U.S. Couple Accused Of Spying For Cuba

Indictment Alleges Retired State Department Worker And Wife Were Secret Agents For 30 Years

(CBS/AP)  A retired State Department worker and his wife have been arrested on charges of spying for Cuba for three decades, using grocery carts among their array of tools to pass U.S. secrets to the communist government in a security breach one official described as "incredibly serious."

An indictment unsealed Friday said Walter Kendall Myers worked his way into higher and higher U.S. security clearances while secretly partnering with his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, as clandestine agents so valued by the Cuban government that they once had a private four-hour meeting with President Fidel Castro.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that the arrest culminated a three-year investigation and that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has ordered a "comprehensive damage assessment" to determine what he may have passed to the Cubans.

The Myerses' arrest could affect congressional support for easing tensions with Cuba dating back to the Cold War. Two months ago, the Obama administration took steps to relax a trade embargo imposed on the island nation in 1962.

David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security, described the couple's alleged spying for the communist government as "incredibly serious."

Court documents indicate the couple received little money for their efforts, but instead professed a deep love for Cuba, Castro and the country's system of government.

The documents describe the couple's spying methods changing with the times, beginning with old-fashioned tools of Cold War spying: Morse code messages over a short-wave radio and notes taken on water-soluble paper. By the time they retired from the work in 2007, they were reportedly sending encrypted e-mails from Internet cafes.

The couple allegedly handed off secrets in person using shopping carts at nearby supermarkets to drop sensitive documents, reports CBS News correspondent Orr. The pair later told an undercover FBI investigator the shopping cart swap was "easy enough to do."

The document quoted Gwendolyn Myers as saying she "wouldn't do it now. Now they have cameras, but they didn't then."

Orr reports that Kendall Myers told the FBI undercover agent he usually took information home by memory or in notes saying: "I was always pretty careful."

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Criminal Complaint Against Walter Myers
Indictment of Walter And Gwendolyn Myers

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Authorities say her comments came during a series of meetings with an undercover FBI agent posing as a Cuban spy in April. The Myerses fell for the ruse, authorities say, sharing with the agent their views of Obama administration officials that had recently taken over responsibility for Latin American policy and accepting a device to encrypt future e-mail.

The couple, who live in an apartment building in northwest Washington, were arrested Thursday and pleaded not guilty Friday in U.S. District Court. They were ordered held in jail until a detention hearing scheduled for Wednesday. A call to their home telephone was not answered. Their attorney, Thomas Green, declined to comment.

The two were charged with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government and to communicate classified information to the Cuban government. Each is also charged with acting as an illegal agent of the Cuban government and with wire fraud.

Kendall Myers, 72, was known by the Cubans as Agent 202 and his 71-year-old wife went by both Agent 123 and Agent E-634, according to the indictment.

The indictment says Kendall Myers disclosed to the State Department that he traveled to Cuba for two weeks in 1978, saying the trip was for personal and academic purposes. The next year, a Cuban government official visited the couple while they were living in South Dakota and recruited them to be spies, the indictment says. At Cuba's direction, authorities say, Kendall Myers attempted to get jobs that would give him access to classified information.

He applied for a position at the CIA in 1981. He didn't get it but later was able to get work at the State Department, where his security clearance rose over the next two decades.

Kendall Myers first worked as a lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute and later as a European analyst in the department's intelligence arm, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, from 2000 until his retirement in October 2007.

The position gave him access to extremely sensitive documents, analysis and policy papers from a variety of government agencies. The indictment says in his last year of employment, Kendall Myers viewed more than 200 intelligence reports related to Cuba.

During his time at the intelligence bureau, officials there were dealing with the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and response as well assessments in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Court documents say among the information they passed was economic intelligence, which the former intelligence official said makes up much of what information Cuba is interested in from the United States.

The indictment seeks the return of all $1.7 million Kendall Myers earned in his State Department career, along with his $174,867 rollover IRA account.

Court documents say Castro came to visit the couple in a small house in Cuba where they were staying in 1995, after traveling through Mexico under false names. Kendall Myers reportedly boasted to the undercover FBI agent that they had received "lots of medals" from the Cuban government.

They made other trips to Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador and Argentina to meet with Cuban agents, the indictment says.

Myers apparently sympathized with the Cuban ideology and revolution that put Castro into power. Court documents say he wrote in a personal journal in 1978: "I can see nothing of value that has been lost by the revolution. ... The revolution has released enormous potential and liberated the Cuban spirit."

He praised Castro as a "brilliant and charismatic leader" who is "one of the great political leaders of our time." And he called the United States "exploiters" who regularly murdered Cuban revolutionary leaders.

Joseph Persichini, the FBI's assistant director in charge of the Washington field office that investigated the case, said that even as U.S. relations with foreign countries change, the clandestine hunt for secrets continues.

"When it comes to the intent of other nations pursuing our classified material, our research and development, the Cold War is not over, this activity does continue," Persichini said.

[nofoolling]

"Oh I was hoping this was gonna be a breaking story about Bush the Boy Blunder and Darth the Cheney God of Invented War finally being arrested for genocide and war crimes against humanity.

I geuss spying for Cuba must be alot worse than murdering 3/4 of a million humans!

