{"id":98404,"date":"2023-12-08T02:56:59","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T08:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=98404"},"modified":"2023-12-08T02:56:59","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T08:56:59","slug":"98404","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=98404","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Career US Diplomat Charged With Secretly Spying for Cuban Intelligence for Decades<\/a><\/p>\n

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MIAMI (AP) \u2014 A <\/span>former career American diplomat<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0was charged with serving as a secret agent for communist Cuba going back decades in what prosecutors portrayed as one of the most brazen and long-running betrayals in the history of the U.S. foreign service.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Manuel Rocha wept as he sat handcuffed in Miami federal court on charges that he engaged in \u201cclandestine activity\u201d on Cuba\u2019s behalf since at least 1981 \u2014 the year he joined the U.S. foreign service \u2014 including by meeting with Cuban intelligence operatives and providing false information to U.S. government officials about his contacts.<\/span><\/p>\n

The complaint unsealed Monday is short on specifics of how Rocha may have assisted Cuba. But it provides a vivid case study of what American officials say are long-standing efforts by Cuba and its notoriously sophisticated intelligence services to target U.S. government officials who can be flipped.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis action exposes one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent,\u201d Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. \u201cTo betray that trust by falsely pledging loyalty to the United States while serving a foreign power is a crime that will be met with the full force of the Justice Department.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The 73-year-old Rocha, whose two-decade career as a U.S. diplomat included top posts in Bolivia, Argentina and the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, was arrested by the FBI at his Miami home Friday. He was ordered held following Monday\u2019s brief court appearance pending a bond hearing Wednesday. His attorney declined to comment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Justice Department did not reveal how Rocha attracted the attention of Cuba\u2019s intelligence operatives nor did it describe what, if any, sensitive information he may have provided while working for the State Department and in a lucrative post-government career that included a stint as a special adviser to the commander of U.S. Southern Command.<\/span><\/p>\n

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This image provided by the Justice Department and contained in the affidavit in support of a criminal complaint, shows Manuel Rocha. The Justice Department says Rocha, a former American diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, has been charged with serving as a covert agent for Cuba\u2019s intelligence services since at least 1981. Newly unsealed court papers allege that Manuel Rocha engaged in \u201cclandestine activity\u201d on Cuba\u2019s behalf for decades, including by meeting with Cuban intelligence operatives. (Justice Department via AP)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Instead, the case relies largely on what prosecutors say were Rocha\u2019s own admissions, made over the past year to an undercover FBI agent posing as a Cuban intelligence operative named \u201cMiguel.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Rocha praised the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro as \u201cComandante,\u201d branded the U.S. the \u201cenemy\u201d and bragged about his service for more than 40 years as a Cuban mole in the heart of U.S. foreign policy circles, the complaint says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have done \u2026 it\u2019s enormous \u2026 more than a Grand Slam,\u201d he was quoted as saying at one of several secretly recorded conversations.<\/span><\/p>\n

To cover his tracks, Rocha referred to Cuba as \u201cthe island\u201d and led a \u201cnormal life\u201d disguised as a \u201cright-wing person,\u201d he said in one of the recordings. Former colleagues and friends described Rocha as a vocal admirer of former President Donald Trump, who took a hard line on Cuba.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Defense lawyer Jacqueline Arango, center right, and Karla Wittkop Rocha, center left, wife of Manuel Rocha, are trailed by journalists as they leave the James Lawrence King Federal Justice Building in Miami, Monday, Dec. 4, 2023. Manuel Rocha, 73, a former American diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, has been charged with serving as a secret agent for Cuba\u2019s intelligence services dating back decades, the Justice Department said Monday. (AP Photo\/Rebecca Blackwell)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption>

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John Feeley, who ended a long diplomatic career serving as U.S. ambassador to Panama, said he was surprised how his mentor, who had served administrations of both parties, had so fully embraced Trump\u2019s politics.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is beyond ironic that he cultivated this cartoonish persona,\u201d he said, \u201cand that everyone apparently bought it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Washington and Havana restored diplomatic relations in late 2014<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0after a half-century of Cold War acrimony, though the Trump administration reimposed sanctions on Cuba and, in 2021, redesignated it a state sponsor of terrorism. The Biden administration has moved more gingerly to restore some Obama-era concessions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The charging document traces Rocha\u2019s illegal ties to Cuba to well after his departure from the federal government, when he took on lucrative private sector jobs \u2014 most recently as a senior adviser to an international public relations firm and prominent U.S. law firm.<\/span><\/p>\n

