Member-only story
HAVANA LIES: How the Cubans Put a Spy Within the American Government for Sixteen Years
The fictional world of espionage will often depict James Bond or Jason Bourne fighting off a gang of hulking goons before scaling a skyscraper and then driving a sports car off a bridge — their downtime will consist of lavish drinks and beautiful women.
The reality is something far more subversive and far more mundane. Real-life spying requires a patience and slow exacting nature that is far removed from explosions and fist fights. Spying after all is a dirty trade of dirty lies and dirty secrets, Bond creator Ian Fleming said so himself.
This is the story of Ana Montes; a mild-mannered, shy and retiring intelligence analyst that was working tirelessly for the American government. It would take a long time before anybody cottoned on to the fact that Ana lived a secret life as a Cuban double agent. Ana had access to the most sensitive of data in American military and shared them with her Cuban cohorts.
Ana seemed like the perfect American on paper — she was even an army brat. She was born in West Germany to a United States Army doctor. She was educated at the University of Virginia and then obtained her masters at John Hopkins. Ana was a bright, intelligent and seemingly patriotic American, the mind boggles at how somebody so ordinary could even…
