Secret Cuban spy station again in spotlight

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STORY: Birds chirp and lush trees sway in the wind – a scene of Caribbean tranquility.

But just outside this sleepy Cuban village - called Bejucal – is what the U.S. government suspects has long been an intelligence gathering facility that once hid Soviet nuclear warheads.

Now, large parabolic antennas are partially obscured by vegetation. And a sign nearby warns: "KEEP OUT, MILITARY ZONE."

The United States believes the base, just 116 miles from Florida’s Key West, is used to intercept U.S. electronic communications, according to a Federal Communications Commission document from November 2022.

And it's newly in focus after the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed American officials, reported Washington was worried that China was working toward setting up a spy base in Cuba to better eavesdrop on the U.S.

The White House National Security Council did not respond to Reuters questions on whether Bejucal housed the alleged Chinese spy facilities, or whether it remained concerned about the site.

China on Monday denied the Journal reports. A foreign ministry spokesperson called the allegations a farce.

The Biden Administration has shared few details. Here's Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday:

"With regard to Cuba, when this administration took office in January 2021, we were briefed on a number of sensitive efforts by Beijing around the world to expand their overseas logistics, basing collection infrastructure to allow them to project and sustain military power at a greater distance. (flash) Based on the information we have, the PRC conducted an upgrade of its intelligence collection facilities in Cuba in 2019.“

The communist-run government said Blinken’s assertions about a Chinese spy base in Cuba are false… and it has dismissed prior allegations as a U.S. fabrication meant to justify Washington's decades-old economic embargo against the island.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, local Cubans had little to say about the military site near town:

"I don't know, I know it's a military installation. You can't go there."

During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Bejucal gained notoriety after U.S. spy planes uncovered it as a hiding place for Soviet nuclear warheads.

Moscow backed down and removed the missiles, but it is widely regarded as the moment when the U.S. and Soviet Union came closest to nuclear confrontation.

But now, the small Communist-ruled island could once again be central in great-power rivalries.