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The lawyer and national security analyst Jason Ian Poblete noted this Friday that what is truly unusual about the visit of the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, to Havana is not the visit itself, but rather something that has never happened in similar missions: the public photographs and their dissemination on social media by the agency itself.
Poblete drew a direct parallel with the secret visit made by John Brennan to Cuba in 2015, when he was director of the CIA. That mission was entirely discreet: without photos, without press releases, and without stops at the embassy. Brennan then met with Colonel Alejandro Castro Espín, son of Raúl Castro, at a government guesthouse in Cuba, as part of the clandestine diplomatic channel that had resulted in the historic announcement on December 17, 2014, regarding the reestablishment of relations between Washington and Havana.
"Brennan traveled to Havana in 2015 and met with Colonel Alejandro Castro Espín, son of Raúl, as part of the secret diplomatic channel that led to the announcement in December 2014," Poblete recalled in his analysis published on X.
Ratcliffe's visit last Thursday broke all those protocols of discretion. The CIA published photographs of the meeting on its official account, showing a conference room with an oval table and simultaneous translation headsets, with some faces deliberately blurred.
This was followed by a stop at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, where Ratcliffe posed with the Chargé d'Affaires Mike Hammer in front of the diplomatic building, an image that was shared by the embassy's official account.
"What was genuinely unusual about yesterday was the public photograph; CIA directors typically do not pose for the camera on such trips, and the agency's own dissemination of the images on social media, combined with the stop at the embassy with chargé d'affaires Hammer, marks a break from the way these channels have historically been managed," Poblete wrote.
The analyst openly questioned the logic of this communication strategy: "I am not sure what is intended to be achieved with the messaging strategy; the substantive work does not require it, and for certain matters, it is counterproductive."
During the visit, Ratcliffe met with high-ranking officials of the MININT, including Brigadier General Ramón Romero Curbelo, head of the Intelligence Directorate, and General Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, Minister of the Interior. He also met with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, "El Cangrejo", grandson of Raúl Castro and head of the General Directorate of Personal Security of the MININT.
Poblete recalled that the intelligence channel between the two countries "has been a recurring instrument in the limited set of diplomatic tools of the U.S.-Cuba relationship when the Foreign Ministry channel cannot convey the message," but he warned that the precedent from 2015 does not suggest easy outcomes: the Cubans never fulfilled the agreements reached at that time with Brennan, including the placement of a liaison officer in Washington.
This was the second high-level visit between Washington and Havana in less than six weeks, following the contact from the State Department on April 10, 2026.
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