Arrested for Spying

The story seems like a throwback to the Cold War era: an American couple arrested by federal authorities and accused of spying on the U.S. for a communist country. But the couple in question are in custody right now. U.S. officials believe Dr. Walter Kendall Myers Jr. and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, have been spying for the Cuban government for 3 decades.

The following are excerpts from the Dept. of Justice press release regarding the couples' arrest:

An indictment and criminal complaint unsealed today in the District of Columbia charge Walter Kendall Myers, 72, a.k.a. "Agent 202," and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, 71, a.k.a. "Agent 123," and "Agent E-634," with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government and to communicate classified information to the Cuban government. Each of the defendants is also charged with acting as an illegal agent of the Cuban government and with wire fraud.

The Myers, both residents of Washington, D.C., were arrested yesterday afternoon by FBI agents. They made their initial appearances today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, while serving as an illegal agent of a foreign government carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and conspiracy carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Whatever their motivations were, the Myerses seemed pretty committed to screwing their nation over, regardless of who was in the White House. Again, from the DOJ release:

[...] Kendall Myers traveled to Cuba in December 1978 after receiving an invitation from an official who served at the Cuban Mission to the United States in New York City. His guide while in Cuba was an official with Cuba's Foreign Service Institute. This trip provided the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS) with the opportunity to assess or develop Myers as a Cuban agent, according to the affidavit.

Approximately six months after the trip, the Myers were visited in South Dakota by the official from the Cuban Mission in New York and, according to the affidavit, Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers agreed to serve as clandestine agents of the Cuban government. Afterwards, the CuIS directed Kendall Myers to pursue a job at either the State Department or the CIA. Kendall Myers, accompanied by his wife, then returned to Washington, D.C., where he resumed contract work at the State Department and later obtained a State Department position that required a Top Secret security clearance.

Their methods of communicating also hearkened back to the most intriguing aspects of Cold War spycraft:

the CuIS often communicated with its clandestine agents in the United States by broadcasting encrypted radio messages from Cuba on shortwave radio frequencies. Clandestine agents in the United States monitoring the frequency on shortwave radio could decode the messages using a decryption program provided by the CuIS. Such methods were employed by defendants previously convicted of espionage on behalf of Cuba. According to the affidavit, the Myers have an operable shortwave radio in their apartment and they told an FBI source that they have used it to receive messages from the CuIS.

Numbers stations, anyone? If you don't know what those are, here's a telling description from Wikipedia: "Numbers stations (or number stations) are shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin. They generally broadcast artificially generated voices reading streams of numbers, words, letters (sometimes using a spelling alphabet), tunes or Morse code. They are in a wide variety of languages and the voices are usually women's, though sometimes men's or children's voices are used..."

W. Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were through an old-fashioned sting, tricked into giving up the ghost by "an undercover FBI source." They seemed rather guileless (or perhaps overconfident) for spies. The DOJ says they eventually told the undercover operative deep info such as their spy code names as well as Gwen Myers's preferred method for passing info via switched shopping carts, because that was "easy enough to do."



Not discussed in the DOJ press release were details as to how the couple was paid for what they did. While Kendall Myers probably did pretty well through his various positions both in the State Department and as an educator, he wasn't rolling in dough. Still, he and his wife found time to buy a nice little boat they named the "Helene." Gwen Myers even gave a testimony to the boat maker, which the manufacturer published online [PDF]: "It is 8:00 PM here; we are having a drink and are practically melting in our chairs while repeating to one another, 'we have the most beautiful boat.' Today the temperature was around 60 degrees and the wind from 4 to 8 knots. We sailed the good ship Helene on the Bay for 4 hours. Kendall sailed then napped for an hour on a pad behind the helm's seat. I used a finger to occasionally touch the wheel while the boat sailed herself. Clouds were mesmerizing..." [Copy]

Any encomiums in that statement to "peerless leader Fidel" were surely edited out.

W. Kendall Myers caused a bit of a crapstorm in 2006 when he made some decidedly out-of-school statements about the relationship between America and the United Kingdom. His words have an added subtext now. Myers stated that he was "ashamed" of then-president George Bush's treatment of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and that the US/UK relationship "was a done deal from the beginning, it was a onesided relationship that was entered into with open eyes . . . there was nothing. There was no payback, no sense of reciprocity."

Kendall Myers, by the way, was also an author. If the DOJ is correct about his and his wife's activities, he'd been spying for Cuba for more than a decade by the time he published An intelligent traveler's guide to Western Europe through the Foreign Service's School of Area Studies in 1993.

An intelligent traveler's guide to Cuba probably would have been just a little too obvious, I guess.

A former State Department official and his wife have been arrested on charges of serving as illegal agents of the Cuban government for nearly 30 years and conspiring to provide classified U.S. information to the Cuban government.

