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Cryptonym: ZRPENNY

Definition:

Activity to counter Cuban student participation in communist-sponsored world youth festival in Helsinki in 1962.

Status:

Documented

Discussion:

The name of this program may be a sardonic take on "a penny for your thoughts". It was a substantial financial undertaking to challenge the left at this festival. Cuban student groups were specifically targeted, including efforts to generate defectors.

Sources:

http://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-263-cia-records/second-release-lexicon.pdf, p. 64.

"Activity to counter communist-sponsored world youth festival in Helsinki."

104-10215-10077: CABLE RE: WE NOW HAVE NAMES AND BIRTH DATES 300 CUBAN

7/25/62, slugline GYROSE BGACTRESS ZRPENNY: JMWAVE was given the names of the 300 Cubans that participated in this festival.

104-10215-10075: CABLE RE: AMWHIP/1 FIRST CONTACTED AMLASH/1 MORNING 1 AU

8/1/62: Fallucci to Director: AMWHIP provides names of prominent Cubans at festival, adds that Ricardo Alarcon and Jose Venegas are "unapproachable" for recruitment.

104-10295-10009: CABLE RE NEWSPAPER PUBLICITY

8/21/62: From Paris to Director: AMLASH-1 says that newspaper publicity about his ZRPENNY activity "can do much (to) dispell loose talk (in) Miami he plans (to) defect".

104-10171-10043: ANTI-CASTRO CUBAN ACTIVITIES AT THE EIGHTH WORLD YOUTH FESTIVAL

8/28/62, Memorandum for the Record by TFW-PROP Gabriel Lowe: "Activities of the anti-Castro Cuban delegation that the CIA sent for the 8th World Youth Festival, 29 July-6 August, 1962. The delegation was sponsored overtly by the Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil (DRE) and consisted of nine members. Its mission was to nullify the effect of the Castroite Cuban delegation to the festival and to seek to persuade likely defectors from that delegation."