Headquarters of Cuba’s dreaded Ministry of the Interior (MININT) [Photo — Havana Times]
Havana long ago earned the nickname “Intelligence Trafficker to the World” for its sale and barter of stolen US secrets. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union and the loss of Moscow’s $3 billion annual subsidy, Cuba’s auctioning of US classified information skyrocketed. Defectors and émigrés report the island’s leadership sees America’s secrets as a commodity to be sold or traded to the highest bidder. These sources say Cuba’s intelligence brokering is now a key revenue stream, earning hundreds of millions of dollars annually in cash, goods, and services for the regime.
Cuba’s intelligence and security services are undoubtedly celebrating the legacy-making breakthrough in US-Cuban relations ordered by President Obama. The US leader’s intentions – while noble – will be undercut by five apparently unanticipated consequences that will trigger an increase in Havana’s targeting of the United States.
First, opening Cuba to American travelers will bring a huge influx of desperately needed cash to Cuban coffers – more specifically, the intelligence and security services that – along with their military brethren – run every major component of the tourism industry as profit-making enterprises.
Second, an estimated million Americans are expected to visit Cuba yearly, as compared to the 60,000 US tourists it currently enjoys. This endless parade of Americans will provide Cuban spies unprecedented opportunities to assess and recruit new American traitors.
Third, unrestricted access to US technology will allow Havana significant upgrades in the technical aspects of espionage and internal repression. While it may seem counterintuitive, Fidel and Raul Castro have long viewed the Cuban people as the greatest threat to regime survival. This explains why their two counterintelligence entities remain Cuba’s largest spy services. Conversely, the island’s three “foreign intelligence” services are directed against a single target – the United States.
The fourth benefit Cuba receives is a huge enhancement in the long-cultivated notion that it poses “no threat” to the US. Spying against an unsuspecting enemy is infinitely easier than operating against a suspicious one. That’s the reason this well-choreographed myth has been aggressively promoted by major Cuban spies like Ana Montes and the husband-wife team of Kendall and Gwen Myers, as well as countless Castro apologists. The boost President Obama gave Havana with his new initiative elevates this myth to heights Havana could not have achieved by itself.
The fifth and final gain will be the end of travel restrictions on Cuba’s US-based diplomat-spies, whose unrestricted travel is currently limited to a 25 miles radius from Washington DC and New York City. Open travel throughout the nation will be a godsend to Cuba’s espionage operations. This new advantage will eventually be enhanced even further by the opening of Cuban diplomatic consulates and Prensa Latina news agencies from coast to coast.
The combination of cash, US tourists, American technology, new diplomatic facilities and unrestricted freedom to travel will markedly improve the effectiveness and efficiency of Havana’s intelligence trafficking. In turn, this further incentivizes the regime to use this opportunity to drive up the profit margins and sales of US government and corporate secrets.
A crown jewel in Havana’s intelligence arsenal is its network of communications intercept sites headquartered at Bejucal. This facility — Cuba’s equivalent to NSA — is the only “signals intelligence” site in the downlink of almost every US satellite. This gives Havana a unique competitive advantage the intelligence services of China, Russia, and Iran can only dream about. Several well-placed defectors said the volume of Pentagon, White House, NASA, and other US communications collected by Bejucal is so vast Cuba only had staffing to process the crème de la crème of stolen secrets. When the Castro brother’s pair this daily flood of material with the information and insights contributed by hundreds of human spies serving covertly throughout the US, the result is a terrifyingly real danger to the United States.
Cuba is not a benign nation, but rather a hostile dictatorship that poses a significant, albeit one-dimensional threat to the United States. For example, the Castro regime has warned America’s enemies of every major military operation from the 1983 Grenada invasion through the most recent intervention in Iraq. Its spying has also resulted in the deaths of America citizens.
Cuba is a police state and its apparatchiks respect one thing: power. As such, its spy services will see Washington’s olive branch as a sign of weakness. They will declare “open season” on the American government, its businesses, and Americans themselves to enrich and maintain the regime to which they have sworn their lives, loyalties, and families’ futures.
