MIAMI (AP) — Manuel Rocha was once widely known in Miami’s elite circles for an aristocratic, virtually regal, bearing that appeared becoming for an Ivy League-educated occupation U.S. diplomat who held best posts in Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba and the White Area. “Ambassador Rocha,” as he most popular to be referred to as, demanded and were given recognize.So former CIA operative Félix Rodríguez was once doubtful in 2006 when a defected Cuban Military lieutenant colonel confirmed up at his Miami house with a startling tip: “Rocha,” he quoted the person as pronouncing, “is spying for Cuba.”Rodriguez, who participated within the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba and the execution of progressive “Che” Guevara, believed on the time that the Rocha tip was once an try to discredit a fellow anti-communist crusader. He stated he nevertheless handed the defector’s message alongside to the CIA, which was once in a similar way skeptical.
“Nobody believed him,” Rodriguez stated in an interview with The Related Press. “All of us idea it was once a smear.”
That long-ago tip got here dashing again in devastating readability in December when the now-73-year-old Rocha was once arrested and charged with serving as a undercover agent of Cuba stretching again to the Nineteen Seventies — what prosecutors referred to as one of the brazen and long-running betrayals within the historical past of the U.S. State Division.
Rocha was once secretly recorded via an undercover FBI agent praising Fidel Castro as “El Comandante” and bragging about his paintings for Cuba’s communist govt, calling it “greater than a grand slam” towards the U.S. “enemy.” And to cover his true allegiances, prosecutors and buddies say, Rocha lately followed the faux character of an avid Donald Trump supporter who talked difficult towards the island country.“I in reality admired this son of a whinge,” an indignant Rodríguez stated. “I need to glance him within the eye and ask him why he did it. He had get right of entry to to the whole thing.”As Rocha pleaded no longer in charge from prison this week to fifteen federal counts, FBI and State Division investigators had been running to decipher the case’s greatest lacking piece: precisely what the longtime diplomat can have given as much as Cuba. It’s a confidential injury overview, sophisticated via the often-murky intelligence international, that’s anticipated to take years.
The AP spoke with two dozen former senior U.S. counterintelligence officers, Cuban intelligence defectors, and buddies and associates of Rocha to piece in combination what is understood to this point of his alleged betrayal, and the overlooked clues and crimson flags that will have helped him keep away from scrutiny for many years.It wasn’t simply Rodríguez’s tipster — whom he refused to spot to the AP however says was once not too long ago interviewed via the FBI. Officers informed the AP that as early as 1987, the CIA was once conscious Castro had a “tremendous mole” burrowed deep throughout the U.S. govt. Some now suspect it might had been Rocha and that since no less than 2010 he can have been on a brief record given to the FBI of imaginable Cuban spies excessive up in international coverage circles.Rocha’s legal professional didn’t reply to messages in the hunt for remark. The FBI and CIA declined to remark. The State Division stated in a observation it is going to proceed to paintings with related businesses to “absolutely assess the international coverage and nationwide safety implications of those fees.”“It is a huge screw-up,” stated Peter Romero, a former assistant secretary of state for Latin The us who labored with Rocha. “All people are doing a large number of soul looking out and no one can get a hold of the rest. He did an awesome task masking his tracks.”
HUMBLE BEGINNINGSBefore he was once charged with being a Cuban agent, Rocha’s lifestyles embodied the American dream.He was once born in Colombia and at age 10 moved along with his widowed mom and two siblings to New York Town. They lived for some time in Harlem whilst his mom labored in a sweatshop and were given via with the assistance of meals stamps.A skilled football participant with a pointy mind, he received a scholarship for minorities in 1965 to wait The Taft College, an elite boarding faculty in Connecticut. In a single day he was once catapulted from what he referred to as a “ghetto” engulfed in race riots to a elegant international of American wealth.“Taft was once the most efficient factor that came about to my lifestyles,” he informed the college’s alumni mag in 2004.However as one in every of only some minorities on the faculty, Rocha says he suffered discrimination — together with a classmate who refused to room with him — one thing that fueled a grudge that buddies suspect can have led him to recognize Castro’s revolution.
“I used to be devastated and thought to be suicide,” he informed the alumni mag.From Taft, he went to Yale, the place he graduated with honors with a point in Latin American research, after which directly to graduate paintings at Harvard and Georgetown.It’s no longer transparent precisely how Rocha can have been recruited via Cuba however prosecutors say it came about someday within the Nineteen Seventies when he was once nonetheless racking up levels and American school campuses had been teeming with scholars sympathetic to leftist reasons.In 1973, the 12 months he graduated from Yale, Rocha traveled to Chile, the place prosecutors say he was a “nice pal” of Cuba’s intelligence company, the Basic Directorate of Intelligence, or DGI. That very same 12 months, the CIA helped topple the Castro-backed socialist govt of Salvador Allende, changing it with a brutal navy dictatorship.Round the similar time, Rocha entered the primary of his 3 marriages, to an older Colombian girl he slightly spoke about to buddies, and who’s now beneath scrutiny for imaginable ties to Cuba, in accordance to people who had been puzzled via the FBI. The AP was once not able to succeed in the lady or find any document in their marriage.
