State Dept: Cuba Built Covert Spy Network in Pentagon, NSC

The U.S. State Department released a bombshell 100-page report on Monday alleging that Cuba has conducted a decades-long covert campaign of espionage, ideological subversion, and political influence that successfully infiltrated the highest levels of the U.S. government. The report, titled “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” claims Cuban intelligence burrowed into the Pentagon, the National Security Council, and the State Department itself, while simultaneously cultivating American activist groups, universities, and nonprofits to advance communist ideology.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who authorized the unsigned report, declared on X that “for more than six decades, the Cuban regime has been the leading sponsor of radical leftism and Third Worldism in the United States,” adding that “the American people deserve to know” the full history of Cuban espionage and subversion. The report arrives amid the Trump administration’s escalating “maximum pressure” campaign against Cuba, which includes an oil blockade, over 240 sanctions, and threats of military intervention.

What the Report Alleges

The report asserts that Cuba’s Dirección de Inteligencia (DI) infiltrated “the top levels of the State Department, the National Security Council, and the Pentagon,” as Fox News first reported. It cites several high-profile espionage cases, including Victor Manuel Rocha — a former U.S. ambassador who spied for Cuba for approximately 50 years before his arrest in December 2023 — and Ana Belén Montes, a senior Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who passed secrets to Havana for 17 years before her arrest in 2001.

Former CIA counterintelligence chief James Olson is quoted in the report warning that “the Cubans have penetrated our government… We only know the tip of the iceberg.” The report also names the Wasp Network and Walter Kendall Myers among convicted spies who operated on Cuba’s behalf.

Beyond traditional espionage, the report alleges that Cuba cultivated ties with American revolutionary and activist groups spanning decades — from the Weather Underground and Black Panthers in the 1970s to modern Antifa, anti-ICE organizations, and left-wing nonprofits. Organizations named include the Venceremos Brigade, the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), the Democratic Socialists of America, Code Pink, and the National Lawyers Guild, which the report argues helped maintain pro-Cuba activism in the United States for generations.

The report further claims that Cuba viewed American colleges and universities as recruiting grounds, identifying politically sympathetic students who could later move into influential government or private sector positions. It points to partnerships between the University of Havana and dozens of U.S. universities as examples of long-term influence efforts.

The Broader Context: Maximum Pressure

The report is the latest salvo in what the Council on Foreign Relations describes as a “maximum pressure” campaign that has intensified dramatically since President Trump returned to office. Since January 2026, the administration has imposed an oil blockade that has caused severe fuel shortages and nationwide blackouts in Cuba, declared a national emergency regarding the island, and re-designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The report also alleges that Cuba hosts 18 known signal intelligence facilities, three actively operated by China and two by Russia, with foreign intelligence personnel on the island tripling since 2023. It claims Cuban mercenaries have fought alongside Russian forces in Ukraine since 2023, and that the NNOC distributed a “rapid response plan” in June 2026 for coordinated actions against federal facilities and military bases within 24 hours of any U.S. military action against Cuba.

Cuba’s Response: Propaganda or McCarthyism?

Cuban officials have vehemently rejected the allegations. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla dismissed the report as “political propaganda” and the “latest fallacy” about Cuba, accusing the Trump administration of manufacturing a pretext for what he called Washington’s “cruel and criminal economic war” against the island. Without naming Rubio, he accused “that U.S. politician from South Florida” of concocting a “macabre plan” that advances only the interests “of those who have always paid him.”

President Miguel Díaz-Canel went further, calling the report a “new and more dangerous version of McCarthyism,” as The Guardian reported from Havana. The Guardian’s reporting highlights a stark disconnect between the report’s claims of Cuban power and the reality of Cuba’s economic collapse, where desperate citizens search through piles of uncollected rubbish for food during 24-hour-plus blackouts.

An anonymous Cuban academic told The Guardian the report “reads just like a report Cuba’s state media might write about the United States,” noting its failure to mention U.S. support for anti-Castro exiles who committed terrorist acts, including the 1976 bombing of Cubana Flight 455 that killed 73 people.

Analysis: Competing Narratives and Political Timing

The report presents two sharply competing narratives. The U.S. government frames Cuba as an existential ideological threat that has waged a sophisticated, multi-generational campaign to undermine American democracy. The report’s language is striking: it describes Cuba’s assault as “a revolution against Western civilization itself — waged, in part, via the novel and insidious method of persuading the children of the West to turn against their own inheritance.”

Critics, however, question the report’s timing and purpose. Released approximately four months before the November 2026 U.S. midterm elections, it has the potential to tie Democratic-aligned groups to foreign influence operations. As Foreign Policy noted, the report frames Cuba as “more dangerous than U.S. officials have typically done in the past,” arguing that Cuban operatives within “hundreds” of organizations “collectively represent one of the single largest, most sophisticated and dangerous vectors for hostile foreign influence in modern American history.”

Several outstanding questions remain. The report is unsigned, raising questions about its authorship. It is unclear whether it contains new evidence beyond previously known espionage cases or is largely a compilation of historical allegations. Independent verification of claims about current infiltration levels is difficult given the classified nature of counterintelligence.

What to Watch For

The report could serve as a predicate for further escalation — including additional sanctions, new prosecutions under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), or even military action. Rubio confirmed the start of Venezuela’s transition the same week, suggesting a broader strategy regarding leftist governments in the region.

However, the report’s critics argue that its maximalist claims may undermine its credibility. As one Cuban academic put it, the document reads more like political theater than intelligence assessment. Whether the report represents a genuine national security warning or a political document designed to justify an aggressive policy agenda, its release marks a significant escalation in the already fraught relationship between Washington and Havana — one that shows no signs of de-escalating.