Intelligence

Ecuador

Former CIA agent Philip Agee came to Ecuador in 1960 and served until the end of 1963 as an American espionage agent. There were numerous cases of penetration of left-wing parties, in the organs of the State, in the right-wing organizations. After the revelations exposed by the ex-operations officer, several of those involved were hotheads in defense of theit honor supposedly slandered, while others had the prudence of remaining silent.

Agee later stated that "after working in Ecuador for three years, and still before leaving Ecuador, I began to be against the people who we were supporting. Because I've been working very hard on my tasks in Ecuador, as you can see in the book, and we were trying to get some political stability for economic development, and so the forces called "our friends" may have installed reforms as the redistribution of income, agrarian reform, etc. But then I saw that while we got more success in the effort to support the traditional political forces of the country and to crush the left, far more were reforms, because the pressure disappeared. I began to have some distaste toward the wealthy classes, which we werereally supported.... I developed a disgust. But at that time I did not see any alternative. Simply, I got a little cynical and did not want to follow in the CIA in this type of activities."

Agee stated that the agency began efforts in 1961 to bring down the regime of President Jose Velasco lbarra of Ecuador after he refused to sever diplomatic relations with Cuba. Iberra was overthrown in November, 1961. His successor, Carlos Julio Arosemena, soon fell out of favor with the United States. For the time, the objectives sought by the CIA inside the country were two: the breakdown of the Ecuador relations with Cuba; the overthrow of President Carlos Julio Arosemena. The two objectives were accomplished through men, mechanisms and episodes described in the book by Agee with lurid details. In both cases, the CIA used as the center of all its anti-communism campaign, wrapped in an amazing tangle of lies, forgery, terrorism, made of blood, purchase and sale of consciences.

Once again the CIA used "destabilizing tactics" to overthrow his government in July 1963. A military junta took over the government of Ecuador in a near—bloodless coup on 11 July 1963. President Arosemena and Vice President Varea were both exiled. The action came because of Arosemena's "complaisant" attitude toward Communist infiltration and his lack of leadership in instituting needed reform programs. Among the first moves of the junta was the issuance of a proclamation outlawing the Communist Party of Ecuador (PCE) . Orders were issued for the arrest of PCE Secretary General Pedro Saad and other high-ranking Communists. A raid on PCE headquarters netted several rank-and-file Communists, the PCE files and financial records, and two truckloads of propaganda. Saad and other PCE leaders had fled into hide-outs previously prepared. The junta also ordered the detention of all known terrorists and extremists. About 150 persons were rounded up, some of whom have already been sent to prison farms in the trans-Andean eastern provinces. The met the normal requirements 'or recognition and promised a return to elective constitutional government as soon as possible, in line with previous verbal assurances to the ambassador that civilian govern- ment would be restored in about one year.

Agee noted that while on assignment in Ecuador, he and five other CIA agents managed to gain economic and political control over Ecuador's labor movement. His CIA team, said Agee, ultimately "owned almost everybody who was anybody." The actions of the CIA in Ecuador between 1960-1963 were outlined in “Inside the Company,” a book first published in 1975 by former CIA agent in Ecuador, Philip Agee.

The USSR had diplomatic relations with practically all Latin American states. Specific occurrences show, however, that these, relationships are anything else but untroubled: the subversive labors of Soviet agents in this area regularly leads to conflicts at the diplomatic level; sometimes Soviet diplomats are obliged to leave without fanfare, other times they are expelled. In the beginning of July 1971 Ecuador resorted to self-help and declared 3 Soviet diplomats personae-non-gratae: 1st Secretary of Embassy FILATOV, Trade Delegate GOLUZIN, and the Embassy employee SHADRIN. The government of Ecuador asserted it had evidence that a strike planned by the trade union had enjoyed the financial support of these diplomats.

In their book "The CIA against Latin America," authors Jaime Galarza and Francisco Herrera recall testimony from Philip Agee on how the agency intervened and interfered in the region. The objectives of the CIA were to break down relations between Cuba and Ecuador and overthrow Ecuadorean President Carlos Arosemena. The two objectives were achieved. "In both cases, the CIA centered their campaign on anti-communism, wrapped in an incredible tangle of lies, forgery, terrorism, bloodshed, buying and selling of consciences," the book explained.

The list of CIA collaborators and informants in Ecuador in those years includes 200 senior officials, including Senator Reinaldo Varea Donoso who was paid US$800 a month by the agency. The former spy accounts in detail the methods through which the U.S. special services in Latin America destabilized governments which represented a danger to the "interests" of Washington. These included manipulating public opinion, infiltrating political parties and organizations, conducting terrorist attacks which were falsely attributed to leftist movements, bribery, and espionage correspondence, among other activities.