Consider This from NPR - The Seriousness of America's Latest Homegrown Spy

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Diplomat and former US Ambassador Manuel Rocha is facing charges related to secretly serving as an agent of Cuba's government.Rocha is the latest in a long line of spies, who have worked for the federal government while spying for other countries. Some for decades at a time.NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks to former CIA officer Robert Baer about the charges against Rocha and how he might have managed to go undetected for four decades.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Listen to CIA Director Jim Woolsey talking to Congress in 1994 about trying to prevent intelligence threats from within the U.S. government. It is a bit like playing goalie on a hockey team in which you can never let a single shot get past you. Of course, Woolsey was testifying because a shot had gotten past the goalie, the head of the CIA's own Russian counterintelligence unit, Aldrich Ames, along with his wife, had been passing secrets to the Soviet Union for nine years. Ames revealed more than 100 covert operations and betrayed at least 30 agents, including some who were later executed by the Soviets. And he was not the first spy, to allude authorities. Who's the liar? Might well be the title of the drama which unfolds before a packed caucus room

where the House Un-American Affairs Committee members swear in Alger Hiss, former State Department executive. In 1948, Hiss, a former government official who helped create the United Nations in the aftermath of World War II, was accused of espionage on behalf of the Soviets by self-confessed former communist and magazine editor Whitaker Chambers. Mr. Hiss is certainly the closest friend I ever had in the Communist Party. Mr. Hiss represents the concealed enemy against which we are all fighting and I am fighting. I've testified against him with remorse and pity. Hiss denied the claims, denied any association with the Communist Party

or with Chambers. I can only regard his present features in pictures and in looking at him as having a certain familiarity. The smoking gun in the case of Alger Hiss was discovered after that hearing inside a hollowed-out pumpkin on Chambers Farm in Maryland,

microfilm of top-secret government documents including notes in Hiss's own handwriting. In the years since, the country has remained vulnerable to double agents, many of them high-ranking officers who stay undetected for years, even decades. For example, a retired Army Reserve colonel indicted for conspiring to sell classified U.S. military information to the Soviet Union for 25 years. George Trofimov was arrested here in Tampa today. A CIA analyst convicted of spying for China for more than 30 years. 63-year-old Larry Wu Tai Chin was charged today with providing secret documents... A 25-year FBI veteran who traded identities of U.S. spies,

eavesdropping technology, and nuclear war plans in exchange for diamonds and cash. Today, Robert Hansen has admitted the shocking truth that he betrayed his country, he betrayed his fellow Americans for no reason other than greed, and that he caused irreparable damage to the national security of the United States. Now, a former U.S. ambassador may be the latest to join the ranks.

Last Friday saw the arrest of Manuel Rocha, an American diplomat and former ambassador to Bolivia. The charges are that he secretly served as an agent of Cuba's government. It's very discouraging. When people like this betray us, we are blinded to great parts of the world, whether it's China, Russia or Iran. This happens over and over again, and it's absolutely, totally discouraging. That is former CIA officer and author Robert Baer talking about the risk Rocha's alleged spying poses to the security of the United States. Consider this. The mission of the U.S. intelligence community is to keep Americans safe from threats foreign and domestic. Yet throughout history, they have been betrayed by their own. And these

latest allegations against a former U.S. ambassador rank among the most serious of all. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly. It's Wednesday, December 6th. Hi, it's Mary Louise Kelly. Before we get back to Consider This, we want to take a minute to say thank you to our Consider This listeners and anyone listening who donates to public media. Public media means that you, the public, support it. Everything you hear from the NPR network really does depend on your contributions. And for anyone listening who is not a supporter yet, right now is a great time to get actively involved in creating a more informed

public. That is our whole mission here at NPR. That is why we're here. Consider This brings you the context behind the big stories of the day through insightful conversations and rich storytelling. Please give today at donate.npr.org slash considerthis. And thank you. It's Consider This from NPR. U.S. intelligence and the Justice Department are trying to figure out just how much damage the acts of a former diplomat and former ambassador to Bolivia may have caused. Manuel Rocha is accused of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the Justice Department,

acting as an agent of a foreign government without such notification, and lying to obtain a passport. The charges stretch all the way back to 1981. Robert Baer, who worked in the CIA for nearly two decades, says these acts have made America less safe. So how does a person climb to a post where they would be able to cause such damage to national security for four decades? It's a question I put to Baer. How are diplomats, people with security clearances, how are they supposed to be vetted? Well, it depends. The State Department doesn't polygraph people, and they go through security background checks periodically, but not very often. And once they get to a higher rank, it's very rare. They're very cursory.

But more than that, it's Cuban intelligence, which I think is very few people understand, is remarkably good. It's probably one of the best intelligence services in the world, bar none. And their ability to locate targets and put them in positions, important positions, is incredible. And to play the long game, it would appear. This guy was in place for decades. The charges go back to 1981. Well, even before that. So as a young man, he was put into the system, brilliant apparently, if you look at his credentials, passes the foreign service exam, gets into the State Department, was probably a very good diplomat, but he was leading a double

life. His loyalties, from what I've read, were to Cuba. It's an ideological recruitment. It wasn't for money. So, I mean, there's one thing the FBI, if there's no money trail, it's very hard for them to catch a spy. Robert Baer, who investigates now? Does this fall to, you mentioned the FBI, does this fall to FBI, CIA, state, who? The FBI. What they're going to do is sit down, and the Department of Justice, they're going to sit down with him. And what's the first priority as they start to question? Is it trying to assess what damage was done and contain that? Oh, exactly. Damage assessment, because don't forget that he worked in the White House, worked for Southern Command. He had access to the crown jewels, essentially, in terms of intelligence intercepts,

agent reporting, CIA reporting, the whole gamut. He would have seen that. The question is, what did he pass? Did he pass documents? Did he betray our abilities to intercept communications in Russia or Cuba? From the sounds of it, from what Garland said, I imagine he did. That's their suspicion, at least. And then this must prompt all kinds of questions about who else may not be what they seem to be.

Do they go around and start to question everyone who was in regular contact with them, try to sense how wide the spider web may be? Well, there's a rule with the Cubans and the Russians, and that is you always, once you have a spy in place, he always looks for his replacement. But an agent like this is compartmented. He's not told about other sources. He's not told about what else the Cubans are doing, DGI. He's not told what the Russians are doing. So he's sort of going to know what he passed or didn't pass. And if he tried to spot somebody else,

he might be able to tell us what that was. I just can't tell you how damaging a source like this could have been. This is like, we've seen nothing like this. It's worse than Hanson. It's worse than Ames. You'd have to go back to the beginning of the Cold War. Hang on, worse than Robert Hanson of the FBI or Rick Ames of the CIA? How so? Hanson had limited knowledge of Russian collection. And the same with Ames. But don't forget, sitting in the White House, you get an overall view. Hansen and Ames was a geographic location that they could betray assets. But with

this guy sitting in the White House, he's seeing it all. And then Southern Command, because Southern Command has all sorts of abilities to collect intelligence in South America, for instance, that somebody like Ames or Hansen would never have known about it. So I would say offhand, until we hear about what the damage was, and I'm waiting for the Department of Justice and FBI to say, and this will take a couple of years, is this is probably the most damaging spy scandal or penetration of the U.S. government, you know, going way back to Roosevelt.

And I don't say that lightly. Former CIA officer Robert Baer, thank you. Thank you. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.