OpenCDA

April 22, 2013

DGI It? Ana Montes Did…

Filed under: Probable Cause — Bill @ 9:58 am

montes-code copy

This past weekend the Washington Post Magazine published a lengthy and fascinating article about Ana Montes, a former (now incarcerated) spy for Cuba’s Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI – General Intelligence Directorate).   Montes is a US citizen whose personal ideology led her to become a spy for the DGI.

The WaPo Magazine article and the book mentioned in it, former DIA counterintelligence investigator Scott Carmichael’s book True Believer:  Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba’s Master Spy, give some insight into the world of human intelligence collection and  counterintelligence.

For example…

In only a few paragraphs the WaPo Magazine article talks about how the DGI populated certain US colleges and universities with spotters:

Sources close to the case think that a friend at SAIS [the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University] served as a facilitator for the Cubans, helping to identify potential spies. Cuba considers recruiting at American universities a “top priority,” according to former Cuban intelligence agent Jose Cohen, who wrote in an academic paper that the Cuban intelligence service identifies politically driven students at leading U.S. colleges who will “occupy positions of importance in the private sector and in the government.”

This may help to explain why in the late 1960’s – early 1970’s US military intelligence was so interested in the activities of groups like the Venceremos Brigade after their return from Cuba.

Ana Montes’ story is a pretty straightforward example of the spotting, assessing, recruiting, developing, training, and handling of a US citizen ideologically driven to spy on behalf of a foreign government.

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