[Spooks] Fw: Castro’s Top Spy

[John T Mudd]

I especially eppreciate the description using numbers stations
for messages.

I hoe this is not too larghe of a post.

de W0TLO
John
****************************************************

Castros Top Spy
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 29, 2002
by Ronald Radosh


AN AP REPORT OF APRIL 10, 1998 PRESENTED AN UNUSUAL STORY.  The Pentagon
received praise from an unlikely source, the article stated, Cuban
President Fidel Castro.  What Castro was citing was a Pentagon
intelligence review leaked to the press, which had concluded Cuba posed
no serious military threat to the United States, due especially to a
severely weakened Cuban military.  The report, Castro said, was an
objective report by serious people.  There was good reason for Castro to
be pleased with the leaked report.  It was prepared by the Defense
Intelligence Agency in cooperation with other intelligence arms of the
Government, and was written by Ana Belen Montes, Castros top spy in the
United States.

The argument in the Montes draft was repeated to Congress by Gen. Charles
Wilhelm, commander of the US Southern Command based in Miami, when he
commented on the report that same week.  I do not consider the current
Cuban armed forces to be a threat to the United States, Wilhelm said,
it is a force that can no longer project itself beyond the boundaries of
Cuba.  In addition, Wilhelm said that no evidence existed that Cuba was
trying to foment any instability in the Western Hemisphere, a conclusion
challenged by many Cuba watchers, who blanched at the reports that the
draft urged American and Cuban military cooperation in the region.       
    

The first draft that Montes wrote, however, was so soft that it was
toughened up by then Defense Secretary William Cohen.  When Cohen sent
the report to Congress in May of 1998, he stressed that although the
Cuban military was itself no longer a serious threat to the US, Cuba
still had the potential to make deadly biological weapons.  Cubas
current scientific facilities and expertise, Cohen said, could support
an offensive biological weapons program at least in the research and
development stage.  Moreover, Cohen expressed his concern that Castro
could still use the island as a base for intelligence activities against
the United States. 

Montes, as Americans learned just two short weeks after the 9/11
terrorist attack, was a top level analyst and intelligence officer at the
DIA, who was arrested by the FBI in mid-September at her intelligence
office in the Bolling Air Force Base, and charged with conspiracy to
commit espionage.  Her colleagues, DIA spokesman Navy Lt. Commander James
E. Brooks told me, were stunned at the news.  Regarded as a consummate
professional, virtually none of her colleagues ever guessed that she
might be a spy.  Nevertheless, Brooks argued that she did not fit the
usual profile of a spy---which suggests, perhaps, that those responsible
for counter-intelligence should not put such great stock on the usual
profiles.

Last week, on March 19, Montes pleaded guilty to espionage, which the
Justice Departments Factual Proffer in support of a guilty plea, noted
that she had conducted for Cuba since 1985.  The Proffer and the actual
indictment offer a tantalizing hint at the extent of Montes harm to the
United States.  Montes, who held security clearances of the highest level
was in fact the DIAs chief analyst for Cuba.  In that capacity, she
effectively served as a Cuban double-agent, handing over top secret
information to Castros secret police, including the identity of a
covert United States intelligence officer as well as the planning and
goals of the United States intelligence community with respect to Cuba. 
The understated legalese means that effectively, Cubas DINA- its secret
police- received virtually everything it needed to know about U.S.
intelligence, including the names of three other US agents as well as
material classified as Top Secret.  In addition she gave the Cuban
government classified reports, photos and other printed material.  To
help her with her work, in 1996 Cuban intelligence gave her a computer
program for the encryption and decryption of messages.  

Most recently, from April through May 2001, Montes communicated via a
pager number provided by Cuban intelligence, to which she made
long-distance untraceable calls from pay phones, using pre-paid calling
cards.  When the pager answered, Montes would key in a short series of
numbers that corresponded to general, pre-established messages, such as
I received message, or danger.  Using short-wave radios, from which
she received a series of random numbers --classic encrypted
transmissions--she then decoded them later with the computer program
given her by Cuban intelligence.  The radio messages, broadcast on high
frequencies, were sent during times Montes was instructed to be listening
on a commercially purchased short-wave radio she had at home.  Anything
in writing was put on water soluble paper to be ready for quick
destruction.  Clearly, the Hollywood script is virtually writing itself.

