Code Name Blue Wren by Jim Popkin

The subtitle is The True Story of America's Most Dangerous Spy And The Sister She Betrayed. I wish I could remember who told me to read this book, but I did not come upon this of my own accord. I found this to be largely a disappointing book, both in its writing style as well as the conclusions that it draws about Ana Montes, a spy for Cuba. After nearly 17 years at the Defense Intelligence Agency, she was arrested by U.S. authorities in 2001 on charges of spying for Cuba. The self-confessed traitor, who has now been released, served 21 years in a high-security federal prison. Unable to reach the imprisoned, unrepentant spy, Popkin relied on interviews with Montes’s family and friends and on government psychological assessments to explain Montes’s high-risk decision to supply her Cuban handlers with inside information, acts of betrayal for which she received no monetary compensation. Yet in Code Name Blue Wren (the label given by U.S. officials to Montes’s case), the author dismisses Montes’s avowed reason for spying—her deeply felt opposition to U.S. policies in Central America and Cuba—but fails to offer a compelling alternative theory. Instead, he echoes counterintelligence hawks in sensationalizing the damage Montes caused. He does not present credible evidence that Montes compromised agents nor did she change or significantly distort the intelligence community’s characteristically tough-minded assessments of Cuba.