Ana Belen Montes' Acts of Treachery

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Ana Belen Montes – The “Queen of Cuba”
Ana Montes blindsided the intelligence community with shameless acts of treachery. She was the shining star of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), yet, in her secret life, her true fervor showed as she was working for Fidel Castro and the Cuban Intelligence Services. She listened to coded messages over shortwave radio, passed secret files to handlers in busy public locales, and snuck into the Communist-country adorned with a fake passport. “Your honor, I engaged in the activity that brought me before you because I obeyed my conscience rather than the law. I believe our government's policy towards Cuba is cruel and unfair, profoundly unneighborly, and I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it.” (Montes, 2012) Ana Montes gave this statement to the judge who presided over her case. She showed no remorse, no contrition, and no regret for her actions through her career as an agent for the Cuban Intelligence Services. The purpose of this brief is to explain the life, career working for the United States (U.S.) Government and the Cuban government, the resulting downfall, and sentencing of DIA Analyst General Schedule (GS)-14 Ana Belen Montes.
Born in West Germany, on a U.S. Army base on 28 February 1957, Ana Montes was the oldest child of Emilia and Alberto Montes. Alberto Montes was a respected Army doctor, moved his family often, due to the assignments he received. Ana Montes moved from West Germany throughout the Midwest, and finally settled in Towson, Maryland (MD). After her father separated from the U.S. Army, he opened a private psychiatric practice and his wife, Emilia, became heavi...

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...elligence Service had an agent on the inside of the U.S. Government. Montes quickly became DIA’s principal analyst for El Salvador and Nicaragua, and later named the DIA’s top political and military analyst for Cuba. Not only was she one of the U.S. government’s most adept analysts of Cuban military affairs, but she also proved proficient at contouring U.S. policy toward the Cuba itself. The Cubans started slowly, asking for translations and bits of harmless intelligence that might assist causes that would appeal to Montes’ positions and views. Montes traveled to Cuba under the DIA’s Exceptional Analyst Program to study the Cuban military. Following these trips, Montes was exclusively tasked to brief the Joint Chief of Staff, the National Security Council, and even the President of Nicaragua on the “limited capabilities” of the Cuban Military. (Carmichael, 2007)

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