Her most recent communication took place on September 16, five short days
after 9/11.  According to the indictment, Montes used her position as an
intelligence officer and, subsequently, a senior intelligence analyst,
for the Defense Intelligence Agency, to gather writings, documents,
materials and information, classified for reasons of national security,
for unlawful communication, delivery and transmission to the government
of Cuba.  Montes was so intent on fulfilling her commitment to Castro
that she refused promotion and other career advancement opportunities at
the DIA in order to not lose access to classified information of
particular interest to Cuban intelligence.

Montes was in a position to give Cuban intelligence lots of critical
information they sought.  At one point, she observed war-games taking
place in Norfolk, Virginia, which meant that any contingency plans the US
was preparing for dealing with Cuba in moments of crisis could have been
reported to them instantly.  Since the Mariel boatlift crisis, which
Castro precipitated, US strategy planners have worried about the
possibility of Castro repeating the episode with new dire consequences
for our country.  Any policies devised to help prevent this happening
would have been given to Castro by Montes.

The actual indictment against Montes is that of conspiracy to commit
espionage, the exact same charge brought by the US Government against
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1950.  That charge, which stems from the
Espionage and Sedition Act of 1917, carries with it the possibility of a
death sentence for anyone found guilty.  So far in our nations history,
only the Rosenbergs received capital punishment for this offense when
committed in peacetime.  In their case, the prosecution specifically
hoped that the threat of execution would lead either of the couple to
break, and provide information that would allow the government to
prosecute other members of the Rosenberg spy ring.  Staunch Communist
ideologues, the couple opted to go to their death proclaiming their
innocence, and to become martyrs in the pantheon of Communist heroes.

Like the Rosenbergs, Montes was also an ideologically committed supporter
of a Communist regime, that of Fidel Castro.  Her lawyer, Plato Cacheris,
who seems to be the chosen counsel for most of the recent American spies
for foreign powers, offered the press a predictable left-wing rationale
for Montes actions, which is obviously the approach Montes asked him to
take.  She engaged in these activities, he said, because of her belief
that U.S. policy does not afford Cubans respect, tolerance and
understanding.  What Cacheris does not point out is that opponents of
administration policy on Cuba have many different ways to argue for a
change in American policy, other than betrayal of our own country and
American agents to Fidel Castros spy service.  Moreover, Cacheris added
that Montes was motivated by her desire to help the Cuban people, and
he stressed that she received no compensation.  Evidently, aid to a
repressive old-line Communist dictatorship is equated by her counsel to
helping the Cuban people.  And that she asked for no monetary
compensation indicates that like Julius Rosenberg and Alger Hiss, spies
of an era long past, her espionage was ideological in basis.  She was,
clearly, not the kin of Aldrich Ames or Robert Hannsen, both of whom were
motivated by the quest for money, or, in the case of Hannsen, deeply
disturbed psychological reasons.  But like Alger Hiss, Montes was in many
ways the perfect spy.  With access to top secret intelligence agency
data, she could provide the Castro regime with material of the greatest
value.  And as an intelligence analyst responsible for providing
information to be used by policy-makers, she worked both ends of the
operation.  In this capacity, she could also write the kind of reports
that would influence the creation of a policy more favorable to the
Castro regime than that advocated by anti-Castro hard-liners.

Unlike Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Ana Montes is evidently not going to
seek martyrdom, which is why little has been heard from Havana on her
behalf since her indictment.  Other recent Cuban spies, such as those
arrested in Miami last year- the so-called Wasps Nest group- have been
the subject of rallies and protests in Cuba, and the defendants- some of
whom escaped before arrest- are treated as heroes by the state sponsored
Cuban media.  The sixteen indicted members, like Montes, got their
instructions via code delivered over short-wave radios.  But their
efforts- trying to infiltrate military bases and counting military air
take-offs in Florida, hardly compared to the high level data provided by
Montes.  But since some of them cooperated with authorities, it is
possible that Montes was found out from information they supplied.  (WASP
network members were among those who infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue,
one of whose planes was shot down in February of 1996 with the result
that four of the anti-Castro Cubans in the group were killed.) 

