She should have been exposed a long time ago - the signs were there. You always have to scrutinize the "expert" of a country while working in the intelligence field. They gave her too much leadway in the agency simply because she "looked the part." The same with Aldrich Ames; what GG-13 buys a 700,000 dollar house in cash, new cars, jewelry, new suits, private schools etc - and ZERO income inherited on bank statements??? When they searched her home, they found the commuications gear with the Cubans - how sloppy is an agent to openly keep her materials in her apartment to be easily found?
Popkin mentioned that the poverty Ana Montes saw in Cuba didn't disillusion her with regard to the Castro regime. I think that a lot of left-wing supporters of the regime reasoned that the poverty was due to the US embargo. But for the embargo, Cuba would have been doing much better. Strange, I think, because a lot of countries, including Western countries, continued trading with Cuba, and the country was receiving tons of aid from the USSR.
That's useful to give a quick answer, especially because it's a talking point, but not really in depth about what people believe. There's a general belief of a systemic deprivation of the conditions for success, of which the embargo is just one factor. But they'd definitely mention that corruption by the US-backed dictatorship would be a major factor as well, for example.
@@DrVictorVasconcelos But that U.S. backed dictatorship vanished nearly seventy years ago. It seems rather odd that Marxists seem to think that the success of the Cuban Revolution depends upon trading with THE imperialist-capitalist superpower.
Seriously though: She became a spy because her patriot Father was abusive and the FBI praised him, she never killed anybody or got anybody killed, and her only threat was she was good at her job. "Most damaging" indeed; because she proved the US wasn't perfect and hurt their rep/image.
@@MicaiahBaron Even very learned people in the US never hear about most of US history. Even the part that they learn is really quite biased. I've been learning about US history classes and frankly, it's terrifying. But given what it is, it's no wonder that their general view is that "so, we made some mistakes, but our impact has mostly been good". What has been most surprising to me is that actual Warsaw Pact history classes seem to have been much more honest about their past, at least their non-Communist past. But talking to Americans about their history is very scary. They don't know anything. And some stuff is so terrible that it feels conspiratorial so you need to have your sources ready. Unless you're talking to an actual historian of modern US history, it feels like you're living in fantasyland.
@@DrVictorVasconcelos Your generalizations reveal your bias. US universities are replete with negative views of the United States in history such as you desire, in fact, it is the norm rather than the exception.