Cuba Confidential 
This is a superb article. It articulates an outcome of the US-Cuba rapprochement that needs to be understood by the American Gov’t and the American people. However, it does need to be sourced. I know myself from firsthand accounts of the Cuban tourist industry’s being infiltrated by it’s spies. Your quoting of journalists and blogs would make this well-written post even more persuasive.
This is a superb article. It articulates an outcome of the US-Cuba rapprochement that needs to be understood by the American Gov’t and the American people. However, it does need to be sourced. I know myself from firsthand accounts of the Cuban tourist industry’s being infiltrated by its spies. Your quoting of journalists and blogs would make this well-written post even more persuasive.
As I said in earlier comments…if the leaders in Cuban Delegation are both from the Intelligence…they will try to obtain the best for their Services that at last are for “the Party”… …!!!!!Excellent article!!!!. Dr Acosta Ex- DGI Chief Officer
Chris: It doesn’t sound like you are “retired.” Keep up the excellent patriotic work.
As someone has already indicated here, the naming of sources is good practice when writing an article and wanting to prove what is being said. More particularly when one is about to express things, which are detrimentally intended, against another country´s spying activities. More so, when spying is something many consider it a practice that constitutes a normal course of business to a nation´s operation, on a worldwide basis. And it’s a paradox, when the commentator´s nation has a super high ranking status in world expertise gained through decades from its activity of spying. Ergo, the United States is no slouch in the business of spying as you make it seem, Mr. Simmons, in contrast to the island of Cuba. As the story goes, the business of spying among all nations, on the planet, is not considered in the least to be a Cuban monopolized activity practice, but rather, it is an activity much in common by, and of all nations of this planet, and of their intelligence gathering conducts.
To proof my point to you: Statistical manuals, even almanacs, clearly explain the GNP for Cuba is right around the figure of $40 billion. That being the official published figure. I tend not to believe it, but rather, I expect such figure to be somewhat lower. However, the point is—keeping that $40 billion Cuban GNP figure in mind—the United States spent $80 billion on its spying activities in 2010. That´s double the amount of Cuba´s total GNP. Pretty amazing isn´t it, when one looks at this in this context? A lot of expertise and intelligence can be gathered having $80 billion. By the way, it was in 2010, for the first time, the U.S. government officially announced the total tab for intelligence expenditures, and that´s my source.
A further analysis of the intelligence budget of the United States, it shows that of the total $80 billion, it included about $53 billion on non-military intelligence programs. In 2010 the total budget experienced a 6% increase from the prior year´s budget. (source: Office of the Director of National Intelligence.) The United States military spent an additional $27 billion on its intelligence apparatus. (Source: Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan.) Approximately 100,000 people work on national intelligence in the United States, with the majority of employees serving at the big four intelligence agencies: the National Security Agency, the CIA, the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Therefore, 100,000 people that work in the United States in the nation´s intelligence sector represent right around 1% (one percent) of all U.S. households when you factor the mathematical equation to calculate such percentage. That is a pretty impressive figure of expenditures for the business of spying in our nation. And I´m not discounting it either, just putting the facts in order and in reciprocal context, specially, now that both the U.S. and Cuba have an opportunity to fix the wrongs of the past and restore diplomatic relations as the majority of American citizens in this nation would like to see and the polls clearly indicate without a doubt.
Regardless of what contrarians think and say, since you, Mr. Simmons, bring-up the President of the United States Barack Obama, as if to lay blame on him for his wrong decision making, let me make a couple of points in that regard, perfectly clear to you: 1.) The people of this nation duly elected this President as all other U.S. Presidents have been elected, Barack Obama is not President by a coup d´etat, he was duly elected democratically. 2.) In Dade County—the bastion of almost all Cuban American Republican conservative politicians—President Barack Obama won the Presidency vote by an outstanding 62% versus 38% during the last elections. That represents a percentage way much higher than the national figure, which also gave the national victory to the President of 51% versus 47%. I hope you see the point here.
The United States spent $49.8 billion on its national intelligence programs in 2009, $47.5 billion in 2008 and $43.5 billion in 2007, according to the same previous reports.
