Cryptonym: LIFIRE
104-10414-10124: MEXICO CITY STATION HISTORY
This Mexico City program "obtained a copy of the passenger manifest of every ingoing and outgoing commercial flight", and sometimes follow a passenger to the hotel.
Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico (2008), p. 121
"From the Mexico City airport, Anne Goodpasture regularly retrieved the product of a joint program with the Mexican security forces known as LIFIRE: passenger manifests and photographs of the passports of Castro sympathizers traveling to the island."
104-10404-10433: LIFIRE SURVEILLANCE TEAM
The LIFIRE Surveillance Team Members up to 1961 included Robert Melberg, Harry Mahoney, and Thomas Hazlitt. (Note: Also spelled as Hazlett). Name of team member for 1962-67 remains redacted., but was probably Gregory Parmuth (see below).
1993.08.10.17:26:44:430039: SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE HEARINGS ON CASTRO, FAIR PLAY FOR CUBA COMMITTEE
3/27/63, Washington Post: Gerry Robichaud, Chicago Daily News Service, "Cuba Travel Spotlighted by Mexico": "You can't do this to me!" screamed the high-ranking, leftwing Chilean politician, but the Mexican police agents went ahead and did it anyway. What they did was mug him - full face and profile shots - before he was permitted to board one of the two weekly flights that operate between Mexico City and Havana. They recorded his name, passport number, and checked to make sure that his Cuban visa was entered properly on one of the pages of the passport. When they decided everything was in order, he was given clearance to board the Cubana airline plane.
104-10246-10022: OPERATIONAL/MONTHLY REPORT -- 1-31 AUGUST 1963
During August 1963,t the "LIFIRE/photographic truck" was used as a "mobile listening post" in a test exercise involving hidden microphones at a local hotel.
104-10211-10445: DISPATCH: OPERATIONAL MONTHLY REPORT - - 1-30 SEPTEMBER 1963
"One photographic operational assignment was completed by Parmuth using the LIFIRE photographic truck during the month of September."
104-10103-10059 (BLIND) MEMO: CUBANA FLIGHTS
(In 1963)...LIFIRE was handled by Robert Feldmann. These sources observed arrivals and departures of Cubana flights. They reported any unusual incidents and provided copies of the flight manifests. This travel was routinely reported to Washington by cable (JMGIN Cuban travel)...I checked with Robert Feldmann who said he thought all of the Cubana flights were passenger flights. A review of the transcripts for the Commercial Office of the Cuban Embassy for late 1963 indicates that they were shipping large quantities of automobile parts, foods and medicines from Mexico City to Havana by Cubana Airlines..." (5/9/77 memo)
"...In another classified message dated December 4, 1963, to the Mexico City station from CIA Headquarters, the Agency reported that the State Department check on (Gilberto Policarpo) Lopez had produced nothing yet because of the difficulty in tracing records using only a name and passport number. The message contained this paragraph: 'We assume you have not told LITEMPO that Lopez flew to Cuba on 27 November because you do not want to blow the LIFIRE operation. This problem is up to you.'...(LIFIRE) involved the obtaining of information on cooperation between the CIA and Mexican federal officials who participated in a plan of photographing passengers of flights departing for Havana, and obtaining the passenger lists of the Cubana flights. Mexican officials also had their own program to photograph the passports of the passengers arriving from Havana."