From: de la Cova, Antonio Rafael [mailto:delacova@indiana.edu]
Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2006 12:10 PM
To: frobles@miamiherald.com
Cc: MaGarcia@miamiherald.com; TFiedler@miamiherald.com;
agonzalez@miamiherald.com; jdiaz@miamiherald.com; ptira@mcclatchy.com
Subject: Reference to Marifeli Perez-Stable in your Herald article

To: Ms. Frances Robles:

Your article in yesterday's Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/15533891.htm
tersely describes Marifeli Perez-Stable as "a Cuba expert at the
InterAmerican Dialogue."
  I have previously indicated by e-mail to your bosses at the Herald
that every time the newspaper mentions a pro-Castro activist, like
Pérez-Stable, there is a definite pattern of concealing their former
links to the Cuban regime or any negative background.
  Perez-Stable's renown advocacy on behalf of the Cuban dictatorship,
including slandering the Cuban exile community, and her reputation for
being controlled by Fidel Castro's Directorate General of Intelligence
(DGI) service, has been well known in the Cuban exile community for
decades. It is a topic frequently mentioned in the Miami
Spanish-language radio and print media. However, the Herald always
omits these details when citing Pérez-Stable, apparently because she is
one of your editorial contributors.
  María Felicia "Marifeli" Pérez-Stable Díaz was born in Havana in 1949
and left Cuba in 1960 with her parents Dr. Eliseo Perez-Stable Carreño
and Nenita Díaz Moya and her younger brother Eliseo. Her maternal
grandfather was the owner of the "Fin de Siglo" department store in
Havana. After residing in Pittsburgh, Pérez-Stable studied political
science at the University of Florida in Gainsville (1969-73), where she
teamed up with pro-Castro activists Carlos Alvarez, Raúl Alzaga
Manresa, Rafael Betancourt Abio, Mirén Uriarte, Albor Ruiz Zalazar, and
others.
  In April 1974, after spending a year in Puerto Rico, Pérez-Stable
joined these and other pro-Castro activists on the editorial board of
Areito magazine, a new quarterly publication with tiny circulation that
defended the Cuban revolution and disparaged Cuban exiles. A year
later, in March 1975, Pérez-Stable traveled to Cuba for three weeks.
She returned to the island in the summer of 1977 as "foreign
correspondent" of Areito. During the government-sponsored rally in
Camaguey on July 26, 1977, she had a reserved seat on the lower
grandstand close to where Fidel Castro gave a speech. Pérez-Stable
spent the next three days visiting Holguín, Manzanillo and Cienfuegos.
She was personally introduced to Fidel Castro in Manzanillo and shook
hands with him. Returning to Havana, Pérez-Stable met with government
officials Jesús Escandel and Roberto Veiga. She then visited the home
that was expropriated from her grandfather on Línea and 41 Avenue.
  On December 23, 1977, Pérez-Stable returned to Cuba for three weeks
as a leader of the newly founded Antonio Maceo Brigade. The group
assisted the Cuban government by working at a construction project and
doing other propaganda activities.
  Marifeli Pérez-Stable returned to Havana in March 1978 to receive
from Casa de las Américas an award for a book that she edited, "Contra
viento y marea." The book is a denunciation of the Cuban exile
community and American society. Pérez-Stable donated the award money to
the socialist Eleventh Festival of Youth and Students scheduled for
that summer in Cuba.
  That year, Pérez-Stable became a founding member of the
Cuban-American Committee for Normalization of Relations with Cuba. On
November 20, 1978, she returned to Havana as one of 75 participants in
the so-called "dialogue" with Fidel Castro. Pérez-Stable and the same
group met again with Castro and other high-ranking government officials
to sign the "dialogue" agreement on December 8, 1978.
    In 1980, Pérez-Stable founded the Círculo de Cultura Cubana, a
Castro regime front that took tourists to Cuba. On April 17, 1980, she
was in Managua, Nicaragua, interviewing Dora María Tellez, a
high-ranking Sandinista leader, for a propaganda piece in Areito.
  The following month, former "dialogue" leader and turncoat, the
Reverend Manuel Espinosa, publicly denounced that when Pérez-Stable
arrived in Havana, she was greeted by DGI Lieutenant Colonel Jorge
Gallardo, Lieutenant Noema of State Security, and revolutionary heroine
Haydée Santamaría.
  On May 15, 1980, the New York Times published a letter from
Pérez-Stable and other "dialogue" activists, entitled "Time to
Normalize Relations With Cuba," blaming the U.S. embargo on the island
for the massive Mariel refugee exodus.
  In 1982, Pérez-Stable joined the Cuban Studies Institute headed by
Professor María Cristina Herrera in Miami. Her real motives for
adhering to this group were not known until July 1983, when DGI
defector, Captain Jesús Pérez Méndez, was debriefed by the FBI.
  Copies of the FBI debriefing document were circulated to other
government agencies and the Police of Puerto Rico. A police
intelligence officer allowed me to read and take notes from the
document when I was a journalist in San Juan. Pérez Méndez stated that
Marifeli Pérez-Stable was the leader of the Antonio Maceo Brigade in
New York and that she was "controlled by the DGI." He added 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 DGI "prepares the annual plans for Marifeli"
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
Herrera, and "turned its position more favorable to Cuba."
  Pérez-Stable returned to Havana in June 1984, leading a group of
twenty pro-Castro activists. She appeared photographed in Bohemia
magazine, June 8, 1984, pages 62-63, after laying a wreath at the grave
of Lourdes Casal in Colón Cemetery, and was quoted saying disparaging
remarks about the Cuban exile community.
  One of Pérez-Stable's last public activities on behalf of the Cuban
revolution was when she helped organize the international conference
"Thirty Years of the Cuban Revolution: An Assessment," in Halifax,
Canada, during November 1-4, 1989, that included the participation of
twenty Cuban government officials.
  Pérez-Stable has never clearly explained why she diminished her
public activism on behalf of the Castro regime. Her website at Florida
International University (FIU),
http://memoria.fiu.edu/memoria/taskforce.htm#marifeliperez_es
where she teaches political science, states that "From the early 1970s
until the mid-1980s, she supported the Cuban Revolution. She is neither
regretful nor apologetic." Needless to say, Pérez-Stable has never
apologized to the Cuban exile community for her repeated insulting
comments. She has also never denied her links to Cuban intelligence nor
taken legal action against those who have accused her in print and
radio of having been controlled by the DGI.
  Last January, Herald reporter Oscar Corral telephoned me requesting
information from my website about FIU Professor Carlos Alvarez, the
confessed Castro spy awaiting trial in Miami. I told Corral that
Alvarez was a founder of Areito magazine with Pérez-Stable, that both
of them had participated in the "dialogue" with Fidel Castro, and that
they were members of the Institute of Cuban Studies. I also gave Corral
the information mentioned here of about Perez-Stable's links to the
DGI. Corral refused to investigate or cite my allegations.
  It is apparent that the Herald will continue shielding Perez-Stable,
even as the Alvarez spy case unfolds in the media. After the demise of
the Castro regime, when the Cuban government archives are opened to
scrutiny, like those in the former Soviet Union and East Germany,
documents and testimony affirming these Pérez-Stable allegations will
surface. The Herald will no longer be able to protect her or any other
Herald employee with links to Cuban espionage.

Sincerely,

Dr. Antonio de la Cova
Latino Studies
Indiana University, Bloomington