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Cryptonym: AMCHALK-1

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Definition:
Gustavo Villoldo, chief of the intelligence service of Brigade 2506 in Guatemala in 1960-1961. After the Bay of Pigs, he spotted Cubans for recruitment and was a principal agent in paramilitary teams. Played a key role in the destruction of Che Guevara's guerrilla band in Bolivia in 1967.
Status:
Probable
Sources:

104-10104-10018: LUMP SUM PAYMENT TO VALUABLE CUBAN AGENT GUSTAVO VILLOLDO SAMPERA

Gustavo Villoldo, chief of the intelligence service of Brigade 2506 in Guatemala in 1960-1961. After the Bay of Pigs, he spotted Cubans for recruitment and was a principal agent in paramilitary teams. Played a key role in the destruction of Che Guevara's guerrilla band in Bolivia in 1967. He was also engaged as a penetration into the militant activities of the Cuban exile organizations in the Miami area. He learned in August 1969 that there was also an attempt by the Castro government to assassinate him to be carried out by the Cuban UN Mission. The agent that was recruited to perform the assassination was a former JMWAVE agent who alerted Villoldo and cooperated with the FBI. (5/17/72 memo to Executive Director-Comptroller from James Flannery, Acting Chief, Western Hemisphere Division)

Tim Elfrink, 8/6/09, Broward Palm Beach New Times, "Che Guevara Ordered His Father's Death, So Gustavo Villoldo Promised Payback". https://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/che-guevara-ordered-his-fathers-death-so-gustavo-villoldo-promised-payback-6334477

Before Castro's revolution, Villoldo GM dealerships were turning an annual profit of $15 million, and the family owned homes in Miramar, Baracoa, and Varadero, next door to the Kennedy family's property there...(After Che Guevara allegedly made a threat in Feb. 1959, Gustavo Villoldo's father committed suicide.) Villoldo defected in March 1959, and flew a B-26 at the Bay of Pigs. Villoldo was then recruited to join the CIA, which he accepted. "He began as an Army second lieutenant, then officially joined then worked with the Army, then officially joined the CIA in 1964." He embarked on a new project in July 1971. "...(H)e raised $350,000, recruited 50 men for the mission, and chose a target: Boca de Sama, a tiny fishing village in eastern Cuba. Only one road ran into the jumble of wooden shacks, which housed just a few dozen people. It figured to be an easy target. On October 12, 1971, Gustavo led the men out of a Key Biscayne harbor on two fast boats and a 177-foot frigate the crew nicknamed El Melón for the way it rolled side to side in the slightest chop. As Gustavo organized the operation from the boat's deck, a 20-commando team raided the village. They killed at least two men, a 32-year-old local official and a 24-year-old militiaman. According to a Cuban radio report, the team also wounded two other men, and two teenaged girls were hurt in the crossfire...Juan Cosculluela, another member of the team, confirms that Gustavo planned and oversaw the operation."

DISPATCH-LETTER SENT BY MANUEL ANTONIO VARONA TO SENATOR KEATING

2/5/63 contact report from AMWOO-1 and Horace D. Bickelhaupt, attached to a memo from Manuel Varona to Senator Kenneth Keating: "On 4 February 1963 at 2200, Bickelhaupt was informed by AMWOO-1 that Gustavo Villoldo would obtain two reports from the office of Dr. Manuel de Varona which were sent to Senator Keating on 4 February 63. Villoldo stated that he would obtain the reports at 1100 on 5 February 1963 and turn them over to AMWOO-1 for his review and comments. On 5 February at 1200, Bickelhaupt met with AMWOO-1 who had the two reports in his possession..." These two reports were probably created by Varona's aide Nestor Carbonell, who was a foreign policy expert. The second one goes into depth into acts of sabotage planned in Manhattan in November 1962 as well as Latin American countries, all allegedly committed by "Castro communists".

Peter Kornbluh, The Death of Che Guevara Declassified, The Nation, 10/10/17: https://www.thenation.com/article/the-death-of-che-guevara-declassified/

In macabre detail, the retired covert agent described his discussions with Bolivian military officers when Guevara’s body arrived, via helicopter, from the pueblo of La Higuera, where he had been captured and shot, to the Bolivian town of Villegrande. The Bolivians wanted to cut off Che’s head, he said, and preserve it as proof that Guevara was dead and gone. According to Villoldo, he convinced them instead that they could create a “death mask” of plaster, and that cutting off and preserving Che’s hands would be sufficient evidence. Villoldo explained how he arranged to secretly bury the body where it would never be found. Indeed, for 30 years Che’s remains were “disappeared”; in July 1997, his bones, minus hands, were located in a makeshift grave alongside an airstrip on the outskirts of Villegrande.

104-10104-10056: CABLE RE ALPHA-66 LANDINGS

04/24/70: Cable from WH/Miami to Director (Nebecker Acting): "1. The following additional information received regarding Alpha-66 landings. AMOTS report received from Luis Gonzales Grajales a leader of the Committee to Aid the Resistance, that the expeditionary force left Miami for Cuba approximately 12 April and was made up of 13 men who were trained at a RECE camp in the Everglades. Gonzales said that the operation had been financed by Juana Castro based on advice given her by Agustin Alles. In Gonzales opinion, the members of the Alpha-66 operation will be sacrificed and the only objective of the operation was for Alpha-66's Secretary General Andres Nazario Sargen to make a financial profit. Nazario's appeal for financial contributions have been well responded to and approximately 10,000 was collected in one day since the landing. 2. AMCHALK-1 reports that there is considerable talk in the Miami exile community regarding the possibility that the Alpha-66 operation was in its origins designed by the Castro Government to: (A) Detract from the growing popularity of the Torriente movement; and (B) To further disillusion the exile community with another failure. 3. We have been unable to confirm the second landing in Las Villas Province. 4. File: 19-300-3."

104-10104-10011: "LUNCHEON HELD 12 NOVEMBER TO DISCUSS [DELETION] RELATIONSHIP WITH CIA AND THE TORRIENTE GROUP".

"...The Cuban Intelligence Service had targeted Jose Calixto Santiago Valdes against AMCHALK-1 in an assassination plot...(the CIA) is not supporting in any way the Torriente group or AMCHALK-1's involvement with that group...(the FBI investigated) the Torriente group to determine if that group was guilty of violating US neutrality laws...(there is a) general belief among Cuban exiles that conspiring to violate such laws is not a prosecutable offense...both Torriente and AMCHALK-1 were disabused of this misconception when they were interviewed following the raid on Boca de Sama." (12/14/71 CIA memo)

See Also:
Contributors:
David Boylan • Bill Simpich • Michael Clark

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