Ex State Department official, wife charged as Cuban spies

A former State Department official, with a security clearance above top secret, and his wife have been arrested on charges of spying for the Cuban government for nearly 30 years

Walter Kendall Myers, 72, and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, 71, were charged with conspiring to act as illegal agents and with passing classified information to the Cuban government. They also were charged with conspiring to provide classified U.S. information to Havana and with wire fraud.

an official from Cuba's mission to the United Nations recruited the couple to spy for Cuba in 1979, visiting them at their home in South Dakota. The Cuba intelligence service directed Kendall Myers, who'd worked for the State Department in 1977, to resume his employment with the State Department "or the CIA.''

Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla.,

called on the administration to halt "any further diplomatic outreach to the regime,''