The education system in Cuba: curriculum politicized, dissent punished, and systemic censorship

Time to set the record straight on education in Cuba 
 

Students entering the University of Havana

Amnesty Global Insights on August 28, 2017 reported on how the internet is controlled and censored in Cuba, but then makes an assertion on the Cuban education system that many Cubans familiar with what existed before and after the Castro Revolution of 1959 would dispute and that is that the current dictatorship has had "achievements in education" citing that "UNESCO and UNICEF have commended Cuba’s educational achievements. Students from across the Caribbean, particularly medical students, graduate from its universities yearly." The Castro regime's diplomats have been very active in both UN organizations and impacted on their reporting. Meanwhile foreign students who studied in Cuba have not been sufficiently prepared to pass their medical license exams. In Pakistan, Cuban trained doctors are demanding an exemption from medical licensing exams to practice medicine there.

The Slovak-based People in Peril conducted a study between 2005 and 2006 that generated a 77 page analysis, What is the future of education in Cuba?,  that a decade a go found an educational system in ruins . Eliska Slavikova of People in Peril interviewed by El Nuevo Herald on October 23, 2007 observed ''Cuban education is destroyed, with grave problems like the deterioration of the schools, the predominance of ideology over teaching  and the bad preparation of teachers.'' The study made the following findings:

• There's been a ''pronounced'' departure of teachers to other jobs because of low salaries and the lack of social recognition.
• Many teachers also left their jobs because of the government's growing ideological pressures. The primary objective of education is the formation of future revolutionary communists.
• The great majority of schools lack the equipment and installations needed to provide a good education.
• High school graduates have been put to teach after only an eight-month special course. But much of the teaching now is done through educational TV channels.

A later analyses of Cuba's educational system in 2008 and more recently in 2015 arrived at the same conclusions on lack of quality, resources and continued politicization of the curriculum. Although Amnesty International mentions "people who have been expelled from university for accessing 'unapproved' information" there is no mention of students expelled and professors fired for their political views or familial ties to Cuban dissidents.

Clockwise: Harold Cepero, Sayli Navarro, David Mauri, Fếlix Yuniel, Karla Pérez,

Meanwhile at the University of Miami in the midst of a controversy where the Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies was shut down, all staff fired, and the director, Professor Jaime Suchlicki, apparently forced out on August 15, 2017 because the new president of the University of Miami Julio Frenk wanted to go in a different direction which involved engaging the Castro regime and shutting down a center of academic inquiry. The controversy led UM president Frenk to backpedal and pledge that ICCAS would be reopened and that there would be no institutional relationship with the Castro regime, although they already do exist in other departments.

Inside Higher Education in an article titled "A U.S. University Cuts Itself off From Cuba" quotes "Caleb Everett, a professor and the chair of the anthropology department" who said that  "we understand the dilemma that Frenk is facing in this kind of case where he has a very vocal minority that understandably has strong opinions on the matter. Our strong belief is that to move forward with Cuba from an academic perspective we need collaborative efforts."

This ignores that collaboration with the Cuban government has led in other universities with Cuban Studies self censoring to maintain the relationship with the dictatorship to have access the island compromising academic inquiry. Furthermore students have been targets of espionage and targeted for recruitment by Castro's intelligence service.

Dr. Carlos & Elsa Alvarez: Castro spies at FIU

Florida International University's Cuban Research Institute has had such a "collaborative" relationship in the past that generated bad press for the school. FIU Psychology professor Carlos Alvarez who was the associate professor for educational leadership and policy studies, and his wife Elsa Alvarez, counselor for the psychological services department at Florida International University were arrested by the FBI on January 6, 2006. Professor Alvarez conducted trips to Cuba with young professionals in the late 1990s in what was billed a conflict resolution project.  Carlos Alvarez was sentenced to five years in prison and Elsa Alvarez to three years in prison on February 28, 2007 for conspiring to act as unregistered Cuban agents spying on FIU students.

