Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know

On February 24, 1996, the Cuban military shot down two US civilian aircraft, killing all four people aboard. The airplanes were operated by Hermanos al Rescate (Brothers to the Rescue), an organization that saved stranded migrants attempting to leave Cuba by raft. Hermanos al Rescate had violated Cuban airspace multiple times over the years, but the airplanes were in international airspace at the time of the incident in question.

It soon emerged that the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was warned of the Cuban government’s intentions only the day before the attack, on February 23. The attention quickly shifted to the incompetence of the US government, which was very convenient for Cuba. A DIA analyst became suspicious that this was not merely a coincidence but was rather the work of a Cuban spy. His suspicions fell on a DIA colleague and Cuban expert named Ana Belen Montes, who had arranged the meeting on February 23. Montes was interviewed, but her answers checked out. Five years later, in 2001, it was discovered that Montes was a Cuban spy after all. In retrospect, the DIA official who investigated her in 1996 realized that there were a number of moments in the interview in which she had behaved strangely.