In my post earlier today, I noted how the Herald's ombudsman was having a difficult time adding up all the evidence that their columnist, Marifeli Perez-Stable, is or was an operative for the Castro regime. In his response to the accusations, Edward Schumacher-Matos cited the sources of the allegations and mentioned our good friend, Dr. Antonio de la Cova.

Dr. de la Cova has found some errors in Mr. Schumacher-Matos assessment of the situation and below is his response.

Edward Schumacher-Matos
Miami Herald Ombudsman

Dear Sir:

I am responding to your article “Charges against columnist don’t add up,” in today’s Miami Herald, in which you repeatedly mention me. Your piece contains factual errors and important omissions.

You state that Defense Intelligence Agency career officer Chris Simmons and other writers “rely heavily” on my research to accuse Professor Marifeli Pérez-Stable of being a Cuban intelligence “agent of influence.” Simmons has publicly stated  that for decades he has had access to the government debriefings of some twenty-five former Cuban DGI and DI intelligence officers. I am astonished and humbled that such a gifted spy catcher would have to largely depend on my academic research for his assertions.

On August 6, 2008, Simmons stated on Babalu blog radio:
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/simmons.mp3
"I had access to a colleague who debriefing, a recent debriefing of a former DI [Cuban Directorate of Intelligence] 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 [Marifeli Perez-Stable] says that her support of the regime ended back in the eighties. Her 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."

On April 11, 2002, a Miami Herald article by Juan Tamayo
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/brito.htm
indicated that Orlando Brito Pestana, a “top Cuban spy” who had recently defected, was “brought to the United States for debriefings on Havana intelligence operations in Canada, America and Panama.” Brito, “one of the most senior Cuban intelligence officials to defect in recent years,” was the “head of Cuba's intelligence office in Canada” until February 13, 1994, when “Canada expelled him and another Cuban diplomat for spying.” It appears that Simmons was alluding to Brito’s debriefing when identifying Perez-Stable’s Cuban intelligence case officer in mid 1991.

You also mention that I “spent six years in a U.S. prison in relation to the attempted bombing of a bookstore owned by a suspected Castro sympathizer.” You omit mentioning that the arrest occurred in May 1976, after FBI agent Vincent Warger told me that Martín Cruz and Lázaro Santana were Cuban DGI agents operating in Miami
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/vince-warger.pdf
An FBI informant and provocateur, who received $3,900 for orchestrating the case against my two co-defendants and I, linked these DGI agents and the adult bookstore. The porno shop immediately closed and its owners quickly disappeared, apparently returning to Cuba.

I have never spoken to or communicated with Professor Pérez-Stable. What you perceive as my “tormenting” her to make “a cottage industry,” started on November 27, 2006, when I sent my friend, Miami Herald investigative editor Mike Sallah, information about the Cuban intelligence link to Pérez-Stable that I had put on my academic website
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/marifeli.htm
Sallah replied that he would request from an FBI contact in Miami a copy of the Jesús Pérez Méndez debriefing that describes Pérez-Stable as being “controlled” by Cuban intelligence. Sallah then introduced my wife and I to editor Manny García in his office on the afternoon of January 3, 2007. During a lengthy conversation, I provided García with information on the activities of DGI agents in Miami, including Cruz and Santana, and suggested that the Miami Herald file a FOIA request with the FBI for a copy of the Pérez Méndez debriefing.

The next day, I sent García an email that concluded by saying: “I share the belief of many compatriots that the Herald needs to balance its investigative reporting of the Cuban exile community. So far, it has only focused on Cuban Americans and has not done investigative reporting on the activities of the Castro agents and sympathizers denounced by Pérez Méndez and by Castro dialogue turncoat Rev. Manuel Espinosa in 1980.
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espinosa.htm
I truly hope that after the retirement of Executive Editor Tom Fiedler, the Herald will be able to mend its relationship and credibility with the majority of the Cuban exile community and embark on a new course.”

Sallah later told me that the Herald never filed the FOIA request nor did they do any further investigation into the activities of the Castro agents that I mentioned.

Your article further states: “Until now, there has been no full, clear public response from Pérez-Stable about the charges against her.” However, when my copy of the Pérez Méndez debriefing was posted on the Internet, including Herald reporter Oscar Corral’s blog “Miami’s Cuban Connection”
http://blogs.herald.com/cuban_connection/2007/03/ana_menendez_on.html
Pérez-Stable had her friend, attorney John de Leon, send letters and emails threatening a lawsuit for “libelous and slanderous statements” to writer Paul Crespo, bloggers Henry Gomez and Valentin Prieto, and Indiana University administrators and I.
http://heraldwatch.blogspot.com/2007/03/herald-contributor-attempts-to-silence.html
De Leon claimed that these “false” and “extremely injurious” and “outrageous accusations” against Pérez-Stable “caused severe emotional pain and distress to her and more importantly they have created a tremendous risk to her livelihood and to his [sic] personal safety and well being.” Surprisingly, in spite of all the threats and allegations, no legal action was ever taken.

That same year, when Silvia “Flippity” Wilhelm was being investigated by the FBI for espionage activities, she also turned to de Leon for assistance, according to page 265 of her deposition on June 15, 2009.
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Wilhelm.pdf
Wilhelm, on December 4, 2008, sued Simmons for implicating her in Cuban espionage, but in her deposition (pp. 202, 207, 211) she admits having privately met in Havana with DI agent Amado Soto more than “five times” in a Hotel Nacional room that was bugged with microphones. Confessed and convicted Cuban spy Carlos Alvarez acknowledged in his 2003 FBI interrogation (pp. 618-620)
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Alvarez-spy-7.pdf
that he and Wilhelm had communicated with Soto, and that Soto was the intelligence officer who had recruited him.

When Simmons filed a legal motion to obtain Wilhelm’s bank records as part of his defense, her attorney raised an untenable objection.
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Wilhelm-7-08-09a.pdf
Weeks later, Wilhelm, who had paid her attorney $75,000 and refused to provide her bank records, filed a notice of resolution of the case, and stipulated that the terms be kept confidential.
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Wilhelm-9-02-09.pdf

Herald editors and reporters demonstrate naiveté when asking Pérez-Stable to admit to the same espionage criminal activities for which her friend and colleague Professor Carlos Alvarez was sent to prison. Your article omits that it was Alvarez, during his FBI interrogation, who admitted that Mercedes Arce was his intelligence handler (p. 80-82)
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Alvarez-spy-1.pdf
and linked her (p. 489) to Pérez-Stable.
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/Alvarez-spy-6.pdf

Your article indicates that the Miami Herald will not further investigate the Pérez-Stable case, even though you acknowledge that her responses “raise as many questions as they answer.” You claim that “Unless her critics can come up with something firm, their accusations border on paranoia and slander.” In response, as a scholar and a former investigative journalist, I propose that the Miami Herald:

1. File a FOIA request for the Jesús Pérez Méndez FBI debriefing of 1983, as I suggested nearly three years ago to Sallah and García.

2. File a FOIA request for the Orlando Brito Pestana CIA and FBI debriefing of 2002.

3. Request that Professor Pérez-Stable produce her 1991 U.S. and Cuban passports to disprove that she was in Canada that year meeting with Brito.

Failure to proceed in this elementary manner can be perceived as disregarding journalism ethics and neglecting investigative reporting in pursuit of sustaining a whitewash.

I am also asking that the Miami Herald afford me equal time by publishing my response, without omissions, on the same “Issues and Ideas” page on which your article appeared.

Sincerely,

Antonio de la Cova, Ph.D.