The CIA Trained Fulgencio Batista’s Torturers in Cuba

A declassified CIA document from the 1950s placed the formation of the BRAC in the context of a wider clampdown on communist political activity under Batista:

Government measures restricting Communist activity have included the suppression of Communist publications, rupture of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, outlawing of the Popular Socialist Party (PSP) (Communist), legislation against Communists in public service, and control of Communist travel and international communications.

The document noted the difficulties these measures had posed for Cuba’s communist movement but warned that Batista had been unable to strike a fatal blow:

The Party remains very well organized, however, although forced to operate as a semi-covert organization. Alliances with non-Communist political groups and infiltration of social groups are major Communist objectives. Although the Communists have lost much of their former strength, they have maintained some influence in sugar, tobacco, and maritime unions, in education, youth and women’s organizations, and in the entertainment field, especially radio and broadcasting.

The history of US involvement with Cuba’s security services preceded the formation of BRAC by many years. In 1942, during his first term as Cuban president, Batista established the Enemy Activities Investigation Services (SIAE). The SIAE operated under the command of Captain Mariano Faget Diaz, who had been educated in the United States. SIAE officers, including Faget himself, received training from the US intelligence services in counterespionage.

After World War II ended, the focus shifted from the Axis powers to the Soviet Union and the international communist movement. Faget became the director of BRAC when it was established in 1955. One Cuban revolutionary, Carlos Franqui, described him as a “technician of torture” who was capable of inflicting “continuous blows on the head, leaving no marks, but producing tremendous pain and tension.”

In July 1955, CIA director Allen Dulles wrote to Batista, approving the dictator’s decision to allow the CIA to train BRAC agents:

The creation by the Cuban government of the Bureau for the Suppression of Communist Activities is a great step forward in the cause of freedom. I am honored that your government has agreed to allow this Agency to assist in the training of some of the officers of this important organization.

Dulles went on to suggest that BRAC’s General Martin Diaz Tamayo should travel to Washington to discuss “some of the techniques used [by the CIA] to combat the activities of International communism.”

Since Batista’s 1952 coup, the military had already been dumping bullet-riddled corpses on the streets of Havana. BRAC institutionalized the repressive violence, working in close collaboration with the Military Intelligence Services (SIM). SIM officers were tasked with the surveillance of people known to have communist sympathies or allegiances. Informers infiltrated unions and other movements in an attempt to rein in opposition to Batista’s regime.

Detainees were interrogated in three stages, starting with persuasive talk, before moving on to psychological and then physical torture. CIA agent Lyman Kirkpatrick euphemistically reported that “BRAC might be too enthusiastic in some of its interrogations.” Kirkpatrick recalled one instance where a doctor took photos of the torture wounds that BRAC agents inflicted upon a female schoolteacher after she was detained on suspicion of plotting against Batista. According to Kirkpatrick, he was initially skeptical before seeing the photographic proof:

The horrible wounds on the woman’s body were convincing, as were the reports of case after case of the sons of prominent Cuban families who had joined either the students’ organization or the July 26 movement and had been arrested and killed.

However, the only concern that Washington expressed was that Batista’s macabre tactics would ultimately strengthen support for Castro’s 26 July Movement.

The Cuban magazine Bohemia was keeping track of BRAC’s activities. It was only after the revolutionary triumph that the extent of repression under the Batista dictatorship could be made public. In January and February 1959, Bohemia published three issues detailing the torture of opponents by Batista’s forces. The magazines also included a chronology of torture and murder from the start of Batista’s dictatorship in 1952 until 1958.

Batista’s agents dumped the bodies of victims in the hills of Pinar del Río, in mass graves or at abandoned sites. According to Havana’s morgue director, more than seven hundred bodies were brought to the morgue between 1952 and 1958 with evidence of having been severely tortured before they were killed.

One example of Batista’s repression was the killing of twenty-three revolutionaries in Oriente province between December 23 and December 26 in 1956. The victims were tortured, killed, and dumped in various public places, in a bid to instil terror. Members of the revolutionary movement later captured and executed Colonel Fermín Cowley Gallegos, who had given the order for the massacre.

On February 19, 1959, an order from Camilo Cienfuegos dissolved BRAC and the other repressive institutions of the Batista dictatorship. One US-trained BRAC official, José Castaño Quevedo, was executed after the revolution, although the CIA station chief sent Andrew St George, a journalist, to plead with Che Guevara for Castaño’s life.

Meanwhile, several BRAC agents had already fled the country. Some of those who managed to escape from Cuba found their next home within the CIA.