Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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, 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

This was a very quick read, somewhat disconcerting at times due to frequent changes of progress developing. I can just imagine the effect on the writer being so close. He did an extremely thorough job with background and a very good job of providing credit to others involved; so many writers seem to be reluctant even to use anonymous "names."

There must be some idiots working in counterintelligence in the USA, the guy who wrote this book, identified this woman years before she was eventually caught, and the FBI ignored him, thank god I dont live in the good old USA!!!!!! my thoughts are with you all!!!!!!!!!!

Amazon recommended this book after looking for Che books. I bought it and I was locked into it even at the Prologue stage. It is a quick read, and very interesting. I highly recommend it.

This story about Montes is absolutely necessary as she represents something even the author does not put his finger on: a product of the "my opinion counts" generation.

In American society we have freedom of speech, yet when you join sensitive government agencies that right is severely curtailed due to the nature of the information you have access to. You CANNOT share this information with others. Yet Montes, because she disagreed with U.S. policy on Cuba, felt that it was OK for her to covertly provide information to the communist government there. That is absolutely wrong, having sworn an oath and put herself in a position of trust it was simply wrong of her to spy for Cuba. If she wanted change she could go into the private sector, raise money, lobby Congress... but not betray her country. Not dishonor herself in such an extreme manner and for such a despicable cause, that of Castro and his murdering scum.

In my opinion she should have been shot for her treason, as this is wartime, but that kind of decision is not up to me.

This book is a relatively quick read but an engrossing one. I recommend it as an example of what we can expect in the future.

Five Star. This is the only book written about Ana Montes, a smart, American girl, who rose to the top of the intelligence community and betrayed her country by spying for Cuba. She not only influenced our strategic policy toward Cuba but may have caused the loss of life by our US military. At her trial Ana claimed she spied because she did not agree with US policy on Cuba. Recommend read. Hope more books will be written about this spy who got 25 years in prison for her betrayal.

I just recently completed reading about the infamous Cambridge spies who infiltrated and did great damage to the British intell service and diplomatic corps in the 50s and 60s.
Montes certainly qualifies as a "true believer". Ours is an age where most of the espionage has been done for money moreso than out of an ideological basis. She was a traitor who betrayed this nation for purely ideological beliefs. I could see someone doing that in the 60s or 70s but not in our modern era. Communism's appeal is for the most part fading or gone; holding sway only in a few university departments and maybe in the Venezuelan president's office.

I have only contempt for this woman. For contributing to the death of the Green Beret soldier alone she should be executed.

Meanwhile.. the communist regime in Cuba continues to be on life support. It is an abysmal failure and el hermano pequeno now wants to transform Cuba into an economic colossus akin to Red China. A certainly worthwhile goal however don't look to see "Hecho en Cuba" stamped on any product at your local WalMart any time soon.

Have not recieved the book ordered now about a month ago not happy never got a email a response about it