A former State Department official and his wife have been arrested and charged with being spies for the Cuban government for the past 30 years.
The Justice Department said Friday that Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, 71, both of Washington, were charged with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government and to communicate classified information to the Cuban government.
They are also charged with wire fraud and with acting as illegal agents of the Cuban government.
FBI agents arrested the couple Thursday. The couple appeared briefly in court, and both remain in custody, the Justice Department said.
According to the indictment, Walter Myers obtained top-secret security clearance from the State Department in 1985 and kept it until his retirement in 2007.
The indictment also claims that, while staying in a small house in Cuba in or about January 1995, the Myerses met with then-President Fidel Castro and spoke with him through an interpreter.
A Justice Department official said counterespionage agents had gathered information on the Myerses and set up an April 15 meeting at which an undercover FBI agent convinced the couple that he had been contacted by Cuban intelligence and was to ascertain the scope of their activities. They fell for the ruse, the department said.--------------------------------
PDF of the Indictment
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/06/05/myers.indictment.pdf
The e-mail, encrypted shortwave radio and travel evidence sound pretty solid.
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