Former American Ambassador Accused of Working as Secret Agent Transcript

We turn now to the former American Ambassador to Bolivia, who all these years later is now accused of being a secret agent of the Cuban government. The FBI claims he was a secret agent for more than 40 years. Here’s Pierre Thomas.

Tonight, the stunning claim by the FBI, that Cuba’s communist regime had a mole inside the US government for decades.

Falsely pledging loyalty to the United States while serving a foreign power is a crime that will be met with the full force of the Justice Department.

Victor Manuel Rocha rose to the ranks of the State Department, including a stint as a top diplomat in Havana, before becoming the US Ambassador to Bolivia. He also held a highly sensitive position on the National Security Council. But the Attorney General says, at least since 1981, Rocha was really working for Fidel Castro’s Cuba, in one of the highest reaching and longest lasting infiltrations of the US government by a foreign agent.

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Last year, the FBI became suspicious of Rocha and sent an undercover agent posing as a Cuban intelligence officer to make contact, Rocha allegedly quickly confiding in the agent that his entire diplomatic career was at the direction of Cuba. “I went little by little. It was a very meticulous process, very disciplined.”

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The FBI saying, Rocha, now 73, called the US the enemy, bragging to the agent, “What we have done, it’s enormous, more than a grand slam. It was decades.”

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US officials are trying to determine what classified information Rocha may have given the Cubans. Thus far they make no allegations that he betrayed his country for money, but instead they say he was a true believer doing it to help the Cuban Communist Revolution. David.

What a story all these years later. Pierre Thomas, tonight in Washington. Thank you, Pierre.