Jim is here, of course to talk about his very and revealing book code name blue wren the true story of americas most dangerous female and the sister she betrayed. Jim was a journalist for for quite a few years and including a long and productive time at nbc, where he created an Award WinningInvestigative Unit and served as its senior producer. He was at nbc when the 911 attacks happened. And like many journalists, got caught up in covering the immediate aftermath. So he wasnt able to pursue a story that broke just ten days after 911 about the arrest of an American Woman at Defense Intelligence agency caught spying for cuba. But jim remained very curious about the case for reasons that im sure hell hell explain in a minute and he kept returning to it a after the woman who was named ana montes, she was a welleducated daughter, a u. S. Military officer, a while after she pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 222 to 25 years in prison. And jim, a cover story about for the Washington Post magazine nearly a decade ago and now in his new book, hes able to put all the pieces together and answer such nagging questions about how ana able to operate as a spy at pentagon for 17 years, what secrets she divulged why she did it, and how investigate hers finally managed to to track her down. Its been said a number of times that anas the most dangerous spy, that most folks have never heard of. And she was definitely very skilled at her craft, very efficient and and deceptive and also devastating and and jim will go into, you know, what what what she was was guilty of. But the story that he tells is, not just one of espionage, its also a sad family tale because a betrayed not only her country, but more personal lee, her family, her brother, sister in law were fbi agents and her only sister, lucy, worked for the bureau as. A Spanish Language analyst for while assisting actually in uncovering spies in the United States. And you know, talk about a welltimed book ana was in the news again just last week having 21 years and three months. She was freed, a federal prison in texas last friday and granted, early, Early Release due largely to good publishers, has called jims book a must read for espionage. Fans now in conversation, jim will be a one of his former nbc colleagues. Im sure hes familiar to many of you williams who covered the Justice Department and Supreme Court for the network for 29 years before retiring last july an early in his career, pete was a tv news in wyoming, where he grew up and he came washington in the mid 1980s to work for thencongressman cheney. When cheney became defense, pete was tapped as the pentagon spokesman, which brought him to national prominence. And after that government stint, he returned to news reporting. So were delighted to have both them here tonight. Please join me in welcoming jim popkin and Pete Williams on. Publishers weekly has said nothing about, by the way, jim, you look vaguely familiar to me. The reason is that jim and i actually together at nbc in the Washington Bureau and we were working together when the 911 attacks happened. And thats one of the reasons why this spy case got really no attention. At the time the country and journalists were otherwise occupied, i, i want to go over three areas with you. Number one is what she did and how damaging it was. Number two, i think, is the remarkable ability you had to. Add a lot of new detail in this book. I used to work at the defense department. You quoted people who worked in the Defense Agency on the record by name. I think thats pretty. And then thirdly, jim popkin. These days, a Media Consultant and any of you consider ing writing a book and having somebody handle it, you might ask yourself, how was it that you managed to get this book to come out just as she was coming out of prison, which i think is a pretty good trick. But i want to ask, first of all, what were you doing . An animal, cortezs apartment. I dont know if my friend john is here. There he is. John is my roommate and very close friend. And john used to own apartment. So as young man in washington spent a lot of time in johns condo. And after 911, as pete, i was aware of the story. We really couldnt cover it. And reached out to me and informed me that ana montes had bought his condo. And its kind of stayed in my head. And it is always kind of given me a personal connection to this story. So lets talking about ana montes. What did she do for the United States government and how good was she at doing it . Ana was an analyst for the dia, the Defense Intelligence, which is kind of the cia for the us military. And she was really good her lets call it her day job. She kind of kept her head down, worked hard. She worked right through lunch every day and she was just very very competent. She had Carte Blanche access to classified documents at dia as a analyst and use that to great effect in her night job. Lets call it was she widely wellregarded by the intelligence . As a matter of fact, she was sorry. We weve had this shtick for a long time. Ana was promoted numerous times, got cash awards from dia. She was considered among the very best in the military and at dia. She became our nations really leading expert on cuba, especially regarding politics in the military, and was a real pro. She was also a very difficult person. She was somewhat derisively as the of cuba and didnt suffer fools was the kind person who would walk you in a hallway and sometimes not even acknowledge you could be very, very brusque with people and difficult. So she she had fans, but she also had enemies. But she was decorated, right . I mean, she got sorts of awards from the director of the cia and all sorts of senior government officials. Is there any suggestion, jim, that the information that she was up for the government was wrong, that she was telling us stuff that wasnt true . Mostly what she did was legit. Some folks believe some officials believe that there are a couple of documents that she, including in 1998, an assessment of cuba that went to the secretary of defense and then was reported to congress. Some officials