Cable from the Military Attache of the Chinese Embassy in Iraq, 'Mercenaries Used by United States to Invade Cuba'

Military Intelligence Department,

According to the third secretary of the Cuban [Embassy], mercenaries used by the US to invade Cuba are mainly recruited from Cuban counter-revolutionaries; [the US] also enlisted some ordinary refugees and counter-revolutionaries from other Latin American countries. These mercenaries, unified under the command of the American Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], are divided into two groups.  One group is the regular army, which, stationed in Florida, the US, is commanded and trained by American troops. They are armed with light weapons and wear uniforms with a badge on their chest which reads, “C.R.C.”, referring to the “Cuban Revolutionary Council.” This army has some 15,000 men, with a backbone of between 3,000 to 4,000 people, including American commanders, all speaking Spanish. The other group is special agents committed to sabotage and subversion operations.  It has many organizations, not unified yet; the major one is “Ai’er famao” [sic]. They were dispatched to different states of the US, received different training, and then [were] sent to West Germany, Japan, and Latin American countries, to engage in various professions there. [They are expected to] exploit appropriate situations, in the disguise of refugees, infiltrate into Cuba to conduct operations as special agents. [On top of these two groups,] there is another group of people, based in the US, assaulting and harassing Cuba’s coastal cities from the high sea, and conducting sabotage.

Military Attaché of Embassy in Iraq

9 November 1962