The Myers, both residents of Washington, D.C., were arrested Thursday afternoon by FBI agents. They made their initial appearances Friday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, while serving as an illegal agent of a foreign government carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and conspiracy carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

"The clandestine activity alleged in the charging documents, which spanned nearly three decades, is incredibly serious and should serve as a warning to any others in the U.S. government who would betray America's trust by serving as illegal agents of a foreign government. We remain vigilant in protecting our nation's secrets and in bringing to justice those who compromise them," said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. "These arrests are the culmination of an outstanding counterespionage effort by many agents, analysts and prosecutors who deserve special thanks for their extraordinary work."

The full press release from the Department of Justice:

A former State Department official and his wife have been arrested on charges of serving as illegal agents of the Cuban government for nearly 30 years and conspiring to provide classified U.S. information to the Cuban government.


The arrests were announced today by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Channing D. Phillips, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director for the FBI's Washington Field Office, and Ambassador Eric J. Boswell, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security.

An indictment and criminal complaint unsealed today in the District of Columbia charge Walter Kendall Myers, 72, a.k.a. "Agent 202," and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, 71, a.k.a. "Agent 123," and "Agent E-634," with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government and to communicate classified information to the Cuban government. Each of the defendants is also charged with acting as an illegal agent of the Cuban government and with wire fraud.

The Myers, both residents of Washington, D.C., were arrested yesterday afternoon by FBI agents. They made their initial appearances today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, while serving as an illegal agent of a foreign government carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and conspiracy carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

"The clandestine activity alleged in the charging documents, which spanned nearly three decades, is incredibly serious and should serve as a warning to any others in the U.S. government who would betray America's trust by serving as illegal agents of a foreign government. We remain vigilant in protecting our nation's secrets and in bringing to justice those who compromise them," said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. "These arrests are the culmination of an outstanding counterespionage effort by many agents, analysts and prosecutors who deserve special thanks for their extraordinary work."

"This case demonstrates the care we must take in protecting our nation's valuable secrets, and shows the dedication and perseverance of the men and women investigating this crime who never tired in finding those now charged with betraying our country," said Acting U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips.

"Intelligence services from around the globe continue to steal what information they can from the United States," said Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director for the FBI's Washington Field Office. "Vigilance must be matched with patience to successfully bring their agents to trial. I would particularly like to thank the men and women in my office who worked on this case and who work on other espionage investigations. They work without accolades; silently protecting the safety and security of the United States and its citizens."

Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Eric J. Boswell stated, "The U.S. Department of State is jointly investigating this matter with the FBI, and will continue to aggressively pursue any and all breaches of national security. The Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security works closely with its law enforcement colleagues in the FBI and other agencies to uncover and prosecute any breath of security within its ranks. Any compromise of classified information is a serious threat to the security of our nation, and the State Department will aggressively investigate any such activity to the fullest extent possible."

U.S. Government Employment:

According to an affidavit in support of the criminal complaint, Kendall Myers began his work at the State Department in 1977, initially serving as a contract instructor at the Department's Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in Arlington, Va. After living briefly in South Dakota, he returned to Washington, D.C., and resumed employment as an instructor with FSI. From 1988 to 1999, in addition to his FSI duties, he performed periodic work for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR).

Kendall Myers later began working full-time at the INR and, from July 2001 until his retirement in October 2007, he was a senior analyst for Europe for INR, where he specialized in intelligence analysis on European matters and had daily access to classified information through computer databases and otherwise. He received a Top Secret security clearance in 1985 and, in 1999, his clearance was upgraded to Top Secret / SCI.

Gwendolyn Myers moved to Washington, D.C., in 1980 and married Kendall Myers in May 1982. She later obtained employment with a local bank as an administrative analyst and later as a special assistant. Gwendolyn Myers was never granted a security clearance by the U.S. government.

Recruitment:

According to the affidavit, Kendall Myers traveled to Cuba in December 1978 after receiving an invitation from an official who served at the Cuban Mission to the United States in New York City. His guide while in Cuba was an official with Cuba's Foreign Service Institute. This trip provided the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS) with the opportunity to assess or develop Myers as a Cuban agent, according to the affidavit.

Approximately six months after the trip, the Myers were visited in South Dakota by the official from the Cuban Mission in New York and, according to the affidavit, Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers agreed to serve as clandestine agents of the Cuban government. Afterwards, the CuIS directed Kendall Myers to pursue a job at either the State Department or the CIA. Kendall Myers, accompanied by his wife, then returned to Washington, D.C., where he resumed contract work at the State Department and later obtained a State Department position that required a Top Secret security clearance.