believe that she shaded the truth in that in discounting cubas threat particularly regarding their intelligence capabilities. But by and large what she did as an analyst was reviewed by a large group of people. So it would be hard for her to put her thumb on the scale too many times. So i want to play a little bit of audio and then i want you to tell us it is. See how well its going for. Her. Now. Now, i dont know if you can make out any of those that those are numbers. Thats a woman reading a series of numbers on a shortwave radio transmission. It sort of sounds like its going to end. So i was going to help you. Its it goes until 9 p. M. So it sounds of like somebody announcing the powerball winner for cuba. But but what is this and why did it play a role in her case . Thats a numbers broadcast. That is an actual recording of a woman in a sound studio in havana. And she would read a series of 150 digits in spanish. This is how the cubans communicated with their spy in the u. S. And around the world. So on. What she would do. By the way, this is a real story on a lived as i mentioned in Cleveland Park on mccomb street and frequently this this area she would from this safety and security of her condo on mccombs street she would listen to a shortwave radio to these kind of broadcasts and it would it would be on a loop. So you could hear it several times. And she would write down these numbers in in spanish and then type them into her toshiba computer. And she had a program in there. The cubans had provided to decrypt these numbers. Theyre meaningless to anyone else, even if you had a shortwave radio, you might that and obviously not know what it is. So she would decrypt it in that that is how she got her message her her tasking orders that week. She would typically listen twice a week to the shortwave radio and, then communicate in person, often with her handlers in washington. So you said she, an ace expert cuba for the United States government for how much of that time was she, in fact, also spying for cuba . She was recruited by cuba prior to working for government for the dia, the military, ana. So she was a spy from day one . Correct she started she was with the department of justice first in the freedom of information act office. She got her security clearance. Their initial one. She went to graduate school, Johns Hopkins here in their their program called, sace. And it was there that she someone who brought her and introduced her to a cuban intelligence agent. They got in havana together how to be spies, kind of spy 1 to 1. And at that point, the cubans directed her and helped her to to apply. And that included applying to dia. So from the moment stepped foot in dia in 1985 she was already a fully committed and trained cuban spy. So how did she get what she was giving the cubans how did she it out of the building . Because somebody must have noticed she was carrying out documents on. And one of the reasons that she was successful for nearly 17 years is, she was careful. And that meant not carrying documents of the building, with very few exceptions. She memorized and in fact, i know im sure were going to talk about her family, but her family, parts of her family cooperated with me for the book and they have on those books that were on the mccomb street apartment in in a house now in south florida. And i was able to look through her books, which was interesting and maybe creepy to some of you. And one of her books is on improving your memory after fact, the cia did an after action report and they they talked to on a debriefed her extensively. These were psychologists with the cia and they that she had a good memory an amazing memory but a good memory. But i believe that using this book and other techniques, she improved her memory and therefore every day for nearly 17 years she memorized reams of classified documents them at night and was able provide just a volume of material to cuba. So the cubans communicated with her via shortwave radio. How did she what she was giving the cubans to them. She primarily put her information on disks and then hand them off to a handler in restaurants and they often went to chinese restaurants in d. C. , usually by the met by a metro and in safe area. She had a real fear of street crime here. She met with her handlers in caribbean islands many occasions and in cuba, well, both on unofficial to cuba, when she would sneak in wearing a wig and using a fake passport and even on official sanctioned trips to cuba on behalf of the dia, she would get away from her colleagues and go and meet with their handlers. Havana, which is obviously risky. Okay. You mentioned her family, so tell us about that. Where is she from . And tell us about her family. Ana was born on a military base. Us base in germany, but she came as a i think a two year old. The family moved originally to topeka, kansas and then to just outside of baltimore. Her parents were born in puerto rico. Her father was a doctor who became a psychiatrist, a freudian psycho, which is fascinating. We can discuss. And her her was a homemaker, then ended up working for the government. Very bright, capable on a went to school in high school in tulsa and then went to uva and then, as i said, she went and got a degree masters degree at sise. So what did discover about her past that you think led her to betray her country . She was politically liberal, but she really got radicalized during her junior year abroad in madrid. She met this is in the late seventies. She met and fell fell for. An argentinean student was very politically radical and there was a whole community was very anti american. And anti authoritarian as well. So she she kind of fell in with this crowd as a as a junior in college and then at sites she would surround it by a lot of like minded folks. And, you know, keep in mind the context that this was the reagan era president reagan was very combative some would say bullying, in central america. And and many of her classmates really reacted against that. There are some suggestion that she was abused by her father. Do you think that played a role, that