Wes Vernon, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2001.
NewsMax.com
WASHINGTON Intelligence operatives for communist Cuban dictator Fidel
Castro are working in the U.S. to get their spies or unwitting "dupes into
influential positions in Americas defense establishment." Further,
Castro is himself a "terrorist" whose intelligence service has a "biological
weapons branch." Moreover, he is willing to aid whatever terrorist seeks to
destroy the U.S, including Osama bin Ladens network. And he has sought to
learn as much as he can about how the U.S. Postal Service works.
That information emerged at a Tuesday panel discussion in the Washington
area that included two former Cuban intelligence officers who have defected to
the U.S.
Cubas major subversive focus of attention here is the U.S. military
establishment, according to defectors Jorge Masetti and Jose Cohen. Professors
at various campuses are aiding and abetting Castro, they allege.
The former Cuban agents said at a day-long seminar organized by Rand Corp.
that the targeted professors are in three categories:
1. Actual agents.
2. "Useful tools," or "dupes" as such people were known
during the height of the Cold War with the Soviets.
3. The "unregistered agent."
The U.S. has no legal basis for acting against Categories 2 and 3 because
they are not passing on classified information.
The "useful tools" are generally well intentioned and innocent of
how they are being used by Cuban intelligence. In some cases, intensive efforts
are made to recruit them. Cuban intelligence agents also try to collect personal
information on such people "in order to compromise them in some fashion or
blackmail them."
"With some of these academics," said Cohen, "you can see an
article in the New York Times, and you say to yourself, My God, its
very clear to me the information this individual is relating was fed to them by
Cuban intelligence.'"
Cuban authorities have extensive files on many of the objects of recruitment
in the U.S.
That prompted John Miller, an American journalist who has written
extensively on Cuban espionage in the U.S., to say this would be a problem even
if Cuba were not trying to do these things.
The ideological leanings of university professors "everywhere"
would still give propagandists for Marxists such as Castro an advantage on U.S.
campuses, he alleged. iller cited Latin American studies as "especially
vulnerable," but also leftist classes outside the traditional disciplines.
These would include "womens studies, African-American studies and so
forth."
Campus activity, Cohen added, is by no means restricted to infiltrating the
defense industry here. For example, students are analyzed "in terms of
their potential to plans for violence in a time of war." Among the violent
acts envisioned is "the planting of bombs in American Metro stations,
subway stations."
Lest one take seriously those who deny Castros links to international
terrorism, the Cuban defectors noted that the longtime Caribbean dictator
visited Syria and Iran and vowed that together, Cuba and others would "bring
the United States to its knees."
They also noted the following "coincidences":
Postal Infiltration
In August, the month before the terrorist attacks on the U.S., and two
months before deadly anthrax letters made news, the FBI revealed that one of two
Cuban spies it arrested in Orlando had worked for the U.S. Postal Service in
Miami. Furthermore, he had sent Cuban authorities detailed information about the
workings of the U.S. postal system.
Cuba, by the way, is one of 17 states that a U.S. government report listed
as having biological weapons.
Coincidence? Well, then, heres another one. Three Afghan nationals
carrying $2 million were detained in the Grand Cayman Islands in late August
after having recently arrived from Cuba. An anonymous letter was sent to Radio
Cayman saying the three "are organizing a major terrorist attack against
the U.S." using aircraft. The letter was ignored, and the Afghans were
released.
Spy in the Pentagon
Then there was the Cuban spy at the Pentagon. Ana Belen-Montes was arrested
just 10 days after the Sept.11 attack. The FBI felt they had to arrest her at
that point because the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks made it important
that she be taken out of circulation.
U.S. agents already had the longtime Defense Intelligence Agency analyst
under surveillance. They would have liked to have kept watching her for a longer
period of time before making the arrest. The information they were getting on
her operations regarding Cuban intelligence work was deemed valuable. But her
premature arrest became necessary after Sept. 11 because Castro was sharing
intelligence information with Middle East terrorist nations.
NewsMax.com asked the former Cuban intelligence agents at the seminar this
week if they had shared their information on Castros subversion with any
U.S. lawmakers. After all, we used to have congressional committees that would
take more than a passing interest in agents working at universities to
infiltrate our defense establishment. In another era, Congress would call
witnesses to testify about such things as Castro agents infiltrating the
Cuban-American community in Florida, which Cohen and Masetti had also alleged.
