Ana Montes - Life and Career

Life and Career

Montes was born in West Germany, where her father, Alberto Montes, was posted as an Army doctor. The family later lived in Topeka, Kansas and later Towson, Maryland, where she graduated from Loch Raven High School in 1975. In 1979 she earned a degree in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia, and in 1988 she finished a master's degree at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. It was later revealed that her father, a Puerto Rican, had strong conservative views, and had a strained relationship with his more radical daughter.

Montes joined the DIA from the U.S. Department of Justice in September 1985. Her first assignment was at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington where she worked as an intelligence research specialist. In 1992, Montes was selected for the DIA's Exceptional Analyst Program and later traveled to Cuba to study the Cuban military.

Montes advanced rapidly through the ranks at DIA and became DIA's most senior Cuban analyst. Her co-workers regarded her as responsible and dependable, and noted her "no-nonsense" attitude. Prosecutors would later allege that Montes was already working for the Cubans when she joined the DIA in 1985.

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