101. Dispatch From Operation PBSUCCESS Headquarters in Florida to the Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division, Central Intelligence Agency (King)1
[place not declassified], February 19,
1954.
HUL–A–75
SUBJECT
- Security Matters
- Compromise Cable Traffic, PBSUCCESS
REFERENCES
- [telegram indicator not declassified] 846, 847
- LINC 611, 6122
- 1.
- Foregoing references and statement from Pivall clearly establishes that:
- A.
- [less than 1 line of source text not declassified], failed to properly paraphrase and/or substitute official cryptonyms and pseudonyms for field counterparts on messages involved, which had been passed to Seekford.
- B.
- Case Officer, Seekford, failed to properly safeguard above messages received from [less than 1 line of source text not declassified].
- C.
- Messages in question, according to intermediary, had been brought to personal attention of President Somoza.
- 2.
- Pending Headquarters’ action as per LINC 612, LINCOLN’s initial reaction aside from the compromise of communications security, was more or less to the effect that President Somoza is simply more witting of PBSUCCESS than heretofore known. In this regard a verbal comment was made to one of LINCOLN’s officers in November 1953 to the effect that shortly after President Somoza’s visit to President Truman, and while en route back to Managua, the escorting U.S. officer had spoken quite openly to Somoza regarding his cooperation against Guatemala. Upon making the assessment of PBSUCCESS no record of the latter was found in the files of WHD. LINCOLN is only slightly informed as to the true extent of Seekford’s personal negotiations with Somoza. As an indication of the extent of this relationship, a reference is made to [telegram indicator not declassified] 775. [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] was queried as to the identity of this American on the occasion of the Regional Conference of 12–13 February and admitted [Page 196] that, unquestionably, the person referred to was Seekford. However, he was reluctant to so state it in a cable until he could quote some reliable source.
- 3.
- From the security aspect, LINCOLN urges fullest Headquarters investigation and the change of all pertinent cryptonyms. From the overall operational standpoint, LINCOLN assumes that, as in the case of the White Paper incident, all concerned are fully agreed to press PBSUCCESS to a successful conclusion, with complete attainment of the objectives set for the Project.
Jerome C.
Dunbar