The Miami Herald
Sat, March 17, 2007

Book sparks inquiry into Cuban spy

BY PABLO BACHELET

A new book on convicted Cuban spy Ana Belén Montes prompted calls by lawmakers Friday for the Bush administration to reveal more on the damage done by a spy who may have caused the death of a U.S. green beret.

Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said Montes ''may well turn out to be one of the most notorious spies to infiltrate'' the Defense Intelligence Agency, where she worked as the top Cuba analyst with access to secret documents and intelligence gathering methods for years.

Ros-Lehtinen and fellow Miami Republican Reps. Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart have requested ''a top-to-bottom assessment'' of the damage caused by Montes, who was arrested shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

''Our questions are simple,'' they said in a joint statement. "How many reports did Montes write? How much influence did she have on the final reports the policymakers read? The persons she met with? What was the extent of her spying?''

In his new book True Believer, Scott W. Carmichael, the senior counterintelligence investigator for the DIA, suggests Montes was at least ''partially responsible'' for the death of Army Sgt. Gregory Fronius, a green beret who died in a battle with left-wing guerrillas that overran a Salvadoran army camp in 1987.

The book, which was cleared by the DIA, is unusual because Carmichael is an active agent who investigated Montes for five years before her arrest. He told The Miami Herald Friday that he wanted to raise public awareness on the threat posed by Cuban intelligence services and their ability to penetrate the U.S. government.

''They run those people as agents right under our noses without [our] detecting them,'' he said. ``That's what makes them good.''

His book says that Montes visited a Salvadoran army camp known as El Paraíso just weeks before the guerrillas attacked it on March 31, 1987. Fronius was killed in the battle.

''I cannot blame her for his death because there is no hard evidence to directly connect her to his death,'' he told The Miami Herald. ``There is circumstantial [evidence] to suggest that she provided some input that contributed to his death.''

At the time, Montes was an intelligence analyst on Central America and met with Cuban intelligence operatives every two weeks.

The book's proceeds will go to Fronius' son and daughter.

The lawmakers said they believe Havana shares intelligence with U.S. foes like China, North Korea, Iran, Russia and Venezuela.

Montes is now serving a 25-year prison term.