This note looks at the lengthy and complex 201 file of erstwhile CIA informant, agent, and asset, Luis Posada. Like all the other CIA records posted in 2025, Posada’s 201 file is now released in full. There is nothing related to the assassination in the file, but there are surprises in other areas. See my comments below for details.

Background

Luis Posada was an anti-Castro Cuban exile who had a long, complex history with the CIA. I have an earlier note on Posada and his 201 file available here for anyone interested in more details.

LIke “Edward G Tichborn”, who was discussed earlier in this series, Posada was a peripheral figure in the HSCA investigation of the JFK assassination. HSCA was interested in whether Posada could corroborate some of the claims of Antonio Veciana. As far as I know, no one has ever claimed that Posada had anything to do with the assassination.

The files

Like most of the people whose files had extensive whole page redactions, Luis Posada had a multi-volume 201 file. The first three volumes of the file had 50 blank pages altogether, and volume 3 of the file was number #5 on the WPR record top ten list. For those who would like to take a look, here are links to the 2023 and 2025 releases of the first three volumes.

New information from the files

The whole page redactions in Posada’s file were largely made to protect his role as a CIA “unilateral penetration” of the Venezuelan General Directorate of Police. Posada left the United States in the 1960s and moved to Venezuela where he found work with DIGEPOL. He got along well with his superiors, and after moving up in the hierarchy, eventually became a Venezuelan citizen.

Posada had previously been a paramilitary trainer for CIA in the U.S. and was happy to re-establish ties with the Agency, keeping the Agency’s Caracas station informed of many aspects of DIGEPOL’s work and plans, including Soviet and Cuban presence in Caracas, Venezuelan plans to tap U.S. embassy phones (apparently never carried out), progress against the Cuban backed guerillas in Venezuela, and so on.

Volume 3, with its 39 whole page redactions, was where most of this material was.

Some of the material Posada provided was economic intelligence, rather than political or counterintelligence. One of the lengthiest whole page redactions was a long report that Posada provided concerning diamond mining in Venezuela by De Beers. No idea what that was about.

The reproductions of some reports from Posada are of poor quality, and all of them are in Spanish. I could read some Spanish in college, but decades in Taiwan have almost erased my Spanish ability, so I will leave these docs to people who have a real interest in Venezuela-U.S. relations, and read Spanish.

Throughout his career in Venezuela, Posada maintained his ties with Cuban anti-Castro organizations (primarily RECE). CIA headquarters had very negative views on this and at one point ordered Caracas to stay away from Posada. Caracas, however, argued strongly for maintaining ties with Posada, and after polygraphing him several times, Caracas prevailed. His information was good, and he wasn’t using his status to further exile plotting.

As it turned out, Posada was later arrested on suspicion of involvement in the deadly 1976 bombing of a Cubana airlines plane. The files seem to show that by 1976 Posada was no longer working for CIA, but it would take a careful reading of all five volumes to understand the ups and downs of the relationship. The files are released in full if someone is interested in doing the work.

My two cents

HSCA requested an amazing amount of files from CIA. Many of these files were for peripheral figures and peripheral issues. HSCA reports made it clear in 1979 that some of these people and events were not relevant to the assassination, so it should be no surprise that release in full turned up nothing Kennedy related.

Yet these files were repeatedly hyped as holding new info and concealed plotting. This is worth a separate note.

On one point, however, I have to eat some crow myself. I have written more than once about the random nature of these last redactions in the ARC, and the difficulty of concealing a whole story or topic in this way.

Whole page redactions, however, did allow the CIA to conceal whole topics. As we now see, the redactions in Tichborn’s file concealed his cover with ICAP. Redactions in Posada’s 201 concealed his “unilateral penetration” status.

In my defense, I realized this kind of concealment was possible, which is why I spent so much time on records with WPRs.

I discounted any possible surprises in most of these simply because of the subjects. Tichborn and Posadas 201 files could not have any surprises because they were peripheral figures. I still feel I got this part right.