Ana Belén Montes: ¿la gran olvidada en las negociaciones Cuba-EEUU?

Café Fuerte

Ana Beén Montes, con excarcelación fijada para el 2023.

Por Miguel Fernández Díaz

Mientras transcurre el proceso de restablecimiento de relaciones Washington-La Habana y se valora incluso la posibilidad de conversar sobre el álgido tema de prófugos de la justicia estadounidense como Joanne Chessimard, un nombre parece borrado de las preocupaciones y los reclamos del gobierno cubano: Ana Belén Montes.

Montes, la superespía del Pentágono que estuvo al servicio del régimen cubano por más de 15 años, expira una condena de 25 años en una cárcel federal de Texas. La ex analista militar tiene previsto salir en libertad tres años antes de lo fijado en su sentencia judicial como resultado de un ajuste de sus antecedentes, su colaboración con las autoridades y la buena conducta mostrada en la prisión. Según confirmaron fuentes cercanas al caso, Montes deberá ser excarcelada el 1ro de julio de 2023.

Un año antes de su excarcelación debía salir el oficial cubano Ramón Labañino, uno de los cinco agentes cubanos que cumplían largas condenas en Estados Unidos. Pero Labañino y sus cuatro colegas de prolongado cautiverio están de regreso en la isla desde el pasado 17 de diciembre como resultado de un intrincado proceso de negociaciones secretas que desembocó en un nuevo escenario para las relaciones entre ambos países.

Topo de cuestionable relevancia

El proceso negociador que permitió la liberación del contratista Alan P. Gross, logró también sacar de una cárcel cubana de máxima seguridad al espía que presuntamente condujo a los investigadores de la inteligencia militar estadounidense a la captura de Montes: Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, radicado ya en Estados Unidos, pero sin hacer aparición ni declaraciones públicas.

Las autoridades estadounidenses aseguran que Sarraff Trujillo fue clave para la captura de Montes. Cuando el presidente Barack Obama dio la noticia acerca del restablecimiento de relaciones, el retorno de Gross y el desconocido doble agente cubano,  calificó a Sarraff Trujillo como “uno de los topos de inteligencia más importantes que Estados Unidos ha tenido nunca en Cuba”. Un “topo” con relevancia a todas luces amplificada para justificar un canje que parecía imposible.

Sin embargo, los funcionarios estadounidenses aseguran que los cubanos nunca mencionaron a Montes ni una sola vez durante los más de 18 meses de negociaciones y contactos para el intercambio de prisioneros.

Ahora con 57 años, Montes ha terminado así como la gran olvidada en este capítulo tardío de la Guerra Fría, Su caso ni siquiera tuvo una regular exposición en los medios oficiales cubanos o en las campañas internacionales que grupos de solidaridad lanzaron desde el 2002 por la liberación de los cinco agentes cubanos.

Montes fue arrestada el 21 de septiembre de 2001 y condenada el 16 de octubre de 2002 a 25 años de privación de libertad más cinco de libertad condicional. La privación de libertad se cuenta desde la fecha del arresto.

Presidio Modelo

Montes cumple su condena en el Centro Médico Federal (FMC) Carswell, enclavado en Fort Worth, Texas, un establecimiento penitenciario que presta servicios médicos especializados, incluso de salud mental en su caso, a mujeres delincuentes bajo el régimen de más alta seguridad en Estados Unidos. Saldrá en libertad con 66 años y podrá cobrar los beneficios de Seguridad Social por casi dos décadas de trabajo para el gobierno.

La ex analista de la Agencia de Inteligencia para la Defensa (DIA, por sus siglas en inglés) y actual reclusa 25037-016 de FMC Carswell ha tenido como vecinas de celda, entre otras, a un ama de casa que estranguló a otra mujer embarazada para arrebatarle el hijo próximo a nacer, a una enfermera que mató cuatro pacientes con inyecciones de altas dosis de adrenalina y a Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, condenada a cadena perpetua por intentar asesinar al presidente Gerald Ford y en libertad condicional desde el 2009.

Desde 1985 Montes alternó sus funciones en la DIA con labores de espionaje para Castro. Hacia 1997, el FBI comenzó a investigar a un “sujeto no identificado” (UNSUB) y en agosto del 2000 la DIA entró a colaborar. En solo tres semanas de trabajo en equipo, sus investigadores Scott Carmichael y Karl James, junto con sus oficiales de contrainteligencia John Kavanagh y Chris Simmons, consiguieron identificar a Montes como aquel UNSUB. Mucho más tiempo llevó convencer al FBI para que abriera el caso contra Montes. La vigilancia física sobre superespía vino a establecerse hacia mayo del 2001.

Y todo parece indicar que no habrá tiempo para que Montes se arrepienta. Ella sigue tal y como el cazaespías Carmichael atinó a definirla en el título de su libro sobre el caso: True Believer (U.S. Naval Institute Press, 2007). Una carta de 14 páginas manuscrita por Montes en FMC Carswell con destino a cierto pariente incluye pasajes como este: “La prisión es uno de los últimos lugares que habría escogido jamás para estar en él, pero algunas cosas de la vida valen la pena aunque vayas a la cárcel”.

Contrainteligencia

En julio del 2014 se desclasificó el informe que el Inspector General del Departamento de Defensa rindió en el 2005 sobre el caso de Montes. A pesar de que nada significativo salió a relucir más allá de la información divulgada de antes, el doctor Brian Latell, ex analista de la CIA, imprimió giros sensacionalistas a ciertas trivialidades con la pieza “New Revelations About Cuban Spy Ana Montes” (The Miami Herald, 2 de agosto de 2014).

A esta “colaboración especial” tuvo que salirle al paso el teniente coronel (retirado) Simmons con incisivo análisis en “Latell’s Latest Assessment Reveals Why Analysts Should Not Perform Counterintelligence”.  Simmons calificó de insulto a la inteligencia las especulaciones de Latell y precisó que, más allá de los “compañeros she’d served during her espionage career”, Montes no dejó a ningún otro agente de Castro envuelto en el misterio.

En Cuba, el caso de Montes quedó al margen de las campañas por la “Libertad para los Cinco”, cuando en realidad se trataba de operaciones sintonizadas con los intereses de inteligencia de La Habana.  Solo algunos contadas referencias en sitios digitales han hecho mención a la superespía del Pent’ágono en más de una década.

