Manuel Piñeiro

Manuel Piñeiro Losada (Matanzas, Cuba, March 14, 1933 – Havana, March 11, 1998), known as Barba Roja (Spanish: "red beard"), was a Cuban political and military figure, a leading character of the Cuban Revolution, as the first head of Fidel Castro's security apparatus (known as Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI): General Intelligence Directorate). By supporting armed struggle in Latin America, the DGI would try to help the expansion of radical leftist guerrilla groups in the subcontinent.

Piñeiro was the Cuban DGI chief from 1961-1964. He then became Deputy Minister of the Interior in charge of the state security apparatus from 1964-1968. A Soviet reorganization of the DGI forced Piñeiro out of his position and he was then placed in charge of the DGI's Latin American affairs division.

Piñeiro participated in student protests or demonstrations against the 10 March 1952 coup d'état, which brought to power dictator Fulgencio Batista.

In September 1953, his relatively prosperous family (he was the son of a Bacardí executive) sent him to study business management at Columbia University in New York, to take him away from the political turmoil of the time. While studying in the US, he began to oppose the social, racial and political discrimination that he saw in the United States at that time and he felt the need to return to Cuba.

He returned to his hometown in 1955 and became a founder of the July 26 Movement. Soon after his comeback, Piñeiro was arrested by Batista's security agencies because of his subversive or underground political activities. After his release, he continued his clandestine activities in Havana. Upon discovering that he was under police surveillance, he decided that it was better to leave for the Eastern Sierra Maestra and join the guerrilla columns headed by Fidel Castro.

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