Last month a profession American ambassador pleaded responsible to spying for the intelligence service of Cuba. Victor Manuel Rocha served his nation in positions that required the highest ranges of security clearance. For 40 years, he was a covert agent. Before Ambassador Rocha was uncovered, there was one other prolific Cuban spy named Ana Montes, a Pentagon official, who was the lead analyst on Cuba coverage. She spied for 17 years. But, Cuban spy craft is not simply a relic of the Cold War. It’s a actual and current danger to U.S. national security. It seems, Cuba’s principal export is not cigars or rum, it is American secrets—which they barter and promote to America’s enemies around the world.
It was 1999 after which first woman Hillary Clinton danced with the president of Argentina at a state dinner. President Clinton additionally danced the tango throughout the White House ballroom.
There in entrance sporting glasses and the airs of an aristocrat… stood Victor Manuel Rocha. He was the quantity two diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires with an impeccable status as a senior statesman on Latin America. He served on the National Security Council and have become the ambassador to Bolivia—seen right here alongside that nation’s president—all that point whereas having the highest high secret security clearance, with entry to the most delicate U.S. intelligence.
But final December, Attorney General Merrick Garland introduced Rocha’s arrest. He was charged with spying for Cuba for his complete profession.
Merrick Garland: This motion exposes one in every of the highest reaching and longest enduring infiltrations of the U.S. authorities by a international agent.
In 2022, a man claiming to be a Cuban intelligence officer contacted Rocha and requested to meet. Rocha agreed—he had no concept the man was an undercover FBI agent. Over three conferences in Miami, the FBI recorded Rocha with a hidden digital camera. And in accordance to the criticism, Rocha bragged that he obtained away with many years of spying by memorizing the secrets he stole… Rocha advised the agent, “what we have done…it’s enormous…more than a grand slam.” He known as the U.S. quote “the enemy”
Cecilia Vega: What do you assume is the extent of injury that he did to national security?
Brian Latell: Manuel Rocha did monumental injury to– to American security.
Brian Latell was the CIA’s high Cuba analyst at the top of the Cold War. He says in the Eighties, Rocha chilly known as and struck up a skilled relationship. They remained mates for many years.
Cecilia Vega: You assume he approached you to get data out of you, in the end.
Brian Latell: Yes. He by no means obtained any.
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Cecilia Vega: Did you see any indicators that he was main a double life?
Brian Latell: None.
Cecilia Vega: None?
Brian Latell: None.
Cecilia Vega: What are you able to inform me about the commerce craft that Cuba makes use of?
Brian Latell: They do it very, very properly, in– largely rudimentary fashions. The Cubans are not flying satellites wherever in the world. Nearly all of their potential and– and success has been in the dimension of human intelligence. Their officers, their intelligence brokers and officers are very, superb.
Brian Latell: They know their tradecraft. They follow it with nice talent and with self-discipline. And after they recruit, they’re very cautious about how they recruit and the way they impart.
Cecilia Vega: And what does Cuba do with the data it will get from all these spies?
Cecilia Vega: They don’t have any scruples about sharing the data or maybe advertising it, promoting it to– to different international locations, the Russians, perhaps the Chinese
Brian Latell: If they acquire details about U.S. intentions, coverage intentions towards Moscow or Beijing or Tehran, it will be of curiosity to these international locations.
That was this man’s job when he was a Cuban intelligence officer, decoding messages intercepted from the us. Jose Cohen defected in 1994.
Jose Cohen (English translation): Cuba shared that data with enemies of the United States, he advised us. Countries like the Soviet Union for years, international locations like North Korea, international locations like Iran, had details about the operation of the Defense Department.
Cecilia Vega: You say Cuba might not have the weapons, Cuba might not have the arms, however they promote these secrets to the enemies of the United States?
Jose Cohen (English translation): The strongest enemies of the United States. All of that was what made me notice that is a battle between good and evil. Cuba was at the service of all the enemies of the United States.
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After Jose Cohen set foot on U.S. soil he shared a very important piece of knowledge with the FBI. That led to the investigation of greater than 100 suspected Cuban brokers and unlawful officers and in the end one crucial spy. Cohen handed over an encryption key- like this one, utilized by Cuban spies to ship and obtain secret messages with Havana.
Three nights a week at 9 p.m. after which once more at 10, a collection of numbered codes was broadcast out of Havana.
The sign may very well be heard for most of the Nineteen Nineties up the East Coast as far north as Maine. But the coded messages had been solely meant to be decoded by their brokers—together with a Pentagon analyst named Ana Montes—who lived on this quiet Washington neighborhood.
Cecilia Vega: This is the place she did all of the enterprise, all of the spy enterprise?
Peter Lapp: Exactly. I imply, she would pay attention to the excessive frequency messages upstairs. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday nights, she would sort up her messages on her laptop in her bed room, proper up right here. This is the space that she– lived in, camouflaged. The indisputable fact that she was committing espionage proper here–
Peter Lapp is a retired FBI particular agent who was on the staff that led the Montes investigation.
Cecilia Vega: How’d she do it?