‘ALL PART OF A PLAN’After becoming a member of the international provider in 1981, one in every of Rocha’s first in a foreign country postings was once as a political-military affairs officer in Honduras, the place he instructed the Contras of their combat towards Cuba-backed leftist rebels in neighboring Nicaragua.In 1994, he went to the White Area to paintings as director of Inter-American Affairs at the Nationwide Safety Council, with duty for Cuba. That very same 12 months, he wrote a memo, “A Calibrated Reaction to Cuban Reforms,” urging the Clinton management to start out dismantling U.S. business restrictions, consistent with Peter Kornbluh, a countrywide safety knowledgeable who interviewed Rocha for a 2014 e book.The secretary of state deliberate to announce the coverage overhaul following the U.S. midterm elections, consistent with Kornbluh. However that speech was once by no means delivered. Republican hardliners who took keep watch over of Congress enacted regulation in 1996 hardening the embargo and blocking off any effort to beef up family members with Havana.From Washington, Rocha was once dispatched to Havana, the place he served for 2 years because the essential deputy of the U.S. Pursuits Segment. It was once a dangerous time — within the wake of the 1996 aerial shootdown of a “Brothers to the Rescue” propaganda aircraft over Cuba that killed 4 Castro warring parties — and the DGI would have had virtually unfettered get right of entry to to the diplomat.Rocha’s greatest identified want to Cuba, intentional or no longer, got here all the way through his ultimate and maximum essential diplomatic publish, as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, when he intervened within the nation’s presidential election to assist a Castro protégé.At an embassy match in 2002, Rocha inserted into his in moderation scripted remarks a caution to Bolivians that balloting for a narcotrafficker — a not-so veiled connection with coca grower-turned-presidential candidate Evo Morales — would lead the U.S. to bring to a halt all international help.“I commit it to memory vividly. I used to be so uncomfortable,” stated Liliana Ayalde, a fellow international provider officer who later served as U.S. ambassador to Paraguay and Brazil. “I informed him it wasn’t suitable for the ambassador to mention those remarks with elections simply across the nook.”The backlash was once quick. Bolivians deeply resented the speculation of the U.S. interfering of their elections, and Morales, till then an extended shot, surged within the polls and virtually received. 3 years later when he did be triumphant, he credited Rocha with being his “best possible marketing campaign leader.” Nowadays, Ayalde wonders whether or not Rocha’s closing hurrah as a international provider officer was once an act of self-sabotage, performed on the path of a international energy to additional injury the U.S.’ status in Latin The us, historically known as “Washington’s yard.”“Now that I glance again,” she stated, “it was once all a part of a plan.”SUPER MOLE?As early as 1987, when Rocha was once a couple of years into his ascendant occupation, the U.S. was once made conscious about a Cuban “tremendous mole” burrowed into the Washington established order, consistent with Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst.The ideas was once supplied via Florentino Aspillaga, who defected whilst heading the DGI’s place of job in Bratislava, now the capital of Slovakia.Prior to Aspillaga died in 2018, he informed the CIA that 4 dozen Cubans it recruited had been in fact double brokers — or “dangles” in undercover agent parlance— in moderation decided on via the DGI to penetrate the U.S. govt. Latell stated Aspillaga additionally spoke of 2 extremely productive spies throughout the State Division.Whilst Aspillaga didn’t know any in their names, the revelation despatched shockwaves in the course of the CIA.“Considered one of Aspillaga’s primary revelations was once that Fidel Castro himself was once helping a big level as Cuba’s spymaster,” Latell stated.Enrique Garcia, who defected to the U.S. within the Nineties, additionally stuck wind of the clandestine undercover agent ring whilst working Cuban brokers in Latin The us. He stated the paperwork he noticed, which carried “Most sensible Secret” and State Division markings, had been so treasured that they had been despatched immediately to Castro’s place of dwelling, bypassing the internal minister who oversaw the DGI.“I don’t have any doubt Rocha was once a part of that ring,” stated Garcia, who informed the FBI in regards to the undercover agent ring years in the past.Jim Popkin, creator of “Code Title Blue Wren,” a e book about Ana Montes, the highest-level U.S. reliable ever convicted of spying for Cuba, stated his intelligence resources not too long ago informed him that Rocha’s identify was once on a brief record of no less than 4 imaginable Cuban spies that have been within the FBI’s arms since no less than 2010. AP was once no longer in a position to independently ascertain that.