El viernes 18 de octubre del 2002, el canciller Felipe Pérez Roque respondió en un foro online a una consulta sobre la entonces recién condenada  Montes:  ”Siento profundo respeto y admiración por la señora Ana Belén Montes. Ella se ha expresado ya sobre sus relaciones con Cuba y sus motivaciones”.

Pérez Roque subrayó que ella había actuado ”movida por la ética y un considerable sentido de justicia”.

Un latido por la suerte de Ana

Desde que empezó el vendaval del deshielo entre Cuba y Estados Unidos, el nombre de Montes no ha emergido -ni de soslayo- en boca de los representantes gubernamentales o alguno de los columnistas que agitan la propaganda oficial en los sitios digitales y las redes sociales.

Curiosamente, la única mención vino de parte de un conocido partidario del régimen cubano en Washington, el abogado José Pertierra. ¿Iniciativa de Pertierra o caja de resonancia de La Habana?

“E muy triste que siga presa… Lo ideal sería que la liberaran y la envíen a Cuba, porque lo que hizo no fue por dinero, sino porque ella consideraba como injusto el bloqueo por parte del país más poderoso del planeta. Creo que EEUU debe perdonar y soltarla, pero no sé si va a ocurrir”, indicó Pertierra en una entrevista publicada el pasado 7 de marzo en Tiempo Latino, publicación afiliada a The Washington Post.

En efecto, en camino de la retirada de Cuba de la lista de naciones terroristas y la flexibilización del embargo, las confesiones de Montes en su declaración ante el tribunal federal que la condenó, están plenamente en consonancia con los rumbos de la política que Washington se ha propuesto alinear respecto a Cuba.

“Mi mayor deseo sería ver que surja una relación amistosa entre Estados Unidos y Cuba. Espero que mi caso, en alguna manera, estimule a nuestro gobierno para que abandone su hostilidad en relación con Cuba y trabaje conjuntamente con La Habana, imbuido de un espíritu de tolerancia, respeto mutuo y entendimiento”, escribió Montes en su alegato, el 16 de octubre del 2002.

¿Cabría esperar aún por una reparación del olvido cubano o por otra negociación  entre bambalinas en favor de la cautiva Ana Belén Montes?

 Declaración de Ana Belén Montes ante el tribunal federal en 2002

NYT: Bergdahl Deal Weighed Heavily on US-Cuba Prisoner Swap Talks

cubaconfidential

by Chris Simmons

via Newsmax.com

The secret talks to free Alan Gross from Cuba were complicated by the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in return for five Taliban commanders, The New York Times reports.

Bergdahl, who had been held prisoner in Afghanistan for nearly five years, had just been released for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay when two White House officials, Benjamin Rhodes and Ricardo Zuniga, traveled to Ottawa, Canada, for negotiations with their Cuban counterparts. The Cubans were able to point to Bergdahl’s release as the precedent for the Obama administration to approve a Gross exchange deal for three Cuban agents held in the United States, a senior administration official told the Times.

The Cubans were in a hurry to have the prisoner swap approved by the White House because Gross’s mother Evelyn was dying of cancer, and they feared her death (she died June 18) would result in a then-distraught Gross killing himself and thus wiping out their main bargaining chip.

Gross was working for a subcontractor of U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009 when he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison. As a contractor, he was installing internet access for the island's small Jewish community that bypassed Cuba's restrictions.

But Bergdahl’s freedom added a new wrinkle to the talks with the Cubans to get Gross out, especially in light of allegations that the soldier had deserted his outpost in a remote area of Afghanistan, according to the newspaper.

Bergdahl’s release in exchange for the Taliban terrorists caused a firestorm in Congress, with Republicans in particular taking aim at President Barack Obama’s deal. And the uproar led the White House to demand that any arrangement to free Gross and the Cuban spies would have to be more than a simple prisoner swap.

“We made the point, ‘This shows you how controversial swaps are. This is something we are only willing to consider in the context of an appropriate exchange,’ ” a senior official told the Times. “The important thing was not to see the swap as the end, but the gateway to the policy changes.”

Eventually, the deal included the controversial resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries after 53 years of enmity, as well as the release of 53 Cuban political prisoners and an ex-Cuban intelligence officer, Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, who had worked for the CIA.

Article continues here:  Bergdahl >>

Former Cuban Spy & Conspiracy Theorist Bill Gaede Offers His Interpretation of US-Cuba Spy Swap

cubaconfidential

by Chris Simmons

Bill Gaede/
www.youtube.com

Rolando Sarraff Trujillo

By Bill Gaede

Spy vs. Spy

The recent spy swap between the United States and Cuba puts an end to 50 years of wrangling between the two countries. Washington finally decided to smoke the peace pipe with the Castros, kiss and make up. Conservatives and anti-Castro groups are outraged, and that's an understatement. They see it as capitulation after over 50 years of cold war with the little squirt down south.

As a token of good faith, the U.S. released the remaining three Cuban Five prisoners and Cuba paid back in kind by releasing communications spy Alan Gross. The deal also included a mysterious Cuban national who President Obama credited with helping expose Cuban spies such as the Cuban Five, Ana Belen Montes, and Kendall and Gwen Myers.

However, unlike Alan Gross who took the spotlight and gave a press conference, this agent, who came on the same plane that landed at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington D.C., was whisked away secretly to an undisclosed location. His name was 'leaked' to the press by an anonymous intelligence official of the United States and the story of why the spy is so important and why he was included in the swap was read off a carefully worded text by Brian P. Hale, an expert with an extensive career in dealing with the media. Everyone from the NY Times to the LA Times quickly picked up on the story quoting these sources and each other. The entire frenzy is actually a study in how information is manipulated in the U.S. and how popular opinion is formed.

To help the Obama Administration make its case, Raul Castro, the president of Cuba also remained silent on the mysterious spy that Fidel's Revolution coughed up. The U.S. and Cuba may not agree on much, but here they had to cooperate, and that was one of the things that obviously was negotiated between the two sides: the U.S. would handle the public relations aspect of the swap and Castro would remain silent. Cuba had nothing to lose by putting their three heroes on TV shaking hands with Raul Castro any more than President Obama had anything to lose by putting Alan Gross on camera. None of these agents had to be 'debriefed' or checked by the doctors before appearing in front of the cameras.