Cohen had talked with "all the U.S. intelligence agencies" and was
"debriefed by the FBI."
Another Clinton Legacy
"My understanding is that during the Clinton administration,
counterintelligence against Cuba came essentially to a halt," the onetime
Castro operative said. One assumes, he added, that "the CIA is aware of all
this."
As for Congress, "Thats something U.S. politicians are going to
have to figure out." They revealed that two members of Congress, obviously
of left-wing persuasion, had shrugged their shoulders when the defectors shared
their information.
Their reaction was that it was not a problem if Cuba has information on
Americans because "the FBI has information on us."
Though Cohen and Masetti didnt spell it out, Congress is widely
believed to be shell-shocked when it comes to looking at internal subversion on
our own soil. The late Barbara Olson, in her book "The Final Days,"
described the old liberal cry of "McCarthyism" as "a permanent
restraining" order against anyone who dares point out extreme leftist
affiliations or activity.
Venezuela presents a problem as virtually a second communist state near the
Americas borders. Hugo Chavez, the leader of that country, "does what
Castro tells him to do," the former Cuban intelligence officers said. Even
without the Soviet Union around, the Cuba-Venezuela connection conjures up
memories of Lenins prophecy of surrounding the U.S. with hostile communist
regimes.
The Rand seminar was not a one-sided anti-communist rally. There were those,
on the panels and among the attendees, who urged a softer approach to Castro.
However, many of them were strongly contradicted by Cuban-Americans who had done
years-long studies of the dictatorship in their native land.
Our Friend Fidel
The private National Security Archive, long known for a leftist tilt in
security matters, was represented. Peter Kornbluh, NSAs senior analyst and
director of the Cuban Documentation Project, proposed U.S. cooperation with Cuba
on drug interdiction. Given Castros record in drug trafficking, other
participants saw this as nominating the fox to guard the chicken coop.
Kornbluh told the gathering that there has been for some time "low-level
[U.S.] cooperation" with Cuba in this regard. Further, he stated, there
would be more were it not for "politics" (i.e., there still remain
people in and out of our government who do not deem it wise to trust a dictator
who has publicly avowed his unrelenting hatred of the United States).
There have been those in Washington over the years who have shared "the
European view" of Cuba, the liberal think tank official claimed. This more
benign attitude is indeed held by some nations that dont have Castro
living next door to them. The idea that there were American officials with this
perspective of a major threat in this hemisphere outraged other conference
attendees.
Clinton Underling Defends Castro
Kornbluhs fellow panelist Ernesto Betancourt, an early Castro
supporter who chose freedom soon after Castro showed his true colors, recalled
that ex-President Bill Clintons drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, had
rudely and with considerable arrogance rejected intelligence information showing
Castros involvement in drug traffic.
"Think of Castro as the enemy," said former Radio Marti official
Betancourt, who warned the seminar that there is no limit to the terrorism
Castro would inflict on America. Its just that recently, "Osama bin
Laden beat him to it."
Kornbluh was contradicted from the audience by Frank Calzon, executive
director of Free Cuba, who said he had a film documentary that clearly shows
Castros designs on the United States are anything but benign.
Although the audience included many anti-communist Cuban Americans, there
were doubters who downplayed the Castro threat.
During the lunch break, one young analyst from Kornbluhs National
Security Archive ridiculed the concern over three Afghan nationals showing up in
the Cayman Islands after a Cuban visit with $2 million. "What if they had
arrived from Texas or Canada?" the NSA operative asked, "Would that
make those areas suspect?" The question of whether the governor of Texas or
the Canadian prime minister had ever threatened the United States was not
addressed.
Many people are "in denial" about Cuba, Antonio Gayoso, a
Cuban-born economist, told NewsMax.com.
"They know Cubas record, and they know that Castro is a threat,"
said the director of Global Expand. "They know it, but they dont want
to acknowledge it. Its too painful."
He compared it to the man whose wife is a prostitute. "He knows it, but
he doesnt want to acknowledge it to himself or to others."
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