Brian Latell, author of Castro's Secrets: Cuban Intelligence, the CIA, and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, offers new revelations about convicted Cuban spy Ava Montes in a piece for the Miami Herald.
For 16 years, Ana Belen Montes spied for Cuba from increasingly responsible positions at the Defense Intelligence Agency. If Havana has ever run a higher level or more valuable mole inside the American defense establishment, that has never been revealed.
When she was arrested in late September 2001, Montes was about the equivalent in rank of a colonel. She had access to sensitive compartmented intelligence. Strangely, for one so openly enamored of Fidel Castro, her superiors considered her one of the best Cuba analysts anywhere in government.
Despite the importance of her case, some of the most tantalizing questions about her spying have never been publicly answered.
Could the calamity of her treason have been avoided? What was learned about Cuban intelligence tradecraft? How was she discovered? And, of enduring concern, did she work with other American spies thus far undetected or not prosecuted?
Thanks to researcher Jeffrey Richelson and the National Security Archive, new light has finally been shed on the Montes case. Because of their efforts, a 180 page study completed by the Department of Defense Inspector General in 2005 has recently been declassified. It is heavily redacted; many pages, including the CIA’s extensive comments, blacked out. Yet, a quantity of surprising new details are now on the public record.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/02/4267428/new-revelations-about-cuban-spy.html
You can also read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of Scott Carmichael's book on Montes, called True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes,Cuba's Master Spy via the below links:
http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/TrueBSpyReview1JPG.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/TrueBSpyReview2JPG.jpg
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