The secretive story of the ‘Queen of Cuba’ | It all started with a dinner in 1984, and for years no one even heard about it
Ana Montes, the Cuban intelligence officer who caused the most damage to US military intelligence in history, has been released after 22 years in captivity. According to US officials, Montes, the Cuban intelligence officer who exposed Washington’s intelligence operations in Cuba and even managed to win an award from the head of the CIA, is the spy who did the most damage to the United States! Here is the story of the most famous intelligence officer of the Cold War era…
Ana Belen Montes, one of the most famous intelligence officers of the Cold War era, was released last week after more than 20 years in prison.
Montes, 65, was the top military and political analyst on Cuba at the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) when she was arrested in 2001.
Montes, who grew up during the Cold War and closely followed the wars and military operations in Latin America, had begun to react to US activities on the continent during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, becoming closer to Cuba and cooperating with its intelligence agencies.
DAUGHTER OF A FAMILY THAT EMIGRATED TO PORTO RICO
In roughly 17 years, Montes revealed the identities of at least four US officers operating secretly in Cuba, providing the Cubans with secret photos and documents related to US intelligence. During this period, all US operations in Latin America were exposed one by one. One of them was about a bugging technology secretly planted in Cuba.
Born in Nuremberg, West Germany, in 1957, Montes was the son of a family that had emigrated to Puerto Rico from Spain many years earlier.
Montes graduated from the University of Virginia in 1979 with a degree in International Relations, followed by a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Advanced International Studies. He joined the DIA in 1985 and quickly rose through the ranks to become the agency’s top Cuba analyst.
But how did such an “intelligence disaster” happen in the heart of the United States, which prides itself on having the best intelligence services in the world? How did Montes, who resembled the famous spy Mata Hari, manage to keep a low profile for years?
‘THE SPY WHO DID THE MOST DAMAGE TO THE US’
“For conspiracy to commit espionage” After 22 years in prison, Montes was released last Friday from federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas.
This development has once again brought Montes’ story and the devastation he wrought into the public spotlight.
Montes, who, according to US officials at the time, blew the whistle on almost all of Washington’s intelligence operations in Cuba to Havana, earned a reputation as “the most damaging of all the spies captured by the United States.”
In fact, Michelle Van Cleave, who was appointed Director of Counterintelligence by former President George W. Bush, told Congress in 2012 that Montes “was informing them of everything we knew about Cuba and how we were operating in Cuba.”
HE WAS ALMOST APPOINTED TO A CRITICAL POST AFTER 9/11
Montes was a highly talented woman. She was dubbed the “Queen of Cuba” for her in-depth analysis of Latin America and Cuba, and was considered a unique treasure in the secret service where she worked.
Agent Steve McCoy, who was the first to suspect the Cuban Queen, and FBI special agent Pete Lapp, who was part of the investigation team, expressed great disappointment after Montes’ release.
Lapp said, “It hurts me that Montes is free. Because we were really surprised when we uncovered, one by one, the activities that led to his 25-year prison sentence,” Lapp said.
Lapp pointed out that Montes, who was placed under FBI surveillance in 2001, was at the time of his arrest about to be assigned to a position with access to the DIA’s Middle East desk, which had grown in importance in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
The details revealed in the investigation were quite remarkable. Montes, who had no ethnic ties to Cuba, did not sell the data he obtained for money. According to federal prosecutors, Montes had approached Cuba for purely ideological reasons.
HE SWITCHED SIDES AFTER THE EVENTS IN NICARAGUA
But what was the real reason that led Montes, who had been leaking information to Cuba for years, to work with another country?
In the 1970s and 80s, the most tense period of the Cold War, the US was known to support paramilitary forces against leftist governments in Latin America. Reacting to these activities of his country, Montes felt the need to take action.
In 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front FSLN overthrew Anastasio Somosa, a US ally in Central America, and entered the capital Managua. Washington, its plans in Latin America upset, deployed right-wing counter-guerrillas. The result was the civil war that turned Nicaragua into a bloodbath.
50,000 people lost their lives in the war. The poor Central American country of 4.5 million people was virtually destroyed.
HE CHOSE HIS SIDE AT A DINNER PARTY
Montes, who expressed his reaction to what was happening at every opportunity, was first approached by a fellow student at Johns Hopkins University, where he received his master’s degree in 1984.
After a bilateral meeting, the young Montes agreed to contact the Cuban intelligence service and was invited to a dinner in New York.
This dinner was an important turning point in the life of Montes, who agreed without hesitation to work with the Cubans to help Nicaragua. He was now a “high-level” intelligence source working for Cuba.
In 1992, Montes was selected for the DIA’s Exceptional Analyst Program and sent to Cuba to closely study the Cuban military, but contrary to popular belief, he was welcomed by the Cuban Intelligence Service.
Thanks to his work and the reports he sent to the Pentagon, he became one of the most authoritative figures on Cuba. He became so adept at his job that he even received an award for his achievements from CIA Director George Tenet.