Casa Bacardi shut down at the University of Miami

UM Professor Everett would like to frame this discussion as a "vocal minority" in the community with "strong opinions" in order to not address the substance of the irregular manner in which ICCAS was shut down and the questions of academic freedom that were raised in the subsequent dialogue along with questions about the complete lack of academic freedom in Cuba and its links to the Cuban dictatorship's spying apparatus. At a time when American and Canadian diplomats have suffered hearing loss and brain damage in Cuba, due either to an attack or espionage gone wrong, these questions have new and urgent relevance as does the need for UM's the Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies to maintain its independence and ability to debunk the Castro regime's false narrative with serious scholarship. Both Amnesty International and Professor Everett should know better and not repeat the false narrative propagated by the Castro regime.

 

Pandora's Box 2015: Re-opening diplomatic relations with the Castro regime

"Reconciliation should be accompanied by justice, otherwise it will not last. While we all hope for peace it shouldn't be peace at any cost but peace based on principle, on justice." - Corazon Aquino

Castro state security chief Ramiro Valdez with Hugo Chavez in 2009 in Venezuela

Candice Malcolm, a columnist in the Toronto Sun, on February 27, 2015 in an essay titled "Troubling truths about Castro's Cuba" outlining the political, economic and security arguments against engaging with the Castro regime. Ms. Malcolm's essay highlighted a report that addressed present threats to Canada by Cuba such as:

Cuba also helps orchestrate an immigration fraud network that has smuggled radical Islamists into North America, as demonstrated in the Center for a Secure Free Society’s “Canada on Guard” report.

 The "Canada on Guard: Assessing the Immigration Security Threat of Iran, Venezuela and Cuba" report reveals that the Castro regime overhauled "the information systems of the Venezuelan passport and naturalization agency, formerly known as ONIDEX ( Oficina Nacional de Identificación y Extranjería)." In 2005 a new system was implemented and the final version of what is now called SAIME (Servicio Administrativo de Identificación Migración y Extranjería) that can store biometric data and has sophisticated security protocols came into effect in 2009. According to the above cited report this system:

  ..."facilitates the entry of Cuban agents into Venezuela, embedding themselves into various facets of the Venezuelan social missions and national security apparatus. Aside from Cubans, this group also used SAIME to facilitate the travel of Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO's), Colombian guerrillas, and Islamist terrorists."

Unfortunately the Obama Administration seems to be ignoring these unpleasant facts although it has applied an emergency order on Cuba to prevent democrats from engaging in nonviolent protests in territory north of Cuba.

Gerardo Hernandez, convicted of conspiracy to murder, honored by Raul Castro

 On December 17, 2014 President Obama commuted the sentences of three Cuban spies. One of them, Gerardo Hernandez, was serving a double life sentence for espionage and conspiracy to commit murder for his role in the deaths of four members of Brothers to the Rescue. Mr. Hernandez has announced that he is ready for his “next order” from the Castro regime. His last order involved first terrorizing and murdering by means of a mail bomb able to circumvent post office security protocols an individual the Castro regime had identified as a CIA agent living in Bal Harbour, Florida. Hernandez and the other spies were unable to execute that order because they were arrested in 1998. Fidel Castro himself has explained that intelligence gathering can be done through the Lourdes spy base. Castro regime agents are engaged in active measures.Considering this what could this "next order" involve?  Here are just three out of many more options taken from newspaper headlines over  the past three years.

Cyber Terror
In 2012 there were reports in the media of Cuban, Iranian and Venezuelan officials meeting in Mexico to discuss cyber attacks on U.S. soil this allegedly also involved seeking information about nuclear power plants in the United States. Little information emerged afterwards. 

Smuggling arms out of Cuba to a sanctioned country
In 2013 Panama captured a North Korean-flagged ship traveling from Cuba with undeclared military cargo headed to North Korea in violation of international sanctions. The Castro regime did not cooperate with the 2014 UN investigation and systematically lied about the weapons and circumstances surrounding the smuggling operation.

