It’s no coincidence that the alleged Cuba spy peddled Trump and right-wing politics | Opinion

Miami — home base for an ex-diplomat described by U.S. authorities as one of the most damaging spies in American history — will never, after this round, shake off its reputation as the uncontested Caribbean Casablanca.

The indicted and arrested “secret agent” for Communist Party-ruled Cuba lived, according to public records, on the 17th floor of a posh Brickell Avenue condo tower across the street from capitalist luxury shopping and dining and entertainment hyped as “premium and world class.”

He was seldom identified by his real first name, Victor.

Those who knew him called him by his middle name, Manuel, or by his last name, Rocha.

There are no pictures in the public domain of Victor Manuel Rocha, 73 — former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, State Department official with access to classified information on national security issues, advisor at a top Brickell firm — without business wear and a tie.

Rocha may have been a secret agent for a third-world country, as the U.S. Justice Department charges, and a valuable asset to help sustain the longest-lasting dictatorship in the Americas, one that keeps people poor and repressed, but he enjoyed the good life of an elitist conservative in Miami — until now, a respected one.

Rocha’s best disguise: Being the typical polished Miami-Dade MAGA supporter of former President Donald Trump. As such, he joined the local political chorus pushing for Trump to reverse President Obama’s engagement policy in favor of a hard line on Cuba.

Since his handlers in Cuba told him “to lead a normal life,” Rocha is recorded by an undercover agent saying, “I have created the legend of a right-wing person.’‘

Guess to whom in Miami Rocha made two political donations last year totaling $750?

The campaign of Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, a bitter critic of President Biden and Trump supporter, a former journalist who in 1995 got an exclusive and controversial one-on-one interview with none other than Fidel Castro.

In true form, Salazar used a spy outed by the Biden administration to tell the same administration on X in two languages to “wake up!” to Cuba’s spying.

Such is the petty, partisan Miami world of light-weight politicians, a place where spies thrive. Who cares now that she’ll return the donations to a man in jail?

READ MORE: Former U.S. official arrested in Miami on charges of being secret agent for Cuba

Why push pro-Trump?

Better to take stock — and think critically for a change.

Rocha’s indictment has rattled not only the intelligence community but also the Cuban-exile establishment, which until Obama, monopolized U.S.-Cuba policy. Ivy League-educated, he participated in forums like those of the right-leaning Institute for Cuban American Studies, once housed at the University of Miami.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said that what Rocha did on behalf of the Cuban regime during 40 years is “one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the U.S. government by a foreign agent.” It will take years to unravel the damage done by Colombia-born, New York-raised Rocha, who was a deputy in 1996, a crucial year in Cuba-U.S. relations, at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

The allegations that he has been helping the Cuban government from as far back as 1981, and that he boasted about it to the undercover federal agent investigating him, are outlined in a federal complaint.

They will have to be proven in court, but the timeline places Rocha close to significant Cuban-exile events and U.S. efforts to inspire democracy on the island.

Most recently, Rocha was a vocal supporter of Trump, who closed Cuba to American travelers and imposed sanctions, friends, old acquaintances and diplomatic colleagues have told the media.

By doing so, Trump ended the unparalleled American influence Obama brought with his trip to Havana, especially his televised pro-democracy speech. Rocha’s support of Trump should be an eye-opener for Miamians quick to label Democrats and everyone who sees the value of detente as communists or socialists.

What better way to divide Cuban Americans than to encourage cult-like support for a fascist-leaning president? What better way to discredit us than to turn us into one-party-only loyalists like the tyrants across the Florida Straits?

The most influential anti-Castro lobby — the Cuban American National Foundation, formed in 1981 — was bipartisan and wisely made campaign donations to Republicans and Democrats.

When heir to CANF leadership Jorge Mas Jr. hosted Obama in Miami and assured him there would be broad support in the exile community for opening up to Cuba, the New York Times reported in 2016 from Havana: “With Obama visit to Cuba, old battle lines fade.”

But we know how that turned out. Who opposed Obama’s speech and presence in Cuba as stridently as right-wing exiles?

Fidel Castro, the man Rocha is accused of serving.

Pushing right to benefit the left

Rocha’s game, according to charges against him, was advocating for the right to benefit the left.

He caused quite a stir doing so in 2002 Bolivia.

Despite the fact that American diplomats aren’t supposed to meddle in elections, Rocha warned voters in a speech not to vote for left-wing candidate Evo Morales or the United States would cut off assistance.

People were angry at the U.S. interference and Morales — a Castro friend — lost, but ultimately, he ran again and won in 2006.

READ MORE: Diplomat’s arrest on suspicions of being Cuba agent rattles U.S. intelligence community

Miami spy history

Miami-based spies are as old as exile. They come in all sorts of disguises — but have a common distinguishing feature: They present themselves as hardliners.

The most famous spy for Cuba, ex-Cuban Air Force Major Juan Pablo Roque, boasted that he was “Richard Gere’s Cuban double.” He married a Republican Cuban American and infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue, the exile group helping rescue Cuban rafters lost at sea.

Roque informed on the group’s incursions into Cuban airspace to drop leaflets over Havana. He fled back to Cuba right before four Cuban Americans pilots on two Cessnas were shot down by Cuban Migs over international waters on February 24, 1996.

It’s eerie that Rocha was at the time stationed at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. If allegations that he was a spy are true, he was in a position to pass critical information and shape the U.S response. After the tragedy, on-going talks in the Clinton administration about improving relations with Cuba, ended.

That’s no coincidence.

As punishment, Clinton signed the Helms Burton Act, expanding the reach of the U.S. embargo and giving Cuba another way to shift blame from disastrous economic policies to a tightened embargo.

For four of the six decades the Cuban regime has been in power, the Justice Department alleges, Rocha spied for Cuba, handing over intelligence information.

There’s no better place to hide than in a city where exiles falsely accuse those who don’t agree with their Cuba strategy of being agents of Castroism and communism.

Amid so much noise, no one suspects The One.