The only reason people strongly suspected that the mysterious spy might be Rolando Sarraff Trujillo (a.k.a. Roly) is that his family can't find him. Cuban prison officials told them that their son had been transferred, but not to worry about him. He was in 'good hands'. Certainly, Roly fit most of the description made by Obama at his press conference announcing reestablishment of relations with Cuba: a Cuban intelligence officer locked up for 20 years for providing cryptographic information that led to the capture of the aforementioned spies. So who else could it be? And if in addition the Obama Administration 'carelessly leaks' the name through 'unidentified official' sources, we have the makings of what appears to be 'disinformation'.

Ramblings continue here:  Bill Gaede

Editor’s Note: Cuba recruited Guillermo “Bill” Gaede in the mid-1980s to steal information on computer software and provide it to case officers in Mexico.  Havana, in turn, passed the information to the USSR and East Germany until the end of the Cold War. Gaede, an Argentine communist and software engineer, worked for Advanced Micro Devices, Incorporated in Sunnyvale, California from 1979-1993.  He provided Cuba with AMD specs, designs, “Blue Books,” masks, wafers, and small measuring devices. He claimed his initial motivation was his belief in communism, but this motivation waned after he repeatedly traveled to Cuba and became disillusioned. He left AMD in 1993 because of mistaken fears that the company would soon detect his misconduct. Intel then hired him and greed became his motivator. He began committing espionage for China and Iran, which paid him handsomely.

On a personal note, analysis of Bill Gaede’s current and previous writings found numerous errors, based in part on his flawed interpretation of facts and a predisposition to see conspiracies everywhere.

Two double agents, a prison swap and code from outer space: did these spies save US-Cuba relations?

The Guardian

Jim Popkin 

“It’s like a time-lapse photo,” one US intelligence official says of Rolando Sarraff Trujillo’s guidance in helping multiple agencies unravel Cuban cryptography. Ana Montes will live behind bars until 2023. Illustration: Nate Kitch for Guardian US Opinion

From a maximum-security prison in Texas, former United States military analyst Ana Montes has been offering up bumper-sticker justifications for why she betrayed her country and spied on behalf of the Cuban government over the course of 17 years. “I believe that the morality of espionage is relative,” Montes wrote in a private letter to a friend last year. “The activity always betrays someone, and some observers will think that it is justified and others not, in every case.”

Montes had no idea how prophetic her words would be. While the 57-year-old American citizen remains locked up as one of the most damaging spies in US history, the Cuban-born spy who led American investigators to Montes was set free to worldwide applause last week, during a landmark thaw in US-Cuban relations. Several news outlets have since identified the Cuban double-agent as Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, and multiple US officials I’ve interviewed this past week have described him as a cryptographer whose code-breaking secrets have been the gift that keeps on giving to the CIA, NSA and FBI.

I have been following the Montes case for more than a decade, and profiled Montes and her family for the Washington Post Magazine last year. Despite extensive interviews with the officials who pursued her – and even access to a secret CIA profile of Montes – I never learned of the existence of the Cuban code geek who helped bring her down. On Wednesday, President Obama broke the news, hailing the Cuban double-agent as “one of the most important intelligence agents that the United States has ever had in Cuba”.

As I retraced the colliding paths of these dueling spies, a senior Obama administration official revealed to me on Friday that the Cubans had never requested the release of Ana Montes – not a single time over 18 months of secret prisoner-swap negotiations. The once-revered Pentagon analyst known as the “Queen of Cuba” had been left behind, a fitting betrayal for a woman who made a career out of duplicity and deceit.

Then-CIA director George Tenet presented Montes with a certificate of distinction in 1997.

By the time Montes attended graduate school at the Johns Hopkins University in the early 1980s, her anti-authoritarian worldview was fully baked. It didn’t take long for her to meet a like-minded student who seemed eager for a friend. The gregarious grad student was, in fact, a Cuban talent scout who wanted “to facilitate the recruitment of Montes to serve as an agent of the Cuban Intelligence Service,” prosecutors divulged last year.

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In 1985, Montes would find herself on a clandestine trip to Cuba for operational training, and before long she had found work with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon’s major producer of foreign military intelligence. The Cubans “tried to appeal to my conviction that what I was doing was right,” Montes would later admit to investigators, in the first of many naïve assumptions that would come back to haunt her.

For the next 16 years, Montes feverishly worked two jobs, her star rising in Washington and Havana. By day she was a whip-smart analyst for the DIA. At night, she re-typed every top-secret document she could remember onto a Toshiba laptop provided by the Cuban intelligence service. Soon she was briefing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Security Council, and won a certificate of distinction from then-CIA Director George Tenet.

All the while, Montes was meeting handlers in Washington-area Chinese restaurants, and artfully slipping in and out of Cuba to debrief the island’s intelligence officers. As Cuban-American relations stalled, the Soviet-trained masters of deception taught Montes how to pass packages to agents innocuously, beat the lie detector and, importantly, retrieve coded messages in the privacy of her DC apartment.

Montes got her orders the Cold War way: through numeric messages transmitted anonymously over shortwave radio. Tres-cero-uno-cero-siete, dos-cuatro-seis-dos-cuatro, a haunting female voice would drone on into the night, cutting through the otherworldly static. Montes would key the digits into her laptop, and a Cuban-installed decryption program would convert the numbers into Spanish-language text.

It was a code almost from another universe, practically begging to be broken by an enemy not that far away.

When asked by the Guardian, spokespeople for the CIA, DNI and NSC would not confirm or deny if Roly Sarraff Trujillo is the unnamed Cuban released last week as part of one of the prisoner swaps that led to improved US-Cuban relations. Illustration: Nate Kitch for Guardian US Opinion

More than 1,000 miles south in Cuba, Rolando Sarraff Trujillo was making a name for himself, too. After graduating in 1990 from the University of Havana, the handsome father of one – known to friends as “Roly” – began work for Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence (DI). According to an online biography posted by his family, Sarraff Trujillo was employed as a lowly journalist assisting the intelligence directorate. In reality, he was a skilled cryptographer helping to encrypt messages to and from Cuba’s far-flung network of spies, said Chris Simmons, a former chief of a Cuban counterintelligence unit in the DIA who helped investigate Montes. “He worked on agent communications,” Simmons told me.

