The Two Faces of Ana: Model Employee/Cuban Spy

she was a model employee she was kind of considered to be the superstar of our organization she was a respected colleague she was a role model for me and I I aspired to be like her her name Honorable Ann Montes and she was a Cuban spy the Defense Intelligence Agency makes its living learning secrets good analysts are ever alert for subtle clues they trust their instincts to send them in the right direction their internal radar always scanning for leads and deceptions Ana Montes was a good analyst and an even better deceiver she almost deceived them all I hired ina Montes back in the mid-1980s she came in she was finishing up her master's degree at Johns Hopkins had bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia looks extremely qualified very intelligent on amante's seemed like the perfect hire and she lived up to the promise of her resume she quickly won the respect of her peers within the US intelligence community as a latin-american analyst she was a outstanding and all she was phenomenal writer extremely prolific typically produced in about two to three times as much as the average analyst there was simply nothing about her that raised any red flags her security record was spotless no indications of security infractions or security violations she lived modestly within her means and in short she displayed none of the typical behaviors we associate with espionage activity even those close to Ana found no reason to be suspicious fellow analyst Steve Smith shared a double cubicle with honor for more than five years he never imagined she lived a double life in the time that I knew her I didn't see anything that brought to my mind a suspicious thought about Ana Montes I really thought she was loyal highly professional and I don't think there was any single incident not even a single incident that I could point to you they would have that would have driven me to think that maybe there's something something wrong here Lourdes Talbot worked with honor for years and may have known her best I came in as an undergraduate through a program in DIA and I worked my very first summer with her in 1992 and that's when I met her we worked really closely together in determining what I was going to write as a senior analyst she had she gave me guidance and and she taught me how to be an analyst I always was under her team so we were very very close in terms of our daily work Ana's professional stature grew through the years she continued to rack up honors the highest marks on performance evaluations a meritorious promotion from GS 13 to 14 selection for the prestigious exceptional analyst program she was the first dia employee selected for the National Intelligence Council's fellowship program she got kudos from all over she got kudos throughout the intelligence community one US ambassador in Latin America commented on her saying and she was an outstanding analyst but if her professional accomplishments were well known and well respected her fellow employees knew little about her personal life I would say of the employees who worked for me over the years and the ones who worked for me for a long period of time I probably knew less about Ana than I did about others I would describe on to Montez socially reserved and very careful about the information that she would share with people she was very protective of her personal life and very adamant that nobody should ask about her personal life I was definitely curious about what she did after work and you know how she managed to balance work and in her home life but we never interacted outside of the office of all Honor montez's colleagues one had a special professional relationship with honor because they both were Cuba specialists David is in silhouette to protect his anonymity I first met Ana in 1987 and I was working a project on South America involved the Cubans and I needed Ana's expertise because she was actually in a different organization and so I needed her I needed her political military perspective I interacted with her about everyone one to two weeks and it was kind of a requirement at that time because we had to coordinate our work with each other as an experienced analyst David is always sensitive to anomalies he instinctively takes notice when someone seems to have knowledge or information they wouldn't be expected to have or shows unusual interest in areas outside their job responsibilities or seems involved in things that just don't add up by the late 1980s he was picking up some discrepancies in the Latin American intelligence community for one thing US intelligence had been unable to run a successful human operation against Cuba for decades Cuba consistently foiled all attempts David wondered why Cuba was winning the intelligence game were they that much better than the US or was someone playing for both sides we had a lot of information from Cuban defectors that Cuba had spies working within the United States government what caused you know me concern is that if they had agents within the department defense what kind of information we were losing what kind of information they were interested in and who were those spies then something brought the question closer to home David co-authored an intelligence product that was thought to be compromised to the Cuban government it seemed Cuba learned of it before it was published so only someone in the know could have been responsible someone who knew the Cubans interests I knew Ana and when I saw her involved in a lot of things that the Cubans were interested in it began to make me quite nervous and so I had a gut feeling that something wasn't quite right but I never suspected her of being a spy around 1992 Ana Montes began work as a Cuba analyst she worked more closely with David and saw the products he was working on dealing with Cuban intelligence against the US and specifically the DoD I began to see that she was you know very much involved in specific events that I was studying you know as a counterintelligence analyst and as a result of