U.S. now has zero tolerance for Cuban spies
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
Special to The Miami Herald
If Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers know their Cuban history, they might well
blame their arrest last week on charges of spying for Havana on the 1989
execution of Cuban Army Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa and the 1996 shootdown of two
Brothers to The Rescue airplanes.
The first event led to a massive purge at the Ministry of Interior
(MININT), in charge of the island's security, that crippled its
operational abilities for years afterward and exposed it to U.S.
counter-measures. The second made the FBI angry -- really angry.
From 1959 to 1995, only four Cuban spies were arrested in the United
States, including three in 1962. The U.S. counterintelligence
community's preferred strategy was to watch Cuba's spies and expel them
only when they got too frisky. No use arresting or expelling someone and
then having to spot the replacements Havana was certain to send, U.S.
officials argued. During the Cold War, some 30 Havana diplomats assigned
to the Cuban Interests Section in Washington or the U.N. Mission in New
York were expelled or denied reentry into the United States.
Through their first three decades, Cuba's five intelligence services --
the MININT's Intelligence Directorate (DI) and Counterintelligence
Directorate (DCI), the armed forces' Military Intelligence Directorate
(DIM) and Military Counterintelligence (CIM), and the Americas
Department of the Communist Party's Central Committee -- were regarded
as among the world's best, after the United States, the Soviet Union and
Israel. They had massive Soviet and Warsaw Pact support and considered
they had only one enemy -- Washington. In contrast, U.S. intelligence
regarded Cuba as a second-tier concern, after big-trouble countries like
Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
Prosecution documents filed in the Myers case allege they were recruited
by Cuba in 1978 -- right in the middle of Cuba's intelligence apex, when
the romance of the revolution and the bearded Fidel Castro were
attracting widespread support around the world.
But then came 1989 and Cuba's firing-squad executions of Gen. Ochoa,
MININT Col. Tony de la Guardia and two other security force officers on
charges of drug running. Some 300 MININT officers were purged, and many
were replaced by military officers with little experience in
intelligence. Several DI and DCI officers defected and provided valuable
information to Western intelligence services.
By 1995, U.S. counterintelligence had become aware of at least part of
the Avispa (Wasp) spy network in South Florida. But Justice Department
officials in Washington were initially reluctant to arrest and prosecute
its members. ''Too aggressive,'' they argued.
The green light came only after investigators linked some of the spies
to the Brothers to The Rescue shootdown, which killed four U.S.
residents. The FBI in South Florida was especially angry because it had
been using Juan Pablo Roque as a paid informant at the same time he was
reporting back to his Cuban handlers about the activities of the exile
group, formed to fly over the Florida Straits and help safeguard Cuban
rafters fleeing the island.
The U.S. reluctance to arrest and prosecute had been shattered.
Sept. 1998 -- Ten Avispa members were rounded up. Five cooperated with
U.S. authorities and received lighter sentences. The others chose to go
to trial, were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. More than
20 others fled abroad or into deep cover within the United States.
Feb. 2000 -- Mariano Faget, Cuban-born veteran of the U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service, was sentenced to five years.
Aug. 2001 -- Avispa members George and Marisol Gari pleaded guilty. He
got seven years in prison, she 3 ½.
Sept. 2001 -- Ana Belen Montes, a senior analyst at the Pentagon's
Defense Intelligence Agency and the top Cuba spy ever caught, was
arested. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years.
May 2002 -- Avispa member Juan Emilio Aboy is arrested. He was deported
in 2005.
Jan 2006 -- Carlos Alvarez and wife Elsa Prieto, FIU professors, are
charged. They pleaded guilty. He got a five-year sentence; she got three.
June 2009 -- Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and his wife, Gwendolyn
Steingraber Myers, 71, are arrested. He was a top official at the State
Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, she a senior bank
systems manager. They have pleaded not guilty.
It's interesting to note that Walter Myers was a longtime professor at
the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies,
where Montes earned her masters' degree in 1988 -- and where U.S.
intelligence officials say she was marked for recruitment by a Cuban
intelligence talent-spotter at the university.
U.S. spy-catchers say Cuban intelligence focuses its trolling for
potential American spies on the four Washington-area universities whose
international studies programs regularly send their graduates to key
positions throughout the U.S. government -- Johns Hopkins, Georgetown,
American and the University of Virginia. ''The Cubans fish in a small
pond,'' said one.
It will take time for more details of the Myers' case to become public.
Some may never see the light of day -- how the FBI stumbled on to their
spying, who their Cuban contacts were, how much damage they caused.
But whatever the results of the damage assessment, within the U.S.
intelligence community there's little doubt that the Myers couple was
NOT the last of the Cuban spies.
Chris Simmons, a retired Pentagon expert on Cuban Intelligence who
helped uncover Montes' spying, estimates that Havana maintains
approximately 250 agents and agent-handling officers in the United
States -- a robust effort though smaller than during the Cold War, when
some 300 were operating in Florida alone.
Based on past Cuban ''tactics, techniques, and procedures,'' Simmons
said, the 250 would include six to nine senior agents within the U.S.
government similar to Montes, more than a dozen in academia and 30-36
under diplomatic cover at Cuban missions in Washington and New York.
Another 135 or so, he added, are likely to be keeping an eye on
Cuban-Americans, mostly in South Florida.
U.S. now has zero tolerance for Cuban spies - Cuba - MiamiHerald.com (14
June 2009)
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/v-fullstory/story/1095418.html
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