A former US State Department official with top-secret security clearance and his wife have been arrested and charged with spying for Cuba for almost 30 years, US officials said on Friday.
Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and his wife Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, 71, are accused of conspiracy to hand over classified information to Cuba, serving as an illegal agent for a foreign government and wire fraud, the Department of Justice said in a statement.
The Washington couple were arrested on Thursday after an undercover FBI sting operation for having allegedly passed on secrets for decades to Cuba via shortwave radio and in shopping carts.
If found guilty, the Myers face a maximum of 20 years in prison.
“The clandestine activity alleged in the charging documents, which spanned nearly three decades, is incredibly serious and should serve as a warning to any others in the US government who would betray America’s trust,” said David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security.
Myers first began working for the State Department in 1977 as a lecturer at the department’s Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Virginia. But from 1988 to 1999 he began to work for its bureau of intelligence and research.
In 1985, he was given top-secret security clearance, which was then upgraded to a higher level in 1999.
By the time he retired, Myers was working as a senior Europe analyst for the department’s intelligence bureau and had daily access to classified information stored on computer databases, the Justice Department said.
A scan of his computer showed that from August 2006 until his retirement in October 2007 Myers had viewed more than 200 sensitive or classified intelligence reports on Cuba, which has been under a US embargo since 1962.
The couple were first recruited after Myers traveled to Cuba in 1978 at the invitation of the Cuban mission to the US in New York.
Six months later he was visited in his South Dakota home by a Cuban official from the mission and the couple allegedly agreed to spy for Cuba.
They were encouraged to seek a job in Washington at the State Department or CIA, the Justice Department said.
The couple would allegedly get encrypted messages from Cuba via shortwave radio, and Gwendolyn Myers, who worked as an analyst at a local bank, would pass on information to her contacts by exchanging shopping carts in stores because she said it was “easy enough to do,” it said.
Myers told the undercover FBI agent that he usually smuggled information out of the State Department by memorizing it or by taking notes.
“I was always pretty careful. I didn’t usually take documents out,” he told the operative who was pretending to be a Cuban intelligence officer.
Apart from being contacted via coded messages on shortwave radio, the couple traveled all over South America and the Caribbean to meet with Cuban agents.
They received medals from the Cuban government and apparently met with then-president Fidel Castro in 1995.
News of the arrests came as the administration of US President Barack Obama is seeking to open a new era of ties with South America and has lifted travel restrictions on the country.
“This should serve as a stark reminder that while some seek to entice the Castro regime into behaving like the rest of the free world, Havana only seeks to threaten and undermine US interests at every turn,” warned Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Representative on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
And Frank Calzon, from the Center for a Free Cuba agreed, saying the arrests were a wake-up call, which “should be a matter of great concern to the Congress because of the ongoing efforts by Cuban diplomats and others to influence the perception of both congressmen and senators about US Cuba policy.”
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has ordered a review of the case, and an assessment of the department’s security procedures.
US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the arrests were the culmination of a three-year joint investigation with the department’s security service and the FBI.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
RSS