According to the affidavit, during this time frame, the CuIS often communicated with its clandestine agents in the United States by broadcasting encrypted radio messages from Cuba on shortwave radio frequencies. Clandestine agents in the United States monitoring the frequency on shortwave radio could decode the messages using a decryption program provided by the CuIS. Such methods were employed by defendants previously convicted of espionage on behalf of Cuba. According to the affidavit, the Myers have an operable shortwave radio in their apartment and they told an FBI source that they have used it to receive messages from the CuIS.

Undercover Operation:

According to the affidavit, in April 2009, the FBI launched an undercover operation to convince the couple that they had been contacted by a Cuban intelligence officer and to ascertain the scope of their activities for the CuIS. On April 15, 2009, an undercover FBI source posing as a Cuban intelligence officer approached Kendall Myers in Washington, D.C., stating that he had been sent to contact Myers by a named CuIS official in order to obtain information. The FBI source also congratulated Kendall Myers on his birthday and offered him a cigar. Myers agreed to meet the source later that day at a nearby hotel and volunteered to bring his wife along to the meeting.

During the meeting later that day, the couple agreed to meet the source again and to provide information on U.S. government personnel with responsibility for Latin America. According to the affidavit, the couple also made a series of statements about their past activities on behalf of the CuIS, including acknowledging having received coded messages from the CuIS via shortwave radio, meeting CuIS officials in Mexico, and being alert to surveillance. "We have been very cautious, careful with our moves and, uh, trying to be alert to any surveillance," Kendall Myers allegedly told the FBI source.

In subsequent meetings with the FBI source, the Myers allegedly agreed to provide information on the April 17-19, 2009 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, as well as to use specified code words, signals and encryption programs to transmit information via email during future interactions with the source. They also asked the source to "send special greetings...and hugs" to certain CuIS officials.

In addition, the couple allegedly made further statements to the source about their past activities for the CuIS. According to the affidavit, the defendants discussed how they were first recruited by the CuIS and how codes had been used for each of them in messages, including "123" for Gwendolyn Myers and "202" for Kendall Myers. The Myers also stated that they had traveled to meet Cuban agents in Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Jamaica, New York City and other locations.

The Myers also discussed how they had passed information to CuIS agents, with both agreeing that the most secure way was "hand-to-hand." According to the affidavit, Gwendolyn Myers said her favorite way of passing information to CuIS agents involved the changing of shopping carts in a grocery store because it was "easy enough to do."

According to the affidavit, Kendall Myers told the source that he typically removed information from the State Department by memory or by taking notes, although he did occasionally take some documents home. "I was always pretty careful. I, I didn't usually take documents out," he said. According to the affidavit, he also acknowledged delivering information to the CuIS that was classified beyond the "Secret" level. He further stated that he had received "lots of medals" from the Cuban government and that he and his wife had met and spent an evening with Fidel Castro in 1995.

Additional Evidence:

According to the affidavit, the FBI collects high frequency messages broadcast by the CuIS to its agents and has identified messages that it has determined were broadcast to a handler of Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers. Furthermore, the FBI has confirmed trips by the couple to Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Jamaica that correspond to statements made by the defendants. In addition, the FBI has identified emails to the couple in 2008 and 2009 from a suspected representative of the CuIS in Mexico who was allegedly requesting that the couple travel to Mexico.


The affidavit further indicates that an analysis of Kendall Myers' classified State Department work computer hard drive revealed that, from August 22, 2006, until his retirement on Oct. 31, 2007, he viewed more than 200 sensitive or classified intelligence reports concerning the subject of Cuba, while employed as an INR senior analyst for Europe. Of these reports concerning Cuba, the majority was classified and marked Secret or Top Secret, the affidavit alleges. An FBI review of Kendall Myers' State Department security files further revealed numerous false statements by him to conceal the couple's clandestine activities on behalf of the CuIS, the affidavit further alleges.

According to the affidavit, neither Kendall Myers nor Gwendolyn Myers ever provided notification to the Attorney General that either of them was acting as an agent of a foreign government, as required by law.

Finally, the affidavit alleges that Kendall Myers engaged in a scheme to defraud the State Department and the United States by means of false pretenses and caused the U.S. government to lose property, specifically money in the form of salary payments. By not disclosing his clandestine activity on behalf of the CuIS and by making false statements to the State Department about his status, Kendall Myers allegedly defrauded the State Department whenever he received his government salary. Gwendolyn Myers is also criminally liable for this alleged wire fraud scheme.

This investigation was conducted jointly by the FBI's Washington Field Office, and the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Harvey, from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, and Senior Trial Attorney Clifford I. Rones, from the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department's National Security Division.

The public is reminded that criminal complaints and indictments contain mere allegations and are not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Reuters reported:

A former U.S. State Department official and his wife have been arrested for spying for the Cuban government for nearly 30 years, the Justice Department said on Friday.

