Blogs and Stories
My Professor, the Spy
A. Rea, Handout / Reuters
From admiring lectures about Soviet double agent Kim Philby to coffee at my school’s Alger Hiss Café, hints abounded that my professor, accused Cuban spy Walter Kendall Myers, might be a communist spook. But neither I, nor his old boss—Paul Wolfowitz—took notice.
Professor Walter Kendall Myers stood out as a dapper Anglophile in a city, Washington D.C., dominated by blue button-down shirts and khakis. As his student in the spring of 1992, I remember his woolen sweaters and an umbrella, and perhaps even a shepherd's hat. None of those physical images squares with what the government now says is the truth: While teaching me British politics at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Kendall Myers was also a spy for Fidel Castro.
According to my notes, Myers suggested that Philby and his fellow double agents were called by their sense of duty to “save” Europe, and that U.S. and U.K. policies “turned them into” spies.
These new accusations probably shouldn't have shocked me as much as they did. Looking for some insight into a man I thought was as establishment as they come—his great-grandfather was telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell—I dug through my parents' basement for my class notes, and came across lectures that, in retrospect, contained chilling information: Myers expressed high regard for the notorious Kim Philby and two other Brits—Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess—who became Soviet double agents during the Cold War. According to my notes, Myers suggested that they were called by their sense of duty to "save" Europe (rather than the British Empire), and that U.S. and U.K. policies "turned them into" spies.
In fact, the more I reflect back on my class with Myers, the more the clues—and the ironies—pile up. Johns Hopkins is based in Baltimore, of course, but SAIS has always been in Washington, and throughout its history dallied with those in the "business." Students at the school's Bologna Center, where I spent my first two semesters, accepted as fact that our program had been founded in the mid-1950s as a front for CIA operatives keen for a legitimate perch at the capital of Italy's "red" movement.
While I was as SAIS, the student newspaper staff ran a coffee shop in the basement of one of the school's two buildings, which they named, tongue firmly in cheek, The Alger Hiss Café. Everyone in the school dropped by for a drink or nibble occasionally, surely including a man, the government says, who spent 30 years practicing what Hiss was accused of. While numerous SAIS graduates and faculty continue to contribute in remarkable ways toward shaping our country's domestic- and foreign-policy agenda—Treasury's Timothy Geithner being the most visible lately—it is easy to imagine that these success stories only represent the public-facing tip of a submerged, cloak-and-dagger iceberg.
Speaking with fellow SAIS alumni, including a couple of other European Studies students who took his course, I was struck by how few were able to remember him. As best I can tell, he was an enigma, which I presume to be a notable job qualification for a good spy.
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Ozone69
The Left has always had a soft spot for Castro's Cuba. Universities are overwhelmingly tilted to the Left so it's no surprise that an academic would be involved in this. I always wondered why these admirers of the Communist dictator never interviewed the throngs of Cubans who risked life and limb to get off that island and away from the Castro regime. Maybe they know something the Left doesn't.
piktor
Ozone -- Did you read at the top of the article prof Myers worked for Wolfowitz?
Ozone69
He was one of numerous professors in Wolfowitz's department at Johns Hopkins. Your point being?
piktor
Well, the "Left" ran things for 10 of the 30 years Myers spied. And it is a "leftist" administration that finally catches him. Maybe the "Left" does know more than you are willing to concede.
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Tango121
Myers worked for Wolfowitz at a college not the pentagon
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Genni2002
Still, it doesn't change the fact about the phone tapping focus. No need to ask ourselves whether they were searching for terrorists and spies or fodder for character smearing / what the left was up to inf. Seems like a gross error not catching this couple.
amapola101
Espionage,counterintelligence,spies,it sounds like a James Bond movie.It is all on television,in the intenet,everywhere,those years of Cuban spies are way over.Now ,spies if the Taliban want to attack us,that is a true job,If North Korea is planning further expansions,that is real intelligence.Cuba is full of tourism all over the world,soon we have to rebuild with them,and American Companies will make the fortunes.
Tango121
This writer sounds like BHO, the professor turned spy because Bush and Wolfowitz, Cheney started an evil war to make money and steal the oil. No wait he been charged with spying since the 60's, I got it he knew George W. Bush was going to steal the 2000 election so the Professor started spying to help defeat the evil American people. Selling out the USA to help a murdering dictator is ok if it you hate the Repub.'s. This Professor and his wife if convicted need to good bye bye to prison for the rest of their lives.
BasPos
You're as nuts as Davantee. Wolfowitz was/is so dumb he had a spy working for him and didn't know it. He should have kept to hiring girlfriends.
