A former State Department official accused of spying for Cuba tried to
become United States envoy to Northern Ireland in 2003, a post that
could have helped him assist the communist state's IRA allies, according
to American officials.
By Toby Harnden in Washington
Published: 8:00PM BST 10 Jun 2009
Kendall Myers, 72, who appeared in federal court in Washington on
Wednesday charged with spying for Havana for nearly 30 years, had a
fascination with Northern Ireland.
The Daily Telegraph has established that as well as seeking the envoy's
post, which carried the rank of ambassador, Mr Myers travelled to the
British Isles and met British and Irish officials, senior Northern
Ireland politicians and intelligence officers.
In September 2005, he called on David Trimble, the former Ulster
Unionist Party leader and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, in Lurgan and
visited Irish military intelligence officers in Dublin.
Mr Myers was a senior analyst in the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research until he retired in 2007 and was also a
part-time university academic. Known as an anglophile, he specialised in
Western Europe and particularly focused on Britain and Northern Ireland.
American intelligence officials believe that Cuba acts as a conduit for
secrets, receiving them from its agents and selling or trading them with
countries such as China, Russia and possibly even Iran and North Korea.
Mr Myers had a security clearance above Top Secret.
"Anything this guy could have found from his European responsibilities
he might have funnelled to the Cubans for them to sell off," said John
Bolton, a former top State Department official in the Bush
administration. "It's entirely possible."
A tall, donnish figure with white hair and moustache, Mr Myers is a
great grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, and
grandson of Gilbert Grosvenor, first editor of National Geographic
magazine and regarded as the father of photojournalism.
Mr Myers appeared in a federal court in Washington on Wednesday, with
his wife Gwendolyn, 71. The couple, clad in navy blue prison garb, were
said to have been known by the Cubans as "Agent 202" and "Agent 123".
Mrs Myers is alleged to have handed over secrets by exchanging shopping
carts in supermarkets.
Michael Harvey, prosecuting, described Mr Myers as a man of means who
had inherited money from his family and owned a family compound in Nova
Scotia.
The couple owned a 37-foot sailing boat, kept charts of Cuban waters and
told an undercover FBI agent posing as a Cuban intelligence official
that they planned to "sail home" to Cuba. Mr Harvey said that if they
reached the communist state they would pose "a real and present danger
to the United States".
After hearing that a calendar found on Mr Myers when he was arrested
indicated that they planned a trip to the Caribbean with "no return
date", Judge John Facciola denied a request for bail and ordered that
the couple be kept in prison. If convicted, they face about 17 years in
jail.
Mitchell Reiss, whom President George W. Bush was appointed as envoy to
Northern Ireland by in 2003 in preference to Mr Myers, said: "Could he
have done anything for them [Sinn Fein and the IRA]? Maybe."
Just as likely, he added, was that Mr Myers wanted promotion to gain
access to intelligence that might not have related to Cuba. "The Cubans
could then sell it around the world.
"It could have been valuable for a lot of people the Cubans were going
business with. It would have had a financial value, there could have
been other strategic interests Cuba wanted to pursue and this was the
currency involved." Mr Reiss confirmed that he had been told that Mr
Myers had sought the envoy job.
The IRA's ties to Cuba were highlighted in 2001 when three of its
members were arrested in Bogota on suspicion of training FARC
narco-terrorists in the Columbia jungle. One of them, Niall Connolly,
was a resident of Havana who had acted as Sinn Fein's representative in
Cuba.
Three years ago, Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, the IRA's
political wing, met President Fidel Castro in Cuba. The FBI believes
that Mr Myers and his wife Gwendolyn, 71, who is also accused of spying
and appeared in court with her husband, met Mr Castro in Cuba in 1995.
Mr Myers, who retired a year early in 2007, drew public attention in
2006 when he mocked the "special relationship" between Britain and the
US as a "one-sided" affair in which we "typically ignore them".
During a talk as the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies, where he was an adjunct professor, he even said that he hoped
Britain would decouple itself from the US – a startling statement from
an American official.
"In a certain sense I hope they break it with us because rather
personally I want to see the British more closely attached to Europe."
Colleen Graffy, a senior State Department official at the time, said she
thought that Mr Myers had been an "agent of influence" who had
deliberately undermined American policy, including relations with Britain.
"It would be part of his role for him to say, 'Wherever I can, with
young people, with the academic community, I just sow seeds of
disinformation about the US's best ally and who knows where they will
take root'. Someone with that kind of fervour of anti-Americanism would
see that as his raison d'être."
Mr Myers was a beloved figure in the State Department. "He seemed like
an absent-minded professor with a scholarly view of the world rather
than being involved in espionage," said one former colleague.
"Kendall was anti-Bush but 90 per cent of the people in this building
are too. He seemed to have a romantic view of the world and he wasn't
interested in promotion. He cared more about what he did rather than
where he was.
"He was kind, he always helped people out and he had lots of friends. He
was like a jovial character out of an English book, always having a fun
sailing story."
"For him, Northern Ireland was a real puzzle and he gave everyone a fair
hearing."
Baron Bew of Donegore, a Northern Irish historian and member of the
House of Lords, hosted Mr Myers in Belfast, where the American marvelled
at the P & B Rowan antiquarian bookshop, and dined with him in Washington.
"Kendall was open and pleasant and he asked questions. He had a certain
W.A.S.P. [White Anglo Saxon Protestant] charm. He reminded me of J K
Galbraith walking along the Backs at Cambridge – tall and slightly
stooped. I liked him."
Lord Bew, who has advised Ulster Unionists, said he hoped that Mr Myers
had never used his Irish portfolio to aid the IRA. "He possibly had the
Cuba thing in one corner of his mind and the Irish part of his job in
another.
"I would like to believe that his cover for his spying for Cuba was to
do the rest of his job straight up. I didn't think he was bad on
Northern Ireland – but now I wonder."
The FBI believes that Mr Myers and his wife were motivated by ideology.
They uncovered a diary of his written in Cuba in 1978 in which he railed
against "American imperialism" and wrote: "Fidel has lifted the Cuban
people out of the degrading and oppressive conditions which
characterised pre-revolutionary Cuba.
"He has helped the Cubans save their own souls. He is certainly one of
the great political leaders of our time."
Mr Myers's anglophilia, it appears, had an unusual twist.
In his doctoral thesis, he argued that Neville Chamberlain's policy of
appeasing the Nazis was correct. Years later, he would tell students of
his admiration for Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess – members
of the "Cambridge ring" who betrayed Britain by spying for the Soviets.
Accused Cuba spy "sought to be US envoy to Northern Ireland" - Telegraph
(10 June 2009)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5498569/Accused-Cuba-spy-sought-to-be-US-envoy-to-Northern-Ireland.html
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