View Single Post
Old June 6th, 2009 #2
Nick Apleece
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 643
Default More Jew spies arrested

Couple indicted on charges of spying for Cuba
U.S. says pair passed secrets to communist nation over 30 years

updated 6:04 p.m. PT, Fri., June 5, 2009
WASHINGTON - A retired State Department worker and his wife have been arrested on charges of spying for Cuba for three decades, using grocery carts among their array of tools to pass U.S. secrets to the communist government in a security breach one official described as "incredibly serious."

An indictment unsealed Friday said Walter Kendall Myers worked his way into higher and higher U.S. security clearances while secretly partnering with his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, as clandestine agents so valued by the Cuban government that they once had a private four-hour meeting with President Fidel Castro.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that the arrest culminated a three-year investigation. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has ordered a "comprehensive damage assessment" to determine what he may have passed to the Cubans.

David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security, described the couple's alleged spying for the communist government as "incredibly serious."

The Myerses' arrest could affect congressional support for easing tensions with Cuba dating back to the Cold War. Two months ago, the Obama administration took steps to relax a trade embargo imposed on the island nation in 1962.

A senior State Department official described the potential for damage as great and the timing unfortunate, noting that it could affect congressional support for the administration's recent attempts to engage Cuba. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation.

Cuba is notorious for not paying its agents, said a former intelligence official speaking anonymously because of the highly sensitive matter. Indeed, court documents indicate the couple received little money for their efforts, but instead professed a deep love for Cuba, Castro and the country's system of government.

Spying methods over time
The court papers describe the couple's spying methods changing with the times, beginning with old-fashioned tools of Cold War spying: Morse-code messages over a short-wave radio and notes taken on water-soluble paper. By the time they retired from the work in 2007, they allegedly were sending encrypted e-mails from Internet cafes.

The criminal complaint says changing technology also persuaded Gwendolyn Myers to abandon what she considered an easy way of passing information, by changing shopping carts in a grocery store. The document quoted her as saying she "wouldn't do it now. Now they have cameras, but they didn't then."

Authorities say her comments came during a series of meetings with an undercover FBI agent posing as a Cuban spy in April. The Myerses fell for the ruse, authorities say, sharing with the agent their views of Obama administration officials who recently had taken over responsibility for Latin American policy and accepting a device to encrypt future e-mail.

The Myerses are charged with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government and to communicate classified information to the Cuban government. Each is also charged with acting as an illegal agent of the Cuban government and with wire fraud.

The couple pleaded not guilty Friday in U.S. District Court. They were ordered held in jail until a detention hearing scheduled for Wednesday. Their attorney, Thomas Green, would not comment. A call to their home telephone was not answered.

Life of luxury?
The Myerses live in a luxury co-op complex in Northwest Washington that over the years was home to Cabinet members, judges, congressmen and senators, including the late Barry Goldwater, a former presidential candidate.

William Simpson, a security guard at the co-op, said the Myerses regularly asked him to clean their windows and would offer him something to eat or drink. "They treated me nice; they treated me real nice," he said. "It shocked me when I heard" the news, Simpson said.

Gail Prensky, a resident of the apartment complex, was taken aback by news that neighbors had been arrested. "It's intriguing on the one hand," she said. "It's a sense of you never know who your neighbors are in a place like this, where it's so safe and pristine. And there's espionage going on?"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31129203

No 100% confirmation of their jewishness as of yet, but the story reeks of gefilte fish. If they're not jews, I'll lay a kosher rose on the grave of the Rosenbergs as penance.

*Edit* I've been researching yet can still not confirm their Jewishness. It would be appreciated if anyone could confirm or deny it.