The FBI learned about the relationship last year and arranged a series of undercover encounters in discrete locations \u2014 a church and outdoor food court \u2014 in downtown Miami. Rocha deliberately strayed from the most-direct route to those encounters, pausing along the way in what prosecutors allege was classic, counter-surveillance \u201ctradecraft\u201d taught by Cuba\u2019s spymasters.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what I\u2019ve always been told to do,\u201d Rocha told the undercover agent at one of those meetings.<\/span><\/p>\n

At another meeting, Rocha referred to Cuba shooting down two unarmed planes sent by the Miami-based group of exiles, Brothers to the Rescue, in which four opponents of Castro\u2019s government were killed in 1996.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no indication in the complaint that Rocha aided the Cubans with the military operation \u2014 a major flashpoint in more than\u00a0<\/span>a half-century of brinksmanship<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0between the communist-ruled island and its right-wing opponents in Miami. But at the time he served as a senior political officer at the U.S. special interest section in Havana.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI lived through it, because I was in charge,\u201d Rocha was quoted as saying. \u201cThat was a time of a lot of tension.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Last Friday, when interviewed by two Diplomatic Security Service agents, Rocha repeatedly lied, including by denying having ever met someone matching the undercover agent\u2019s description, according to the charging document.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rocha\u2019s service to Cuba may have gone back even earlier than the start of his U.S. diplomatic career.<\/span><\/p>\n

The complaint cites Rocha telling the undercover agent that he first proved his loyalty in Chile in 1973 \u2014 the year Gen. Augusto Pinochet, with U.S. backing, overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey must have told you something because you mentioned Chile,\u201d Rocha told the undercover agent, who presented himself as having reached out to him at the request of higher-ups in Cuba\u2019s National Intelligence Directorate. \u201cThat inspired trust in me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Born in Colombia, Rocha was raised in a working-class home in New York City and obtained a succession of liberal arts degrees from Yale, Harvard and Georgetown before joining the foreign service.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was the top U.S. diplomat in Argentina between 1997 and 2000 as a decade-long currency stabilization program backed by Washington was unraveling under the weight of huge foreign debt, triggering a political crisis that would see the South American country cycle through five presidents in two weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n

At his next post, as ambassador to Bolivia, he intervened directly in the 2002 presidential race, warning weeks ahead of the vote that the U.S. would cut off assistance to the poor South American country if it were to elect former coca grower Evo Morales.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI want to remind the Bolivian electorate that if they vote for those who want Bolivia to return to exporting cocaine, that will seriously jeopardize any future aid to Bolivia from the United States,\u2033 Rocha said in a speech that was widely interpreted as an attempt to sustain U.S. dominance in the region.<\/span><\/p>\n

The comments backfired, angered Bolivians and boosted support for Morales, who joked that Rocha was his \u201cbest campaign chief.\u201d When Morales was finally elected three years later, the leftist leader expelled Rocha\u2019s successor as chief of the diplomatic mission for inciting \u201ccivil war.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rocha also served in Italy, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and worked as a Latin America expert for the National Security Council.<\/span><\/p>\n

Criminal cases against American officials accused of doing Cuba\u2019s bidding are rare but not unprecedented. A former State Department official, Walter Kendall Myers, was sentenced in 2010 to life in prison for providing classified information to Cuba, and Ana Belen Montes, a former U.S. defense intelligence analyst who was convicted of spying for Cuba, was released from prison in January after a lengthy sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n

But of all the spy scandals in the last 40 years, Rocha is believed to be the first member of America\u2019s elite foreign service to have been accused of betraying their oath, said Kevin Whitaker, a former U.S. ambassador to Colombia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf this is true, Rocha has stained the institution of the foreign service,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s infuriating.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Former Career US Diplomat Charged With Secretly Spying for Cuban Intelligence for Decades MIAMI (AP) \u2014 A former career American diplomat\u00a0was charged with serving as a secret agent for communist Cuba going back decades in what prosecutors portrayed as one of the most brazen and long-running betrayals in the history of the U.S. foreign service. … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,9,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucraps","category-enemies-foreign-domestic","category-espionage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98405,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98404\/revisions\/98405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}