures of Perez-Stable.” I replied by e-mail that I was “dismayed that you were assigned to this story” because of your previous track record of "selective reporting and slipshod journalism." I responded to you with my views of the Pérez-Stable situation and concluded by saying: “I hope that the Miami Herald, which has had a credibility problem with the Cuban American community during the last half century, will do a thorough investigative report on Pérez-Stable and uphold journalistic integrity and ethics while investigating one of their own.” You replied by e-mail nine minutes later: “many thanks for your response. I am doing a story based on Simmons' interviews and I will be in touch again.” You never again contacted me and even though you mention my name in your article, you decided to omit citing my viewpoint.

In your article, you quote Dr. Pérez-Stable accusing Lt. Col. Simmons and I of using “McCarthyite tactics.” McCarthyism met its demise in the U.S. Supreme Court cases Slochower v. Board of Education (1956) and Yates v. United States (1957). I believe that a judicial court is the proper place to settle such controversies. You are also aware, but failed to report, that within the last two years, Ms. Perez-Stable has had ACLU attorney John de Leon twice threaten to sue me for slander and defamation. You apparently did not question Dr. Pérez-Stable as to why she has failed to carry out her threat. I continue to urge her to take legal action to settle this matter once and for all. Otherwise, these allegations will haunt Dr. Pérez-Stable for the rest of her life in the Cuban community, where she is being convicted in the court of public opinion due to her evasiveness about her relationship with the DGI. Cuban American academics are already circulating on the Internet opinions about her culpability, such as “The Case Against Marifeli Perez-Stable,” by Dr. Diego Trinidad, which can be read at
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/trinidad.htm

Joe Oglesby, editor of the Herald's editorial page, defends Dr. Perez-Stable, who writes for his section, by accusing Lt. Col. Simmons and I of using “character assassination” and a “witch hunt” against her. Similar apologist phrases have been used since the days of Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs to defend those involved in Communist espionage. I also welcome Mr. Oglesby to use the courts to sustain his allegations. If he cannot get the Herald attorneys to take the case, Oglesby could appeal to the ACLU, like Dr. Pérez-Stable has done.

If Perez-Stable, Oglesby, and The Miami Herald shirk from settling this challenge in court, their silence will speak volumes. Someday, when democracy returns to Cuba, the DGI archives will be opened to researchers, as has similarly occurred in the former European Soviet bloc nations, and Perez-Stable’s espionage role will be revealed in detail. Your latest article will then be reduced to a whitewash.

Sincerely,

Dr. Antonio de la Cova

Herald editorial contributor denies being a Cuban agent

Exactly one week after Lt. Col. Chris Simmons, a counterintelligence officer currently serving in the U.S. Army Reserve, fingered four persons as agents of Cuba's Castro regime, including an editorial contributor to The Miami Herald, that paper has finally decided to acknowledge the accusations.

The accusation that Marifeli Perez-Stable was (at least one time, if not currently) a Cuban agent is not new. In November of 2006 I posted an email from (then) Indiana University Latino Studies professor Antonio de la Cova to Herald publisher David Landsberg in which de la Cova relates information he was made privy to when he worked as a journalist in Puerto Rico during the 1980s. The information was an FBI debriefing of a Cuban intelligence officer name Jesus Perez Mendez that defected in July of 1983. de la Cova claims that he was not allowed by his contact in the Puerto Rican police to photocopy the document but was allowed to copy it word-for-word in longhand. According to the document Perez Mendez asserted that Marifeli Perez-Stable was a Cuban DGI (intelligence) agent at that time. The document is posted on de la Cova's web site.

However this was not the first time de la Cova had publicly quoted the debriefing. He did so in a paper about academic espionage that he wrote for a foundation in 1993.

Several months after I posted the email from de la Cova to Landsberg, an attorney named John de Leon contacted me on behalf of Perez-Stable and threatened me with a libel/slander lawsuit if I did not remove the post in question. I declined to remove the post but offered Perez-Stable equal space to defend herself. She did not take me up on the offer.

Now Lt. Col Simmons is repeating the allegations made by de la Cova against Perez-Stable. He did so on the local Spanish language TV program A Mano Limpia last Thursday.

The Herald article claims that:

...Simmons offered no conclusive evidence that any of the four -- who have denied the accusation -- gave classified information to Cuba, received intelligence training or undertook missions for Cuban intelligence.