that you know my my concerns about her began to grow because prior to that time I never had no suspicions of her at all soon after there was another anomaly in the course of his work David informed one of Ana montez's co-workers about a long-term source that was exploited for Cuba related information a few weeks later the source dried up David now focused more closely on honor at that time I didn't suspect her being a spy I just was deeply concerned of the things that she was involved with and I didn't know what they meant weren't anything I needed resolution I needed to know that on as a co-worker was safe to work with over the next few years David watched on her closely Cuba continued to gain inside information about DoD activities was honest somehow involved in March of 1994 she successfully completed a dia administered polygraph test her background remains spotless and her credentials excellent but David's suspicions continued to grow she was just involved in events okay that were very suspicious and I didn't know if she was being targeted I didn't know she was directly involved with these things and we're working with the Cubans I was looking at it more from the perspective of security of the information two more years past then on February 24th 1996 David's internal radar picked up a strong hint and he began zeroing in on a target a Cuban MIG fighter shot down to private aircraft operated by the Cuban emigres group brothers to the rescue in international waters three American citizens and one permanent resident alien were killed it was an international crisis certain to place Cuba in the crosshairs of an American military strike but the u.s. inexplicably backed down when David looked into the matter ahna Montes seemed to be in the middle of it honor was aggressively seeking Cuba related counterintelligence information that seemed beyond the scope of her duties David could no longer ignore his suspicions just not the events that she was involved with we have the events plus we had behaviors she knew I was a counter-intel examples she couldn't always look me in the eye she stayed away from me okay immediately that they came to my attention why is she staying away from me and all of these things are coming together one plus two plus three plus four all that comes together okay in a sequence of events that causes concern david's gut feeling was now strong enough that he felt someone needed to take a close look at Ana's activities and he knew who to call dia 'he's counterintelligence and Security office but bringing himself to make the call was not so easy there are no deficits at all all I knew was that there was a lot of unusual activity that I couldn't explain so there was initially ambivalence in my part to bring it to security's attention but after time I kept seeing these events occur you know more often and it got to a certain point where I couldn't ignore it anymore and I had to bring it to Security's attention if Anna Montez was doing what David suspected her actions might have already caused lives and might cost more he had to take action drill wina Berger was in charge of dia s investigation it's perfectly natural to feel conflicted about reporting on a co-worker that was a very difficult decision but what he did was absolutely the right thing to do he trusted his instincts as an analyst he didn't wait for hard evidence of Ana's conduct before he reported it to us and that's what we want people to do if they have a gut feeling about someone they should report it to us and we know how to handle that the counterintelligence and Security office began a discreet investigation standard operating procedure when an employee reports their concerns you know I need my concerns resolved and security handled my concerns in a very private way and kept me anonymous in the process and to some extent even kept me informed and continued to ask me questions about things di personnel should be comfortable with reporting to the counterintelligence and Security office any concerns that they have their identity is protected their name will not come out as a part of the as part of the investigation innocent employees will not be harmed by the investigation for David like any other dia employee making the call was all he had to do it's not the job of an analyst or di employee to try to determine whether somebody an agency's a spy that's the job of the security people you need to go to them and let them investigate and find out what's going on the counterintelligence and Security office worked quietly and diligently collecting information about on a month--is the investigation of honor' involved investigative activity within the diag and I think it's noteworthy that virtually no one became aware of this investigative activity there wasn't literally a handful of people in this agency that were aware of this active investigation so that should give employees some confidence that we are capable of conducting a very discreet investigation the investigation was so discreet that on a montes his co-workers never suspected it was in progress on September 21st 2001 they were as shocked as Ana when she was arrested at the DIA inspector general's office at Bolling Air Force Base Washington DC when it was announced one colleague actually had to ask what name they said because it didn't even register another one broke down emotionally I know I actually broke down it was wasn't even an issue of disbelief it was one of those sort of a I can't imagine what else that would be like but sort of being told someone had died suddenly someone that you hadn't expected to die I was more analytic in my in my thought process when I when it was announced but then as the days went on it was it definitely turned into more of an emotional response I was definitely sad I did cry I was I was upset and eventually it turned to anger and mostly now its anchor man when I do hear her name I cringe I because I did work with her so closely and I did admire her on his arrest was something that was very devastating to the office we actually