WASHINGTON — A former State Department official and his wife have been charged with spying for Cuba for nearly three decades, federal prosecutors said Friday.
Prosecutors said Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, 71, both of Washington, were charged with conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government. They were arrested Thursday afternoon, prosecutors said.
“We remain vigilant in protecting our nation’s secrets and in bringing to justice those who compromise them,” David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement.
Kendall Myers saw more than 200 intelligence reports on Cuba in his last year at the State Department, the indictment said.
Authorities said the FBI started an undercover operation in April to convince the couple that they had been contacted by Cuban intelligence.
According to an FBI affidavit, the couple told the undercover agent they had received coded messages from the Cuban intelligence service in the past on a shortwave radio.
“We have been very cautious, careful with our moves and, uh, trying to be alert to any surveillance,” Kendall Myers told the agent, according to the court papers.
They also discussed how they were first recruited by Cuban agents and were given code names to use in messages, the FBI said.
The FBI said Kendall Myers usually removed information from the State Department by memory or by taking notes.