But Roly Sarraff Trujillo did more than that – he was a one-man intelligence goldmine. As a cryptographer, Sarraff Trujillo understood precisely how Cuba communicated with agents in the field, chiefly through the same “numbers station” broadcasts that Montes picked up night after night on her store-bought Sony radio. “He gave up how the Cubans transmitted HF [high frequency] broadcasts,” Simmons said. “He revealed communications shortfalls” that the CIA could take advantage of.

As a backroom comms guy, Sarraff Trujillo likely did not know the true identities of the Americans working on Havana’s behalf, Montes included. But the technical data and mastery of Cuban cryptography keys that Sarraff Trujillo imparted to the CIA would guide and even supercharge Americans investigators’ efforts for more than a decade – inextricably linking him with his polar opposite in espionage, even as he helped to out her.

“It’s like a time-lapse photo ... a gradual process,” said one current US intelligence official of Sarraff Trujillo’s codebreaking breakthroughs.

Another US official with knowledge of the case told me that Sarraff Trujillo and two Cuban defectors working for the CIA provided computer records straight from Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence. “That data is a treasure trove of information about Cuban intelligence,” the second official told me.

That data is a treasure trove of information about Cuban intelligence.

From the records, the CIA was able to deduce how many agents the Cubans were running, their rough geographical locations and the command structure of the DI. Now American investigators knew where to look, and how to decipher encrypted messages sent to illegal agents hiding in the US.

US intelligence officials refuse to confirm or deny if Sarraff Trujillo is, in fact, the mystery Cuban released last week in exchange for three Cuban spies held in the United States along with, in a separate deal announced on the same morning as the expanded diplomatic relations, the imprisoned American contractor Alan Gross. Sarraff Trujillo’s sister, Vilma, declined comment in an email, as did spokespeople for the CIA, National Security Council and Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

But the DNI gave clues to Sarraff Trujillo’s identity by revealing on Wednesday that the man “has spent nearly 20 years in a Cuban prison due to his efforts on behalf of the United States”. The Cubans arrested Trujillo in November 1995, on espionage charges, meaning he’s been imprisoned for the last 19 years. US officials have told the New York Times, the Associated Press and other media outlets that Sarraff Trujillo was indeed the CIA’s man in Havana. “I know of all the Cubans on the list of people in jail and he is the only one who fits the description” of the unnamed asset in question, Simmons told Newsweek on Wednesday. “I am 99.9% sure that Roly is the guy.”

Ana Montes would tune this radio to a short-wave frequency and wait for a spy broadcast full of seemingly random numbers to begin. Roly Sarraff Trujillo helped US investigators crack the code.

In the years following Sarraff Trujillo’s arrest, American investigators began to methodically work their way towards Montes. Ironically, it was Ana’s own sister, Lucy, who would play a key role in helping the FBI identify and capture the Queen of Cuba.

It began with a Cuban spy ring based in Florida. More than a dozen members strong, the so-called Wasp Network was infiltrating Cuban exile organizations and US military sites in Florida. Armed with Sarraff Trujillo’s intelligence and aided by other tipsters, American officials were able to pinpoint key Wasp conspirators. The FBI’s Miami field office began searching their homes surreptitiously and uncovered secret “crypto keys” on their laptops that deciphered ongoing communications with Havana, a US official familiar with the case told me.

The Cubans fucked up. They used the crypto keys more than once.

The Cubans were supposed to change the crypto codes every six months, the official said, to minimize security risks. But they got careless. “The Cubans fucked up. They occasionally used the crypto keys more than once,” the official said.

By applying the crypto keys to older coded shortwave transmissions that the NSA routinely recorded, the FBI began to build a profile of a senior US official who was aiding the Cubans. FBI special agents now knew that their “UNSUB” – or unidentified subject – had high-level access to US intelligence on Cuba and had purchased a specific type of Toshiba laptop to communicate with Havana.

It was 1998, and Lucy Montes was working in Miami as an FBI language analyst who translated wiretaps and other sensitive communications. The FBI called on her to translate hours of wiretapped conversations of the Wasp spies. Although Ana presumably would have been proud to learn that her sister had helped expose a Cuban spy ring, Lucy knew from years of frustrating trial and error that Ana refused to discuss her career. Ever. Lucy never even brought it up.

With the Wasp arrests, Ana’s handlers pulled back and assessed the fallout. Ana was alone, and she was scared – with good reason.

By September 2000, Chris Simmons learned from a fellow intelligence officer that the FBI was having difficulty identifying an UNSUB spying for the Cubans. Simmons shared the tip with Scott Carmichael, a “mole hunter” whose job it was to ferret our spies and other security risks within the DIA. Carmichael and a colleague began inputting some of the FBI’s closely held clues into their employee databases. After scanning through a hundred possible employee matches, a name popped up. Except this name came from deep within the bureaucracy: ANA BELEN MONTES.

Following months of investigative scrutiny, the FBI put a tail on Montes. They videotaped her making suspicious calls on pay phones, even though she carried a cellphone. They gained access to her banking accounts, through the use of a national security letter, and learned that Montes had applied for a line of credit in 1996 at CompUSA. Her purchase? The same model of Toshiba laptop that had been referenced in the coded Cuban communications that Sarraff Trujillo knew so much about.

Once FBI black-bag operatives searched Montes’s apartment and discovered a Sony shortwave radio and Toshiba laptop, it was all over. The hard drive, which Montes had tried to wipe clean, included instructions on how to translate Cuban high-frequency broadcasts. One file mentioned the true last name of a US intelligence officer operating undercover in Cuba. Montes had revealed the agent’s identity, and her Cuban intelligence officer thanked her in writing: “We were waiting here for him with open arms.”

The Cubans “tried to appeal to my conviction that what I was doing was right,” Montes would admit to investigators. “There’s nothing to be admired,” her sister says. Illustration: Nate Kitch for Guardian US Opinion

After pleading guilty to espionage, Montes told her CIA debriefers she felt she had a duty to protect Cuba from its neighbor up north. “All the world is one country,” she said. “In such a world-country, the principle of loving one’s neighbor as much as oneself seems to me to be the essential guide to harmonious relations.”

But despite last week’s détente between the United States and Cuba, it’s hard to imagine that the events Montes and Sarraff Trujillo set into motion more than two decades ago will amount to any kind of lasting harmony. One current US intelligence official predicted last week, as the White House was declaring a man who sounded a lot like Roly Sarraff Trujillo “a legitimate hero”, that the opening of embassies in Havana and Washington will simply make spying more convenient – with each nation’s spies more abundant and easier to follow.

