Juan Pablo Roque, the spy who failed in his main mission and was sidelined by Hollywood

Juan Pablo Roque died in Havana because he would never betray Castroism. What’s different is that he may be upset because he was excluded from the distribution of money from the book and the film that Hollywood produced about the Red Avispa for the enjoyment and entertainment of liberals and the left after the Berlin Wall, always quick to praise the oldest dictatorship in Latin America, Cuba, while criticizing the oldest democracy in the hemisphere, the United States.

As a spy, Roque was mediocre because he failed in his main mission to kidnap and take General Rafael del Pino to Cuba. Del Pino had defected in 1987 along with part of his family, and the Main Center of the Intelligence Directorate (DI) of Havana had to reassign him as a CVP of Brothers to the Rescue, which - in turn - was heavily monitored by the FBI, to whom the supposed defected pilot also reported.

A portion of the Cuban emigration struggles to overcome their original sin, which consists of rejoicing and flinging open the doors wide with the arrival in Miami of traitors like Juan Pablo Roque, who also took advantage of his physical attractiveness to be blessed by the folkloric anti-Castro movement that nicknamed him the Cuban Richard Gere.

The primary victim of Juan Pablo Roque in enemy territory was not Brothers to the Rescue, but rather Ana Margarita Martínez, a decent, hardworking, and sweet woman who paid the price for an old grievance suffered by Roque at San Antonio de los Baños Air Base, southwest of Havana, where he is remembered as a pilot who never broke a retractable tailhook while landing a Mig-23.

In those years, Juan Pablo Roque served as the second Chief and Political Officer of his unit, and he was married to a very attractive lady with a nice face, short hair, and a stout build, who worked in the Objective Control section, reviewing the performance of the pilots by analyzing the black boxes of the airplanes.

The woman was having an extramarital affair with another pilot and was caught in the act inside one of the helicopters piloted by her lover, when several members of the garrison were surprised to detect the swaying of the aircraft, which had its turbine off and apparently no crew onboard.

Juan Pablo, whom his adversaries and critics attribute narcissistic traits to, has never been able to overcome such humiliation, especially in a macho environment like Cuba, particularly within its military units.

His marriage to Ana Margarita, whom he met in a Bible course through a cousin of the pilot-spy, was part of the plan devised by Havana and demonstrates his willingness to use and manipulate, even emotionally, in the name of the cause.

The reason for his marginalization is that he remains at his home in the Kholy neighborhood, west of Havana, where he is confined to cultivating medicinal and ornamental plants, according to his own testimony to CiberCuba.

The olive green caste did not include him in the distribution of money for copyright from the book The Last Soldiers of the Cold War, by Brazilian Fernando Morais, a longtime associate of the late commander Manuel Piñeiro Losada.

But Roque knows that he must play with the chain, but never with the monkey; and that's why he takes aim at Miguel Sánchez, former advisor to Ricardo Alarcón and sentenced to prison for being a CIA agent, as well as the great outcast of the book, the movie, and in real life: Edgerton Ivor Levy, who arrived in Key West (Florida) with his wife as Agent Ariel of Cuban Intelligence and immediately informed the FBI of his undercover mission and his contacts on U.S. soil.

The American counterintelligence only had to breach the hive and patiently wait for more than 30 wasps to come to the rich honey, until—after gathering a multitude of evidence regarding the failed attempts to penetrate the military structure of the United States—an extent that the Cuban government and its former spy Roque always deny, despite the numerous evidences in the legal proceedings, the FBI caught the sleepless Castro warriors off guard.

Levy never accepted the witness protection program offered by the U.S. government to avoid disturbing his children with identity changes and forced relocations, but he continues to withhold essential elements of the story, which he has reserved for a book he is finalizing with the help of Wilfredo Cancio Isla.

As of the moment this note was written, the true role of Ivette Bermello, Laura for the Cuban intelligence, in the story of the marriage that—years later—managed to get other children out of Cuba is still unknown. Did they receive American assistance; was it part of a plan agreed upon with the Castro regime?

Roque accuses Levy of being in need of money, despite the fact that Ariel has been working since he arrived in the United States and, after retiring, is working part-time at a social institution, while the former pilot has attempted to sell his Rolex, an expensive toy that surprised Ana Margarita Martínez when he bought it, and complains that he can't find parts for his Peugeot car.

Juan Pablo Roque and Edgerton Ivor Levy are two veterans of the Cold War who shared a trench until the latter decided to embrace democracy, take the risk of being murdered, and work honestly with a clear conscience.

Ana Margarita Martínez is a collateral victim of a opportunist in the service of the oldest dictatorship in Latin America, which has cornered him and discreetly monitors him. The multimillion-dollar compensation awarded to her by an American judge, most of which is still pending collection, does not alleviate the torment of having slept with the enemy, whom she loved believing to be someone else.

The world of spies is filled with romantic skirmishes, winners and losers; and with grievances like the one that specialist in Target Control  inflicted on the handsome Juan Pablo Roque, while riding in a helicopter on the ground.

It's a pity that the writer Morais and the director of the film that premiered on Netflix this Friday did not pay attention to the surroundings of San Antonio de los Baños and then discuss with Juan Pablo about his refined aerial technique in Tope Mástil, his affairs, and his lament for being left out of the cast of the penultimate advertising operation from Hollywood in service of the Castros, fodder for scripts and purely manipulative fiction films.