“The FBI has been conscious about Rocha for a dozen years,” Popkin stated. “That’s most probably what stirred passion that ended in his arrest years later.”Peter Lapp, who oversaw FBI counterintelligence towards Cuba between 1998 and 2005, and wrote a e book on Montes, “Queen of Cuba,” stated he was once unaware whether or not Rocha have been at the bureau’s radar. However he stated that within the nationwide safety hierarchy, Cuba is usally an afterthought to Russia, China and extra unhealthy threats. On the time of Rodríguez’s 2006 tip about Rocha spying for Cuba, for example, U.S. counterintelligence investigators had been eager about the U.S. warfare in Iraq, the airstrike that killed al-Qaida chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and arguable detention and interrogation systems in a foreign country.“You don’t get promoted to the senior ranks of the FBI counterintelligence department via that specialize in Cuba,” Lapp stated. “However it’s a rustic we forget about at our peril. No longer most effective are the Cubans in reality excellent at human intelligence however they’re professionals at brokering knowledge to a few of our greatest adversaries.”‘I HAVE ACCESS’Following his retirement from the international provider in 2002, Rocha launched into a profitable occupation in industry, racking up quite a lot of senior positions and consulting jobs at personal fairness corporations, a public family members company, a Chinese language automaker or even an organization within the hashish business.“I’ve get right of entry to to as regards to each nation within the area or understand how to get it,” he bragged to the Miami Bring in in 2006.From 2012 to 2018, he served as president of Barrick Gold’s subsidiary within the Dominican Republic, overseeing manufacturing on the international’s sixth-largest gold mine. Rodríguez’s mementos of his one-time friendship with Rocha come with a photograph of the previous diplomat in a difficult hat lugging round a freshly extracted bite of gold.John Feeley, who labored beneath Rocha when he joined the State Division and sooner or later was ambassador to Panama, recollects his former mentor urging him to reject professional bono paintings in retirement and as an alternative chase a paycheck.“He was once overtly and vocally motivated via getting cash in his post-foreign provider occupation,” Feeley stated, “which wasn’t conventional amongst former diplomats.”One industry that has won new scrutiny within the wake of Rocha’s arrest was once a project he headed with a bunch of offshore traders to shop for up at a steep bargain billions of greenbacks in claims towards Cuba’s govt for farmland, factories and different homes confiscated all the way through the communist revolution.Rocha and his spouse stated that there was once no manner the Cuban govt would ever pay up and that the U.S. govt was once not likely to assist, recalled declare holder Carolyn Chester, whose father was once a former AP journalist and later as regards to deposed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.Chester remembered how the pair rolled as much as meet her in Omaha, Nebraska, in a limousine and delivered a cultured presentation through which they performed off one any other “like a tag group.”Whilst his spouse introduced the information in their be offering for a declare to a farm and different seized assets, “Rocha would tug on our heartstrings,” recounting a meant assembly that they had with Chester’s oldsters years prior to in Washington.Chester, who in the end made up our minds to not promote, stated the assembly left her with doubts about Rocha, partly as a result of she was once all however positive her father’s deficient well being would have saved her oldsters from making this kind of go back and forth to Washington. And he or she discovered it unusual that Rocha and his spouse spoke as though “they knew evidently” of the intentions of Cuban officers.The speculation, consistent with Rocha’s former industry spouse, Tim Ashby, was once to “kill communism with capitalism” via swapping the claims for land concessions, rentals and joint ventures in Cuba at a time when the communist island was once determined for international funding.“For Cuba, there was once much more at play,” stated Ashby, a attorney and previous senior reliable within the U.S. Trade Division. “This was once a very powerful to normalizing family members with the U.S.”The funding crew would sooner or later spend round $5 million purchasing up 9 claims valued at over $55 million, Ashby stated. However the project collapsed after some declare holders complained to the George W. Bush management that they idea they had been being bamboozled. In 2009, the Treasury Division moved to bar the switch of any qualified claims towards Cuba.That didn’t forestall Rocha from proceeding to generate income. Information display that since 2016 on my own, Rocha and his present spouse spent greater than $5.2 million to shop for a half-dozen flats in high-rise structures in Miami’s monetary district. This month, 4 of the ones homes had been transferred totally into his spouse’s identify, a transfer former police officers stated may doubtlessly defend them from govt seizure.In hindsight, Ashby stated he was once taken in via the picture his former spouse sought after the arena to peer.“He was once fiercely anti-communist and a staunch, early, Trump supporter,” he stated. “Rocha was once the closing particular person I might have suspected of being a Cuban undercover agent.”___AP newshounds Adam Geller in New York, Eric Tucker in Washington and Matthew Lee in Munich, and information researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed.___Contact AP’s international investigative group at Investigative@ap.org or