COMMUNICATED VIA SHORTWAVE RADIO BROADCASTS
When Montes returned to Washington, he was highly praised by the DIA. After all, he had infiltrated and studied the enemy and had become an authority on Cuba with his important work.
Since the early 1990s, Montes had been working at the Cuban desk in Washington, D.C., passing on the intelligence he gathered from the inside to his Cuban intermediaries.
Montes met with his Cuban contacts irregularly at upscale restaurants in Washington, sending highly sensitive information to the intermediaries via pager. Cuban officials, in turn, relayed their orders to Montes through coded signals sent via shortwave radio transmissions.
Montes, who easily accessed all the requested information, waited for the deadline to be notified and delivered the diskettes carrying critical information to Cuban agents at subway stations or designated restaurants in Washington.
CAUGHT AFTER IT WAS REVEALED THAT HE HAD VISITED GUANTANAMO
However, Montes, whose political views were becoming increasingly prominent, became an outspoken critic of US policy in Latin America.
One night in 1996, Montes was called to the Pentagon to give her opinion on an international crisis. It was here that the young woman first aroused suspicion when she left her post and broke protocol.
At first, her colleagues only wanted Montes to be placed under surveillance. No one had any evidence that she had shared important information with foreign intelligence agencies.
Four years later, Scott Carmichael, the DIA’s counterintelligence officer, decided to act on FBI reports of a suspicion that the agency had an unidentified spy working for Cuba.
The investigation revealed that Montes had visited the US Navy’s naval base at Guantanamo Bay, despite being off duty. Carmichael, who examined the list of DIA employees who entered the base during the investigation, stated, “As soon as I saw Montes’ name, I realized that he was the source of the leak.”
ENCRYPTED MESSAGES DELIVERED VIA PAY PHONES
Carmichael and FBI agent Lapp then deepened their investigation to prove that the Queen of Cuba was indeed a spy.
Speaking to CNN, retired DIA official Chris Simmons said of the operation they launched at the time:
“The FBI went to work to catch Montes in the act of spying. His phones were tapped; he was under constant surveillance. Through an intensive surveillance process, the pattern of his process was uncovered. We determined that he was calling a number from a pay phone in the Washington area, and we traced the phone number.”
Simmons said that the number was connected to a pager in New York City, adding, “By tracing the signals he was sending, we were able to determine that he was working for the Cuban spy network.”
FBI agents then searched Montes’ home while he was out of town and found the shortwave radio he used to receive messages from Cuban officials.
The search also uncovered a piece of paper listing the code system Montes used to communicate with Cubans through pagers.
This allowed the FBI to decipher Montes’ secret messages to Cubans. In the operation that followed, Montes was detained.
I OBEYED MY CONSCIENCE, NOT THE LAW’
The investigation revealed that the young woman had worked under the influence of Cuban intelligence and had sent details of all operations in Cuba to Havana for more than 15 years.
Detained in 2001 and brought to trial in 2002, Montes told the judge who sentenced her to 25 years in prison, “I obeyed my conscience, not the law. I believe that the policies of our government towards Cuba and other Latin American countries are cruel and unjust:
“I believe that what is being done is contrary to neighborly relations, that it is wrong to try to impose our values and our political system on this island nation, and therefore I felt it was my conscience to help Cuba defend itself; I felt obliged to do so.”
The prosecutor’s office said that the information provided by the young woman had led to the disclosure of the identities of four US secret service officers working in Cuba and the disclosure of a large number of classified documents.
‘HE DID EVERYTHING HE COULD TO KILL AMERICANS IN THE WAR!
Simmons told CNN that the young woman also gave Cuba information about the location of US Special Forces in El Salvador, adding:
“She did everything she could to get Americans killed in the war. I believe she did it deliberately; that should outrage us all.”
Montes’ family members said they were ashamed of the woman, now 65. “She betrayed this country and our people. We continue to reject her actions and her person.”
But Montes’ example was not without its admirers, especially in Latin America.
A senior Cuban official said that Montes was an ideological ally and that the Cuban people were grateful that the young woman had prevented conflicts.
The secretive story of the ‘Queen of Cuba’ | It all started with a dinner in 1984, and for years no one even heard about it
Montes, who appeared in front of a judge in 2002, was making his defense in court…
5 YEARS PROBATION
The US public is now wondering what the agent, released after 22 years, will do next.
FBI agent Lapp, who was part of the team that captured Montes, told CBS News, “That chapter of his life is over. He did what he could for them. I can’t imagine him risking his freedom again after this.”
It was announced that the 65-year-old intelligence officer, who regained his freedom after a long prison term, will be under supervision for 5 years, all his communications will be closely monitored, he cannot hold public office and cannot meet with foreigners without permission.
Compiled from “Ana Montes, former U.S. intelligence analyst who spied for Cuba, is released” in The Washington Post and “The most dangerous U.S. spy you’ve never heard of” in CNN.
Photos: DIA, FBI, Montes Family