Walter Kendall Myers, 72, aided by his wife Gwendolyn Myers, 71, used his Top Secret security clearance to pass on classified information to the Cuban government and at one point met with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, according to court documents.

The two were charged with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government and to communicate classified information to Cuba, the Justice Department said. They were also charged with wire fraud and acting as illegal agents...

According to court documents, the two were recruited in 1979 by a Cuban official who directed Kendall Myers to pursue a job at either the State Department or the CIA.

Myers worked part-time at the State Department since 1977 and joined full-time in 1985, eventually working his way up to a position of senior analyst specializing in intelligence analysis on European matters.

With a Top Secret/SCI security clearance, he had daily access to classified information and viewed more than 200 intelligence reports about Cuba, according to the affidavit.

Gwendolyn Myers said her favorite way to pass information was by swapping carts at a grocery story, according to the affidavit filed by an FBI agent.

A Justice Department official said they were motivated by a desire to help the Cuban government, not money. They traveled occasionally to Cuba and other locations across Latin America to meet with their handlers, and met Castro in 1995.

Kendall Myers told an undercover FBI source posing as a Cuban intelligence officer he had received "lots of medals" from the Cuban government.

Here's the shocking part (kidding)...
A Walter Myers from Ashburn, Virginia donated to the Obama Campaign this past year.

UPDATE: The Castro-lover attacke Tony Blair in a 2006 article in The Telegraph, via LGF:

A senior American official has spoken of "the myth of the special relationship" between the United States and Britain, arguing that Tony Blair got "nothing, no payback" for supporting President George W Bush in Iraq.

Kendall Myers, a leading State Department adviser, suggested that Mr Blair should have been ditched by Labour but the party had lacked the "courage or audacity" to remove him.

Funny, he sounds like your typical America-hating Leftist.

The couple, Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, 71, were charged with conspiring to act as illegal agents and to communicate classified information to the Cuban government. They pleaded not guilty and were ordered held in jail pending further court proceedings.

The government has evidence that suggests Myers and his wife began spying for Cuba in 1979. Myers worked at the State Department from 1977 to 2007, except for a short break in 1979. He eventually rose to a high-level position at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

* Christian Dem in NC's diary :: ::
*

Myers' blood couldn't be bluer. He's the grandson of Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor and the great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell. According to WaPo, Myers was fingered as a target when he visited Cuba in 1978 and expressed revulsion at supposed "murders" of Communist leaders by the United States. Over the years, they communicated with Havana by way of shortwave radio, shopping carts and later encrypted emails from cybercafes. They even met with Fidel Castro in 1995 on a secret trip to Cuba.

Myers was extremely loyal to Cuba--his diary is peppered with fawning statements about the country and its leaders. He was also very careful not to take any documents, instead using notes or relying on memory. Apparently the information he passed on was pretty sensitive stuff--they received a lot of medals from the Cuban government.

The government finally got on him in 2007, but had suspected there was a Cuban spy in the State Department around 2006 or so. It finally dropped the hammer on him two months ago, when an undercover FBI agent posing as a Cuban spy managed to finagle a meeting with Myers. At the meeting, Myers apparently spilled the beans about how he met with his handlers.

If I'm reading WaPo's sidebar right, Myers might be the second-highest ranking American official ever fingered as a spy for Cuba. Given his level of access, the potential for damage could be on the level of Aldrich Ames. The question is just how he managed to stay under the radar for parts of four presidencies.

The Justice Department alleges they have been spying for the communist nation for a period of thirty years. The couple were charged with acting as illegal agents, conspiracy to act as illegal agents, sharing classified information with Cuba’s government and wire fraud. Fun facts for the criminally minded: Wire fraud carries a maximum 20 years in prison, whereas serving as serving as an illegal agent of a foreign government can get you put away for 10 years, tops. And conspiracy? A scant 5 years in prison.

In the official statement from the Justice Department, Mr. Myers is known as “Agent 202,” and his wife as “Agent 123,” and “Agent E-634.”

In April 2009, the FBI launched an undercover operation in which they convinced the Myers that one of their agents was a Cuban intelligence officer. Mr. Myers met with the agent in Washington D.C, where the undercover official handed him a (Cuban?) cigar and wished mim a happy birthday. Sassy!

Mr. Myers agreed to meet up with the agent later that day at a hotel, and that he would bring his wife. The couple agreed to provide information on U.S. personnel working with Latin America and were open with their past activities related to spying, such as receiving coded messages via shortwave radio. The Myers also agreed to provide information about the 2009 Summit of the Americas.

Turn them into delicious picadillo! Or, worse, send them to live in Cuba.