Montaner’s Manchurian candidate
By Alejandro Armengol
From his blog, Cuaderno de Cuba
In a column that resembles a new version of “The Manchurian Candidate,” Carlos Alberto Montaner states that the Cuban government is intent on placing its spies at all levels of U.S. society and that it would not surprising if they hadn’t attempted to plant one in Congress, or even succeeded at it.
To make such assertion, Montaner turns to the statements of Chris Simmons, whom he describes as a “former colonel in U.S. counterintelligence,” an expert who “insists that there are dozens of spies in the service of Cuba within the government of the United States and in the nation’s universities.”
“Simmons’ observations must be taken into account,” Montaner says. Later he adds: “He is the most-knowledgeable expert there is about the activities of Cuban intelligence in the United States.” Further on, he says: “It was Simmons who dug up ‘mole’ Ana Belén Montes, a high-ranking Pentagon official who was later sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment for spying for Havana.”
Well, Carlos Alberto Montaner may believe that Simmons is the most important expert on Cuban espionage in the United States, just as I can believe that Superman exists and flies. That’s personal opinion. Of course, there is also a degree of basic responsibility between what one may think and what one may write, because otherwise all credibility is lost.
The problem in Miami is that spy stories are more attractive than Superman comics.
So, with impunity, someone can overestimate the background of a former intelligence analyst and issue an opinion that, on one hand, draws the U.S. government as an idiot — which it’s not — and the government in Havana as a saint — which will never happen. If this country can afford to retire its “most-knowledgeable expert on the activities of Cuban intelligence” and go on without worrying about keeping its most valuable personnel on active service, the best thing it could do would be to hang a sign on the Counterespionage Office door: “Closed until further notice.” After that, it might phone Cuba and ask it to behave.
Of course, reality takes another road, and Washington can save itself the call to Havana. When describing Simmons in the article that appeared in El Nuevo Herald on Sunday, June 21, 2009, important omissions and errors were made. Moreover, an elementary description of the former analyst for military counterintelligence (a primary detail that is not made clear in the column) will lead any reader with an average intelligence to suspect that Simmons is not as important as he’s touted to be.
Let’s go first to the omissions. To begin with, the former officer identifies himself as an expert on the Cuban issue, yet he speaks no Spanish. It is difficult to accept that, in the United States, the principal expert on a subject does not know the language in which his specialty is conducted, all the more so when it’s not an obscure language from the mountains of a faraway country but a language that any neighbor might speak.
Then, this valuable officer retired with a relatively low military rank, for someone with a record that’s apparently so outstanding. The lowest rank held in such cases is the rank of colonel, so we’re looking at a minimum achievement, not the maximum.
It is also peculiar that this specialist has not obtained a job in a high-level academic center, either as a professor or a lecturer. The important, the less-important and the unimportant universities have one thing in common: they’re not interested in Simmons, who heads an institution with a pompous name — the Cuban Intelligence Research Center — but lacking personnel, offices and resources.
None of this is mentioned, and it need not be mentioned if you don’t exaggerate the analyst’s importance. It could be argued that Montaner’s column is not devoted to Simmons and that Montaner does not need to go into such detail, but the reason the details are necessary is that we need to realize that the former officer is not as important as he’s depicted.
However, a question is raised in Montaner’s article that must be clarified. There is an impression that the columnist makes this reference to clearly establish Simmons’ authority — it was he who “unearthed” spy Ana Belén Montes. Unfortunately for Montaner, that assertion is false.
The person who exposed Belén Montes was Scott W. Carmichael, who is a high-ranking investigator at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and dedicates himself precisely to catching spies and “moles” who have infiltrated into the government. That’s something Simmons, who enjoys a title attributed to him blithely in Miami, has never done.
It was Carmichael who informed the FBI of his growing suspicions that one of the DIA’s own employees was a Cuban agent. Moreover, during the investigation that led to Belén Montes’ capture, he was assigned by the DIA to be the principal agent in the case. Simmons was also in the DIA. If Simmons was the spy hunter he’s alleged to be, why didn’t he lead the case? Simply because that wasn’t his function.
