Cuban Defects, Reportedly Will Name 350 Operatives

WASHINGTON — A high-ranking Cuban intelligence agent with secret information on the activities of Cuban operatives around the world has defected to the United States, according to officials from Radio Marti.

The officials, insisting on anonymity, said Florentino Azpillaga, 40, is prepared to identify for U.S. officials the names of 350 Cuban agents in a number of countries. This would render them useless as intelligence agents.

The officials said that Azpillaga will withhold for the time being the identities of the agents to give them an opportunity for a safe return to Cuba. His duties included reading the reports of these agents, according to the officials.

No U.S. Comment

The State Department had no comment on Sunday on Azpillaga’s defection, which first became known publicly Friday night when he was interviewed by Radio Marti, the U.S. government’s broadcast operation to Cuba.

Azpillaga’s location was not revealed, but he is believed to be in the Washington area.

Azpillaga crossed the border from Czechoslovakia into Austria on June 6, just nine days after the defection of Brig. Gen. Rafael del Pino Diaz, a ranking member of the Cuban Armed Forces Ministry. Del Pino defected aboard a light plane with his family, landing at a Florida naval air station.

Azpillaga, who held the rank of major, told Radio Marti he was part of a group of officers who conspired against President Fidel Castro.

The group was made up of officers from “the counterintelligence service, the intelligence service and, in general, from the Interior Ministry who have been conspiring for the past three years,” Azpillaga said.

Azpillaga and his co-conspirators were said to believe that the Cuban government was spending a disproportionately large amount of resources on intelligence activities.

The officials said Azpillaga was especially upset about this “waste of resources” at a time when austerity measures were forcing ordinary Cubans to lower their living standards.

Azpillaga’s duties were said to have also included deciphering the communications of foreign enemies and learning the whereabouts of clandestine radios used by anti-Communist rebel groups abroad.