What is curious about your write-up, is you make no mention, whatsoever, of the reciprocal spying and commercial opportunities it represents to both nation´s; the United States and Cuba. It will not be a one way street. In this regard, please allow me to demonstrate, perhaps, what I mean in contrast to each one of the points you make, and which—according to you—make the resumption of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba a one-sided deal for Cuba and wherefore, I disagree with your position:
Chris Simmons:
FIRST, opening Cuba to American travelers will bring a huge influx of desperately needed cash to Cuban coffers – more specifically, the intelligence and security services that – along with their military brethren – run every major component of the tourism industry as profit-making enterprises.
Jorge Garrido:
Almost all of the products that are consumed by tourists in Cuba are imported to Cuba, either, produced in the United States and sold through third world countries or purchased by Cuba directly from American farmers and American suppliers. The United States is Cuba´s biggest supplier of products regardless of the so-called Cuban trade embargo, which in reality has not worked and therefore, in many ways, it does not exist. In Cuba, one can find just about every single American product in the streets or the homes of Cuban citizens, which are brought over or sent over by families. So, if more tourists go to Cuba, particularly Americans, more Americas imports will be consumed by such American tourists visiting and more American products also have to be purchased. Such represents more of an opportunity for the U.S. commerce to export and to also infiltrate American spies as tourists. It cut both ways, Mr. Simmons. There´s an old expression in Spanish that goes: “A río revuelto ganancias de pescadores”. Since you know Cuba, so well, as you write about what constitutes very sensitive stuff and in the process you also foreshadow Cuba´s future, I also expect you to speak Spanish and to know the interpretation of this old adage, for in the end, it´s the only way for you to know the nuances of your expertise in Cuba spying.
Chris Simmons:
SECOND, an estimated million Americans are expected to visit Cuba yearly, as compared to the 60,000 US tourists it currently enjoys. This endless parade of Americans will provide Cuban spies unprecedented opportunities to assess and recruit new American traitors.
Jorge Garrido:
Supposing the passion of your beliefs is to be true, then because U.S. intelligence is excellent, the opportunity would arise from both sides to spy, Mr. Simmons, don´t you think? Come on, now, “drama” is good—I admit—but drama is scripted and old, real TV is the reality unfolding. This you have no control over it, except to prepare best contingencies. I say, give plain and normal citizens credit, you claim it is the “Havana´s Spies” the big winners. No Mr. Simmons the BIG WINNERS WILL BE THE POOR CUBAN PEOPLE who have almost nothing and many shortages.
Chris Simmons
THIRD, unrestricted access to US technology will allow Havana significant upgrades in the technical aspects of espionage and internal repression. While it may seem counterintuitive, Fidel and Raul Castro have long viewed the Cuban people as the greatest threat to regime survival. This explains why their two counterintelligence entities remain Cuba’s largest spy services. Conversely, the island’s three “foreign intelligence” services are directed against a single target – the United States.
Jorge Garrido:
Well Mr. Simmons “unrestricted access to U.S. technology”, as you say, is the fastest way to get Cuban citizens the news and a very good thing for American technology, because it will now be sold directly to a new market that will bring additional income to the companies located in United States territory, at close range, just 90 miles away. Now, do you really believe I am going to accept, as true, your totally erroneous contention that the Cuban government and its intelligence apparatus are dependent on the opening-up of diplomatic relations to be able “to have access” and to be able to have “significant upgrades in the technical aspects” of their own espionage equipment.
Allow me to tell you what time it is Mr. Simmons: Technology from U.S. companies is mostly made in Asia and can be purchased anywhere in the world, including Asia where it´s made. Your argument is totally of the wall.
Chris Simmons:
The fourth benefit Cuba receives is a huge enhancement in the long-cultivated notion that it poses “no threat” to the US. Spying against an unsuspecting enemy is infinitely easier than operating against a suspicious one. That’s the reason this well-choreographed myth has been aggressively promoted by major Cuban spies like Ana Montes and the husband-wife team of Kendall and Gwen Myers, as well as countless Castro apologists. The boost President Obama gave Havana with his new initiative elevates this myth to heights Havana could not have achieved by itself.
