True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba's Master Spy

by Scott W. Carmichael

Book Overview

Ana Montes appeared to be a model employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Known to her coworkers as the Queen of Cuba, she was an overachiever who advanced quickly through the ranks of Latin American specialists to become the intelligence community's top analyst on Cuban affairs. But throughout her sixteen-year career at DIA, Montes was sending Castro some of America's most closely guarded secrets and at the same time helping influence...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591141079
• ISBN13: 9781591141075
• Release Date: October 2009
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Interesting Tale Of Espionage

True Believer is an account about the investigation that led to her arrest and conviction as told by one of the investigators, Scott Carmichael. The book itself may be only three or four stars but I must cut Carmichael some slack for a couple of reasons. First, the man is not -- nor does he ever claim to be -- a professional author. I personally thing I have more writing talents than he but that is another issue. He had a story to tell and he did so to the best of his ability. To try to grade him at the same level as a professional writer would be unfair to him. Second, the evidence presented against Montes appears flimsy. But obviously it was enough to interest investigators to investigate and arrest and it was enough for her to plea guilty. I am sure Carmichael had much more to tell but the book had to be reviewed to ensure sensitive and even classified information was not put in the book. It hurts the story but anybody who writes a book of this nature has to follow the rules even if it hurts the story. Carmichael wrote the book to warn people that Cuba is a threat. Sure, the Cubans are not likely to mount a massive military invasion against the US any time soon but they do work directly against our interests in other parts of the world as a surrogate and they can share information with our enemies including terrorist groups. Cuba is a threat, they do conduct espionage against the US, and their work with Ana Montes demonstrates that they are very good at it.

Fascinating Tale of Counter-Intelligence

This is a fascinating tale of counter-intelligence against a spy who may have done as much harm to the U.S. as the Big Two traitors of recent times, Aldrich Ames of the CIA and Robert Hansen of the DBI, subject of the excellent movie "Breach". Ana was a true believer ideologue who fed inside information not only to Cuba's Direccion General de Inteligencia, but probably to the KGB and all its allies, including terrorist entities like Hezbolla and radical regimes like Hugo Chavez' Venezuela. The book does not go into much detail on what she passed to our enemies, but she was in a very high position and was trusted by intelligence staff to be The Expert on Cuba. Little did they know she was a Cuban sympathizer who fed everything back to DGI, through cutouts, messages, and the usual spy tricks. No one knows, or no one is telling, what she passed them but it wasn't good. Though a bit dry, the book is an interesting true-life spy story, and better than John Le Carre, Adam Hall, and similar spy novelists becvause it's all real. What is hard to understand is this woman's motivation. All in all, an important, fascinating book. I liked it.

None So Blind

The story is that of a dedicated Cuban agent climbing through the American intelligence community. Although often lost on the general public traitors generally come in two varieties, intelligence sources and agents of influence. Montes was both plus in a great position to help others inside the US intelligence community. It matters not that Cuba is a flacid threat to the US, they are involved in Latin American leftist movements and looking to trade intel for goods and favors from the whose who of dictatorships. The author links Mondes directly to the death of a US military advisor working in Latin America. It is likely that there were more casualties. One of the great frustrations of the case is the glacial pace of investigations. Again months and months were lost as the FBI agents worked with the DOJ's staff to try to get the required authorizations to bring the case foreward. In the end the events of 9-11 and the probability that Montes would compromise major anti-terror activities lead to her arrest before all the evidence could be gathered. Just as we wondery why we could not connect the dots at Virginia Tech, one wonders why we keep erasing the dots in the interest of "justice" . Like so many of these stories it begins with one suspicions person, initially ignored as onbody wants to believe that one of their own have betrayed the trust. Update 5-10-07 Mr. Cespedes ( see comments) offered the following insightful comments, "What this reviewer neglects to mention is that the damage done to US security by this Cuban spy is tremendous. The fact is that the Cuban dictatorship has close relationships with Iran, Syria, China, Russia and all other terrorist states in the world. The vast amounts of information passed to the Castro regime has found its way to all of them. This damage has been as grave as any done to this nation by any other "famous spies" uncovered previously. Cuba is a threat to America, all of it, be North, Central and most certainly South. I has long been the "aircraft carrier" of communism and terrorism in the Western Hemisphere as evidenced by Chavez, Ortega, Morales and as sponsor, trainer and safe haven for all guerrilla terrorist-movements. This book is a "must read" for all Americans concerned with our safety." I would only add to this the potential additional damage she has probably done by advancing the careers of other Cuban agents in various agencies. This is one of many examples of where America's very cumbersome laws have affected the effectiveness of our counter intelligence operations with catastrophic results. Too much of the effort is devoted to meet process requirements between DOJ and other organizations.

The feast of Saint Ann is the 26th of July

The feast of Saint Ann is the 26th of July, a review of: Carmichael, Scott W. 2007 True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba's Master Spy. US Naval Institute Press (March 3, 2007) Annapolis, Maryland ISBN-10 1591141001 ISBN-13: 978-1591141006 This is an excellent book and makes fascinating, interesting, and informative reading. Any who study Cuba must read it. The news of the capture of Ana Montes was no surprise to the Cuban-American community here in the US, for we are long resigned to the inaccuracies in US government reports on Cuba, and watch with dismay as even CIA reports describe Castro propaganda as reality. We knew there were sources in our government committed to the support of Castro. The first thing that struck me when Ana Belen Montes was caught was: How could the US Government spy-catchers miss the particular circumstance that the feast of Saint Ann, grandmother to Jesus (Santa Ana) is the 26th of July, the date in 1953 when the Castro brothers attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba? Still Ana or Ann is a common name, as in Annapolis, the city of Saint Ann where this book was published. However, as I mentally celebrated the capture of the first major Castro directed mole in the US defense establishment I also noted that the spies second name Belen is the name of the Jesuit Lyceum which Fidel Castro received his most significant secondary education. In Cuba as in most of Latin America, communists often have such names, one readily recalls Universo (implies conquer of the world) Sanchez one of Castro's original "12," "Fabio" (the stealthy guerrilla warrior Consul of Ancient Rome) Grobart Stalin's man in Havana and said recruiter of Castro in 1948, and Cuban labor-leader Ursinio Rojas (the red bear). What seemed unusual was that nobody, outside of the Cuban-American community, had pondered on Ana Montes name before. Carmichael discusses in several places the culture of misinformation on Cuba so prevalent in official US government circles. This was so vividly displayed by a major presidential candidate in giving a speech in Miami last month (March 2007) who in error recited one of Castro's own slogans to Cuban-American audience thinking it was a reflection of the exile circumstance. Only now with the trial and jailing of academics spying for Castro at an "International University" and books such as this, has the erroneous nature of the information on Cuba commonly expounded to innocent students in academia, become obvious. As I read Scott Carmichael's book sometime later, it became readily apparent how important Ana Belen Montes was and how deeply she had penetrated and influenced the US defense establishment (e.g pp. 135-143 (hard copy edition). It also became clear how insignificant most people in the US government think Cuba, that "small" that 760 mile long island next door, is to the US; and how so many in important positions in the US underestimated Cuba's e