CIA Creates Secret Cuba Task Force to Pressure Havana Leadership
The CIA has secretly formed a classified Cuba task force to intensify pressure on Havana for the economic, political and leadership changes Trump has demanded, staffing it with case officers, analysts, cyber specialists and covert-influence officers
The task force marks a doctrinal shift from crisis diplomacy to sustained covert pressure, betting elite fracture inside Havana succeeds where sanctions and public ultimatums have not. Redirected NSA and NGA collection gives Washington a persistent targeting picture of Cuban leadership's finances and defenses outlasting any single administration's attention span, though sourcing rests on a single New York Times report, with other outlets merely redistributing that account. Absent lethal or paramilitary authority, leverage depends on recruiting or turning insiders, a slower and less certain instrument than the 1960s precedent it replaces. Havana's swift public rebuttal shows leadership already treats the campaign as confirmed, foreclosing any window for quiet signaling before public commitment hardens on both sides, and the disclosure itself may function as the operation, a calculated leak meant to unsettle Cuba's elite rather than a neutral account of covert planning.