Perhaps not in the A Mano Limpia interview last Thursday but I interviewed Simmons on The Babalu Radio Hour last night and he said of Perez-Stable:

Most importantly for me, at the end, was I had access to a colleague who debriefing, a recent debriefing of a former DI officer who was working what is called M-1 U.S. targets. But most specifically, he worked the academic section of U.S. targets and in the early first half of the 1990s, now this is the critical part because she says that her support of the regime ended back in the eighties. Her [Cuban] case officer recalled meeting with her in Ottawa, Canada, in mid 1991, and she was still an active agent of Cuban intelligence. So, no matter how she tries to spin, spin it that this may have been an indiscretion of her youth, I got the notes from her case officer who outed her. So, her usefulness to the regime ended when that second officer stepped forward."

Two former Cuban intelligence officers have made the same charge against Perez-Stable who says she's the victim of "McCarthyite tactics" and who claims she's "a vocal opponent of the Cuban government". In actuality she lobbies for an end to the embargo (an outcome the regime desperately wants), has been a salesperson for Raul Castro's image as a reformer and recently called for "Washington and Havana to learn to live in peace, that is, to settle into a mutually beneficial relationship. Along the way, the United States should gain a consideration of Cuban sensibilities."

If Marifeli Perez-Stable was in fact an agent of influence for the Castro regime (which Simmons asserts is a crime) does it not follow that she would deny it? Would she not have more credibility in her role as an oft-quoted expert if she appeared to be a critic of the regime while advocating for U.S. policy changes that favor it?

It's worth emphasizing that there have been literally dozens of arrests of Cuban agents over the last 15 years, the most noteworthy were a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst named Ana Belen Montes in 2001, the members of the WASP spy network in 1998 and college professors Carlos and Elsa Alvarez in 2006. Simmons notes that Cuban espionage in the United States dates back to the very beginning of the Castro regime.

Herald contributor attempts to silence Herald Watch

On Novemember 27th of 2006 I posted a report about cerain allegations being made about FIU Professor and Herald Editorial Contributor Marifeli Perez Stable. The allegations were transmitted to me in an email from Indiana University Latino Studies Professor Antonio de la Cova. de la Cova claims that his source for the allegations was an FBI debriefing summary of a Cuban intelligence defector named Jesus Perez Mendez. I won't repeat the allegations here, you can read them by reading the original post.

In any case, I recently received an email from an attorney named John de Leon. The email begins thusly:

Personal and Confidential (Not for Publication) and for Settlement Purposes Only

March 23, 2007

Editor, heraldwatch.blogspot.com

I have been retained by Dr, Marifeli Perez Stable in connection with the following.

The purpose of this letter is to address the slanderous and libelous comments made by Antonio de la Cova, and published by your website which has caused significant injury to the personal safety and reputation of Marifeli Perez Stable. Antonio de la Cova's slanderous and libelous comments, published by heraldwatch.blogspot.com, are in violation of Dr. Perez-Stable’s rights under Florida state law. Your publication of said statements subject you to the libel laws of the State of Florida.

Marifeli Pérez-Stable is vice president for democratic governance at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C. Her opinion pieces have appeared in El País (Spain), El Clarín (Argentina), Excelsior (Mexico), El Nuevo Herald and The Nation. She is also an editorial contributor to the Real Instituto Elcano, a foreign-policy think tank in Madrid. She is also the author of 'The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy.' Dr. Perez-Stable is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Miami’s Florida International University. Her Miami Herald column on Latin American topics appears every other Thursday.

On November 27, 2006, Professor de la Cova, caused to have been published on the internet on the www.babalublog.com website the following libelous and slanderous statements:

First of all, I have been advised by an attorney that I have no obligation to keep confidentiality on this matter. I received an unsolicited email and am entitled to do with it whatever I wish.

Secondly, notice the reference to babalublog.com which must be the remnant of a cut and paste job that Mr. de Leon did after sending a similar email to Val Prieto the editor of that blog where I also posted the piece in question.

Mr. de Leon then includes a long excerpt from the piece I wrote that supposedly include the "libelous and slanderous" statements. Afterwards he continues:

To further aggravate the seriousness of Mr. de la Cova’s outrageous actions, the aforementioned libelous statement was sent to the publisher and editor of the Miami Herald, which is not only the leading newspaper in the region in which Dr. Perez-Stbale resides and works, it is an entity with she enjoys a professional relationship as a contributor.

Notice first the misspelling of his client's name. I don't understand what Professor de la Cova's act of emailing the editor of the Miami Herald has to do with me. The letter continues:

These accusations are not only false they are also extremely injurious to Dr. Perez-Stable’s reputation as a respected academic and as a member of the Cuban-American community. Further, these outrageous accusations connect Dr. Perez-Stable, a peace-loving and lawful professional with serious criminal activity that she not has participated in or been accused. The accusations have caused severe emotional pain and distress to her and more importantly they have created a tremendous risk to her livelihood and to his personal safety and well being. Accusing anyone of espionage, or being a paid agent of a foreign government, is as serious an accusation one can make against another in this country. This is per se libel and slander. “[W]ords amounting to a libel per se necessarily import damage and malice in legal contemplation, so these elements need not be pleaded or proved, as they are conclusively presumed as a matter of law.” Layne v. Tribune Co., 108 Fla. 177, 146 So. 234 (1933).

