- Secretaría de Inteligencia
Infrastructure
Communications in the agency are a crucial infrastructure and policy issue. For the southern bases in Patagonia, communications is provided by the "Servicios y Tecnologia S.R.L." (SyT) company. The rest of SIDE's communications, phone tapping abilities, data transfer, etc. are handled by Telecom and
In 2001, under Secretary of Intelligence
Personnel
Recent reports (since the Secretariat does not declare the exact amount of personnel it embodies) state that about 2.500 to 3.000 agents are currently working both inside and outside of
About 80% of the personnel works in areas depending of the Interior Subsecretariat, and the remaining on the Exterior and Support Subsecretariats. According to the agent's rank, they get paid from 1.800 to 2.678
Delegates abroad are inserted in the frame of the Ministry of Foreign Relations, but receive monthly salaries by the Secretariat. Their job mainly consists of producing reports on current events of interests in the country they are stationed in, as well as establishing links with the local intelligence services.
Recruitment
Citizens are recruited into SIDE using a well-known and widely used method by worldwide intelligence agencies during the
The method was first used during the Onganía government, under the command of Secretary of Intelligence Gral. Señorans, who himself said "a person who enters at 20 years of age having studied in an university, should be an excellent professional at 30 years of age". During the process of recruitment, experts focused on four essential points when assessing their targets:
* Language and expressivity.
* Discretion in the way they dress.
* A meticulous way of life.
* Possession of personal life experiences allowing them to adapt their personality to different situations.
When the student accepted the invitation to join SIDE, he was sent to be trained in the National Intelligence School. Nevertheless, not all spies where chosen from universities; it was common that experienced agents recommended people they dealt with their personal life, and who they thought were apt to develop a career in the world of intelligence.
Spies recruited that way were classified as "confidents", they received a monthly pay while their abilities to carry out espionage activities were being tested. Once a confident proved that they could be trusted they were promoted to the "contracted collaborators" category. In those cases, agents were targets of specific controls, an "ambiental" surveillance on them done by the
If agents met their superiors expectations, they signed a temporary work contract which was renewable periodically. In the "confident" career, the third step was denominated "temporary personnel" (Personal Temporario, in Spanish), as soon as they reached that stage, they were allowed to take courses in the National Intelligence School.
Finally, after two years of being assigned as temporary personnel, they were reassigned as permanent "civil personnel" (PC, in Spanish). There was not a specified period of time between the steps of a "confident" and "civil personnel", there were cases of people who took 15 years before they were fully integrated. Today SIDE is rumored to be a "very closed family", one which nobody enters without a recommendation. Interviews with agents state that "the first rule is to forget your name", and that new personnel are baptized with a fake identity.
Associates
'Associates' are companies used for support in covert operations, known cases detailed by Argentine justice include masquerade companies such as: Tecnit, CF COM, OSGRA S.R.L, Tiumayú S.A, AMSUD S.A, EMCOSUD S.A, IDIS ("Instituto de Investigaciones y Servicios") S.R.L, and "Canteras Brandsen S.R.L." Apparently all of them are run by SIDE personnel, and are used for covert operations inside of Argentina, and as well to set up agents in foreign countries. One known example is that of an agent acting as a broker of EMCOSUD in
Culture
The Secretary and Subsecretary of Intelligence are referred as "Señor Cinco" ("Mr. Five") and "Señor Ocho" ("Mr. Eight") respectively, because of the location of their offices, the fifth and eight floor of the 25 de Mayo building. Other aliases include "Señor Tres" ("Mr. Three") for the Subsecretary of Foreign Intelligence and "Señor Nueve" ("Mr. Nine") for the Subsecretary of Logistics.
Although unconfirmed, the name "Señor Cinco" is alleged to the 1956 restructuring of SIDE, closely modelled on the British MI6 whose first director was Captain Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming. Often dropping the "Smith", Cumming used his initial "C" as a codename which was also used by all subsequent directors of
The main building in Ave. 25 de Mayo is referred to as "Central". Agents working for SIDE call the Secretariat simply as "La Casa" ("The House"). Foreign personnel whose function is to act as a link between their agency and SIDE are referred as "COI". Also, spies are sometimes referred by politicians as "Servis", meaning somebody pertaining to "The Service" (in English).
The official
Numbers
An interesting and sometimes confusing fact about the Secretariat's internal organization is the use of a specially structured sequence of numbers to refer to different internal divisions. For example, the Subsecretariat of Interior Intelligence is numbered '8', and its dependencies, such as the Directorates of Counterintelligence and Judicial Surveillance are numbered '84' and '85' respectively. The same case applies for the Subsecretariat of Exterior Intelligence, or '3', its divisions go from '32' for the Directorate of Foreign Intelligence to '34' for the Division of Transnational Crime and International Terrorism.
Even though it is still hard to discern how exactly SIDE's number sequence is structured because of the lack of an official explanation, it is known that single numbers used to refer to a certain director, '3', '5', '8', '9'. Sometimes the numbers represent their location in the 25 de Mayo buildings.