Smuggling weapons into Cuba 
Today, March 2, 2015 the news broke that the government of Colombia had seized a shipment of ammunition bound for Cuba on a China-flagged ship due to lack of proper documentation.

Despite all the above the Obama administration hopes to re-open the US embassy in Cuba  within weeks. This also means that the Castro regime's embassy would be fully active in the United States allowing its espionage networks greater reach for mischief. Considering that just one of these spy networks, the WASP network, planned terrorist acts on US soil and had a member convicted of murder conspiracy that led to the deaths of three U.S. citizens and a U.S. resident should be cause for concern. Returning a spy that planned terrorism in the US and contributed to the deaths of Americans to Cuba to a heroes welcome should be cause for moral outrage. This is not reconciliation. This is a dishonorable version of appeasement.

5+5 = 5: Castro's Orwellian Efforts to Rewrite WASP Spy Network

Ten spies that were captured and charged back in 1998 not five, but for the Castro regime the five that pled guilty and became witnesses for the prosecution are unpersons. They no longer exist in the official discourse of the dictatorship. They have been erased. As have the consequences of other Cuban intelligence operations on United States territory.

Alejandro Alonso, Linda Hernandez, Nilo Hernandez Mederos pled guilty and were all sentenced to seven years in prison. Joseph Santos Cecilia pled guilty and was sentenced to four years in prison and Amarylis Silverio Garcia de Santos pled guilty and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

The Cuban "WASP" spies arrested in 1998 used coded material on computer disks to communicate with other members of the spy network. From the 1,300 pages taken from those diskettes translated and used during the spy trial the criminal and terrorist nature of the Cuban regime's operation in South Florida emerges. The networks primary objective was "penetrating and obtaining information on the naval station located in that city." Intelligence operatives communicated about "burning down the warehouse" that housed the nonviolent organization Brothers to the Rescue and sabotaging their equipment. The spies also helped to identify who would be flying at certain times.

In addition the spies were ordered to prepare a "book bomb" so that it evade post office security while at the same time phoning death threats to a man they described as a CIA agent and then having him killed via the mail bomb.

The seriousness of these planned action items would be confirmed by the February 24, 1996 shoot down where two MiGs hunted Brothers to the Rescue planes in international airspace and used air to air missiles to destroy two of the planes killing two pilots and two passengers based on intelligence supplied by the WASP network.

International organizations recognized that Armando Alejandre, Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales were murdered by agents of the Cuban government on February 24, 1996. The first of the participants in the conspiracy to be held accountable for his actions was Gerardo Hernandez who was sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy to commit murder. 

What was broken up in South Florida on September 12, 1998 was a terror spy network with plans to damage property and kill persons with the objective of planting terror. The network achieved part of their objective in providing information that led to four extrajudicial killings. George Orwell could have cited the so-called "Cuban Five" campaign as an example of newspeak on the order of "War is Peace" only that it in this case the Castro regime declares "Terrorism is Anti-Terrorism" "Lies are Truth"and "Terrorists are Heroes." 

Meanwhile in Cuba, Lady in White, Sonia Garro, and her husband, Ramon Munoz, after being imprisoned without charges since March 18, 2012 now face a show trial and 12 and 14 year prison sentences respectively. 

Truth and reconciliation also requires a measure of justice and agreement on the facts. Imprisoning nonviolent activists while celebrating terrorists as heroes are just two of many signs that the current dictatorship in Cuba is a long ways away from that.

Underestimating the Castro Brothers: The Ana Belen Montes Affair

The Washington Post Magazine artwork on Ana Belen Montes

Over the past five years when discussing the intelligence threat the dictatorship in Cuba presents to the United States on this blog one name time and time again emerges and that is Ana Belen Montes. She worked in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and spied for the Castro dictatorship from 1984 until her arrest in September of 2001. Nevertheless, when the average well informed person is asked about her nine times out of ten no one has heard of her. She is not the only one, another was Walter Kendall Myers, who had an important post in the State Department. There is also an ongoing case of amnesia with regards to the Castro regime's history of terrorism.