Davantee
Typical Left-wingnut mentality..Just look at Nobama with his sitting through diatribes and apologizing to dictators and terrorist...they are all the same..Anti-Americans who want to bring down our country and economy!..
BasPos
President Obama is a centrist, much to the distress of lefty wingnuts. As for apologies, I heard none. Shrub, however, owes all of us an apology.
Spasticula
Neotards so live in terror over the prospect of apologizing that they even see apologies where they didn't occur. The only acceptable foreign policy for them is acting like a hard-on.
And Bush voters owe us all an apology, and some form of remediation. What are you volunteering to fix, that your candidate fucked up?
cbeenthere
That is just insulting.
amapola101
Because this president is polite,curteous, and spreading good will and friendly does not mean he is a weakling. Dont worry he has the world,in his hand. He is not an idiot, and his cabinet, and the people who are near him are very smart.Isnt Rohm a former Mossad,and Axelrod.?OH WAIT, We have Chaney constanly crying wolf,we are going to be attacked, that is his dream so he will be able to say his administration,was Right.A real Patriot,and a man o strenghth.I also wanted proven to me,what espinage these people did.?What?
GPatton
Look at that guy's teeth. They give his game away. Most people in communist countries have rotten teeth, ever notice? George Patton
ProfessorMM
From Professor Michael Mandelbaum of The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS): I am writing to make two comments about Tom Murray's piece, which mentions me and a recent book I wrote: (1) In my 19 years of teaching at SAIS, I recall meeting Kendall Myers only once, and briefly, at that, and (2) the book to which he refers is THE CASE FOR GOLIATH: HOW AMERICA ACTS AS THE WORLD'S GOVERNMENT IN THE 21st CENTURY (PublicAffairs, 2005, paperback edition, 2006) http://www.amazon.com/Case-Goliath-America-Worlds-Government/dp/1586484583/ ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244560104&sr=1-1
ginaver
Can we now see that not all the Marxist loons in academia are harmless? For years those concerned with national security have been hammered just for implying that the left is harboring traitors among us. Now we know. And let's not forget the lovely Ana Montes, who also attended SAIS and spied, not for money, but Ideology. Myers is certainly not the lone ranger.
I'm just wondering who else is out there, because I'm quite sure that the CIA, State Department and DOD are chocked full of these nuts.
And I suspect that "they" also did everything they possibly could to distort intelligence, foreign policy and public opinion. Abu Ghraib? Gitmo? Bush Lied? No Blood for Oil? Look at the source. Most of the people behind that crap have been hard core Marxists and supporters of Fidel since the sixties, and, as Myers shows, more than a few are likely in his hire as well. Useful idiots indeed.
Spasticula
Whadda ya know? Two degrees of separation among Neocons and spies! The Dems will still fail to make political hay ou of this.
Plantagenet
Leftists still won't admit that the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss were spies for the Russians. Now the leftists won't admit that Prof. Meyers was a spy for the Cubans. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Spasticula
Your generalizations are very poor. I'm a lefty. I admit they were spies. And for 16 of those 30 years of spying, the GOP was in charge.
amapola101
For all this spying I can tell you Castro stayed in power all these years,he knew what they were all planning,saying,and preparing,without spies.There is a man who had the gift of gab,charisma,and still today he can mezmerize a crowd.,and blinds and puts a veil over everyones eyes,!! they do not see his maliciousness, evilness,canaving,communism,he is full of tourism,and people love to go there.They do not care that the Cubans are under communism.We travel to the other side of the world and we had our enemy 90 miles away. But you do not need espionage,to know US companies will make fortunes soon.What does Leftist have to do with,anything???if and when they proove they were spies,all Americans who are patriots will despise,spies.!!!who plan to hurt and wound their country and countrymen.!!!! BUT PROOVE IT>WHAT WAS THE BIG SPYING SECRETS.....Turn the tv on,the news tells,you when and where we are attacking At what time, and then the media also shows,and describes all our intelligence.
redspruce
For Tom Murray. How many times did the CIA try to kill Castro?
bella09
Thank you for telling your story.........wish you would call Bill O'Reilly....let others know what you witnessed for yourself.
bella09
Do you think we will ever know how much William Ayers and his wife have hurt America? I can not believe that they teach anything but hate for America in their classes.
Timothy Geithner is not smart enough to spy......
bella09
More studens should speak out about what some of these professors are doing in class. Our son was hurt for life by one of these sick people........some use the platform to spread their sick twisted hate of America. When a professor stands in front of you and tells you how hateful America is.....open those ears .........they do not have to live in this country....they only want to spread hate of our country.
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