Public media and fiction
As with most intelligence agencies, the Secretariat only makes public statements when dealing with national issues or scandals. For the Secretariat, the AMIA investigation, the Sofía Fijman incident, and the participation in the Senate Brives scandal were the most notorious episodes of media attention.
During the AMIA investigation,
In 2005, "Tiempo de Valientes", a comedy made by
In the American ABC TV show "Alias",
Publications
Every three months, SIDE publishes an official magazine through the National Intelligence School.
Books dedicated to the Secretariat's history and scandals include "Los sospechosos de siempre: Historia del espionaje en la Argentina" [" [http://www.boimvaser.com.ar/ Los sospechosos de siempre: Historia del espionaje en la Argentina] ", Jorge Boimvaser. URL accessed on
In July 2006, " [http://www.tematika.com/articulo/detalleArticulo.jsp?idArticulo=434299 SIDE: La Argentina secreta] " by
Historical operations
Dirty War
The SIDE played a role during the Dirty War and participated to
One of the most important operations carried out by SIDE was the planning of a triple assassination attempt in
The assassinations were to be carried with 9 mm or 22 caliber guns brought to France via Argentine
Operation Marylin
When
It was then that an analyst in the Secretariat discovered a human weakness in the Cuban delegates: their extreme sensitivity for blonde women that stood out. The '
The Secretariat orchestrated a plan to infiltrate, assess and obtain information as fast as can be possible. In this operation, the main actors would be blonde women, SIDE began recruiting capable women in known 'hot' spots of the city, some of them managed by people closely connected with the Secretariat.
Three women were cited for an interview in downtown Buenos Aires, proposed a job opportunity that involved establishing a solid and stable link with the Cuban delegates, all accepted. They would be paid almost the same money they earned at their previous jobs, plus a few honoraries for the services provided. During a week, the agents were taught basic intelligence theories and practices, they observed photographs of the Cubans they were going to 'mark', and they had time to elaborate complex backstories for their supposed identities.
The director in charge of Operation Marylin selected divorced women with children on purpose, so they would not raise any suspicions in their families or targets. The three females claimed to work doing 'sales' for a living, allowing them to be available at many hours in which to be in direct contact with the Cubans. Finally, after a subtle approximation scene played out in the 'La Biela' café bar, two of the Cuban delegates fell for the trap, but the third one apparently was not interested in establishing relations.
After six weeks of observations and wire-taps (the spies made sure to plant the Cuban's rooms with microphones), the Cuban embassy unexpectedly ordered its delegates to return to
Operation Marylin proved that using women to exploit weaknesses in men was a feasible and convenient method of extracting information, and observating both foreign and internal adversaries of Argentina. Although the real insertion of females into the Argentine espionage community started in the mid-1960s, during the 70s, one of Argentina's most agitated eras, the women of SIDE started playing a crucial role in its operations.
Operation Veinte Años
On
Merlo, who claims it was a kidnapping orchestrated by SIDE,Gorrarián Merlo's narration of the story of his kidnapping was published in a [http://www.pagina12.com.ar/1999/99-01/99-01-24/pag15.htm Página/12 newspaper interview.] ] had traveled to On Saturday, October 28th, he spotted three Argentine-looking men in Merlo goes on to claim that the Mexican security services handcuffed him, and made him face the Argentine, who nodded silently ("affirming that he was who they were looking for"). Merlo was taken into the Mexican Migrations Department, where he claims was interrogated three times by SIDE agents. The last time they interrogated him, they asked if he was Gorriarán Merlo, he answered back "yes", and simultaneously asked for asylum. ("Mexico has a tradition for giving asylum to politically prosecuted people in other Latin American countries"). One of the Mexican police man told them that there was "receptiveness" about his request, but at five in the morning, Mexican authorities took him to the airport and put in him in SIDE's plane, where the same SIDE agent from The operation was carried out by the Sala Patria group of the Secretariat. [ [http://neo.jus.gov.ar/indulta/amia/listados/t/Toranzo,_Rodrigo_08-10-03.pdf "Toranzo, Rodrigo 08-10-03] ", AMIA investigation Judicial reports during the investigation have displayed sufficient evidence of SIDE's involvement in the AMIA case investigation. In 2003, President Several critics blame SIDE for failing to stall the attack on the AMIA as the warnings of an impeding attack on Argentine soil were received. Judicial evidence presented during the AMIA investigation show that the Argentine Operation Cabildo SIDE explicitly participated in the operation to give the money to Telledín's wife, The operation was described thoroughly by SIDE agents who testified later on, during President urveillance of foreign embassies During the 1960s, SIDE set up constant surveillance on embassies from the During the investigation of the AMIA case, then counter-intelligence operations director ofía Fijman incident In the late 1990s, an employee of the Secretariat in charge of the National Intelligence School's security was convicted for murder. For more information see the School's incidents. Operation Ciprés In the late nineties, The information on her involvement came from Furthermore, a few weeks before the bombing, Dos Santos entered the Argentine, When Dos Santos was declared for the Argentine justice ministry, even though there were weak points in his statements, he named Mokhtari and alleged she knew about the bombings ("he later testified that he warned the consulates on information