The historic deal to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba included the release of what President Barack Obama described as "one of the most important intelligence agents" the United States ever had in Cuba — a spy who helped unravel several key Cuban intelligence operations, reports say.
The president said the man's plight — he was imprisoned for nearly two decades — "has been known to only a few," but the information he provided led to arrests of Cuban spies in the United States, three of whom were returned to Cuba as part of the spy swap Wednesday,
USA Today reports.
The U.S. spy, the president announced, "is now safely on our shores."
According to
The Washington Post, U.S. officials said the release of the Cuban native, who has not been publicly identified, was a major priority for the intelligence community as part of any deal with the Cubans. The deal also included the release of former U.S. aid worker Alan Gross by Cuba.
The Post said the existence of one person who proved so pivotal in so many high-profile cases had not been known until Wednesday's spy swap.
According to Obama administration officials, that one man's information led to arrests, including that of former State Department official Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers; and of the Defense Intelligence Agency's top Cuba analyst, Ana Belen Montes.
In the Myers case, the FBI had suspected for years that there was a mole in the State Department but didn't have a name, The Post reports. In 2009,
agents closed in, and within months the couple pleaded guilty to spying. In 2010, Walter Myers was sentenced to life in prison; his wife received nearly seven years.
In the case of Montes, whom the FBI called a "classic tale of recruitment" by the Cuban government, Cuban officials learned in 1984 that she was "sympathetic to their cause," and she soon agreed to help, landing a job at the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1985, The Post reports.
Montes was arrested days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and pleaded guilty in 2002. She was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
"Information provided by this person was instrumental in the identification and disruption of several Cuban intelligence operatives in the United States and ultimately led to a series of successful federal espionage prosecutions," said Brian Hale, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, adding that it was a "fitting closure to this Cold War chapter of U.S.-Cuban relations."
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