Jorge Garrido:
The myths of “no threats” are good for writing government policy and for the working administrative cronies who most live in that bubble and on both sides of the aisle, but not for the everyday Cuban citizen in the island today. But the rhetoric of so called “myths” is more of a rationalization for past own intelligence failures and gaps. Mr. Simmons, you know well the intelligence of the United States toward Cuba, once guided by Ana Belén Montes´ recommendations acted on the policy level that Cuba “did not pose a threat” to the U.S.. You worked for that same intelligence, at the same it was recommending to the President of the United States—and it wasn´t President Obama either—and it was during both Republicans and Democratic administrations—believing “Cuba did not pose a threat to the U.S.” In fact, it wasn´t until a newspaper article, full page, was published by a private citizen, on June 28, 2000, in the Washington Times that thereafter, on August 2000, your superiors got wind of what was to be the right direction, after reading that same privately published newspaper article (right in DC), and your superiors—thereafter—directed you and two other of your colleagues to go seek there, right in your own intelligence apparatus. It was then Ana Belén Montes was discovered. This private citizen explained in the newspaper article that Cuba was a threat to the U.S., while the entire intelligence community was wrong before that, when there was only an UNSUB investigation, but it had been closed for lack of findings and evidence. Yet, the private citizen pointed the U.S. intelligence apparatus in the right direction right in the text and within the theme of his article when he stated that the intelligence apparatus knew what a threat Cuba posed. The citizen actually gave more credit to the U.S. intelligence than its wrongful stance on Cuba at that time. Now fifteen years later after it´s all over you say Cuba is a threat. Where were you when the newspaper article appeared, It was very easy reading. But the mighty power of American politicians I Washington DC came against the claims made by this citizen and which turned out to be true. The evidence is all there. So you see it´s all the same, a game nobody wins, because it doesn´t peoples´ lives better. It does not place a candy bar in a child´s hand, nor does it put a chicken in a pot at dinner time in Cuba. Do you really think the citizens of Cuba believe their menus of choice at home should be what they´re eating now, when they know what their families eat 90 miles away. The contrast is gruesome! How well do you know Cubans? Millions of lives of people in Cuba will improve by the brave decision this President has made, in spite of how you think. It´s all over know, Cuba my homeland will blossom once again as the citizens of Cuba deserve.
Chris Simmons:
FIFTH and final gain will be the end of travel restrictions on Cuba’s US-based diplomat-spies, whose unrestricted travel is currently limited to a 25 miles radius from Washington DC and New York City. Open travel throughout the nation will be a godsend to Cuba’s espionage operations. This new advantage will eventually be enhanced even further by the opening of Cuban diplomatic consulates and Prensa Latina news agencies from coast to coast.
Jorge Garrido:
This is more of the same content as I´ve discussed here prior as reciprocity of opportunity for both sides, but the point is the Cuban people will improve significantly their lives and as in China in 1972 the first steps have now been taken by both nations; The United States and Cuba.
Opening Cuba to AMericans means that the repressive Cuban regime has more ways to black mail American citizens in working for them.The essence of the Cuban regime is to create fear and to keep themselves in power at all cost.The Castro repressive regime has the longest delegation to the United Nations bigger than any other country which majority are DI personnel.Cuban agents have penetrated our universities to influence our youth and to cultivate the future generation of spies like Ana Belen Montes.
Cuba is a threat to the safety of the United States and at the end the only who will benefit of this event would be the repressive Castro regime which at the same time as American citizens travel to Cuba the Cuban citizens that are working for the Cuban regime and are spying for the Cuban repressive regime will be coming to North America by droves.
Cuban agents has been present in every dirty scheme created by the Cuban regime from the take over of Venezuela,
country which was in Castro’s sights since 1960 to the Wasp network of Cuban spies and to the Cuban agents working together with Saddam Hussein prior and during the invasion of Iraq.Cuba was influential in the support of the Subversive group Macheteros and the Weathermen and its agents has been spread all around the world trying to collect information to profit the corrupt Cuban regime where the Communist Military Junta the MININT with its leader the alcoholic dictator Raul Castro rule the Island..If the 25 miles radius is expanded means that the Cuban agents infiltrated in the US will have far more range to conduct their activities and their subversive influence will increase,not only in the East coast area but also in the West Coast.