he got from her"). The Argentine justice system, needing new leads because of all the pressure that put on them to solve both bombings, ordered SIDE to find Mokhtari and bring her back to Argentina for interrogation. A plan codenamed "Operation Ciprés" was orchestrated to locate her in Europe and bring her back to Argentina. Once located in The operation was carried out by the Sala Patria group, and it has been said that the operation cost the Secretariat about half a million dollars, which included locating her, paying costs, agents and buying information in Mokthari was on an Air France flight to A restriction on leaving the country was imposed on her, and later lifted, but Nasrim Mokhtari had already lost her contacts in Paris, had no money, and become a publicly known 'international terrorist'. The Secretariat declined to provide sufficient accommodations for Mokhtari to stay in Argentina, and Iran did not want her in its territory because of the sufficient international problems she brought to them with Iran being blamed in participating in the AMIA bombing. She currently is hospitalized at a mental institution in Breakdown of CIA relations [ Other reasons to investigate the recently arrived ex-KGB and Russian Mafia was that many ex-CIA and ex-FBI personnel had private security businesses in Argentina and in many other Latin American countries. The arrival of the Russian gang in Argentina put their businesses at risk of competition. A few months before, Newland, a 50 year old who loved living in Buenos Aires [" [http://www.pagina12.com.ar/2001/01-01/01-01-14/pag03.htm La CIA traslada a su agente local] ", Information leaked out that "Patricio Finnen" and "Alejandro Brousson", two old notorious important staff members of the Secretariat, were responsible for carrying out the operation from the Billinghurst base. The Americans were not the only ones affected by the Secretariat's peculiar attention, the American reports state that the Secretariat never helped the CIA on its requests, instead, the U.S. alleged that SIDE helped the "newcomers" insert themselves in the market by selling them information. The CIA became furious since they had historically contributed funds for SIDE to do their operations, and SIDE was indirectly helping the Russians in their smuggling operation. They expected the Secretaria to be on their side, and to make the 'Russian problem' a government issue, therefore putting pressure on the The head of the Secretariat's counter-intelligence service at the time, retired Major The United States investigation into the incident with SIDE, revealed that the picture and information of Ross Newland was given to the newspaper by the Secretariat itself. Meanwhile, SIDE tried to repair relations by explaining the scandal through another theory. At the end of the scandal, with Ross Newland's identity uncovered, and the episode becoming a major embarrassment for the U.S. and Argentina in the worldwide intelligence community, the CIA removed its Station Chief from Argentina, and said they were going to permanently move their offices to The scandal not only put a stain in the CIA's relations with SIDE, but also made the Americans distrust the Argentine intelligence community which they had come to collaborate extensively during the Bribes in the Senate In 2001, the National Executive Power ("Poder Ejecutivo Nacional", PEN) under President The Secretariat was then under the command of banker After the details participation of SIDE in scandal became publicly known, then President Fernando de la Rúa asked then Secretary of Intelligence, Fernando De Santibañes to resign. He is currently charged with participating in the Senate bribes case. Recently more details were described about the operation by Pontacuarto, the participation of SIDE was so deep to even include visits of people involved with the bribes to the main SIDE headquarters. Assassination of Piqueteros The Justice system and the press blame the Secretariat participating in the organization of events on 2002 that led to the deaths of Months before the tragedy, the Secretariat had produced intelligence reports that the Piqueteros' assemblies and protests were being attended by the During the trial, police officers involved in the scene that day, declared that a man from SIDE approached them and told them that "Today there will be incidents", furthermore incriminating the Secretariat on the assassinations. The assassinations, which sparked outrage by Piquetero groups, made then interim President In 2005, President Néstor Kirchner, signed a decree that released all of the Secretariats's files about the tragedy to the public, and made some SIDE staff and agents available for questioning if necessary. [ [http://infoleg.mecon.gov.ar/infolegInternet/verNorma.do?id=106570 National Decree 538/2005] , Nobody in SIDE has yet been charged with participating in the case. On the second anniversary of the assassinations, protesters and piqueteros marched towards the Billinghurst base were the phone calls originated and proceeded to deface the property and manifest public outrage towards the organization. [" [http://argentina.indymedia.org/archives/archive_by_id.php?id=1203&category_id=26 Escrache a la SIDE] ", Indymedia. URL accessed on References ee also *National Intelligence System External links *es icon [http://www.side.gov.ar Official website, now defunct]
Wikimedia Foundation.
2010.
*National Intelligence School
*Directorate of Judicial Surveillance
*National Directorate of Criminal Intelligence
*National Directorate of Strategic Military Intelligence
*List of Secretaries of Intelligence
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*es icon en icon [http://web.archive.org/web/19970619124458/www.side.gov.ar/SIDE000.htm Archive of the defunct website]
*es icon [http://www.infoleg.gov.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/70000-74999/70496/norma.htm Intelligence Reform Law 25.520]
*es icon [http://www.infoleg.gov.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/0-4999/458/texact.htm Interior Security Law 24.059]
