Mainstream media outlets reacted with astonishment when they reported earlier this year that a former American diplomat had confessed to being a Cuban spy for more than four decades.
It was indeed shocking when Victor Manuel Rocha, U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, suddenly came clean to FBI investigators that he had been covertly gathering intelligence for the island since the early 1980s.
Fewer than six months after his arrest in December, Rocha was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison following a plea deal where he admitted to conspiring to act as an illegal foreign agent to defraud the United States.
According to court documents, the Bogotá-born envoy was first recruited by Cuba’s main state intelligence agency, the Intelligence Directorate or Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI), as a student at Yale University in 1973.
Shortly after graduating, Rocha reportedly traveled to Chile around the time the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ousted the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende and was radicalized by the experience.
Cuba’s KGB-trained intelligence service has long enjoyed an esteemed reputation as one of the best in the world, famously having thwarted hundreds of attempts on the life of Fidel Castro by the CIA. The DGI has also become known for its effective operations abroad, such as the case of double agent Ana Montes who penetrated the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as an analyst for 17 years.
With the Rocha case closed within a few short months, it is unclear precisely what actions he took while in diplomatic service that could have benefited Havana. If true, not only did he have privileged access to classified information but the ability to directly impact U.S. diplomacy with tradecraft. However, many have noted that, while serving as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, Rocha made a name for himself during the Andean nation’s 2002 election when he publicly threatened the withdrawal of U.S. aid if then-underdog candidate Evo Morales were to win the presidency.
In hindsight, what was perceived as a controversial gaffe at the time, which inadvertently increased support for Morales, could have been deliberate if Rocha was truly an infiltrator
Hellbound and Down 