The myth of the threat through History has turned into reality with the discovery of Ana Montes who was passing vital information to the repressive Cuban dictatorship for decades,The Myth of the threat was proven when the Wasp network was discovered trying to penetrate the US Southern command and the Bolsa Chica naval base and the Mc Dill Air force base.The threat has been evident since 1959 when Castro promoted the training of terrorist groups from the training camp
PET 1 and PET 2 where terrorists where trained according to their country of origin.
THE FACT IS, The United States intelligence community, for a very long time had a firm intelligence policy toward Cuba, which was: “Cuba did not pose a threat to the United States”. It took one private citizen, who was not–even–part of the U.S. intelligence community of the United States, to write and publish a full-page newspaper article, at his own expense, on June 28, 2000 and published right in Washington DC, inside the Washington Times newspaper–that full-page newspaper article–wherein the private citizen stated and explained how “Cuba posed a threat to the United States” as the private citizen proved it in such historical newspaper article, even though he didn´t know that–actually–the United States policy at that time was that “Cuba did not pose a threat”, as he thought and believed the United States Intelligence community knew what threat Cuba was at that time.
Because the newspaper article involved the President of the United States, at that time, as an integral part of this citizen´s commentary, the White House cronies after the newspaper article was published next to the President´s agenda for that day (at the newspaper´s own decision to place the newspaper article of this private citizen there) found a way to determine this private citizen´s business and they targeted his business to fabricate an indictment, without knowing how true the private citizen´s statements and position were, to the point that the lead intelligence officer on Cuba from the U.S. resulted to be a Cubn spy; Ana Belén Montes. That´s the story behind the story.
The DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) of the United States saw and read the newspaper article. They most certainly analyzed it and further compared its content, as written and published by this private citizen, to their own Defense Department erroneous intelligence policy, which indicated that Cuba “did not pose a threat to the United States” at that time. Anybody who read the newspaper article could see the holes this private citizen made on the erroneous United States policy, which was: “Cuba was not a threat to the U.S.” as this private citizen explained how Cuba “was a threat to the U.S.”. The next rational thing for the superiors in the Intelligence department of the U.S. was to find out who?…..and why? the person in charge of Cuba inside the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, was recommending that Cuba “did not pose a threat to the U.S.” and of course: enter Ana Belen Montes. The people that got the credit for Ana Belén Montes were the officers who were assigned to investigate by their superiors at the U.S. intelligence Department, but, it was never the original initiative of the investigators to investigate Ana Belén Montes until thier superiors put two and two together after Reading the private citizen´s newspaper article. The private citizen for security reasons published the article under a compaounded last name, which included his mother´s maiden name. he did this to trace a posible attack upon him, because he knew the information he published would “step on a lot of big toes”, perhaps. Sure enough, the indictment against this private citizen came by the utilization of such erroneous and compounded last name, which had never been used by this private citizen and was not his actual legal last name on no papers anywhere, whatsoever, which certainly is suffcient to prove the indictment was targeted due to the article which the private citizen signed under such a seudo last compounded last name.
It´s all over now, and as life has it: strange circumstances sometimes make for strange bedfellows. Adversarial conflict many times produces closer relations and understanding. It´s all the same on all sides, human nature crosses party line politics and ideologies. It is the purity of principles that foster respect and knowledge, which in turn make for a frank exchange of ideas without the abandonment of the principle of every citizen´s homeland to be sovereign, free and egalitarian for the welfare of its civil society.
The main threat to the united States by the Cuban repressive regime is the Cuban dictatorship capability to export its agents to other countries to obtain information to traffic to nations enemy of our Nation.Cuba like we all know has systematically trained guerrillas and has support their efforts from the middle East to Africa.With the increasing of the ratio of action to their diplomatic personnel,our government is exposing our country to their agents infiltration capability.
The constant flow of Cuban personnel from the Island of Cuba to the US and from the US to Cuba will create
possibilities to culture spies to penetrate American Society by the Cuban Intelligence Services.
