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Ana Montes, who is regarded as "one of the most damaging spies," has been released from a prison in Texas. Montes, now 65, worked for the US Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, as the top analyst on Cuba during the Cold War. Washington knew her as the "Queen of Cuba" for her insights into Fidel Castro's communist regime.

HAVANA (AP) — The first member of a Cuban spy ring to walk free from prison in the United States thanked islanders Friday for their support during his 13 years behind bars and vowed to keep pushing for the release of the other four. Rene Gonzalez, a 55-year-old dual U.S.-Cuban citizen who left a federal lockup in the Florida Panhandle on Oct. 7, spoke through a home video that was broadcast and rebroadcast on Cuban state television and government-run websites. "It is truly difficult to address people who are so loved and who you feel a part of through a...

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) was traveling back and forth to Cuba in secret negotiations to try and secure a release for American prisoner Alan Gross when a woman approached him with an impassioned plea: she wanted a child and she needed his help. The woman, the wife of one of the Cuban spies imprisoned in the U.S. on espionage charges, was in her early 40s and said she was almost out of time. According to Tim Rieser, Leahy’s foreign policy aide, she was “clearly desperate.” That began an unusual effort on the part the senator, who is chairman of the...

SPY THREAT: CATCH AND RELEASE -- A Veteran Counterintelligence Officer Warns America International News Analysis Today September 30, 2009 By Toby Westerman America is about to be forced into a dangerous game of catch and release with deadly spies, threatening both national security and the morale of the U.S. intelligence community, warns veteran counterintelligence officer Christopher Simmons in a exclusive interview with International News Analysis Today. Christopher Simmons is director and founder of the Cuban Intelligence Research Center. International coercion, attacks on national security, lies and misinformation spread in the media, and the murder of American citizens are part of...

SNIPPET: "In October 2009, as a result of successful appeals, a federal judge will reduce the sentences of five convicted spies who were part of the Cuban Wasp Network. Havana regularly refers to the spies as the "Cuban Five." One of the Wasp Network operatives who fled to Cuba, Juan Pablo Roque, abandoned a wife in the United States, whom he married only to obtain cover for his operations in the U.S. Simmons told International News Analysis that he is in process of completing a book about the "Cuban Five" and the cold-blooded manipulation of Ana Margarita Martinez, "the spy's...