it made her, you know, hate authority . I think so i mean, you know, its hard to put her on the couch. Exactly. But in reading this classified document, the cia from the cia psychologists, they certainly thought so. And a just quick take on her father, dr. Alberto montes, really brilliant guy. First in his family to go to school, educated in the us. He could be very loving and it was a theres a lot of nice attributes to say about him in the family will still make sure that im im especially aware of that. However he had a heroin temper. He was abusive to his children starting at age five. He used to on them for any childhood, childlike transgression. The kids and, the his wife lived in fear of him. On to the outside world. This is successful, decent guy is a doctor after all. And hes Walking Around in his lab coat. He also was in the military. He he ultimately retired as a colonel in the us army. So again, from the outside he really seemed to be a respectable member of the community at home, had a horrendous temper. He beat the kids, he harmed his wife, his second marriage. I learned in the reporting in this book, i met his stepdaughter and his second marriage. He repeated this behavior, he really, really the children and he also one night beat his wife as well. So to answer your question yes, i think ana was, heavily influenced by this he represented to her authority in the us army. However, i will say that lucy was raised the way on a sister. Lucy ultimately worked for the fbi. Did her brother tito . They are patriotic, loyal americans. They never decided to spy for cuba. So lucy didnt just for the fbi, though, did she . I mean, what was her job . Lucy became, a translator with the fbi out of the Miami Field Office of the fbi. She worked drug cases for a long time, but then, amazingly, she was assigned a unit dedicated to cuban spies. She had no idea until anas arrest that sister was the greatest cubans of all time. Did they think did did lucy think her sister was pretty weird . Yes. To to a lucy and honor as little girls were really and on as the older sister took care of lucy took her to school to her. They had a very very close relationship for for a long time. It started to change in in high school. By the time they were both their professional careers and on this now spying, she became very odd, taciturn withdrawn wouldnt any information personal information of any sort with her sister. Now you write family gatherings where she would just sort of sit there and not say anything. Yeah. So they figured something was going on, but they just didnt know it was they didnt know what it was and. Lucy it was almost like gaslighting a way. Lucy in interpreted all this and just wondered, is me or am i doing something to this . And she was just confused and it really harmed the relationship. You and i have covered a lot of stories about spies for, the government, and oftentimes they got paid. How much did the cubans pay . Ana montes ana was motivated by ideology and she was a political. She almost never took money. Unlike Robert Hanssen at fbi or rick ames, who really enrich themselves. Ana took essentially a couple thousand during her 17 year career. So how was her spying . She is one of the most damaging spies in us history and i would argue the most damaging female spy. And by the way, stop right there. If would how is it to have a woman spying against the United States for a foreign country . Still very rare. There are statistics that say only about nine or 10 in the modern era have any been women. And i want to get ahead of the story here, but is that one of the reasons why maybe the government slow to pick up on her . Because they thought well, shes a woman. Shes not a spy. Well, to to some extent, i mean, theyre also basing this on the clues that they had provided to them. But, yes, i think that was part of it. Okay. You started say that she did this strictly for ideological reasons, but how damaging was it . She was very damaging for a couple of reasons. Number one, she provided the true identities of americans operating in havana. These likely cia operatives who are overseas or maybe based in havana. By providing their names, it obviously blows their cover. Its a dangerous little game to play. In one case, the cubans said back to her. Thank so much. We were waiting for him whoever his real name was with. Open arms. That was extremely damaging to whatever plans the us had. Cuba. Secondly, she provided the names of hundreds of other americans who were working on any cuban matter, any cuban intelligence matter. She just by virtue of 17 years of spy ring, just reams of classified information. Again, that memorized primarily and. Then lastly, she also revealed the existence and provided details on a classified side multibillion dollar stealth satellite codenamed misty misty was used by the Us Government to spy success fully on russia, china, iran and our other adversaries on. A learned about it. She got read into it. Very few people knew about it. Even even at dia. She immediately passed that information. The cubans and it is believed that that Program Never again or never worked as well. The cubans have a long track record of selling or sharing information with the russians and others. So i have a few more questions to ask you. Then well invite questions from all of you, from the vast number of jim popkin fans here in politics and prose. But lets talk a little about how she was finally captured, what what it that gave her up. Did anybody or any of her colleagues at dia begin to think maybe she was a spy . There was one who had some suspicion about her and brought it with Security Officials there. And in fact, one of the heroes of this story is a dia investigator named carmichael. Scotts written his own about this from his perspective. It came out over a dozen years ago. Scott actually interviewed because there was a lot of suspicion, but it never really went. Why was there suspicion . One of honors colleagues thought that she was poking her nose much into meeting or trying to attend meetings, that she shouldnt go in and other odd behavior that j