Mary Beth Sheridan,Del Quentin Wilber, Washington Post
Sunday, June 7, 2009
(06-07) 04:00 PDT Washington - --
He was a courtly State Department intelligence analyst from a prominent
family who loved to sail and peruse the London Review of Books.
Occasionally, he would voice frustration with U.S. policies, but to his
liberal neighbors in Northwest D.C., it was nothing out of the ordinary.
"We were all appalled by the Bush years," one said.
What Walter Kendall Myers kept hidden, according to documents unsealed
in court Friday, was a deep and long-standing anger toward his country,
an anger that allegedly made him willing to spy for Cuba for three decades.
"I have become so bitter these past few months. Watching the evening
news is a radicalizing experience," he wrote in his diary in 1978,
referring to what he described as greedy U.S. oil companies, inadequate
health care and "the utter complacency of the oppressed" in America. On
a trip to Cuba, federal law enforcement officials said in legal filings,
Myers found a new inspiration: the communist revolution.
Myers, 72, and his wife, Gwendolyn, 71, pleaded not guilty Friday to
charges of conspiracy, being agents of a foreign government and wire
fraud. Their arrest left friends and former colleagues slack-jawed,
unable to square the man depicted in the indictment with the witty,
prep-school-educated intellectual they knew. The Myerses never talked
about Cuba or gave any hint of subversive activities, acquaintances said.
Larry MacDonald, who lives at the marina in Anne Arundel County, Md.,
where the Myerses docked their 38-foot sloop, said the couple were
admired for their intelligence and graciousness: "When I heard they were
arrested, I felt like they had arrested Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny."
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in an article published Saturday on
the CubaDebate Web site, said, "I can't help but admire their
disinterested and courageous conduct on behalf of Cuba."
The State Department and intelligence community are investigating how
much damage the alleged spying may have done. Myers had worked as a
European political expert for more than 20 years at the State
Department, and had been associated with its Bureau of Intelligence and
Research from 1988 until his retirement in 2007.
James Cason, who headed the U.S. interests section in Cuba from 2002 to
2005, said the case was serious because Myers had one of the highest
clearances. "If you can get someone into the intelligence bureau, you
can have access to everyone's intelligence, not only ours but of allies.
The question is, what did they (Cuba) do with it?" he said. "Did it stay
with them, or was it given to other countries, as well?"
But an official who previously worked in the bureau said the case was
probably not as damaging as that of Aldrich Ames, the CIA
counterintelligence chief who passed along extensive information about
U.S. intelligence operations in Russia. Myers would not have had access
to the names of U.S. spies in Cuba, the official said, speaking on
condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
Myers, who goes by Kendall, grew up in Washington, the eldest of five
children. His father, Walter, was a renowned heart surgeon; his mother,
Carol, was the daughter of Gilbert H. Grosvenor, the president of the
National Geographic Society, and the granddaughter of Alexander Graham
Bell, the inventor of the telephone.
Myers went to prep school at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania and
graduated from Brown University. He went on to get a doctorate in
European history from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced
International Studies.
In 1978, Myers visited Cuba for two weeks, authorities said. His guide
while on the island was a Cuban intelligence officer, authorities said.
The son of privilege fell in love with the communist revolution,
according to diary entries released in court.
"Everything I hear about Fidel suggests that he is brilliant and
charismatic," Myers wrote, referring to former leader Fidel Castro,
according to the documents.
Myers and his wife told an undercover FBI agent, posing as a Cuban
operative, that they passed along information over a shortwave radio
given to them by the Cuban government, and by exchanging shopping carts
with handlers in grocery stores, the documents said. In recent years,
they used encrypted e-mails sent from Internet cafes, they told the agent.
This article appeared on page A - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Son of privilege accused of spying for Cuba (7 June 2009)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/06/MND51828NE.DTL
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