Hopefully that will now change. Two events took place over the past two weeks. First, the Washington Post published an extensive article on her and highlight the impact she had on U.S. security:

Like Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen before her, Ana Montes blindsided the intelligence community with brazen acts of treason. By day, she was a buttoned-down GS-14 in a Defense Intelligence Agency cubicle. By night, she was on the clock for Fidel Castro, listening to coded messages over shortwave radio, passing encrypted files to handlers in crowded restaurants and slipping undetected into Cuba wearing a wig and clutching a phony passport.

Montes spied for 17 years, patiently, methodically. She passed along so many secrets about her colleagues — and the advanced eavesdropping platforms that American spooks had covertly installed in Cuba — that intelligence experts consider her among the most harmful spies in recent memory. 

Secondly who and how Ana Belen Montes was recruited finally became public. She was recruited by Marta Rita Velazquez, once a legal officer at the Agency for International Development (AID). Rita Velazquez fled to Sweden, a neutral country, where she married a Swedish Foreign Ministry insider.

Kendall Myers spied for Castro at State Department

Montes at the DIA, Rita Velazquez at AID, Kendall Myers at the State Department and lets not forget that the Cubans also had CIA defector Philip Agee also working for them. Agee defected and died in Cuba of old age. Some experts have come to understand how deep and comprehensive the Cuban infiltration of the United States government has been and are justifiably alarmed.

Philip Agee spied for Castro at the CIA

This should not have been a surprise. The Cuban dictatorship beginning in 1959 invited the most effective intelligence agency of the Warsaw Pact, the East German Stasi to train and structure its intelligence service. The Stasi also effectively infiltrated the West German government and assassinated defectors in West Germany.

Underestimating the Castro brothers can have catastrophic consequences for the United States. Lets not forget that at least one American soldier has been identified who was killed thanks to the intelligence provided by Ana Belen Montes to the Castro regime.

Montes received a certificate of distinction from CIA Director George Tenet in 1997. (Defense Intelligence Agency)

Cuba: A Forum on Human Rights Pt. 2

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

While discussing the human rights situation in Cuba and the totalitarian regime that has ruled over the island for the past 54 years it is also important to mention its impact on human rights and political stability outside of the island. The Cuban government has had close relationships with major international drug traffickers and Cuba has served as a transhipment point to the United States.



During the Vietnam War, the Cuban government sent advisers to Vietnam who tortured U.S. prisoners of war between 1967 and 1969 in what became known as The Cuban Program in an effort to demonstrate to the Vietnamese how to most effectively break the will of American soldiers.

The Cuban government also engaged in actions in Africa with close allies who have been tried in absentia for genocide and found guilty such as Ethiopia's Mengistu Haile Mariam in a slaughter in which the Castro brothers were also complicit.

On March 1, 1982 the Cuban dictatorship was placed on the list of state sponsors of terrorism less than three months after the US State Department confirmed that the Castro regime was using a narcotics ring to funnel both arms and cash to the Colombian M19 terrorist group then battling to overthrow Colombia’s democratic government. 

Unfortunately, there is plenty of evidence that demonstrates that as early as the 1960s and up to the present date that the dictatorship in Cuba has been and remains a state sponsor of terrorism. International terrorists such as Carlos the Jackal were not only inspired by Fidel Castro but also trained by Cuban government agents and later defended by close allies such as Hugo Chavez.

The Cuban government's state security service in addition to monitoring and terrorizing Cubans in the island has also been successful overseas in penetrating U.S. intelligence agencies, the State Department, and has spied on U.S. military installations.