Go figure."
-nofoolling
----
Well, you see, in the REAL world. People understand the fact that Bush and Cheney are not "war criminals" and you are as deluded as these spies were thinking that Castro was a good guy.
Posted by themps

Well, you see, in the REAL world. Peopel understand that evil people don't only come from other countries (wmd, wmd), and just because someone tells them the moon is made of swiss cheese, don't make it so.

Or maybe you refuse to believe your own eyes as you watch the twin-towers fall at the rate of gravity unbelievably defying any known physics except purposefull demolition.

I know, someone told you it was terrorists.

And to be certain it was, they used to live in the white house.

[themps]

"Oh I was hoping this was gonna be a breaking story about Bush the Boy Blunder and Darth the Cheney God of Invented War finally being arrested for genocide and war crimes against humanity.

I geuss spying for Cuba must be alot worse than murdering 3/4 of a million humans!

Go figure."
-nofoolling
----
Well, you see, in the REAL world. People understand the fact that Bush and Cheney are not "war criminals" and you are as deluded as these spies were thinking that Castro was a good guy.

[rhs648]

The U.S. has been caught trying to assassinate Castro a number of times. The U.S. has also engaged in biological warfare by introducing bad plants into Cuban's ecosystem and introducing swine diseases. Of course Cuba has the right to protect itself by having spies.

The U.S. has many more political prisoners than Cuba. Look at the case of the Cuban 5 (www.freethefive.org). If any other country tried to assassinate our president they would be annihilated. But, the U.S. thinks it can illegally kill Castro? This is a huge double standard.

Israeli spies are routinely caught with much more compromising information -- one day it is headline news and the next they are quietly released. There are always double standards when it comes to Cuba.
Posted by cybergrace

More left wing hyperbole. Hopefully, you aren't American. You spew the garbage that one expects to hear from America's enemies. Garbage like yours is the price we pay for free speech.

[xlib]

Was it michael moore and sean penn??

[hoseobama]

If found guilty, I think we should drop them of in Cuba, from about 20,000 feet.

[cybergrace]

The U.S. has been caught trying to assassinate Castro a number of times. The U.S. has also engaged in biological warfare by introducing bad plants into Cuban's ecosystem and introducing swine diseases. Of course Cuba has the right to protect itself by having spies.

The U.S. has many more political prisoners than Cuba. Look at the case of the Cuban 5 (www.freethefive.org). If any other country tried to assassinate our president they would be annihilated. But, the U.S. thinks it can illegally kill Castro? This is a huge double standard.

Israeli spies are routinely caught with much more compromising information -- one day it is headline news and the next they are quietly released. There are always double standards when it comes to Cuba.

[Dgunner]

This is unamerican as russian vodka. But open a abortion clinic and the US Marshalls are assigned to protect you. Sell drugs to our youth and you pay a fine in most cases just snitch on your partners and you are back in business in 24 hours.This nothing more than a black eye on the security personnel that are suppossed to be the best. But at what?

[nofoolling]

Oh I was hoping this was gonna be a breaking story about Bush the Boy Blunder and Darth the Cheney God of Invented War finally being arrested for genocide and war crimes against humanity.

I geuss spying for Cuba must be alot worse than murdering 3/4 of a million humans!

Go figure.

[jlwesley]

Hang them both.

[rhs648]

This guy was on the United States taxpayer payroll for those 30 years, receiving all of the perks and benefits of working for the government, and enjoys a pension from the government yet was passing information to Cuba the whole time. Somehow, this doesn't sit well with me.

[mnbrant]

Have to rewatch that movie spies like us to get the picture.

[mnbrant]

Waterboarding anyone? I think america needs to know. Sounds like they were send economical info? anybody know if thats a secret code for actual secrets? Heh it all sounds so funny.

[troutfishyman]

What's Cuba going to do? Sorry but Cuban spies sound about as threatening as Ethiopian spies.
Posted by artorus


They can turn around and sell to the highest bidder, like their Russian buddies.

[melchg07]

30 years of spying......most of the sensitive info was apparently economic......doesn't seem to be helping Cuba much.

[debinok1]

This should surprise me. It should, but it does not.

[YrSoWrong]

Did these spies also post to the cbsnew blog? They would be hard to identify in a crowd.

[artorus]

What's Cuba going to do? Sorry but Cuban spies sound about as threatening as Ethiopian spies.

[gravyboat3000]

Torture is a way of life....
If Torture will save my loved one do it!
The Bigest torture on this Planet is liberal media!
Posted by Libertarian1776

"God bless the USA, and no place else"?

[stn_sage]

Now that is a strange pair to do it for the love of Communism! Too bad so many in our new administration are willing to throw OUR system of government overboard so quickly and carelessly. No love of country.
Posted by randomlybanned at 4:43 PM : Jun 5, 2009
=======================================
C'MON! As opposed to WHO ELSE?!

After BUSH and CHENEY, there's NOT MUCH LEFT of 'our system of government' for the new administration to throw overboard!

Get serious---and realistic!

[Libertarian1776]

Torture is a way of life....
If Torture will save my loved one do it!
The Bigest torture on this Planet is liberal media!