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After months during which the U.S. government tried to silence Cuba's reasons to arrest U.S. citizen Alan Gross on charges of acts against the country's independence, and avoided to admit his responsibility in the case, the truth has made headlines in world media.
Hundreds of media organizations, both printed and digital, many of them from the United States, this week published, totally or partially, a lengthy article from the U.S. Associated Press (AP), which shows that Gross is not a "trusting fool", as he described himself at his trial.
The article, entitled "USAID Contractor Work in Cuba Detailed", by journalist Desmond Butler, was published by more than 100 media organizations, as well as articles by other media on the subject, according to an impact graphic on Google.
The AP news corroborates that all the time, Gross was aware of the illegalities he was committing, while he was equipped with technology that, according to experts, it is provided most frequently to the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to avoid the electronic detection of telephone signals".
Reports on the agent's five trips to Cuba, to which the U.S. news agency had access, show that "he knew his activities were illegal in Cuba and that he worried about the danger, including possible expulsion".
One of the documents obtained by the AP says that one of the persons who collaborated with Gross "made it abundantly clear that we are all 'playing with fire.'"
On another occasion, the article adds, Gross said, "This is very risky business in no uncertain terms" and "detection of satellite signals will be catastrophic."
Alan Gross was sentenced to 15 years in prison in March 2011, after it was proved that he had illegally introduced telecommunication equipment in Cuba to create internal networks, as part of a program sponsored by the U.S. government to promote destabilizing actions and subvert constitutional order in Cuba.
In August, the defendant and his lawyer challenged the sentence from the provincial court that tried him, but the People's Supreme Court rejected the appeal.
However, the Cuban government has informed the incumbent U.S. administration about its willingness to find a humanitarian solution to Gross' case on a reciprocal basis.
So far, U.S. media had presented Gross as a harmless 62-year-old man who was unjustly sentenced in Cuba and whose purpose was to set up satellite Internet service for Cuba's small Jewish community.
However, the AP article reveals that Jewish leaders have said that they were unaware of Gross' connections to the U.S. government and that they already were provided Internet access.
In fact, the synagogues were provided Internet access long before Gross' visit.
"Of course, this is covert work," said Robert Pastor, President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser for Latin America and now director of the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University in Washington.
Quoted by the AP, Pastor said that he was aware that Gross' work in Cuba was "about regime change."
The operation was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), established in 1961 to provide, according to Washington, economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of U.S. foreign policy goals.
Gross, however, identified himself as a member of a Jewish humanitarian group, not a representative of the U.S. government, to operate in Cuba, says the AP article.
According to the article, Gross' company, JBDC Inc., which specializes in setting up Internet access in remote locations like Iraq and Afghanistan, had been hired by Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), of Bethesda, Maryland, which had a multimillion-dollar contract with USAID to operate in Cuba.
The reports, made available to the AP by a person familiar with the case who insisted on anonymity because of the documents' sensitivity, show details of the agent's trips to Cuba in 2009 and his efforts to escape Cuban authorities' detection.
To avoid airport scrutiny, the article says, Gross enlisted the help of other American Jews to bring in electronic equipment a piece at a time.
He instructed his helpers to pack items, some of them banned in Cuba, in carry-on luggage, not checked bags.
"He once drove seven hours after clearing security and customs rather than risk airport searches," adds the article.
On his final trip, he brought in a "discreet" SIM card - or subscriber identity module card - intended to keep satellite phone transmissions from being pinpointed.
The AP makes it clear that the type of SIM card used by Gross is not available on the open market and is distributed only to governments, according to an official at a satellite telephone company and a former U.S. intelligence official who has used such a chip.
"The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the technology, said the chips are provided most frequently to the Defense Department and the CIA, but also can be obtained by the State Department, which oversees USAID," notes the article.
Asked how Gross obtained the card, USAID spokesman Drew Bailey said only that the agency played no role in helping Gross acquire equipment. "We are a development agency, not an intelligence agency," he said.
Even before he delivered the special SIM card, Gross noted in a trip report that use of Internet satellite phones would be "problematic if exposed."
Cuba says that Gross' work as an agent for the U.S. government is part of Washington's strategy to subvert political and social order in the country.
That design contains the so-called Bush Plan or the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, created by former Republican President George W. Bush on August 6, 2004.
The Plan includes, among its ingredients, the tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade, the promotion of internal and external counterrevolution and propaganda against Cuba, among many other measures, funded with millions of dollars every year.
According to U.S. officials familiar with the contract, Gross was paid a half-million dollars as a USAID subcontractor, the AP article says.
Gross' first trip to Cuba in April 2009 focused on getting equipment in and setting up the first of three facilities with unrestricted Internet access.
"The helpers were supposed to pack single pieces of equipment in their carry-on luggage. That way, Gross wrote, any questions could best be handled during the X-ray process at security, rather than at a customs check. The material was delivered to Gross later at a Havana hotel," reports the AP.
The equipment he brought on his fourth trip included three Internet satellite phones known as BGANs, in addition to other equipment whose import is prohibited by Cuban authorities.
"Gross wrote that he smuggled the BGANs in a backpack. He had hoped to fool authorities by taping over the identifying words on the equipment: "Hughes," the manufacturer, and "Inmarsat," the company providing the satellite Internet service," says the report by the U.S. news agency.
Despite all his efforts to deceive Cuban authorities and the evidence against him, Gross did not admit his conscious and premeditated actions.
"I am deeply sorry for being a trusting fool. I was duped. I was used," he claimed. However, DAI spokesman Steven O'Connor said in a statement that Gross "designed, proposed, and implemented this work" for the company.