Moreover, the governments agreement with Montes rests on her continued
cooperation, and depends upon whether or not she provides complete
answers to all the queries they make of her.  Resting over her head is
that death sentence.  FBI press spokesman Chris Murray confirmed to me
that the legal agreement being honored depends upon her performance, and
even though press reports indicate that Justice is not asking for a death
sentence, any unsatisfactory performance by Montes would lead immediately
to reconsideration of the plea bargain by the Justice Department. 

One unanswered question is how and why Montes developed her pro-Castro
views.  Of Puerto Rican descent, Montes attended the University of
Virginia, and then received her M.A. degree at the prestigious School of
Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins, where few people seem to
have any distinct impressions of her.  Riordan Roett, director of Western
Hemisphere Studies, e-mailed me that he has only vague remembrances of
her, even though she took two of his courses.  Before her arrest, Montes
was a regular participant at the Georgetown University Caribbean Project
discussions of US-Cuba relations, where again, participants such as Wayne
Smith, Gillian Gunn Clissold and William LeoGrande have all been quoted
in different press stories about how little she spoke up and what a low
keyed presence she played.  It is apparent, however, that Montes was in
close contact with those members of the policy-making community who
strongly favor lifting the US embargo on Cuba, and who are generally
regarded as soft-liners.  Their views were most strongly reflected when
Secretary of State Colin Powell, testifying before Congress last year,
said that Castro has done good things for his people, and agreed that,
Hes no longer the threat he was.  If Castro wanted to supply those
already inclined to moderate US policy towards his regime with
information, what better place to do it than have his own agent within
the DIA regularly attend gatherings at which those inclined to the soft
line met, where her analysis clearly would meet a welcome reception.

The question left to address is whether or not the Montes assessment
about the nature of the Cuban threat is correct.  The possibility exists,
of course, that even though she was a Cuban spy, her report on the weak
state of the Cuban military is accurate, and that Castros Cuba no longer
poses any kind of danger to American security.  Sadly, that, however,
amounts to so much wishful thinking.  Senator Bob Graham, Chair of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, calling Montes actions traitorous,
points out that the very fact that sensitive national security
informationwas compromised it in and of itself is an indication of
Fidel Castros continuing desire to undermine the U.S. government and the
security of our people.  Grahams early assessment, issued after Montes
plea bargain, is worth paying attention to.  Americans should recall that
Cuba remains on the State Department list of nations that support
terrorism, and last May 10, Castro spoke at Tehran University, where the
AP reported, he told Iranians that the United States was an imperialist
king that will finally fall, just as your king was overthrown.  He
also swore that working together, the two countries would bring America
to its knees.  His tour also took him to Libya and Syria.  Some, of
course, will attribute such statement to mere rhetoric, meant to bolster
Fidel Castros standing as a leader of a world revolution against the
United States. 

However, last December, Sinn Fein chief Gerry Adams spoke from Cuba on a
solidarity trip, lending his voice to the call of those who seek an end
to the US embargo.  Adams call was ironic, given that the previous
August the Colombian military arrested three IRA explosive experts who
were training the Communist FARC guerrillas in practice of detonation of
car bombs.  One of them, Niall Connolly, Adams admitted, was Sinn Feins
long-time representative in Havana.  And with Adams standing next to him,
Castro praised IRA hunger strikers of the past, as another Cuban official
proclaimed US action in Afghanistan to be a calculated massacre of
civilians.  One has to wonder, as obviously Senator Graham does, just
who is Castro sharing the information he received from Ana Montes with?

------------------------------------------------------
Ronald Radosh is author of Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the
New Left and the Leftover Left, (Encounter Books,2001,) and is a
columnist for FrontPageMagazine.com.

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