Intelligence
Cuban spy
reportedly helped U.S. uncover 3 espionage networks
Cuban President Raul
Castro, right, meets with the last three of the "Cuban Five" spies
released from U.S. prisons: From left are Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino and
Antonio Gonzalez. (Estudios Revolucion)
By Adam Goldman
and Missy RyanWashington Post
Cuban spy reportedly
helped U.S. uncover 3 espionage networks
The
CIA's Latin America Division has run many spies in Cuba, but Rolando Sarraff
Trujillo was in a class all his own.
From
his perch as a cryptographer in Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence, Sarraff was
able to provide information that repeatedly helped the U.S. intelligence
community crack encoded messages the Communist government was sending via
shortwave radio.
This
week, American officials said Sarraff's information contributed to the FBI's
dismantling of three major spy networks in the United States. The last of them
included a group of operatives known as the "Cuban Five," who were
convicted of espionage and made headlines again Wednesday when the three who
were still in prison were freed as part of a dramatic spy swap.
Former
U.S. officials, while not speaking about Sarraff's case directly, suggested his
position in the Cuban intelligence apparatus would have made him an exceptional
asset.
"You
want the man who handles the communications," said Gerald Komisar, a
former CIA officer who was involved in Cuba operations in the 1990s and ran the
Latin America Division. "He's gonna have most of the secrets you
want."
Sarraff's
whereabouts remained a mystery Thursday. Vilma Sarraff, his sister, said that
her parents, who live in Cuba, went to see their son Monday but that the family
had not been informed about her brother's release.
"We
don't know where he is," she said in a phone interview from Spain, where
she lives. "We don't know if he's in Cuba, if he's in the United States.
Our parents are looking everywhere."
Rolando
Sarraff was arrested in 1995 on espionage and other charges in Cuba and later
was sentenced to 25 years in prison. In a blog they kept to draw attention to
his case, his family recounted the sentencing.
"How
is it possible that you sanctioned my son without showing one single piece of
evidence?" Sarraff's father asked.
The
judge replied: "In Cuba you're either with Fidel [Castro], or against. Your son said he is against."
Although
the family said there was no evidence to support a conviction, Sarraff had
betrayed his native Cuba to help the United States, officials said. In addition
to helping U.S. authorities identify the Cuban Five, Sarraff's information
allowed the FBI to arrest long-running spies at the State Department and
Defense Intelligence Agency.
Robert
Booth, a former diplomatic security agent with an extensive counterintelligence
background, was deeply involved in flushing out the moles Sarraff helped
identify at the State Department: Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn
Steingraber Myers.
In
2007, the FBI revealed to Booth that the National Security Agency had decrypted
numerous Cuban shortwave radio transmissions. It appeared to him, he said in an
interview, that the FBI had had the decrypted messages for years.
Though
he said he never knew Sarraff had provided the crucial information, Booth
became a beneficiary.
Based
on the intercepts, Booth and FBI counterintelligence agents put together a
matrix of personal characteristics of the mole. They assumed the spy was male,
married, had a familiarity with Morse code, worked in the State Department and
didn't speak Spanish. He also was a civil servant employee, not a Foreign
Service officer, which was crucial to narrowing the pool of suspects.
Within
30 days, Booth identified Myers, who was arrested two years later by the FBI in
a sophisticated counterintelligence operation. He was sentenced to life in
prison in 2010; his wife received nearly seven years.
During
the course of his two decades in captivity, Sarraff was held in various
prisons, including the Cuban government's highest-security facility, Villa
Marista, where he was at the time of his release.
Middle-of-the-night
interrogations at the prison were common. "While being interrogated, the
main technique was to morally crush you completely," his family wrote in
their blog.
They
also posted letters they said Sarraff wrote from prison.
"My
spirit is still strong, full of hope, and my honor intact," Sarraff, now
51, wrote in 2012. "I confront this brutality and severe punishment with
the utmost dignity, but without losing my tenderness, the sense of justice and
my limited capacity to offer love."
In
the interview Thursday, Vilma Sarraff said her brother was a painter and a
poet. Some of his work is featured on the blog. He is a "sweet
person," she said, adding, "He gives us strength."
Komisar,
the former CIA officer, said neither the United States nor Cuba can claim
victory in their spy war. In the end, he said, it has been a draw.
"We
had some successes," he said. "They had some successes. We had some
failures, and they had some failures."
Washington Post staffers Julie Tate and Marlon Correa
contributed to this report.
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