saw the grief counselors the next week to try to understand and accept understand better what was going on but it was very tough for us the charge against Anna was conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of Cuba and the extraordinary details of Anna montez's treachery began to emerge though her job was to inform the American intelligence community on Cuban operations she was doing just the opposite she was revealing to Cuba all she knew about American operatives and operations from the identity of undercover agents to the details of US military exercises and of course every time we discovered something you might turned around and I said hey uh guess what we just figured out well guess what we just learned so is as good as just turning around and it's sending Fidel Castro a letter they probably got there faster than a letter with the polygraph test in nineteen ninety-four made her even more dangerous by deflecting suspicion away from her she was freer to pursue her espionage and to pass the polygraph test she had used a countermeasure to talk to her by the Cubans Ana Montes engaged in secret shortwave radio communications with her agent handler she used numeric codes which she deciphered on her personal computer to relay us secrets to the Cuban government she endangered at least for clandestine US intelligence officers and may have contributed to the deaths of American war fighters she jeopardized intelligence collection systems that took many years and millions of dollars to develop her information was shared by the Cubans with other foreign governments whose interests countered America's she'd compromised whatever she had access to and she had virtually unrestricted access people trusted you and our government trusted you your colleagues trusted you your friends trusted you and you betrayed us all the damage of Ana's actions to my colleagues and the people who work in Latin America intelligence was devastating we felt like our credibility and all the work we had done for the preceding 16 years had gone for naught and he can't undo what's been done in a sense you can try to adjust some things but for the most part you're starting all over again and almost from scratch honor Montez made a full confession on March 19 2002 she admitted that she spied for the Cuban government because she opposed US policy toward Havana but was that enough to drive on a Montez to live two parallel lives by day a star performer at DIA and by night a super spy for Cuba she told the judge at sentencing that she obeyed her conscience rather than the law she felt it was her personal calling to protect Cuba which she believed was victimized by America's abuse in a plea bargain with the Department of Justice ana Montes was sentenced to 25 years in prison followed by five years of probation in exchange for her full cooperation and disclosure of her espionage activities the investigation yielded critical information on Cuban counterintelligence a dia it brought valuable insights to those she had once deceived and she had almost deceived them all frankly I had no suspicions whatsoever I had no suspicions that I was involved in spying I just thought she was a very focused hard-working employee who's the center of her life was work honest said things that perhaps I should have questioned as an analyst but I didn't I mean I I I deferred to her as a senior analyst and because I didn't think of her as a spy I never suspected and you don't think of people as spies you don't want to question certain information sometimes ana was my worst fear my worst fear was somebody involved in espionage activity that was not displaying any of those indicators those were going to be the individuals it would be very hard to detect and there's where we rely on the work force to step up and report concerns to us and that was the case with Hana what I have known it was on a montes no but that's not the point the point is something wasn't quite right and it happened more than once and all I really probably needed to do was to go to my CI analyst certainly one of the things that has resulted is that I'm more skeptical about people that I work with I don't automatically accept everything at face value I try to look beyond just the personality that I'm dealing with and occasionally say to myself why are they doing a certain thing that they're doing it's definitely affected the lens through which I I've read information and I process it for my own products but it also has affected the way I look at other people and their questions towards me about certain pieces of information although Ana Montes was brought to justice her story is a cautionary tale about a problem inevitable in intelligence work we would be foolish to assume that honor was the one and only espionage agent directed at dia we have to be vigilant at all times that's the message for the employees that there's a strong likelihood that there are others engaged in such conduct and the only way we're going to catch people like this is if employees step forward and report their concerns if employees here at DIA see anything that's unusual with regard to their their their co-workers and those activities upset them cause them concern then they should take that information and bring it to security and have security resolve the issue we owe significant debt of gratitude we're not for him stepping forward it's entirely possible that Hana would be continuing her espionage activities today for David it is a bittersweet victory his role in Ana's apprehension is a proud accomplishment that saved priceless information and perhaps countless lives and yet Ana's treachery compromised many years of hard work the greatest success that I have as a Counter Intelligence analysts and denial deception analyst is the arrest and incarceration of honor that's my sole success because all the other things that I did in those areas she compromised [Music] you

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Length: 23min 23sec (1403 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 17 2017