Fidel Castro's sister says she worked with CIA while in Cuba

[link to www.miamiherald.com]

Fidel Castro's younger sister, Juanita, now living in Miami, reveals in a Univisión-Noticias 23 report on her new book that she worked with the CIA while living in Cuba.


Juanita Castro, the sister of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, talks to reporters about her brother Thursday, Aug. 3, 2006 in Miami. ALAN DIAZ / AP
Photo BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
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Juanita Castro, sister of Cuban rulers Fidel and Raúl Castro, cooperated with the CIA in the 1960s -- a time when the U.S. agency was plotting to assassinate Fidel and overthrow his revolution -- according to an exclusive Univisión-Noticias 23 report on her newly published book.

The report also revealed that Juanita, who broke with her brothers' revolution in 1964, hid government opponents in her home; that Fidel refused to visit her because the house was ``surrounded by worms;'' and that their mother often intervened with Raúl to help Castro critics, jailed or fugitive.

Described as the Castro family's best-kept secret in the weeks that preceded the release of her book Monday, Juanita's revelation of her link with the CIA came as a short teaser at the end of a Univisión-Noticias 23 report on the book broadcast at 11 p.m. Sunday.

Juanita told the program that a person close to her and Fidel told her that ``The CIA wanted to talk with me . . . because they had interesting things to tell me and interesting things to ask of me. . . . I was left half-shocked, but in any case I told them yes.''

Maria Antonieta Collins, who co-authored the book and reported the television story, then added: ``Tomorrow: For the first time, a CIA agent who became the lifetime protector of a collaborator . . . and who dared propose to the sister of Fidel that she cooperate with the CIA, archenemy of the Castro brothers?''

Throughout the early 1960s, the Central Intelligence Agency was involved in dozens of plots to assassinate Fidel Castro, overthrow his government and sabotage the island's economy.

Castro has often put the total number of plots to kill him at more than 600.

While Juanita and Collins gave no other details on the CIA connection, officials at the television station said Juanita acknowledges in her book, Fidel and Raúl, My Brothers. The Secret History, that she collaborated with the CIA both inside Cuba and after she went into exile in 1964.

Univisión-Noticias 23 will broadcast seven more segments of the Juanita Castro saga this week.

The book, published by Santillana USA, was to hit the stands simultaneously Monday in the United States, Mexico, Colombia and Spain.

Journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner, who wrote its prologue, told El Nuevo Herald last week that besides the key revelation the book contains ``very interesting and unknown news on the family of Fidel Castro, with a very inside, personal and critical view of the family.''

Juanita has been a public critic of her brothers' government since she left Cuba.

Now 76, she owned a Miami pharmacy for many years and is the fifth offspring of Angel Castro and Lina Cruz -- preceded by Angelita, Ramón, Fidel and Raúl and followed by Emma and Agustina.

In Sunday's TV broadcast, Juanita recalls that hers was ``just one more Cuban family'' until Fidel and Raúl led the 1953 attack on the Moncada army barracks that the brothers now celebrate as the beginning of their revolution.


After they ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista in early 1959, she worked on creating clinics and hospitals in the countryside.

The revolution soon began executing and jailing opponents and confiscating private properties.

``I begin to lose the enthusiasm when I see so much injustice and I say, this is not possible, they are wrong. Someone here is doing things badly,'' she said on the program.
``We tended to blame the people lower down, but the orders did not really come from the people lower down. They came from the upper levels, from Fidel, from Che, from Raúl.''

A friend now also in exile, Ana Ely Esteva, recalled on the TV program how Fidel handled the case of a top counter-revolutionary, Humberto Sorí Marín.

``Fidel had told Juanita, tell the mother to sleep well, that nothing is going to happen to him. And the next day, on the front page of the newspaper, the execution of Sorí Marín.''

HID REGIME CRITICS

Esteva also recalled that Juanita hid many critics of the Castro regime in her home. Juanita added that her mother also often helped government critics.

``My mother got help from whoever could help, especially Raúl because he was always very generous with her . . . she appealed to Fidel in some cases.''

But Lina Ruz died in August of 1963 and Juanita began to sense she was in danger.

``When she died, I had a very delicate situation in Cuba because of my activities against the regime. . . . Of course, with my mother, I always felt more protected. . . . I thought it would be harder for them to take drastic measures against me.''

``It was Raúl, who, knowing something about the activities of his favorite sister. tells her what he knows, and of Fidel's anger, and obtains a visa so that she can spend time in Mexico with Emma, another of the sisters,'' Collins reported, according to a transcript of Sunday's program provided to El Nuevo Herald.

Juanita said she last spoke to Raúl in person on June 18 1964, the day before she left for Mexico. Ten days later, she denounced her brothers' regime in a news conference.

``Members of the press in Mexico: the person who addresses you is Juanita Castro Ruz, sister of the prime minister of communist Cuba, Fidel Castro.''

Juanita's 432-page book was pulled together by Collins, a journalist who first began interviewing her for a book on her life in 1999.

But they put the project aside until earlier this year, Collins said.

Santillana kept the book in sealed boxes and secured pallets to avoidduhs -- much like the Harry Potter books are guarded until the day of their release.

Univisión-Noticias 23 negotiated the world exclusive on Juanita's tale with Santillana. But she could not give other interviews until the book hits the streets.