The business of spying is like a two way street. Anybody who thinks different doesn´t know what time it is. As in the business of “prostitution”, spying is one of the most ungrateful, treasonest, run on different compensation levels, risky and a manipulative business throughout history. So, don´t be so alarmed by spies coming into the Unired States, it is not a unique or novel thing, it happens all the time.
Notwithstading, more than the action of spying and certainly more than spies, what must be remembered about how such business affects a democracy is as follows:
THERE ARE ONLY THREE THREATS TO THE UNITED STATES´ DEMOCRACY AND TO THE FREEDOMS IT, SO, REPRESENTS AND PROVIDES, AMIDST THE MIGHTIEST, MOST POWERFUL MILITARY CAPABILITY AND THE MOST EXTENSIVE AND REASONABLY ADEQUATE POLICE LAW ENFORCEMENT FORCE PLATFORMS ON PLANET EARTH. AND THEY ARE: THREAT 1.) THE THREAT OF AMERICAN CITIZENS WHO MAY FORGET THAT THE PRIZE PAID FOR DEMOCRACY INCLUDES THE FREEDOM TO MAKE USE OF THOSE SAME DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES OF FREEDOM FOR THE CONTENTIOUS PURPOSE TO DESTROY IT AND THREAT 2.) TO SUCUMB TO THE MISUSE OF THE FREEDOMS OF DEMOCRACY TO INVOKE DICTATORIAL OPINIONS THAT WILL PROMOTE DICTATORIAL-LIKE ACTUATIONS THAT WILL SERVE TO EVOLVE THE UNITED STATES INTO A HARD POLICE STATE. AND THREAT 3.)TO BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE WHO ARE BORN WITH A SKIN OF DIFFERENT GRADIATIONS OF BLACK COLOR OR OF A DIFFERENT RACE ARE NOT ENTITLED TO THE SAME PRINCIPLES OF FREEDOM OF A DEMOCRACY. Jorge Garrido
The United States is no slouch in the business of spying in contrast to the island of Cuba. As the story goes, the business of spying among all nations, on the planet, is not considered in the least to be a Cuban monopolized activity practice, but rather, it is an activity much in common by, and of all nations of this planet, and of their intelligence gathering conducts.
Statistical manuals, even almanacs, clearly explain the GNP for Cuba is right around the figure of $40 billion. That being the official published figure. I tend not to believe it, but rather, I expect such figure to be somewhat lower. However, the point is—keeping that $40 billion Cuban GNP figure in mind—the United States spent $80 billion on its spying activities in 2010. That´s double the amount of Cuba´s total GNP. Pretty amazing isn´t it, when one looks at this in this context? A lot of expertise and intelligence can be gathered having $80 billion. By the way, it was in 2010, for the first time, the U.S. government officially announced the total tab for intelligence expenditures, and that´s my source.
A further analysis of the intelligence budget of the United States, it shows that of the total $80 billion, it included about $53 billion on non-military intelligence programs. In 2010 the total budget experienced a 6% increase from the prior year´s budget. (source: Office of the Director of National Intelligence.) The United States military spent an additional $27 billion on its intelligence apparatus. (Source: Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan.) Approximately 100,000 people work on national intelligence in the United States, with the majority of employees serving at the big four intelligence agencies: the National Security Agency, the CIA, the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Therefore, 100,000 people that work in the United States in the nation´s intelligence sector represent right around 1% (one percent) of all U.S. households when you factor the mathematical equation to calculate such percentage. That is a pretty impressive figure of expenditures for the business of spying in our nation. And I´m not discounting it either, just putting the facts in order and in reciprocal context, specially, now that both the U.S. and Cuba have an opportunity to fix the wrongs of the past and restore diplomatic relations as the majority of American citizens in this nation would like to see and the polls clearly indicate without a doubt.
The United States spent $49.8 billion on its national intelligence programs in 2009, $47.5 billion in 2008 and $43.5 billion in 2007, according to the same previous reports.
There are reciprocal spying and commercial opportunities to both nation´s; the United States and Cuba. It will not be a one way street. Therefore, the resumption of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba are not a one-sided deal for Cuba.
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