For decades, the Cuban government has waged a secretive war on the U.S. With no legislative oversight, freedom of information, or independent judiciary, Cuba’s clandestine services operate freely without check or challenge.
Cases like those of Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Ana Belen Montes, convicted in 2002 of spying for Cuba, or the five Cubans convicted in Miami in 2001 on 26 counts of spying for the regime, demonstrate the ability of the Cuban operatives to work in the U.S. to the detriment of U.S. national security and interests.
The latest Cuban spy discovery involves a guilt-ridden former State Department official, Walter Kendall Myers, and his wife, Gwendolyn Myers, who were recruited by and worked for Cuba intelligence for decades. As a government official Myers crossed a clearly-demarcated line turning personal dissent into acts of treason, willingly passing classified information to their Cuban handlers. His action betrayed a sacred trust and tarnishes the integrity and loyalty of thousands of State Department personnel who serve their country and live by the rules, even when they question policy decisions.
The arrests also raise two additional thoughts:
First, how many more Kendall and Gwendolyn Meyers remain hidden in our midst? When do critics and apologists for the Castro regime cross the line from advocacy to become Havana’s secret agents?
Secondly, it reminds us that normalizing relations with communist Cuba isn’t just about tourism or trade or learning how to get along. It is also about ending a permanent state of ideological hostility toward the U.S. and the values and ideals we represent that is at the marrow of the regime’s mental processes.
As a totalitarian system, Havana still lives in a stark, dialectic world of ideological storm and conflict. Political good lies in the defense of the revolution, in the undying loyalty of cadres to Cuba’s monolithic party and its unelected leaders. Pluralism, debate, dialogue, individual freedom, and personal integrity matter less than service to the revolutionary cause — no matter how Machiavellian, no matter what the mission!