Ana Belen Montes was a high ranking analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, the military version of the CIA, who drafted the report that provided an assessment of the threat that Cuba poises to the United States. She also had access to intelligence on Latin America that she passed along to her Cuban handlers that led to the death of at least one American on March 31, 1987 and his name was Gregory A. Fronius. The FBI arrested her on September 20, 2001 before they could identify and capture her Cuban handlers because in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks they feared that the intelligence that she would provide Cuba could end up in the hands of the Taliban or Al Qaeda. 

Montes had been a spy for the Cuban government since 1984. She had drawn attention to herself during the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown and that prompted the investigation that led to her downfall. 


 
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 clearance who 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.

The CIA's first defector was Philip Agee who died in Cuba in 2008 at the age of 72. He had defected to Cuba in 1973 and made public the identity of 250 alleged CIA officers and agents.  It was the Cubans and not the KGB who had successfully recruited him.

The Cuban government infiltrated a network of spies into the United States that it called the WASP network with the objective of spying on U.S. military installations, spying on Cuban exiles, identifying locations to store weapons and explosives on U.S. territory and planned to first terrorize then assassinate a man they identified as a CIA agent living in Bal Harbour, Florida using a mail bomb. They had a role in the February 24, 1996 shoot down and the head of the spy network was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder for his role in the death of the four men who had been killed.

Despite this repressive machinery there are Cubans who nonviolently and in a transparent manner have confronted this brutal dictatorship and are risking their lives today for a free Cuba tomorrow.

Castro's American Terrorist? Marilyn Buck bombed the US Capitol in 1983 celebrated by Cuban media in 2010

“When you feel you have right on your side, you can do some pretty horrific things.”
- Brian Flanagan, former Weathermen member

Marilyn Buck: Terrorist & Political Prisoner died this past Tuesday

The three men she murdered in pursuit of her revolutionary political agenda on October 20, 1981 from left to right: Edward O'Grady, Waverly "Chipper" Brown, and Peter Paige.

At the same time that the Cuban dictatorship is protesting the Obama Administration designating it a state sponsor of state terrorism it is engaging in behavior that reaffirms the correctness of that designation. First, Radio Havana Cuba published an article online titled "Political Activist Marilyn Buck Dies at 62" in which it referred to Marilyn Buck as an "activist and former political prisoner" . In reality she was a violent leftist who bombed the U.S. Capitol in 1983 to protest the Grenada Invasion, and on October 20, 1981 as part of a group of Weather Underground and Black Liberation Army members assaulted a Brink’s armored car carrying 1.6 million in Nanuet, NY. Buck was a member of the Black Liberation Army. Two police officers and a guard were murdered in the course of the armed robbery and during the get away. She also pleaded guilty to the bombing of the US Capitol in 1988. Marilyn Buck argued then and would continue to argue that she was a political prisoner and not a terrorist. Amnesty International defines a political prisoner as follows:

"Any prisoner whose case has a significant political element: whether the motivation of the prisoner's acts, the acts themselves, or the motivation of the authorities."

The truth is one can be both a political prisoner and a terrorist and the late Marilyn Buck was an example. Ms. Buck however was not a prisoner of conscience. Creating and participating in a clandestine revolutionary group with the objective of violently overthrowing the government using bombings, armed bank robberies, and gun battles to create a climate of terror to achieve that end is both political and terrorist. The problem is that most people confuse the term political prisoner with prisoner of conscience. Amnesty International defines a prisoner of conscience as:

"Any person who is physically restrained (by imprisonment or otherwise) from expressing (in any form of words or symbols) any opinion which he honestly holds and which does not advocate or condone personal violence."

According to a 2004 report from the University of Miami’s Institute of Cuban and Cuban-American Studies the Cuban intelligence services became involved with African-Americans in the U.S. and with the Macheteros, a Puerto Rican terrorist group. Particular attention was placed in providing aid and training both the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army, as well as creating a safe haven in Cuba for fugitive members of these organizations. In a previous posting the links between the Cuban dictatorship and the Macheteros were explored.

