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Posted on Fri, Oct. 25, 2002 in
The Miami Herald.
The recent conviction of Ana Belén Montes, the highest ranking Cuban
spy ever caught in the United States, validates concerns that Fidel Castro's
intelligence agents continue to operate here and elsewhere, including at high
levels in Washington, D.C.
The unrepentant Montes, the senior Cuba analyst at the Defense Intelligence
Agency, was the key person analyzing intelligence information relating to Cuba
at the Pentagon. She provided the Cuban government top secret American
intelligence and also participated in the production of an important classified
Defense Department report downplaying the threat from Castro's Cuba. Montes also
tried to influence academia and regularly circulated in academic circles that
took a benign view of Castro.
Cuban intelligence links to the Brothers to the Rescue airplane shoot-down
in 1996 were found when the Cuban ''Wasp network'' spy ring was uncovered in
1998 in Miami.
This case underscored the infiltration of the Cuban-exile community by
Castro operatives. These agents were trained for sabotage and, by presenting
themselves as exiles, used to discredit the entire community.
Together these two cases should highlight to doubters the seriousness of the
continuing Cuban intelligence threat to the United States.
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