Ana Montes: An (Almost) Perfect SpyCode Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America’s Most Dangerous Female Spy – and the Sister She Betrayed, Jim Popkin. New York: Hanover Square Press, 2023. $27.99. 352 pp.

Abstract

AbstractArrested on 21 September 2001, Ana Montes’s life as a double agent for Cuba came as a tremendous shock to her Defense Intelligence Agency colleagues who, for more than 15 years, had esteemed the high-flying analyst for her methodical approach, self-effacing personality and brilliant mind. As journalist Jim Popkin writes in Code Name Blue Wren, Montes was a study in how to live a double life. Her betrayal of her country would be equalled only by her betrayal of her own family.Key words: Ana Belén MontesCode Name Blue WrenCubaDefense Intelligence Agency (DIA)Fidel CastroJim PopkinMarta Rita VelázquezOperación AvispaPuerto Rico Notes1 See Jim Popkin, ‘Ana Montes Did Much Harm Spying for Cuba. Chances Are, You Haven’t Heard of Her’, Washington Post, 18 April 2013, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/feature/wp/2013/04/18/ana-montes-did-much-harm-spying-for-cuba-chances-are-you-havent-heard-of-her/.2 I discussed some of the details of Montes’s life and work in an essay published in these pages in 2013. See Russell Crandall, ‘The Cold War and Cuban Intelligence’, Survival, vol. 55, no. 4, August–September 2013, pp. 191–8. See also Popkin, ‘Ana Montes Did Much Harm Spying for Cuba’.3 See Daniel Golden, Spy School: How the FBI, CIA, and Foreign Intelligence Secretly Exploit America’s Universities (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2017).4 Carol Leonnig, ‘Transcript: Jim Popkin, Author “Code Name Blue Wren”’, Washington Post, 5 January 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2023/01/05/transcript-jim-popkin-author-code-name-blue-wren/.5 See Dina Temple-Raston, ‘Exchange of Spies Was Critical to U.S.–Cuba Deal’, NPR, 19 December 2014, https://www.npr.org/2014/12/19/371821107/exchange-of-spies-was-critical-to-u-s-cuba-deal.6 See also Lance Moore, ‘Motivations of an Ideologue: A Case Study of Cuban Spy Ana Belen Montes’, Institute of World Politics, 8 September 2019, https://www.iwp.edu/active-measures/2019/09/08/motivations-of-an-ideologue-a-case-study-of-cuban-spy-ana-belen-montes/.7 See US Department of Justice, ‘Unsealed Indictment Charges Former U.S. Federal Employee with Conspiracy to Commit Espionage for Cuba’, 25 April 2013, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/unsealed-indictment-charges-former-us-federal-employee-conspiracy-commit-espionage-cuba.8 Juliana Kim, ‘Ana Montes, Former U.S. Analyst Convicted of Spying for Cuba, Is Released from Prison’, NPR, 8 January 2023, https://www.npr.org/2023/01/08/1147741163/ana-montes-former-u-s-analyst-convicted-of-spying-for-cuba-is-released-from-pris.9 Johanna Neuman, ‘Unrepentant Spy Gets 25 Years’, Los Angeles Times, 17 October 2002, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-oct-17-na-spy17-story.html.10 Popkin notes that this was ‘quite a statement to share with a high schooler’ (p. 299).11 See Kim, ‘Ana Montes, Former U.S. Analyst Convicted of Spying for Cuba, Is Released from Prison’.Additional informationNotes on contributorsRussell CrandallRussell Crandall is a professor of American foreign policy and international politics at Davidson College in North Carolina, and has served as a contributing editor to Survival. His new book is Forging Latin America: Profiles in Power and Ideas, 1492 to Today (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024).