Below is an excerpt of the 1982 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) documentary The KGB Connections that also discusses the relationship between the Cuban intelligence services and another domestic terrorist organization, The Weather Underground, which also sought the violent overthrow of the United States government and its replacement with a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship:

Secondly, the Cuban dictatorship has mounted an international campaign for the so-called Cuban Five and have the chutzpah to describe them as "anti-terrorists." Recently the dictatorship had been complaining about the treatment of Gerardo Hernandez. This so-called "anti-terrorist" had participated in an act of state-terrorism on orders from Havana that led to the deaths of three US citizens and one resident on February 24, 1996 and is currently serving a life sentence for conspiracy to commit murder. These Cuban agents had also spied on US military facilities, gathered personal information on personnel and were also reporting on the best entry points for smuggling high explosives into Florida. Taking into account that these agents work for a regime that published and distributed in various languages a manual on urban guerrilla warfare with a chapter lauding terrorism as a valid tactic along with its well documented links to US based terrorist groups should raise concerns.

Unfortunately, Marilyn Buck is not alone her friends and colleagues have a website dedicated to her and continue to defend her actions. They've taken her prison writings and poetry and put it to music. Some of it has found its way on to you-tube such as this performance from December 5, 2006 at the Tom Manning Art Opening in Cambridge Massachusetts:

Sadly, the terrorist is remembered fondly by the above activists but what about her victims? Whats even more disturbing is to learn that City College in New York City allowed its campus center to be named after two colleagues of Marilyn Buck: Guillermo Morales and Assata Shakur. Both are fugitives from justice living in Cuba responsible for killing American citizens in acts of revolutionary terrorism. Assata Shakur otherwise known as Joanne Chesimard is there thanks to Marilyn Buck's assistance. Thankfully, when the New York Daily News exposed the shameful honoring of terrorists the sign was taken down. Hopefully one day this insane belief that terror and violence can produce something positive will finally end. Mohandas Gandhi was write when he observed: “They say, 'means are, after all, means'. I would say, 'means are, after all, everything'. As the means so the end...”

Marilyn Buck died of uterine cancer at the age of 62 at her Brooklyn home but let us also remember the lives she caught short in the name of a failed revolutionary ideology she wanted to impose on Americans via bombs and guns there names were: Edward O'Grady, Waverly "Chipper" Brown, and Peter Paige.

Edward O'Grady was a native of Nyack and a graduate of Nyack High School before enlisting in the United States Marine Corps. He was a long time member of the Jackson Hose Company # 3, a unit of the Nyack Volunteer Fire Department, as was his father before him. At the time of his death, Edward left behind his wife Diane and three children, a son Edward, Jr., age six, and two daughters Patricia, age two and Kimberly, age 6 months. O'Grady's daughter Kim is getting married next week, but thanks to Marilyn Buck her father will not be there to walk her down the aisle.

Waverly Brown had a seventeen year-old son and two grown daughters. He had a girlfriend in Nyack (Brown was separated from his wife). His mother, Dorothy DeLoatch, lived in Lawrenceville, Virginia, the small southern town where she was born sixty-seven years before the robbery. Brown liked to help out with the garden whenever he visited her. She had a small vegetable garden in which she grew corn, peas, lettuce and squash. Today, Waverly's son Gregory carries on his father's tradition as a police officer with the United States Postal Police.

Peter Paige began his employment with the Brinks Corporation as a guard in 1956. Never a stranger to hard work, he served Brink's loyally for 25 years until his untimely death in 1981. At the time of his death at age 49, Paige left behind a wife Josephine, a daughter Susan, (19) and two sons Michael (16) and Peter (9). He was also survived by six brothers and sisters.

A scholarship fund has been set up in memory of the two slain police officers.