Regrettably, this is not the first instance of such abuse against Dr. Perez-Stable; this is part of a long term pattern and practice by Mr. de la Cova, and published by your website, and or blog, of making accusations of espionage against Dr. Perez-Stable. It is highly inappropriate and negligent for heraldwatch.blogspot.com to continue to allow such blatant abuses of media outlets, outrageous lies, and personal attacks against innocent members of the Cuban-American community.

I'm not exactly sure what pattern Mr. de Leon is talking about since Ms. Perez Stable's name has appeared only twice in this blog. Perhaps this too was a remnant from an email he sent to Val Prieto at babalublog.com where similar allegations have been posted by readers in the comments of various posts or perhaps a similar email he may have sent to Oscar Corral since the same allegations are all over the comments sections posts at that Herald Reporter's blog as well. The letter then cites a bunch of case law, that a lawyer I trust assures me is not relevant, and finishes with this:

Please provide me within thirty days of receipt of this letter or April 28, 2007 the name of your insurance carrier with information of all available limits.

Please contact my office immediately in regards to the retraction, at 305-740-5347. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter

Sincerely,

John de Leon
Attorney at Law

Law Offices of Chavez & De Leon, P.A.
5975 Sunset Drive, #605
South Miami, FL 33143
e-mail: jdeleon@chavez-deleon.com

Mr. de Leon's bio on his firm's web site states:

Mr. De Leon currently serves as Vice President of the Greater Miami American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), after having previously served as President, he also sits on the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Florida...

Ironic isn't it, that a person who dedicates a fair amount of time to protecting civil liberties would attempt to infringe upon mine by threatening me with what amounts to a baseless lawsuit?

I responded to Mr. de Leon as follows:

FOR SETTLEMENT PURPOSES ONLY

Dear Counselor,

I am in receipt of your electronic communication dated March 23rd. As you are well aware, any allegations made against Ms. Perez Stable were not made by me. I merely reported, in a blog post on November 27th, that some serious allegations had been made by others, notably a well-known college professor/author, regarding Ms. Perez Stable. Since Ms. Perez Stable is, as you have rightfully noted, a public figure, any allegations made of her are a matter of public concern and is protected free speech.

Since my actions were of a journalistic nature, I believe that, in this case, I have the same defenses available to me that any newspaper or publication has in a similar circumstances. Furthermore I believe that my reporting is protected by the constitutions of the United States of America and the State of Florida given the fact that your client is a public figure and the report involved a matter of public concern.

As a result, I will not be taking down the post in question, nor will I be offering Ms. Perez Stable a retraction or apology but I will more than gladly extend to Ms. Perez Stable equal space to rebut any allegations made against her that were reported on Herald Watch. So please advise your client that if she would like to accept my offer that she limit her remarks to 1,150 words.

Most sincerely,

Henry Louis Gomez

I have yet to receive a response but will post it here if and when it comes.

The Herald needs to clean up its own house

So says Indiana University professor Antonio de la Cova.

The Herald's investigative reporting has always focused on Cuban exile activities and never on Cuban Communist espionage in the United States, especially when it appears to be infiltrated in their newsroom.

Those were de la Cova's words to Herald Watch in an email this evening. Last night de la Cova sent the email below to Miami Herald publisher David Landsberg, in it de la Cova names names and backs it up with what he claims is a transcript of an FBI debriefing of a former Cuban DGI agent.

From: de la Cova, Antonio Rafael
Subject: FBI debriefing of Cuban DGI officer Jesús Raúl Pérez Méndez
Date: November 27, 2006 12:24:49 AM EST
To: dlandsberg@miamiherald.com
Cc: TFiedler@miamiherald.com, jweaver@miamiherald.com
1 Attachment, 23.9 KB

Mr. David Landsberg, Publisher
The Miami Herald

Dear Mr. Landsberg: Attached you will find a bilingual copy of an FBI debriefing report of Jesús Raúl Pérez Méndez, taken when he defected in Miami on July 13, 1983. Pérez Méndez at the time was chief of the Department of the Community Abroad of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) and was also a captain in the Cuban Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI).

