Fidel Castro calls U.S. spy case ridiculous
Sat Jun 6, 2009 10:02pm EDT

By Tom Brown
HAVANA (Reuters) – Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Saturday called charges that a former U.S. State Department official and his wife spied for the Cuban government for nearly 30 years “ridiculous” and described the case as an “espionage comic strip.”

For Complete Story:
http://tinyurl.com/p56hfo

Castro questions timing of Cuban spy arrests

Jun 6 09:01 PM US/Eastern
By ANITA SNOW

HAVANA (AP) – Fidel Castro called the case of two Americans accused of spying for Cuba “strange” Saturday and questioned whether the timing of their arrests was politically motivated.

In an essay read by a newscaster on state television, the former Cuban leader noted that the retired Washington couple were taken into custody just 24 hours after the Organization of American States voted to lift a decades-old suspension of Cuba’s membership in that group.

Though the U.S. ultimately supported the OAS vote Wednesday, the administration of President Barack Obama initially wanted to see more democratic reforms on the communist island before Cuba was readmitted.

Castro called the OAS vote “a defeat for United States diplomacy.”

Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn, were arrested Thursday in Washington after a three-year investigation that began before Myers’ retirement from the State Department in 2007.

The U.S. government says they had been spying for Havana for 30 years, recruited by Cuba after a 1978 trip there. Myers received his orders by Morse code, and he and his wife usually hand-delivered intelligence, sometimes by exchanging carts in a grocery store, according to court documents.

“Doesn’t the story of Cuban spying seem really ridiculous to everyone?” Castro asked, without commenting on its validity.

Myers had been under suspicion since 1995 and FBI investigation since 2006. If the couple had been watched that long, “why were they not arrested before?” Castro asked. Court documents say the two were such valued spies, they once had a four-hour meeting with Castro, whom Myers described as one of the great modern political leaders.

Castro said he doesn’t recall meeting them when he was still president.

For Complete Story:
http://tinyurl.com/otnjsy

So the Meyers communicated using short wave radio (the exact unit was specified as being the same as another Cuban agent).

Ah and then the era of the e-mail — and the double meanings. Seems like the government is going to have to prove that the e-mail really does mean something different than what is written. As a juror I would be suspicious of this line of evidence without some solid proof that the underlying meaning of the actual words in the e-mail was different.

As a tax payer I can see that an enormous amount of time and money has been spent to monitor this couple — and that this “spying on the spies” has been extensive. Hopefully the information gained about the methods and operations of the Cuban Intelligence was worth the tax payer’s money.

I wonder how many double agents are involved — Cubans who are really US agents, trying to recruit field agents for Cuba??? It seems like there might be inside information and perhaps that agent has retired or died???

OK — now who is going to make the movie?

Diplomatic security officials “let it go for a while” to see what information might emerge.

Who knows what “a while” is. Thirty years? These are clearly minor league operatives but Cuba has to be wondering about whether the stuff being sent by these two was all completely bogus.

It would seem that they were now of no more use to the U.S. so this was, as Larry says, a F.U. to Cuban intelligence.