May all her victims rest in peace, and may the regime in Cuba stop sponsoring, sheltering, and training terrorists.

Something was (is?) Rotten at Foggy Bottom

Ana Belen Montes spied for decades at the Defense Intelligence Agency for the Cuban regime and Walter Kendall Myers for 30 years did the same at the State Department despite Cuba's status as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Walter Kendally Myers & Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers
Spies for the totalitarian dictatorship in Cuba

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

Friday, July 16, 2010

Former State Department Official Sentenced to Life in Prison for Nearly 30-year Espionage Conspiracy

Wife of Official Sentenced to Nearly Seven Years in Prison for Her Role

WASHINGTON -- Walter Kendall Myers, a former State Department official, and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and 81 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in a nearly 30-year conspiracy to provide highly-classified U.S. national defense information to the Republic of Cuba.

The sentences, handed down today by Judge Reggie B. Walton in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, were announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Shawn Henry, Assistant Director for the FBI’s Washington Field Office; and Ambassador Eric J. Boswell, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security.

On Nov. 20, 2009, defendant Kendall Myers, 73, aka “Agent 202,” pleaded guilty to a three-count criminal information charging him with conspiracy to commit espionage and two counts of wire fraud. His wife, Gwendolyn Myers, 72, aka “Agent 123,” and “Agent E-634,” pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information charging her with conspiracy to gather and transmit national defense information. The defendants, both residents of Washington, D.C., were arrested on June 4, 2009, by FBI agents and have remained in custody ever since.

Both defendants have agreed to the entry of a monetary judgment against them in the amount of $1,735,054. The assets that will be forfeited to the government towards satisfaction of that judgment include the proceeds from the sale of the defendants’ apartment and vehicle, and various bank and investment accounts.

“For nearly 30 years, this couple proudly committed espionage on behalf of a long-standing foreign adversary. Today, they are being held accountable for their actions. Their sentences should serve as a clear warning to others who would willingly compromise our nation’s most sensitive classified information,” said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

“Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were brought to justice not because they were careless, but because of an extremely well-planned and executed counterintelligence investigation that required the unprecedented cooperation of multiple agencies of the U.S. government tasked with protecting our national security,” said Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. “Others like the Myers who are presently betraying the trust that this country has placed in them should know that they are not safe from prosecution regardless of how careful they think they are being. As with Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers, they will be caught and brought to justice.”

Shawn Henry, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said: “The Myers made a conscious decision to betray the United States and its citizens. The FBI, along with its partners in the U.S. Intelligence Community, will continue to aggressively pursue anyone who seeks to cause the same harm.”

“Walter Kendall Myers betrayed his country. By committing acts of espionage Myers grievously violated the confidence placed in him by the U.S. Department of State and the American people. Today, he has been rightfully sentenced for crimes against our nation,” said Assistant Secretary for State for Diplomatic Security Eric J. Boswell.

Background

According to the sentencing memorandum, plea agreements and other documents filed in court by the United States:

Kendall Myers began working at the State Department in 1977 as a contract instructor at the Department’s Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in Arlington, Va. After living briefly with Gwendolyn in South Dakota, he returned to Washington, D.C., and resumed employment as an instructor with FSI. From 1988 to 1999, in addition to his FSI duties, he performed work for the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). He later worked full-time in INR and, from July 2001 until his retirement in October 2007, was an intelligence analyst for Europe in INR where he specialized on European matters and had daily access to classified information through computer databases and otherwise. He received a “Top Secret” security clearance in 1985 and, in 1999, received access to “Sensitive Compartmental Information.”

Gwendolyn Myers moved to Washington, D.C., in 1980 and married Kendall Myers in May 1982. She later obtained employment with a local bank as an administrative analyst and later as a special assistant. Gwendolyn Myers was never granted a security clearance by the U.S. government.

