No one noticed anything amiss with a vehemently anti-American, reflexively pro-Castro ideologue at the State Department? For two and a half decades? The hell you say:
On June 4, 2009, Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, were arrested by the FBI and charged with spying for the government of Cuba… In 1981, he applied for a job at the Central Intelligence Agency and in 1982, he returned to working as a part-time contract instructor at the [State Department's] FSI, and became the chairman for Western European studies. In 1985, he applied for a full-time job at the FSI teaching Western European studies, and in 1999, Myers took a position at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), as the senior European analyst. Myers stayed in that position until his retirement in 2007…
[T]he Myers were scathing in their criticism of the United States during their meetings with the source. In addition to their criticism of U.S. government policy, they were also very critical of American people… The Myers also expressed their love for Cuba and for the ideals of the Cuban revolution… Kendall asked the source, “How is everybody at home?” referring to Cuba. Gwendolyn expressed her desire to use the couple’s boat to “sail home,” meaning travel to Cuba… Kendall told the source that Castro was “wonderful, just wonderful” and Gwendolyn added, “He’s the most incredible statesman for a hundred years for goodness sake.”…
Myers was a European affairs specialist. There is also a possibility that the Cubans sold or traded intelligence they gained from Myers pertaining to Europe to their Soviet (and later Russian) friends… While at INR… Myers not only had access to information collected by State Department employees in the field, but also was privy to all-source intelligence reporting from the rest of the intelligence community (CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, etc.)… Myers looked at more than 200 intelligence reports pertaining to Cuba… and most of the documents were classified either Secret or Top Secret…
In spite of Myers’ strong anti-American political beliefs – which were reportedly expressed in his classes – none of the background investigations conducted on him by the State Department provided any indication of concern. Furthermore, he was cleared for access to Top Secret material in 1985 and Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (SCI) in 1999 — 20 years after he was recruited by the Cubans. Apparently the agents and investigators who conducted his background investigations did not dig deeply enough uncover the warning signs of his radical beliefs, or the people they interviewed knowingly withheld such information.
At some point the day to day mannerisms, gestures, and opinions of a Communist radical became indistinguishable from the rest of quotidian life at the State Department. Strange, that.
On a personal level, Myers’s superiors and employees probably never picked up on his radicalism. Without putting too fine a point on it, genuine radicals give themselves away by sounding radical. There will be a phrase that doesn’t sound quite right, something that points to the political circles in which someone travels. This is different than the conspiratorial fetish, where a conspiracy theorist latches on to a gotcha that “reveals the true plan.” It’s more about the realization that a person wouldn’t have said that if he or she realized how it sounded, if they knew that no one outside their community talks like that. They just can’t tell when a thing is a Thing. Cf. Obama’s glib “Likudnik” smear.
For State Department employees, it’s not just that their IR professors used to peddle pro-Castro agitprop in classrooms. It’s that a cloud of liberal faux sophistication – “the embargo only exists because of Republican Cuban exiles,” “Cuba’s medical system is superior to America’s,” “Castro is outmaneuvering the US in Latin America” – crowds out other discussions. Those are the sorts of things that one says about Cuba. It’s not necessarily that a young State intern doesn’t also believe that Castro is kind of a bad guy. It’s just that it never comes up in the grind of conversation. A suitably trained State Department patriot and a full blown Cuban spy can nod at each other for days without ever noticing much tension.
On an institutional level there’s also a deep need to believe that State’s policies would be paying dividends, but for the hurdles erected by American yahoos who never so much as spent an undergrad semester abroad. That last one is a favorite of State’s public diplomacy people, where “good PR can’t make up for bad policy” is repeated ritualistically as a kind of defensive amulet to explain their abject failures. It’s weird that Hezbollah’s propaganda factory doesn’t seem to have that problem, despite starting wars and stuff.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying that State’s pretensions toward even-handed cosmopolitanism allowed an anti-American spy to spend an entire career blending into the Foggy Bottom scenery. Maybe that could be written off as the cost of building an effective diplomatic corps, one that can relate to an anti-American world. Except those misguided pretensions are directly linked to decades of colossal policy failures in Africa, in Central Asia, in the Near East, and pretty much across the entire planet. So not so much, no.
References:
* Cuba: Friends in High Places [STRATFOR]
* Obama Now Actively Channeling Rabid Anti-Israel Academics, Adopting Their Dumbest Anti-Israel Euphemisms [MR]
* Obligatory Post About Iran’s “Hezbollah Radiation Will Destroy Israel” Threat (Plus: Mugniyah Assassination Dramatically Demonstrates Absurdity Of Liberal Foreign Policy Sophistication) [MR]
* US Public Diplomacy TV News Chief Quits Over Al-Hurra’s Striking Resemblance To Al-Jazeera [MR]
* State Department Sophistication Very Close To Triggering All-Out African War [MR]
* Smug Liberal Sophistication Untroubled By Undeniable Evidence That Hardliners Are Winning In Iran [MR]
* Rice: Failure Of Peace Process Is Israel’s Fault (Plus: The Two Dogmas Of Foreign Policy Faux Sophistication) [MR]
* Smug Liberal Sophistication Undisturbed By Decades Of Disastrously Wrong Domestic And International Predictions [MR]
Previously:
* US Security Assistance To Lebanon Already Being Turned Against Israel
* State Dept. Banning Pro-Israel Obama Officials From Speaking Out
* Turns Out, Iran’s "Moderate" Candidate Started Their Nuke Program
