Analyst's new job: visualizing Cuba after Castro dies

Posted on Fri, Jun. 02, 2006

CUBA
Analyst's new job: visualizing Cuba after Castro dies
From top CIA Cuba analyst in Washington to academia in Miami, Brian
Latell is making his mark talking about what to expect on the day Castro
dies, and not all exiles like what he has to say.
By OSCAR CORRAL
ocorral@MiamiHerald.com

The secrets landed on Brian Latell's CIA desk from just about
everywhere: spy satellite photos, reports from infiltrators in the Cuban
government, communications intercepts, U.S. spies debriefing Cuban
intelligence officers begging for asylum.

The analyst would weigh each, assign levels of urgency, then pass the
scoops up the U.S. chain of command, where top officials from the
secretary of state to the president used them for decades to formulate
Cuba policy and to try to understand Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Today, eight years into his retirement from his post as a top
intelligence official in charge of Latin America and Cuba, Latell is
using his analyst skills to decipher another complex place: Miami.

Now, instead of keeping mum in public about what he knows about Cuba,
he's helping shape public opinion about the communist island's future.
Instead of poring through reams of secret reports, he's lecturing as an
academic for the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban
American Studies.

Just five months into his new job, Latell has already had an impact in
this town and its long history of CIA plots run amok, advising local,
state and national officials on what to expect the day Castro dies.

RUFFLED FEATHERS

He recently signed with NBC to be the on-air expert on a post-Castro
Cuba. And earlier this month, he met with representatives of SouthCom,
the U.S. Southern Command for the armed forces in Miami, which is
preparing for the so-called ''biological solution'' that the soon-to-be
octogenarian Castro will inevitably face someday.

''I think the moment the news is spread that Fidel is dead, [South
Florida] is going to erupt in celebration, and I will be among the
celebrants,'' Latell said. 'Then many will wake up the next morning and
say, `OK, what's going on down there now?' ''

Latell ruffled feathers in Miami and Washington last year with the
publication of his book, After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro's
Regime and Cuba's Next Leader. In it, he concludes that Raúl Castro will
succeed Fidel Castro and that Raúl may be more open to reforming the
Cuban system than his older brother.

Latell based his prediction on his years as a top Cuba analyst for the
CIA, where he spent more than two decades, and on extensive interviews
he conducted with Castro family members, friends and upper-level defectors.

He irritated some hard-line Cuban exiles again in February when he, the
UM institute's director Jaime Suchlicki and others simulated what the
hours following Fidel Castro's death would be like. Latell played Raúl
Castro.

U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart criticized the university's Cuba program,
which has received millions of dollars in federal grants, for focusing
on Fidel Castro's successor instead of ways to pressure the current
government to change.

'Exercises such as this one . . . are `academic justifications' for a
lack of pressure for a democratic transition . . . after the dictator's
death,'' Díaz-Balart said.

`DEFICIENCIES'

Latell is almost certain that Raúl Castro and a group of generals will
lead the government when Fidel Castro dies because power has been
consolidated in the military. He believes nonmilitary government
leaders, such as Cuba's Parliament Speaker Ricardo Alarcón and Vice
President Carlos Lage -- either individually or allied with one another
-- would be unable to challenge a united military backing their leader,
Raúl. Still, Latell said he doesn't want to guess how long Raúl Castro's
succession might last.

''He's got serious leadership deficiencies, like a serious drinking
problem since he was a teenager,'' Latell said. ``But I do have a
feeling that Raúl will be more flexible. He's less intransigent, less
dogmatic than Fidel. I think there is also a good chance that he will
want better relations with the U.S.''

In his book, Latell writes that Raúl Castro is not motivated by an
''ego-charged quest for fame and glory'' like his brother.

''He worries more about the economic hardships the Cuban people endure
and has been the most influential advocate in the regime for
liberalizing economic reforms. He is likely to be more flexible and
compassionate in power,'' Latell wrote.

CONTRARY OPINION

That's poison in some Miami circles. Many Cuban exiles feel that the
United States should never negotiate with Raúl Castro because they say
as second in command in Cuba, he is just as guilty of human-rights
abuses as his brother.

Ninoska Pérez-Castellón, an influential commentator on Radio Mambi
(WAQI-AM 710) and a board member of the hard-line Cuban Liberty Council,
thinks Latell's analysis is flawed and misguided.

''All these qualities that he attributes to Raúl, I dispute
completely,'' she said. ``I don't know how he proposes to sell this
thesis that after 47 years of sanctions against Fidel Castro, that we
can contemplate negotiating with his brother. The moment Fidel dies is
the moment power is up for grabs in Cuba.''

Latell knows that some of his theories don't sit well with segments of
the exile community. But he is no Castro sympathizer. He talks of the
''dirtiness'' of Fidel Castro's soul and atrocities he has committed
against the Cuban people.

He said Fidel and Raúl are having ''very powerful'' disagreements today.

''I think Raúl is really dissatisfied with the state of the revolution
and Fidel's intransigence. He would want to give the people more bread
and less circus,'' Latell said. ``I think Raúl is influenced strongly by
the China model.''

VIEWS ON CIA

Still, Latell recognizes that Cuban intelligence agencies are among the
best in the world and believes that Cuban agents are deeply infiltrated
in Washington and Miami. While he was at the CIA, Latell knew Ana Belen
Montes, a Cuban spy in the Pentagon who reached a higher position in the
U.S. government than any other known Cuban spy, Latell said. After
Latell retired in 1998, she was convicted of espionage in 2002 and
sentenced to 25 years.

''I never trusted her as a Cuba analyst,'' Latell said. But, he
concedes, ``I never suspected she worked for Castro.''

But he also says things that may not sit well with U.S. officials. For
example, he says he feels that the CIA used to give Cuba a higher
priority than it does today.

''Since 9/11, the priority of the intelligence community and the CIA has
been much more tightly focused on international terrorism, and important
issues like Cuba have not retained the same priority,'' he said.

PREVIOUS TEACHING

A dapper 65-year-old with a New England style of slacks and top-siders,
Latell stays in shape by exercising and walking. On most days, he takes
the Metrorail to work, walking several blocks to his University of Miami
office. His work at UM builds on his 25 years teaching at Georgetown
University, where he crossed paths with many Cuban-American students
from Miami.

Suchlicki, who has known Latell for 25 years, invited Latell to join
UM's institute last year but doesn't always agree with him. For example,
Suchlicki agrees that Raúl will probably succeed Fidel in power, but he
doesn't necessarily think Raúl will be more flexible.

UM's institute has received more than $3 million in federal funds from
the U.S. Agency for International Development since 2002, Suchlicki
said. But Latell is not paid from those funds. Suchlicki says people
joke to him about being in charge of the ``CIA office in Miami.''

He explains why Latell is so valuable.

''I think it's important that the Cuban exile community and the people
in Cuba don't think that when Fidel dies, they are going to get
democracy and freedom the next day,'' Suchlicki said. ``I think it's our
responsibility as academics to explain to this community to plan for the
more difficult scenario of a fast succession, and a slow transition.''
Read Oscar Corral's blog Miami's Cuban Connection in the blogs section
of MiamiHerald.com or at http://blogs.herald.comcuban_connection/

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14719744.htm