“You still have an intelligence service, and we still have an intelligence service,” he told me. “It won’t be a sudden change of heart for either side.”

Solamente Raul Castro, hijo y nieto reciben a los 3 espias cubanos. La nomenklatura queda fuera

a diferencia del recibimiento que el regimen le brindo a los espias cubanos presos en los estados unidos previamente liberados, rene gonzalez sehwerert y fernando gonzalez llort, en el cual participio el buro politico del partido comunista en pleno, en esta ocasion de acuerdo a las imagenes que publica cubadebate, solo participaron ademas de los familiares en un segundo plano, raul castro, su hijo alejandro castro espin y su nieto raúl guillermo rodríguez castro.

Canal de cubadebatecu

 

ciertamente los hechos ocurren durante las sesiones de las comisiones de trabajo de la asamblea nacional y cubadebate, hace referencia a que ramiro valdes menendez hizo un alto en su participacion en la comision de industria, construcciones y energía para presenciar la "alocuacion" de raul castro. perfectamente se pudo haber interrumpido por breves minutos el trabajo de las comisiones para pasarla en directo a todos los participantes. o no?

Cuban-Americans React to Expected Changes

NBC News.com

By Suzanne Gamboa

There has been swift reaction following news of the release of American contractor Alan Gross after five years imprisonment in Cuba and the expected announcements on changes to hardline U.S. policy towards Cuba that the administration on Tuesday decreed had not been working.

Senator Robert Menendez, (D-NJ), one of two Cuban American U.S. senators, has been an outspoken opponent of the Castro government and has not advocated for lifting the economic embargo against Cuba, in place since 1960.

"This is a moment of profound relief for Alan Gross and his family. Mr. Gross' physical and mental health has declined severely as a result of his five-year imprisonment under difficult conditions. He should have been released immediately and unconditionally five years ago," said Menendez in a statement. "He committed no crime and was simply working to provide Internet access to Cuba's small Jewish community. His imprisonment was cruel and arbitrary, but consistent with the behavior of the Cuban regime."

Menendez blasted the news that the U.S. was releasing three members of the "Cuban 5" who had been imprisoned in the U.S. after conspiracy and spying convictions. Senior administration officials said on the condition of anonymity that the Cubans' release was in exchange for a swap for a U.S. intelligence asset whom they did not identify by name, but whom they said had been imprisoned in Cuba for 20 years and was responsible for important intelligence prosecutions, including of the Cuban 5 and Ana Belén Montes, a former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who had spied for Cuba. The administration said Gross' release was released on humanitarian grounds by Cuba.

"President Obama's actions have vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government. There is no equivalence between an international aid worker and convicted spies who were found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage against our nation. One spy was also convicted of conspiracy to murder for his role in the 1996 tragedy in which the Cuban military shot down two U.S. civilian planes, killing several American citizens. My heart goes out to the American families that lost love ones on that fateful day," Menendez stated.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, criticized the announced policy changes and said on his Twitter accounty he plans "to make every effort to block this dangerous & desperate attempt by (Obama) to burnish his legacy at the Cuban people's expense"

Although Obama can make some of the changes, such as starting talks about an opening an embassy in Havana, can be done administratively, Congress has to change laws on things such as travel rules and lifting the embargo.

Though some Cuban-Americans share Menendez's more hardline stance against the Cuban government, Wednesday's news follows what has been increasingly evolving attitudes towards Cuba.

"This does not need to be a relationship that is frozen in time," a senior administration official told reporters in a conference call Tuesday morning.

As news trickled out, groups such as #CubaNow that had implored Cuban-Americans during election season to vote "to protect their right to travel to Cuba to see their families sending a strong message to politicians who continue to cling to failed hardline policies."

"It is well within the President's authority to improve our ability to support the Cuban people, including the growing class of independent entrepreneurs and to bolster civil society on the island," said Ric Herrero, president of #CubaNow.

Ramon Saul Sanchez, a Miami-based human rights activist and president of Democracy Movement has been active in the Cuban-American community for 45 years, undergoing five hunger strikes, but he has never supported the U.S. embargo on Cuba. He is open to changes in Cuba if the island reciprocates and allows political descent and allows people like him to travel to his homeland.

Speaking before the president's announcement on Cuba changes, Sanchez said:

"The changes that may be introduced represent a large question mark to the Cuban population. They may also present an opportunity for change in Cuba. A closed society can only be changed when you are able to have people to people contact … And also provide them with communications."

In Florida, a major battleground state in U.S. politics, discussions of lifting or easing the embargo and softening relations toward Cuba have always been treacherous.

A Florida International University poll during the summer showed slightly over half of Miami-area Cuban Americans favored lifting the U.S. embargo against Cuba, as well as lifting travel restrictions and establishing diplomatic relations, NBC News reported. It's results came admid other surveys showing similar thawing of hardened views towards Cuba, particularly among younger and more recently arrived Cubans.

However, more than two thirds of Cuban Americans felt the country should remain on a list of four countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism.

Herrero's group had run a television ad in October featuring Cuban-American families divided between Cuba and the U.S. who told how 2009 changes in travel restrictions allowed them to reunite with family. Before 2009, Cuban-Americans could only travel to Cuba once every three years and faced tougher restrictions on sending money home to family in Cuba.

Discurso del metodo: "el negro vs el chino"

jardines que es una persona inteligente aunque se queda cortisimo en el empleo de un sistema conceptual cuyo deficit critica en otros, se despista tomando como tema principal un intento de taxonomia de la disidencia-oposicion y arremte en su 1ra parte contra el infeliz politraumatizado de campos.

lo que no estan viendo la eminencias, es que el bout "el negro vs el chino" ya esta por los rounds de campeonato [del 9no al 12mo] con el suicida de gross y los 3 espias comodamente instalados en el ring side.

entonces es pura logica aristotelica o en todo caso cartesiana:

• proposicion 1: ley codificada del congreso que el negro respeta
• proposicion 2: acciones ejecutivas del niche que no violan la ley codificada [codificacion por demas que es superflua porque en cuba no hay presos politicos sino terroristas; no hay partidos politicos de oposicion sino grupusculos de mercenarios y, el pais es un modelo de proceso democratico electoral porque no postula el partido sino el pueblo directamente, en un proceso que supera a la antigua democracia ateniense]
• proposicion 3: el negro convierte al judio en el anti bin laden y lo salva a cualquier precio y se acabaron las excusas para el desmerengamiento paulatino de eso que denominan embargo-bloqueo [comercial ante todo aunque se elevarian los rangos diplomaticos] como ha afirmado la propia wh.

si hubiera tenido alguna duda, esta se hubiera despejado porque el pataleo ya empezo con uno de los artifices de la codificacion; el lincoln, que sera cualquier cosa menos idiota y es una persona bien astuta y hasta sagaz, quien acaba de afirmar publicamente que no cree que el niche puede violar la ley de forma tan burda. despues que lei detenidamente varios ensayos mayores y estudios sobre el negro y las relaciones de poder en el inside del partido democrata y particularmente con el clan clinton, llegue a la conviccion que el iman de la wh cree efectivamente que es un mesias y que despues de el, si fuera necesario, el diluvio.  
------------------
The Economist se pronuncia al respecto en el dia de hoy evaluando igualmente esta posibilidad.

