Ana Montes appeared to be a model employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency: an overachiever who advanced quickly through the ranks of government Latin America specialists during a 16-year career to become the intelligence community's premier analyst of Cuban affairs. She was smart, gifted, and determined-she easily defeated a routine polygraph exam. When she was arrested in September 2001, Montes was the most senior American intelligence official ever accused of secretly operating from within the federal government as a Cuban spy. "True Believer" is an insider's account of the FBI investigation that led to the arrest of Montes. Scott W. Carmichael, the DIA senior counterintelligence investigator who persuaded the FBI to initiate the investigation, reveals the extent of harm Montes inflicted-even implicating her in the death of Green Beret Gregory A. Fronius, who died in 1987 from injuries sustained during combat operations in El Salvador. Montes was one of the last True Believers of the communist era and, in the aggregate, caused exceptionally grave damage to our collective security.
The arrest of Montes on 21 September 2001 went largely unnoticed; media coverage of 9/11, the subsequent anthrax investigation, the War on Terrorism, and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan dominated the airwaves, and the story of Ana B. Montes was lost in the noise of other, more sensational national events. "True Believer" seeks to set the record straight.