This inside account of the investigation that led to her arrest was written by Scott W. Carmichael, the DIA's senior counterintelligence investigator who persuaded the FBI to delve deeper into Montes activities. Although Montes did not fit the FBI's profile of a spy and easily managed to defeat the agency's polygraph exam, Carmichael became suspicious of her activities and, with the FBI, over a period of several years developed a solid case against her. Here he tells the story of that long and ultimately successful spy hunt. Carmichael reveals the details of their efforts to bring her to justice, offering readers a front-row seat for the first major U.S. espionage case of the twenty-first century. She was arrested less than twenty-four hours before learning details of the U.S. plan to invade Afghanistan post-September 11. Motivated by ideology and not money, Montes was one of the last "true believers" of the Communist era. Because her arrest came just ten days after 9/11, it went largely unnoticed by the American public. This book calls attention to the grave damage Montes inflicted on U.S. security--Carmichael even implicates her in the death of a Green Beret fighting Cuban-backed insurgent in El Salvador and the damage she would have continued to inflict had she not been caught.
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Book Description
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 sent Castro some of America's most closely guarded secrets and at the same time influenced what the United States thought it knew about Cuba. When she was finally arrested in September 2001, she became the most senior American intelligence official ever accused of operating as a Cuban spy from within the federal government. Unrepentant as she serves out her time in a federal prison in Texas, Montes remains the only member of the intelligence community ever convicted of espionage on behalf of the Cuban government.
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About the Author
Scott W. Carmichael, the senior security and counterintelligence investigator for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), served as the lead case agent for the DIA on the Ana Montes espionage investigation. He has been investigating attempts by foreign intelligence services to penetrate DIA operations worldwide for nearly twenty years. Prior to that he was a Chinese-Mandarin linguist in the U.S. Navy and a special agent of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. His contributions toward the successful resolution of national security matters have earned Carmichael the DIA Civilian Expeditionary Medal and Award for Meritorious Civilian Service, the Defense Intelligence Director's Award, the Department of Defense Counterintelligence Award, and the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement, among other awards and various forms of recognition. He lives with his wife and three sons in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Story, but Hesitant Recounting,
By laz_254 "laz_254" (miami, fl United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba's Master Spy (Hardcover)
The plot is a great story about a Cuban spy (mole) in the Defense Intelligence Agency. The main good guy is a perceptive and doggedly tenacious counterintelligence agent/investigator. The bad guy (gal) lives a poker-faced double life: hard working and ambitious U.S. govt. employee with far-reaching influence in foreign policy decisions. So far so good, but the story is told like the author doesn't want to reveal the slightest bit of tradecraft or investigative detail. I know the author, who is also the good guy/investigator, needs to protect methods/techniques, but he does the reader a great disservice by holding back on details involving missteps and clues detected by the U.S. govt sleuths. The author mentions how the mole was detected due to certain telltale clues, but yet doesn't elaborate. If you want to read a story that is long on "If I tell then I'll have to kill you" intrigue then you (the reader) will be happy with lack of detail and supporting narrative.
31 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
None So Blind,
By Steve Dietrich (Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Monica CA, United States) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)
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This review is from: True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba's Master Spy (Hardcover)
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.
29 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The feast of Saint Ann is the 26th of July,
By
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This review is from: True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba's Master Spy (Hardcover)
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 espionage capability (e.g. p. 151-152). For this reason, despite the sacrifice of a number of US government careers in the 1960s, the false but prevalent mind set in Washington was, and still is to consider Castro's espionage threat insignificant to US security. The author gives a clarion call on pages 175-179. Perhaps betrayed Green Beret Greg Fronius rests a little easier in his grave. The author is to be commended for his fine work and his excellent book
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