From The White House: On Alan Gross

capitolhillcubans

From The White House's Press Briefing with Press Secretary, Josh Earnest:

Q. Recently, there have been editorials in The New York Times about cooperation with Cuba. Is the President, in the last two years, more open to starting a dialogue with Cuba -- perhaps a prisoner exchange involving the prisoners here in the United States and Alan Gross in Cuba?

MR. EARNEST: Well, as a general matter, Jim, let me just say that the United States believes that Mr. Gross should be released immediately; that his detention is certainly not appropriate, it’s not justified, and it’s time for him to be reunited with his family here at home. He is, after all, a development worker, and it’s time for him to come home.

We have also indicated that his continued detention is an obstacle in the relationship between the United States and Cuba and certainly would interfere with any effort along the lines of what you’re talking about.

So the President has been pretty clear that it’s -- as he said in the past, that it’s worth reconsidering our policy as it relates to Cuba, reflecting, however, the significant concerns the United States retains about their human rights record, their failure to observe basic human rights, as it relates to not just the illegitimate detention of Mr. Gross, but as it relates to the basic rights to free speech and political expression of the people of Cuba. And we continue to have concerns about that.

But again, I think the bottom line here is that Cuba’s failure to release Mr. Gross is hurting the relationship between the United States and Cuba.

Q. And is the United States open to any negotiations with Cuba about Mr. Gross and whether or not the three Miami -- the three people in Miami who are being held -- in Florida, I should say, not Miami -- who are Cuban -- is there any negotiations there? Are they open to any negotiations?

MR. EARNEST: Well, Jim, I don’t have any negotiations to talk about from here other than to say that both publicly and privately the United States has been clear that Mr. Gross should be released.

The New York Times Rests Our Case

capitolhillcubans

There's an old saying in Spanish: "por la boca muere el pez" ("fish die through their mouths").

Over the last two weeks, The New York Times' newest editorial writer, Ernesto Londoño, has (obsessively) written a half-dozen editorials and commentaries on U.S. policy towards Cuba.

As we've documented, these have been full of glaring contradictions, misrepresentations and omissions.

The more Londoño writes, the more desperate and shameless (and clearly uneducated) his attacks.

And today, he drove off the policy cliff.

He's penned an editorial calling for President Obama to commute the sentences of three Cuban spies (part of the "Wasp Network"), duly convicted by a federal jury in the United States, and exchange them for an American development worker, who was taken hostage by the Castro dictatorship precisely as a tool of coercion.

Like his previous editorials, which have been praised by Fidel Castro himself, today's piece is already being circulated by Cuba's embassies worldwide and the regime's state security bloggers (cyber-warriors).

After all, it's not every day that a major American newspaper echoes the ransom demands (and talking points) of a brutal, anti-American, totalitarian dictatorship. Not to mention, one considered a "state-sponsor of terrorism" by the U.S. government.

The good news is that serious policymakers know this is a highly irresponsible proposition, which would set a very dangerous precedent. It has also left quite evident the agenda and resounding inexperience of its author.

Londoño -- on behalf of The New York Times' Editorial Board -- argues that the United States should succumb to Castro's coercion, mainly for two reasons:

1. Because a unilateral and unconditional rapprochement with Castro's dictatorship merits it.

Of course, he omits that the American development worker, Alan Gross, was taken hostage just a few months after Obama's first attempt at a unilateral and unconditional rapprochement with Castro's dictatorship in 2009.

Thus, this rationale is utterly senseless (at best).

More >>

Art Exhibit By Convicted Cuban Spy Attracts 1300 Spectators During Six-Month Tour of Greece

cubaconfidential

By Chris Simmons

Militant/Georges Mehrabian

By George Mehrabian, The Militant

ATHENS, Greece — About 300 people viewed watercolors by Antonio Guerrero, one of the Cuban Five, at the Oct. 2-5 annual Syriza youth festival, a major political and cultural event here attended by several thousand people. Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left), a social-democratic coalition founded in 2004, is today the largest opposition bloc in the Greek parliament. On display was a collection of 15 watercolors by Guerrero titled “I Will Die the Way I’ve Lived” that depict the experiences of the five revolutionaries during their first 17 months in the “hole” at the Federal Detention Center in Miami. The exhibit was part of a Cuban booth set up in the festival’s International Corner, which was dedicated to Palestine, Venezuela and Cuba. Showings of Guerrero’s art in Greece have been organized by a joint effort of the José Martí Cultural Association, Greek Solidarity Network-La Red Solid@ria, Hasta La Victoria Siempre and the publishing house Diethnes Vima. “The Syriza youth festival was the 10th stop since the Greece tour was launched in May,” said Loukia Konstantinou, who helped organize the showing. More than 1,300 people have seen the exhibit, some 550 of whom have signed petitions demanding President Barack Obama release the three revolutionaries who remain in prison — Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Guerrero. Participants at Guerrero’s 15-watercolor exhibit in Greece have bought a total of 159 books published by Diethnes Vima and Pathfinder Press on the Cuban Five, the Cuban Revolution and other working-class politics.

Oh How The Mighty Have Fallen; Cuban 5 Protest in Havana Draws…………Thousands

cubaconfidential

Cuban 5 Rally

By Chris Simmons

Telesur English reported a protest in Havana earlier this week drew “thousands” demanding the release of the three remaining Wasp Network spies serving prison sentences in the United States. The demonstrators (largely students) rallied under the marketing savvy theme, “I am Cuba.” The dismal protest followed Havana’s disappointing hemispheric call for Cuban 5 support, which was answered by just 32 Latin American parliamentarians from 14 nations.