In 1987, when I was the editor of Crónica Gráfica magazine in San Juan, Puerto Rico, I was shown a copy of the original document, typed on a sheet emblazoned with the FBI logo and routing markers, by an intelligence officer of the Police of Puerto Rico. The policeman was part of a Task Force on Terrorism between his agency and the FBI investigating the Cuban connection in Puerto Rican terrorism. I was not allowed to photocopy the original document, but was permited to transcribe it as it appears attached here. I have made no omissions or additions to the original draft as it was shown to me. The police intelligence officer wanted my opinion regarding the authenticity of the statements made by Pérez Méndez, since our magazine had published various articles on Cuban espionage and subversion in the United States and Puerto Rico. One of the Castro agents mentioned in the debriefing, Raúl Alzaga Manresa, resided in Puerto Rico.

According to a recent statement by retired DEA agent Juan Pérez, who lives in Miami, Pérez Méndez was supposed to defect to the DEA and the CIA in New York City, but was handled by the FBI upon his arrival in Miami in 1983. Pérez Méndez was immediately relocated under the federal witness protection program. He publicly surfaced for the first time after twnety-three years when he appeared on the Miami TV program "Polos Opuestos" directed by María Elvira Salazar on November 9 and 10, 2006. he defector's face was blotted out during the interviews to maintain his anonimity. He was accompanied on the program by retired Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) agent Sergio Piñón, who resides in Miami.

Pérez Méndez stated during the TV interviews that he was asked by the FBI to testify before the U.S. Congress soon after his arrival in Miami, but feared doing so due to the retaliation that the Castro regime would take against his family that remained in Cuba. He also said that his U.S. government handlers moved him around various covert locations after learning that Cuban and Soviet intelligence agents were on his trail.

Pérez Méndez acknowleged during his TV interviews that he "gave birth" to the Antonio Maceo Brigade (BAM). This group was created by the DGI in 1977, with Cuban Americans under the age of thirty, whose mission was to act as agents of influence in the United States on behalf of the Cuban Revolution. Pérez Méndez added that he was also in charge of recruiting agents of influence in U.S. academic circles. He refused to mention during his TV interviews the names of those that he dealt with in what amounted to espionage activities. Pérez Méndez concluded that he is writing a book that will explain how Cuba uses agents of influence in the United States.

Since Pérez Méndez is apparently still under the witness protection program, I am sure that his handlers will edit his book. Therefore, I have decided to publicly release the information that he provided during his debriefing in 1983, in the hope that upon this becoming public knowledge, he will be allowed to give a full account of everything that he knows.

In 1993, I wrote an academic study entitled "Academic Espionage: U.S. Taxpayer Funding of a Pro Castro Study" for the Institute for U.S. Cuba Relations in Washington, D.C. The report was translated into Spanish and published in Miami’s "Diario las Américas" newspaper. I used only one quote from the Pérez Méndez debriefing, which indicated that one of the participants of that project, Professor Marifeli Pérez-Stable, "was a DGI agent who responded to Cuban intelligence officials Isidro Gómez and Jesús Arboleya Cervera. Pérez-Stable, who had organized another DGI front group called the Cuban Culture Circle, was receiving $100 for every person that traveled to Cuba through that organization. According to Pérez-Méndez, Pérez-Stable replaced DGI agent Lourdes Casal after her death in Havana, and the DGI and ICAP prepared the yearly plans for Pérez-Stable."

Pérez-Stable is currently on the board of contributors of the Miami Herald and is also a professor at Florida International University (FIU). Three other FIU professors, Carlos Alvarez, Lisandro Pérez, and Guillermo Grenier, were founding members and/or collaborators with Pérez-Stable in the DGI controlled Areito magazine, the BAM, and the Cuban Culture Circle. Professor Alvarez and his wife Elsa Prieto, an FIU employee, are presently awaiting trial in Miami under charges stemming from his admission to FBI agents that for decades they were spies for Cuban intelligence.

The possibility of Castro agents working at the Herald was recently raised when El Nuevo Herald reporter Pablo Alfonso indicated in his resignation letter of November 18, 2006, published in the Diario las Américas, that the Herald "has not investigated how its special reports have been filtrated [leaked] to and continue being filtrated [leaked] to the castroite press before they reach the Herald readers." Pérez Méndez could shed some light on this issue. He and the FBI can attest to the veracity of the attached document. I believe that the Herald has the responsibility to investigate the statements made by Pérez-Méndez, especially since he indicated that an actual member of your board of contributors has been controlled and financed by Cuban intelligence.

Sincerely,

Dr. Antonio de la Cova
Latino Studies
Indiana University, Bloomington

Here is Landsberg's response as submitted to Herald Watch by professor de la Cova:

Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 10:33:57 -0500
From: "Landsberg, David"
Reply-To: "Landsberg, David"
Subject: RE: FBI debriefing of Cuban DGI officer Jesús Raúl Pérez Méndez
To: "de la Cova, Antonio Rafael"

Thank you for your thoughts. I will share them. DL