Published Thursday, December 28, 2000, in the
Miami Herald
U.S. denies knowing of shoot-down threat
Messages decoded later, lawyers say
By Gail Epstein Nieves. gepstein@herald.com
Coded communications between the Cuban government and its South Florida
intelligence agents that forecast the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down
were intercepted -- but not interpreted -- by the FBI before the shoot-down took
place, according to a government court filing Wednesday.
It wasn't until "at least six months after the shoot-down'' that the
FBI obtained the "decryption'' materials it needed to decode the shortwave
radio messages, prosecutors said in a motion filed Wednesday in U.S. District
Court.
The motion seeks to enforce a judicial gag order on witnesses in the Cuban
spy trial. It was filed in response to an article in The Herald that quoted
Richard Nuccio, who was President Clinton's Cuba advisor at the time of the Feb.
24, 1996, shoot-down.
Nuccio has been listed as a potential defense witness but has not been
subpoenaed.
The Saturday article said that the FBI had intercepted the coded radio
communications more than a week before the Brothers shoot-down but apparently
had not shared what it gleaned with the White House's top advisors on Cuba.
Nuccio was quoted in the article responding angrily, saying he was not told
about the FBI intercepts, which he called "significant.''
The government's motion -- filed by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Caroline Heck
Miller, David Buckner and John Kastrenakes -- said The Herald article and
Nuccio's comments were "incorrect'' and unfair to the government because
jurors might read them.
Contacted Thursday, Nuccio initially expressed skepticism about the
government's filing.
"It's possible that it's true, but who knows?'' he said of the reported
six-month decoding delay. "Sometimes [intelligence people] tell the truth,
sometimes they don't. You're always working with some version of what might be
true. You're never working with all of the information.''
He later softened his stance.
"I accept at face value the explanation that these intercepts were not
decipherable until decoding information was discovered,'' he said. "That
would be an explanation as to why the information wasn't provided to anyone.
"As to whether the intelligence agencies were providing to the key
people at the White House the information they needed to do their job on Cuba, I
still have great skepticism about that,'' Nuccio said.
NO WORD FROM FBI
Miami FBI spokesman Carlos Zaldivar said the agency had no comment.
The entire story about the Brothers shoot-down -- in particular, who knew
what and when -- is unclear. The government has yet to call any witnesses with
knowledge of the incident.
Witnesses in the trial have testified that communications between Havana and
its South Florida agents were encrypted and could only be deciphered after the
FBI broke secret codes and translated the messages from Spanish.
The shortwave radio messages were even more complicated to interpret. They
first had to be translated from Morse code into alpha-numeric characters -- a
process completed within a day or two, witnesses said.
Some encryption programs were obtained when FBI agents copied or seized
computer disks from the apartments of some of the defendants, according to
testimony.
The agents copied disks during clandestine searches of the apartments
starting in August 1996 -- six months after the shoot-down. They seized more
disks when the defendants were arrested in September 1998.
DEFENSE ALLEGATION
Defense lawyer Paul McKenna told jurors in his opening statement that
numerous U.S. government agencies had advance knowledge that a shoot-down was
imminent.
McKenna -- who has listed Nuccio as a possible witness -- declined to
comment.
He represents accused spy Gerardo Hernandez, who is charged with conspiracy
to murder in the shoot-down.
U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard has instructed jurors not to read the paper
or watch television coverage of the trial.
While there is "no reason to believe'' that jurors are breaking the
rules, the prosecutors' motion said, "unbridled comment'' by potential
witnesses "poses risks to the process that none of the parties should have
to endure.''
The judge also told lawyers for the five men on trial to "instruct
their witnesses they are not to talk to each other or to the media.''
Lawyers have listed some 200 potential witnesses, but many of them have not
been subpoenaed.
The government's motion asks Lenard to "conduct an inquiry'' into "the
nature, degree and reasons for the apparent violation of the pre-trial directive
regarding public comment by witnesses.''
Prosecutor Heck Miller declined to comment.
Clinton has no plans to visit Cuba, but he'd be welcome
Posted at 3:13 p.m. EST Wednesday, December 27, 2000
HAVANA -- (AP) -- Should President Clinton decide to visit Cuba before he
leaves office next month, he would be greeted here like any other U.S. citizen,
a senior Cuban official said today.
A group of Americans opposed to the U.S. government's current hard line
against the communist island this week asked Clinton to visit Cuba before he
leaves power in an attempt to improve relations between the countries before
President-elect Bush takes office.
But Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, or parliament,
told a news conference that "we have received no indication that (Clinton)
is interested in traveling'' to the island. Alarcon is President Fidel Castro's
point man on Cuba-U.S. relations,
But should he come, Clinton, and his wife, Senator-elect Hillary Rodham
Clinton, D-N.Y., would be welcomed and could count on meeting with parliament
members, said Alarcon.
Although Alarcon said he did not expect any immediate changes in Cuba-U.S.
policies during the Bush administration, he did say that he was "profoundly
optimistic over the long term.''
"I don't have the least doubt that it is a policy condemned to fail,''
Alarcon said, referring to the nearly 40-year-old American trade embargo against
the island nation. He noted that there had been an increased amount of U.S.
legislation in recent years aimed at easing the sanctions.
Proponents of the embargo hope the sanctions will remain under Bush, who has
announced that he has chosen Cuban-American Mel Martinez to serve as housing
secretary. Martinez will be the first American of Cuban origin to serve on the
Cabinet.
Havana has criticized Martinez, referring to him as a "worm'' - a term
the communist government commonly uses for exiles.
Those who wrote the letter to Clinton said they, too, believed that the Bush
administration would continue the hard line toward Cuba.
The letter was signed by 106 people, including Wayne Smith, former chief
U.S. diplomat to Havana during the Reagan and Carter administrations; John
Coatsworth, of the Rockefeller Center for Latin Studies at Harvard University;
Septime Webre, of the National Ballet of Washington, which performed in Cuba
earlier this year; Charles Currie, president of the Association of Jesuit
Colleges; and Randall Robinson, of the Trans-African Forum.
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