It wasn’t so long ago that the Castro regime could produce a carefully-choreographed “spontaneous” protest of 100,000 people in an hour. Now it’s a struggle to get a few thousand demonstrators to show support for one of Havana’s major propaganda themes. Another sign of the slow, steady decline of the government’s influence…...

See the original story here: Telesur

Enigma sobre agente de Cuba que espió satélites de EEUU

Sargento Mayor Tessa M. Fontaine, a cargo del caso del espía enigma.

Por Miguel Fernández Díaz

Un espía cubano sin identificar aún, pero condenado a 13 años de cárcel, ha salido a relucir con el otorgamiento este año de la Medalla de Bronce de la Oficina Nacional de Reconocimiento (NRO, por sus siglas en inglés) a la Sargento Mayor Tessa M. Fontaine,

El caso fue procesado por la División de Investigaciones de Contrainteligencia y Ciber-Contrainteligencia de NRO en Chantilly, Virginia. Fontaine sostuvo 148 horas de interrogatorios a espías y documentó 16 horas de actividades de espionaje de la Dirección de Inteligencia (DI) de Cuba.

Según la escueta información de NRO, la labor de Fontaine protegió un sistema de inteligencia por valor de $5,000 millones de dólares.

Sin embargo, el caso del “nuevo espía cubano” está rodeado de enigmas sin descifrar.

Hermetismo total

Chris Simmons, el oficial de la inteligencia estadounidense encargado del caso de Ana Belén Montes, la superespía de Cuba en el Pentágono, afirma que existe total hermetismo sobre el individuo investigado y encausado gracias a Fontaine.

No se ha establecido si se trata de un espía de nacionalidad cubana o de un ciudadano estadounidense al servicio de Cuba.

El detalle informativo fue deslizado por NRO a finales de mayo, a raíz de las actividades de reconocimiento y promoción a oficiales por el Día de Recordación (Memorial Day).

Fontaine había recibido ya en 2013 la distinción de la Fuerza Aérea como Suboficial del Año. Es oriunda de Holyoke, Massachussets, y actualmente presta servicio en la base aérea Lackland, de San Antonio, Texas. Ha cumplido misiones internacionales en Kuwait e Irak.

¿Interés de Cuba en NRO?

NRO diseña, fabrica, lanza y da mantenimiento a todos los satélites espías de Estados Unidos. Cuba no tiene programa espacial y su infraestructura militar es obsoleta, por lo cual no tiene mucho interés para NRO, que a su vez no representa ninguna amenaza para Cuba.

Pero todo parece indicar que la DI tenía determinado interés en NRO, tal y como la Red Avispa se interesaba por las bases áreas en territorio estadounidense.

No existe hasta el momento ninguna referencia al espía cubano de Fontaine en documentos públicos o medios de comunicación.

Cuba prosigue en su campaña internacional por la liberación de tres de los cinco agentes cubanos de la Red Avispa que continúan encarcelados en Estados Unidos, aunque nunca han abogado por Ana Belén Montes, condenada a 25 años, y los esposos  Kendall y Gwendolyn Myers, que por tres décadas pasaron información secreta del Departamento de Estado a La Habana. Kendall Myers fue sentenciado a cadena perpetua y su esposa Gwendolyn a cinco años y medio, en julio del 2010.

US Honors Sergeant For Role in Cuban Spy Case

cubaconfidential

By Chris Simmons

Master Sergeant Tessa M. Fontaine

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) awarded its Bronze Medal to Master Sergeant Tessa M. Fontaine for helping lead a counterespionage investigation that resulted in a 13-year sentence for an unidentified Cuban spy. Then assigned as the chief of NRO’s Counterintelligence and Cyber-Counterintelligence Inquiries, her spy case protected a five-billion dollar intelligence system. As part of this investigation, Fontaine also orchestrated 148 hours of spy debriefings and documented 16 hours of Cuban espionage operations. The Air Force subsequently named her Senior Noncommissioned Officer of the Year. She now serves at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.

No further information is available at this time.

Editor’s Note:  The NRO designs, builds, launches, and maintains all US spy satellites. Cuba has no space program and its military infrastructure is grossly outdated, rendering it of little interest to NRO. As NRO poses no threat to the Castro regime, it would  seem that Havana would have interest in NRO. Very curious….

Mini-protesta en Miami por exposicion de espia cubano preso

Martí Noticias

Latell’s Latest Assessment Reveals Why Analysts Should Not Perform Counterintelligence

cubaconfidential

by Chris Simmons

Ana Belen Montes

Writing first in the Cuba Transition Project and then the Miami Herald, Dr Brian Latell recently energized readers with his feature, New revelations about Cuban spy Ana Montes. 

I, however, was greatly disappointed with the article. To start, he sensationalized several trivial issues and recycled old news stories (yes, she was a “true believer”  volunteer and yes, she was brought to the Cubans by talent-spotting agent Marta Rita Velazquez). None of this information is new.

However, he then misinterprets several key facts due to a lack of understanding regarding the field of counterintelligence, in layman’s terms – spy-catching.

For example, Latell claims that Montes met with her handlers “initially in New York, and later at her request in the Washington area…” Any Counterintelligence officer knows Havana would never consider running a penetration of the US government from 225 miles away. Having an agent or officer travel that distance once or twice a month for an extended period would be a huge risk to the security of the operation. Montes may have “asked” the Cubans for a DC-based spy handler, but the reality is she was going to be transferred to a local operative regardless of her wants and wishes.

More dangerous (and out of context) is his claim that during her interrogations, she was told that investigators “had information from a senior official in the Cuban intelligence service concerning a Cuban penetration agent that implicated Montes.” While that may be - in part - what the Pentagon document said, rare are the instances wherein an interrogator would truthfully tell a suspect they were betrayed by a colleague. That said, it is a common ploy to lie to a suspect and tell him/her their own people gave them up. This is what occurred with Montes.

Another major error is his wildly speculative and erroneous statement: “Did she work with other American spies? The report is ambiguous; it states that after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 pressure intensified to arrest Montes. The FBI preferred to wait, however, in order “to monitor Montes’s activities with the prospect that she may have eventually led the FBI to others in the Cuban spy network.”

