The Cuban writer and doctor César Reynel Aguilera presents a thesis that completely recontextualizes the figure of Ramiro Valdés Menéndez: the founder of MININT was, with almost total certainty, an undercover agent of the Soviet intelligence apparatus infiltrated before 1959. He presented this hypothesis this Sunday in an interview with Tania Costa, on the same day that Díaz-Canel confirmed Valdés' death, at the age of 94.
"For the first time, I see Ramiro Valdés’s figure in a much more complex position than that of a rural man who rose to become a vehement supporter of Castro," Aguilera stated, noting that even one of Valdés's wives confirmed to him that he was not a "fervent Castro supporter" but rather a "Guevarist." "He viewed things through Che Guevara's perspective."
That loyalty to Che, however, did not prevent him—according to Aguilera's thesis—from allowing the Argentine to be eliminated in Bolivia in 1967. "Why? Because it suited the Soviets to eliminate Che Guevara. Ramiro did not inform Che Guevara," stated the writer, who interprets that omission as the piece that makes the entire puzzle fit together.
Another element that Aguilera incorporates into his argument is that Valdés was a well-known communist in Artemisa, a fact that he claims to have "if not confirmed, at least referred to by someone knowledgeable." The main source for this reconstruction is René Cruz Cruz, whom he describes as intellectually sharp and possessing a precise memory. "He would tell me stories. I kept taking notes and taking notes and taking notes and taking notes, and he left me with a numb hand."
The conclusion that Aguilera draws from all this is straightforward: "If that's the case, then the Russians have just lost a man in Cuba."
The writer also links Valdés's death to the failure of the operation on January 3, 2026, when 32 Cuban escorts died in Venezuela during a U.S. military incursion. According to Aguilera, after that episode, all the analysts he spoke with agreed that for Ramiro Valdés, "all that is left are two shaves," meaning that his end was imminent.
"When what happened on January 3 occurred, one of the conclusions was that, from everyone's perspective. It's not that I'm a genius and I came up with it and nobody else did. No, many of us saw it as something inevitable," he clarified.
Aguilera acknowledged that Valdés's death surprised him to some extent. "Death doesn't surprise me. Nor is it surprising that it was a natural death, as he was indeed 94 years old. However, he always appeared to be the healthiest of them all. He would run down Fifth Avenue, exercised, took care of himself, and had beautiful women." He added, "The truth is, I think he should have been the one to live the longest."
Valdés had been absent from public life since September 2025, and on June 6th, Díaz-Canel was already paying tribute to him while he was still alive, a clear sign of his terminal condition. Founder of the MININT in 1961 and creator of the General Directorate of Intelligence, Valdés established a structural collaboration with the KGB that turned Cuba into a platform for Moscow's intelligence operations in the western hemisphere, as documented in the profile of Valdés on CIDOB.
For Aguilera, the fulfillment of his prediction about Valdés's death validates what he refers to as his "analytical microprocessor." "The way it happened doesn't interest me, but these are the predictions I make that, when they come true, I say: look, the microprocessor is working." He concluded with a succinct remark: "In fact, to be honest, it lasted quite a while."
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