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Investigators alerted spy for Russia in the FBI to another working for Castro in the Pentagon. Look at Castro spies in the CIA, USAID, and the State Department
Spies for the Castro regime have worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency in the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the State Department. These spies have gotten American soldiers killed in foreign lands, shaped U.S. foreign policy, and written threat assessments of hostile countries underestimating the dangers they pose to the United States. Some of them have been spies working for the Castro regime.
Spy for the Castro dictatorship Ana Belen Montes in prison
Journalist Shane Harris published the article, "FBI alerted notorious spy for Russia to another working for Cuba," in The Washington Post on November 30, 2022. In it he revealed that when FBI agents "were closing in on Ana Montes, one reported the espionage investigation to Robert Hanssen," an FBI agent who was spying for Russia. Ana Belen Montes was arrested on September 21, 2001, and made a plea deal that took the death penalty and life in prison off the table. She is serving a 25 year prison sentence that will be followed by five years probation.
The September 30th Washington Post article outlines some of the intelligence harm done by Ana Belen Montes, but leaves out the cost in lives, including the killing of an American green beret, due to the information she passed on to the Castro regime.
"[O]n March 31, 1987, Special Forces SSG Greg Fronius was killed in action in El Paraiso, El Salvador when guerrilla forces from the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) attacked the Salvadoran base during an early morning attack. Fronius was 27 at the time of his death and left behind a wife and two small children." ... "Fronius graduated from the Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC) as an Engineer Sergeant (18C) and was assigned to the 2nd Bn, 7th SFG(A) from 1983-85. In 1985, he was reassigned to 3/7 SFG in Panama. There, in early 1987 he was sent to El Salvador as Intelligence Sergeant assigned to the Military Advisory Group. The 4th Brigade Headquarters in El Paraiso, 36 miles north of the capital of San Salvador had two American advisors assigned but at the time of the attack, Fronius was alone, his counterpart was in the capital getting some equipment and was scheduled to fly out in a helicopter the next day.""The guerrillas launched a coordinated assault beginning at 2 a.m. on the morning of March 31. They had concentrated mortar and rocket fire that targeted the major headquarters buildings. It was later learned that they were helped by DIA agent and double agent spy Ana Montes. Montes was considered an up and coming agent for DIA but in reality, she had defected and was spying for Cuba. She visited the El Paraiso base just weeks before the attack and debriefed the Americans there, and later fed the information directly to her Cuban handlers who passed it on to the FMLN. She was directly implicated in Fronius’ death."
"The base at El Paraiso held 1000 troops but at the time of the attack on March 31, only 250 were on site. The remainder were out on different operations. It was during the attack where Montes treachery paid off for the FMLN. Their mortar and rocket fire was extremely accurate, nearly all of the headquarters buildings were either destroyed or severely damaged.""Casualties were high, 69 El Salvadoran soldiers were killed, another 79 were wounded. FMLN casualties were probably even higher. Once the attack commenced, Fronius was in the command bunker under the HQ building and he sprinted up the stairs to reach an M-60 machine gun position that was engaging FMLN troops that were inside the compound. With complete disregard for his own safety, he took off, going up the steps, when a rocket or mortar shell perforated the corrugated tin roofing of the stairs and the explosion killed Fronius. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star and promoted to Sergeant First Class (E-7) The language lab at Ft. Bragg was named in honor of him in 1997."
"In 1998 the Defense Department released a high-profile report claiming that Cuba posed no military threat to the U.S. It discounted risks that Cuba was developing chemical and biological weaponry. Ms. Montes was the key drafter of that report, which means not only that it is pretty much useless to U.S. intelligence but that it may have contained disinformation damaging to U.S. security interests"
"Marta Rita Velazquez was a high-flying lawyer born in Puerto Rico with an impressive collection of degrees: an undergraduate at Princeton, a law degree from Georgetown, and a Master’s from Johns Hopkins. By 1989, Velazquez had joined the State Department with top-secret clearance. Stints at US embassies in Nicaragua and Guatemala followed. So why quit and run? Velazquez disappeared in 2013 after reports that Ana Montes (above) was cooperating with the US government. According to the FBI, Velazquez conspired to recruit US spies for Cuba while still a student. She allegedly received instructions from Cuban intelligence through encrypted, high-frequency broadcasts and meetings outside the US. Was Montes her only recruit? Velazquez, married and living in Sweden, hasn’t returned to the US tell her side of the story."
Marta Rita Velazquez (right) is accused of Ivy League spying (Source:Spyscape)
Mary O'Grady reveals in her May 10, 2020 column in The Wall Street Journal, "How Cuba’s Spies Keep Winning,“ that "'the Cubans were underestimated for more than a quarter of a century,' former CIA Cuba analyst Brian Latell wrote in his 2012 book, Castro’s Secrets. The U.S. thought it was dealing with 'bush-league amateurs' until Florentino Aspillaga Lombard, a highly decorated Cuban agent, defected in 1987. That’s when the U.S. began to understand that Castro’s Cuba had 'developed a foreign intelligence service that quickly rose into the ranks of the half dozen best in the world.' Moreover, 'in some covert specialties, particularly in running double agents and counterintelligence,' over decades, Mr. Latell wrote, 'Cuba’s achievements have been unparalleled.'"
Other Americans who betrayed their country to spy for the Castro dictatorship
This also ignores that Cuban spies successfully outmaneuvered the KGB in recruiting the first CIA defector during the Cold War. This first American defector was Philip Agee who died in Cuba in 2008 at age 72. He defected to Cuba in 1973 after the Russians failed to recruit him and made public the identities of 250 alleged CIA officers and agents. It was the Cubans, not the KGB, who successfully recruited him. Policymakers have a long history of underestimating the Castro brothers, which has benefited and continues to benefit the dictatorship in Havana.
Philipp Agee: CIA agent flipped by Castro in 1973
Walter Kendall Myers and his wife Gwendolyn spent thirty years spying against the United States for Fidel Castro. Kendall Myers was a high-ranking analyst for the U.S. State Department with top-secret clearancewho had been recruited in 1978 by Cuban intelligence. His wife would pass her husband's acquired information on to their Cuban contacts. Kendall Myers was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison and his wife got a shorter sentence in 2010.
Walter Kendall Meyers is serving a life sentence for spying for the Castro regime.
This is not an exhaustive accounting, but highlights major cases. Ana Belen Montes is due to be released in 2023.
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