Carmichael has told the story — within the allowable limits — in a book that has been presented in Miami: “True Believer.” It describes what happened and, to this moment, its author has not been rebutted, nor has anyone challenged his role in the search.
Simmons had a role of relative importance in the investigation, but he wasn’t the most outstanding team member. He didn’t even know the identity of the infiltrated agent, and there was some hesitation about revealing that identity to him.
Carmichael says that, in September 2000, Simmons, whom Carmichael describes as an acquaintance who was a military counterintelligence analyst, began to work up some limited information he had about the existence of an ongoing FBI investigation that sought to identify an agent working for Cuba.
Simmons shared that limited information with Carmichael and another investigator who worked with Carmichael. Carmichael does not go into detail, but points out that the scant information they had — provided by Simmons — was very generic and not at all specific.
After Carmichael managed to identify Belén Montes, he did not communicate his findings to Simmons: “Chris did not know that I had identified Ana as a possible suspect, and of course I refrained from telling him during our conversation. My reasoning was simple. I assumed that Chris knew Ana, from a professional point of view, and I didn’t know how he might react to the news that she was a suspect.”
That is how Carmichael describes the man Montaner presents like the Crocodile Dundee of Cuban espionage. There may be some professional jealousy in the version of the story told by the author of “True Believer,” but three facts are undeniable: the investigation was under Carmichael’s direction; Simmons was an analyst, not a spy hunter; and Simmons never was in charge of the case.
To emphasize all this is important, because much of Simmons’ activity in recent months has consisted of labeling as “Cuban government agents” several university professors and researchers, renowned figures in the Cuban-American community, and exiles. Some of the people named by Simmons shared seminars and lectures with Carlos Alberto Montaner at various national and international events.
Simmons’ statements about personalities in the exile community were made without the merest challenge. In the best of cases, he was asked if he had any proof. If not, his interviewers accepted his word at face value and went on with the program.
For a while, it seemed that Simmons had interrupted that task (closer to a witch hunt to a true denunciation), following the lawsuit filed against him by Silvia Wilhelm, executive director of Cuban Bridges Inc. and the Cuban-American Commission for Family Rights, which is still unresolved. (Simmons appeared on Channel 41’s TV program “A Mano Limpia” [Fair Fight] on Oct. 8, 2008, and described Wilhelm as an agent of the Cuban intelligence services.)
The recent arrest of Walter Kendall Myers, a former high-ranking State Department official, and his wife Gwendolyn, accused of spying for Cuba, seems to have given Simmons his second wind.
What’s troubling about this case is that, when Montaner affirms that “Simmons’ observations must be taken into account,” he is corroborating not only what the former officer says about the Myerses, or the unjustified merits Montaner attributes to Simmons, but also what the counterintelligence analyst has said about people in our community who, for many years, have carried out an important task in this country, people who are nationally and internationally renowned. The damage inflicted on them by Simmons, with his unproven allegations, becomes part of their “culpability.”
To call someone an agent in the service of an enemy country is a very serious charge. But in Miami, the accusation is frequently hurled that someone is a Cuban agent because his writings or statements, his work or his political opinions are not palatable to others. It is one thing to be a foreign agent; to be a spy is quite something else.
Here, however, the categories blend and the lack of rigor always leads to a lynching mentality. Every time there is a case of Cuban espionage, the knee-jerk reaction is to pounce upon whoever opines that the embargo should be lifted or academic exchanges should be permitted. Nobody stops to think that the Myerses typically did not speak about Cuba. To paint the label of “spy” is in fashion once again.
Let me make clear that this is not exactly the central theme of Montaner’s column, which refers to Cuba’s alleged penetration into the various levels of government. But when Montaner bases it on Simmons’ statements, he extends a labor of espionage — imagined or real — to a terrain more suitable to what traditionally has been one of the preferred topics of exiledom’s radio and television. The old policy of terror and paranoia is not easy to discard.