Recruitment

In December 1978, while an employee of the State Department’s FSI, Kendall Myers traveled to Cuba after being invited by a Cuban government official who had made a presentation at FSI. That Cuban official was an intelligence officer for the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS). This trip provided CuIS with the opportunity to assess or develop Myers as a Cuban agent. Myers kept a diary of his two-week trip to Cuba in which he explicitly declared his affinity for Fidel Castro and the Cuban government. The diary was recovered by the FBI in the investigation.

In 1979, Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were visited in South Dakota by the same Cuban intelligence officer who had invited Kendall Myers to Cuba. During the visit, the Cuban intelligence officer recruited both of them to be clandestine agents for Cuba, a role in which they served for the next 30 years. Their recruitment by CuIS as “paired” agents is consistent with CuIS’s past practice in the United States. Afterwards, CuIS directed Kendall Myers to pursue a job at the State Department or the CIA to gain access to classified information. Kendall Myers, accompanied by his wife, returned to Washington, D.C., where he pursued a position at the State Department.

During the time frame in which Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were serving as clandestine agents for Cuba, the CuIS often communicated with its clandestine agents in the United States by broadcasting encrypted radio messages from Cuba on shortwave radio frequencies. Clandestine agents in the United States monitoring the frequency on shortwave radio could decode the messages using a decryption program provided by CuIS. Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers communicated with CuIS by this method. The shortwave radio they used to receive clandestine communications was purchased with money provided by CuIS. The shortwave radio was later recovered by the FBI.

Undercover Operation

According to the court documents, in April 2009, the FBI launched an undercover operation against the pair. Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers met four times with an undercover FBI source, on April 15^th, 16^th and 30^th, and on June 4, 2009. The meetings were all video- and audio-taped.

During the meetings, Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers made a series of statements about their past activities on behalf of CuIS, including how they used code names and how they had transmitted information to their CuIS handlers through personal meetings, “dead drops,” “hand-to-hand” passes, and in at least one case, the exchange of shopping carts in a grocery store. The couple also stated that they had traveled to meet Cuban agents in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina and other locations.

When asked by the undercover FBI agent if he had ever transmitted information to CuIS that was classified higher than “Secret,” Kendall Myers replied, “oh yeah…oh yeah.” He said he typically removed information from the State Department by memory or by taking notes, although he did take some classified documents home. Gwendolyn Myers admitted she would process the classified documents at home for delivery to their CuIS handlers. In the final meeting with the FBI source, Kendall Myers disclosed “Top Secret” national defense information related to sources and methods of gathering intelligence. He also admitted that he had previously disclosed the information to CuIS.

Corroboration

The admissions by Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were corroborated by other evidence collected in the investigation. The FBI seized a shortwave radio in their apartment and confirmed overseas trips by the couple that corresponded to statements they made. The FBI also identified encrypted shortwave radio messages between CuIS and a handler for the couple that were broadcast in 1996 and 1997.

Furthermore, an analysis of Kendall Myers’ State Department computer revealed that, from August 22, 2006, until his retirement on Oct. 31, 2007, he viewed more than 200 intelligence reports concerning the subject of Cuba. Of these reports concerning Cuba, the majority was classified and marked “Secret” or “Top Secret.” The FBI also located handwritten notes by Kendall Myers reflecting the gathering and retention of “Top Secret” information which he intended to provide the CuIS, but never did.

Finally, since at least 1983 and until 2007, Kendall Myers made repeated false statements to government investigators responsible for conducting background investigations which determined his continued suitability for a “Top Secret” security clearance. By not disclosing his and his wife’s clandestine activity on behalf of CuIS and by making false statements to the State Department about their status as clandestine Cuban agents, he defrauded the United States whenever he received his government salary. Based on these false representations and promises, Kendall Myers obtained at least $1,735,054 in salary from the U.S. government for the benefit of him and his wife.

This investigation was conducted jointly by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The prosecution was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney G. Michael Harvey, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, and Senior Trial Attorney Clifford I. Rones, from the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/July/10-ag-825.html