The FBI wasn’t the only organization that preferred to wait – those of us in the Defense Intelligence Agency wanted to continue building the case as well. The “others in the Cuban spy network” weren’t part of some mysterious massive spy ring, but rather the compañeros she'd served during her espionage career.

Dr Latell is an exceptional analyst in his field. That said, Counterintelligence is a discipline unto itself, rendering any analytic generalist a poor job fit for analyzing spy services. Counterintelligence analysis is – and will always be -- best performed by badge-carrying Special Agents skilled in investigations, operations, and collections.

New revelations about Cuban spy Ana Montes

MiamiHerald.com

By Brian Latell

www.ondacero.es

Special to the Miami Herald

For 16 years, Ana Belen Montes spied for Cuba from increasingly responsible positions at the Defense Intelligence Agency. If Havana has ever run a higher level or more valuable mole inside the American defense establishment, that has never been revealed.
When she was arrested in late September 2001, Montes was about the equivalent in rank of a colonel. She had access to sensitive compartmented intelligence. Strangely, for one so openly enamored of Fidel Castro, her superiors considered her one of the best Cuba analysts anywhere in government.
Despite the importance of her case, some of the most tantalizing questions about her spying have never been publicly answered. Could the calamity of her treason have been avoided? What was learned about Cuban intelligence tradecraft? How was she discovered? And, of enduring concern, did she work with other American spies thus far undetected or not prosecuted?
Thanks to researcher Jeffrey Richelson and the National Security Archive, new light has finally been shed on the Montes case. Because of their efforts, a 180 page study completed by the Department of Defense Inspector General in 2005 has recently been declassified. It is heavily redacted; many pages, including the CIA’s extensive comments, blacked out. Yet, a quantity of surprising new details are now on the public record.
Montes’s decision to spy for Cuba was “coolly deliberate.” Enticed by a Cuban access agent in Washington, they traveled together to New York in December 1984. Montes met with intelligence officers posted under cover at the Cuban mission to the United Nations.
She “unhesitatingly agreed” to work with them and travel clandestinely to Cuba as soon as possible. The following March, she went there via Spain and Czechoslovakia. The Pentagon report does not state the obvious: while there, she must have received specialized training in intelligence tradecraft.
Then, with Cuban encouragement, she applied for a job at DIA. A standard background investigation was conducted, but we now know that serious concerns about her suitability were raised. Without elaboration, the Pentagon report indicates that they included “falsification of her Master of Arts degree from Johns Hopkins (University) and her trustworthiness.”
DIA did not require applicants to submit to a pre-employment polygraph exam. So, Montes, a trained Cuban espionage agent with a problematic past was cleared and hired. She began her double duties in September 1985.
After her arrest, Montes insisted that she had the “moral right” to provide information to Cuba. In her view, she did not work for Cuba, but with Cuban officials. They felt “mutual respect and understanding” she thought, as “comrades in the struggle.”
The Cubans were skilled in manipulating and controlling her. She told interrogators after her apprehension that she considered herself the equal of her “Cuban comrades, not a menial espionage tool.” They let her believe she “maintained significant control,” although she consistently left “security matters, including meeting site security, countersurveillance, and transmission security” to her handlers.
Montes said they were “thoughtful, sensitive to her needs, very good to me.” They went to “special lengths to assure her they had complete confidence in her.” They allowed her a long, loose leash, easier because they were not paying for her extraordinary services.
Initially in New York, and later at her request in the Washington area, she met with her handlers as often as once every two or three weeks, usually on weekends. Everything about her second covert trip to Cuba is redacted in the Pentagon report.
In 1991, Montes underwent a seemingly routine security reinvestigation. She was asked about foreign travel, and lied. Questioned about inaccuracies in her original application for employment, she confessed that she had misrepresented an incident in her past. Feigning innocence, Montes claimed that she “did not understand the seriousness of being truthful and honest at the time.”
Her questionable case was then reviewed at a higher level. The adjudicator reported that “while Montes seemed to have a tendency ‘to twist the truth’ to her own needs and her honesty was still a cause of concern, adverse security action was unlikely.” Again, she had slipped through. Her high level clearances were recertified.
Soon after, she brazenly submitted a freedom of information request for her own government records. She must have been concerned that something adverse had been discovered. Investigative material was released. She gave the surprised Cubans copies.
She apparently visited Cuba a third time after being selected to participate in the prestigious Director of Central Intelligence “Exceptional Analyst Program” in 1992. This time her travel to the island, purportedly to conduct research, was legal.
In 1996, she was questioned by a DIA special agent after another DIA employee reported concerns about her. Serious doubts were raised about her veracity, but the allegations could not be substantiated.
None of this seems to have contributed to her eventual unmasking. So, how was she discovered? Surprisingly, revealing information seeps through the Pentagon’s report. “We got lucky,” a counterintelligence official observed. An entirely blacked-out section entitled “Serendipity” suggests the same.
By April 1998, a coordinated search for a Cuban spy was underway, according to the report. At first it was thought most likely the quarry was a CIA employee. Investigators were following a crucial clue: the unknown spy had apparently traveled to the Guantánamo naval base as Montes had apparently done on official DIA business.
The breakthrough had seemingly come earlier, however. According to the Pentagon report, Montes was informed shortly after her arrest that investigators “had information from a senior official in the Cuban intelligence service concerning a Cuban penetration agent that implicated Montes.” It appears that this information propelled the investigation that resulted in her arrest.
Who was this mysterious, previously unacknowledged source? From the language of the Pentagon report, it was probably not a defector, but more likely a renegade or compromised Cuban intelligence officer. If so, Montes was done in by one of her own so-called “comrades.”
Did she work with other American spies? The report is ambiguous; it states that after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 pressure intensified to arrest Montes. The FBI preferred to wait, however, in order “to monitor Montes’s activities with the prospect that she may have eventually led the FBI to others in the Cuban spy network.”
Did government censors inadvertently confirm the existence of a larger spy ring? If in fact there was evidence of one, it may be a long time before more is known.
It is now clear, however, that Montes’s apprehension was not just the result of excellent intelligence work. She told investigators after her arrest that a week earlier she had learned that she was under surveillance. She could have decided then to flee to Cuba, and probably would have made it there safely.
But she said that “she couldn’t give up on the people (she) was helping.” Montes is serving a 25 year prison sentence.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/02/4267428/new-revelations-about-cuban-spy.html#storylink=cpy