Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2008 6:32 PM
Subject: Whitewash


> Alfonso Chardy
> The Miami Herald
>
> Dear Mr. Chardy:
>
> I have previously indicated to you factual errors and important omissions
> in your articles, which I described as “selective reporting and slipshod
> journalism.” Your latest article “Spy catcher claims four are agents for
> Cuba,” is another classic example of this negligence.
> http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/633389.html
>
> You have narrowed down more than a decade of overt pro-Castro activism by
> Dr. Marifeli Perez-Stable to only one sentence describing her as a founder
> of “the pro-Castro Antonio Maceo Brigade.” According to public documents
> on a website link that I sent to you
> http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/marifeli.htm
> Perez-Stable was also a founder of the pro-Castro Areito magazine in 1974;
> four years later she founded the Cuban-American Committee for
> Normalization of Relations with Cuba and participated with the Committee
> of 75 in the so-called “dialogue” with Fidel Castro; and in 1980,
> Pérez-Stable created the Círculo de Cultura Cubana, a Castro propaganda
> front that took tourists to Cuba and Sandinista Nicaragua during the
> 1980s. She also organized conferences that included the participation of
> Cuban government officials in New York City in 1979 and in Halifax,
> Canada, in 1989.
>
> You also omitted from your article reference to the congressional document
> “The Role of Cuba in International Terrorism and Subversion,” which
> indicates that on March 4, 1982, Florida Department of Law Enforcement
> (FDLE) officers Sergio Piñón and Daniel Benitez testified before a U.S.
> Senate subcommittee on security and terrorism and declared under oath that
> the Committee of 75, Areito magazine, and the Antonio Maceo Brigade were
> "sponsored and headed by the Cuban DGI" intelligence agency. Dr.
> Perez-Stable had a leadership role in all of these groups.
>
> In my e-mail to you on August 1, 2008, I wrote that DGI defector “Jesús
> Pérez Méndez presently resides in Puerto Rico and can be reached to verify
> the statements in his FBI debriefing” of July 15, 1983. You apparently did
> not contact him, even though Pérez Méndez stated in the debriefing that
> DGI officials Isidro Gómez and Jesús Arboleya Cervera, both high ranking
> DGI officials, “placed Marifeli in charge of the Círculo de Cultura
> Cubana.” According to the defector, Pérez-Stable substituted Rutgers
> University Professor Lourdes Casal, “who was a DGI agent.” Pérez Méndez
> went on to say that "the annual plans of Marifeli are prepared by the DGI
> and ICAP” and that “she receives $100 for every tourist that travels to
> Cuba with the Círculo de Cultura Cubana." It is not known if Pérez-Stable
> has reported this income on her annual tax returns. Pérez Méndez indicated
> that Pérez-Stable “infiltrated” the Cuban Studies Institute directed by
> María Cristina Herrera, and “turned its position more favorable to Cuba.”
>
> Lt. Col. Christopher Simmons, a U.S. Army Counterintelligence officer who
> for years worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency dealing with Cuban
> spies, has recently publicly stated that the last DGI case officer who
> handled Dr. Pérez-Stable “recalled meeting with her in Ottawa, Canada, in
> mid 1991, and she was still an active agent of Cuban intelligence.” After
> the case officer defected, he gave U.S. intelligence copies of his
> notebook detailing Pérez-Stable’s covert activities. Simmons had access to
> these notes. You also selectively omitted these facts from your article.
>
> On August 1, 2008, you e-mailed me and later telephoned me to ask about
> the Pérez Méndez debriefing and an article that I “wrote that contained
> pictures of Perez-Stable.” I replied by e-mail that I was “dismayed that
> you were assigned to this story” because of your previous track record of
> "selective reporting and slipshod journalism." I responded to you with my
> views of the Pérez-Stable situation and concluded by saying: “I hope that
> the Miami Herald, which has had a credibility problem with the Cuban
> American community during the last half century, will do a thorough
> investigative report on Pérez-Stable and uphold journalistic integrity and
> ethics while investigating one of their own.” You replied by e-mail nine
> minutes later: “many thanks for your response. I am doing a story based on
> Simmons' interviews and I will be in touch again.” You never again
> contacted me and even though you mention my name in your article, you
> decided to omit citing my viewpoint.
>
> In your article, you quote Dr. Pérez-Stable accusing Lt. Col. Simmons and
> I of using “McCarthyite tactics.” McCarthyism met its demise in the U.S.
> Supreme Court cases Slochower v. Board of Education (1956) and Yates v.
> United States (1957). I believe that a judicial court is the proper place
> to settle such controversies. You are also aware, but failed to report,
> that within the last two years, Ms. Perez-Stable has had ACLU attorney
> John de Leon twice threaten to sue me for slander and defamation. You
> apparently did not question Dr. Pérez-Stable as to why she has failed to
> carry out her threat. I continue to urge her to take legal action to
> settle this matter once and for all. Otherwise, these allegations will
> haunt Dr. Pérez-Stable for the rest of her life in the Cuban community,
> where she is being convicted in the court of public opinion due to her
> evasiveness about her relationship with the DGI. Cuban American academics
> are already circulating on the Internet opinions about her culpability,
> such as “The Case Against Marifeli Perez-Stable,” by Dr. Diego Trinidad,
> which can be read at
> http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/espionage/trinidad.htm
>
> Joe Oglesby, editor of the Herald's editorial page, defends Dr.
> Perez-Stable, who writes for his section, by accusing Lt. Col. Simmons and
> I of using “character assassination” and a “witch hunt” against her.
> Similar apologist phrases have been used since the days of Alger Hiss and
> the Rosenbergs to defend those involved in Communist espionage. I also
> welcome Mr. Oglesby to use the courts to sustain his allegations. If he
> cannot get the Herald attorneys to take the case, Oglesby could appeal to
> the ACLU, like Dr. Pérez-Stable has done.
>
> If Perez-Stable, Oglesby, and The Miami Herald shirk from settling this
> challenge in court, their silence will speak volumes. Someday, when
> democracy returns to Cuba, the DGI archives will be opened to researchers,
> as has similarly occurred in the former European Soviet bloc nations, and
> Perez-Stable’s espionage role will be revealed in detail. Your latest
> article will then be reduced to a whitewash.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Dr. Antonio de la Cova
>
>