Peter Lapp: She went to work, memorized three issues day-after-day, went house and– all labeled, after which would write them up or sort them up. And then each two or three weeks, she would meet in individual at lunch, broad daylight, two to three hours over lunch
Cecilia Vega: Maybe I’ve seen too many films. When I believe “spies,” I’m considering darkish of night time, park bench, secret cameras, fancy devices. That wasn’t her.
Peter Lapp: Everyone who works for the intelligence neighborhood goes house with labeled data of their head. And you possibly can’t cease that with guards and expertise. It’s just– it’s– it is undefeatable.
Lapp wrote a e-book on the FBI investigation into Montes. He advised us Havana would not pay its spies, so Americans who spy for Cuba do not do it for cash, however fairly are pushed by ideology. Ambassador Rocha was recruited in the late Nineteen Seventies, influenced, he now says, by the radical politics of the day. Montes was a scholar at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in the Eighties and was outspoken about her anger towards U.S. coverage in Latin America when she was recruited by a Cuban intelligence officer.
Montes’ father was a U.S. Army physician and her siblings labored for the FBI. One of her first jobs out of graduate faculty was as an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
DIA
Cecilia Vega: So Ana Montes was already a full-fledged Cuban spy from the second that she set foot inside the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Peter Lapp: She walked in absolutely recruited, day one. Only went to DIA for the function of spying for the Cubans. And when you consider the other people which have been arrested for espionage, most begin loyal. They take the oath. They intend to abide by that oath. But then one thing occurs and so they flip. And Ana’s distinctive in the sense that she walked in from day one, and was an insider menace, and– and solely went for the function of spying for the Cubans.
Cecilia Vega: How does a Cuban spy stroll by means of the doorways of the DIA and get a job? She did not have to take a polygraph?
Peter Lapp: They didn’t have a polygraph program at the time.
Over the course of her profession, she grew to become such an knowledgeable that she was identified in the intelligence neighborhood as the Queen of Cuba. All the whereas she was exposing national secrets to Havana- the FBI surveilled her for a 12 months earlier than her arrest as she walked to work and known as her Cuban handler. By that point she had revealed the existence of a high secret satellite tv for pc program utilized by the U.S. to spy on different international locations. She additionally gave Havana the names of 450 American intelligence officers engaged on Latin American issues– together with 4 undercover officers stationed in Cuba.
And she obtained away with it for 17 years– till she was arrested in 2001 at her workplace by FBI Special Agent Peter Lapp and his accomplice Stephen McCoy.
Cecilia Vega: She did not match the profile of a typical spy.
Peter Lapp: No. Being a lady is extremely distinctive, so it would not match that typical what we’d look for in a spy, which is usually males.
Montes pleaded responsible to espionage and in change for not spending the remainder of her life in jail, she agreed to inform the FBI all the things she had performed.
Through a public information request, we obtained this footage, seen right here for the first time, of Montes sporting jail stripes– talking with FBI investigators. Citing Montes’ proper to privateness, the FBI denied our request for the recorded audio of their interviews. But we obtained a declassified transcript of the first day the place Montes described how deep in she was. She stated:
Ana Montes (Cecilia Vega reads from transcript): Ever since I began serving to the Cubans, there’s been no half-way…I do not actually know the way a individual does it with out feeling morally certain…It’s a full dedication, mentally, bodily, emotionally.
I really feel that what I did was morally proper. That I used to be devoted to rules that had been proper.
Montes advised the brokers her solely remorse was that she was pressured to cooperate with the FBI as a part of her plea deal.
Ana Montes (Cecilia Vega reads from transcript): It’s tearing me up….But if the solely method I’m going to see my household once more… It’s the solely method.
Agent Lapp sat throughout from Ana Montes in the interrogation room for seven months. He stated one in every of the most sobering moments was when she stated how far she would have been keen to go for the Cubans in the week after 9/11.
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Peter Lapp: She stated “if the Cubans asked me to provide them with intelligence about what we were doing in Afghanistan, I absolutely would have done that. And if men and women were killed as a result of my intelligence in Afghanistan,” she advised us,”that’s the risk that they took.”
Cecilia Vega: What was the extent of the injury that she did?
Peter Lapp: I do assume she’s in that tier of a few of the most infamous spies in American historical past and I believe the injury that she did was extremely vital.
After serving 20 years in federal jail, Ana Montes was launched in January 2023. She’s now dwelling in Puerto Rico the place she has household and has been celebrated by some as a hero…seen right here not too long ago receiving an award from supporters. Through a lawyer, Montes declined our request for an interview.
Last month, former ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha advised a choose he was deeply sorry and pleaded responsible to performing as an agent of the Cuban authorities. At age 73, he was sentenced to 15 years in jail and is presently cooperating with investigators. Just what number of state secrets he gave to Cuba, we might by no means know. Nearly all the particulars of his spy craft stay labeled.
Ana Montes has but to publicly categorical any regret.
Cecilia Vega: Do you assume there are different Ana Monteses in the authorities proper now?
Peter Lapp: Oh, completely. Absolutely.
Cecilia Vega: That’s chilling.
Peter Lapp: There’s little doubt that the Cubans and the Russians and others– are nonetheless penetrating our authorities with people who are loyal to them and never to us.
Produced by Michael Rey. Associate producers, Jaime Woods and Kit Ramgopal. Broadcast affiliate, Katie Jahns. Edited by Joe Schanzer.
