In announcing the end of more than 50 years of a “failed” policy of trying to isolate Cuba, US President Barack Obama revealed the two sides were releasing prisoners who had long been causes celebres in their respective countries.  And one whose imprisonment was known only in classified files.

Alan Gross is back on US soil.  The 65-year old had been jailed in Cuba for five years, convicted of espionage after trying to install Internet service for Havana’s Jewish community. Cuban authorities caught him carrying highly specialized equipment previously associated with the CIA that masks satellite phone communications.  Prison did not agree with Grossman, and he lost a dangerous amount of weight during hunger strikes. 

Earlier this year, Gross’ wife and friends had begged the US government for help getting him released, and complained when their pleas appeared to fall on deaf ears.  We now know that the US maintained 18 months of silence while Canada hosted secret negotiations between Washington and Havana.  At a news conference outside Washington, DC, Grossman called his release a “Hanukkah miracle”, and praised the Obama administration.

Another person released by Cuba still has not been named, but his story is finally public.  Unknown to all but those with the highest security clearances, the Cuban-born spy had been in jail for 20 years, but was one of America’s best intelligence assets in the country.

Intel from the spy led the US to arrest the “Cuban Five”, a group of intelligence agents sent by Havana to Miami to infiltrate anti-Castro groups, and send the information back via “encrypted software, high-frequency radio transmissions and coded electronic phone messages”.  Two of the group had already finished their sentences and were back in Cuba.

Images of the Cuban Five are on the banner of Cuban newspapers, murals grace wall throughout the island, children trade cards with their pictures.  The Cubans believe the men prevented terrorist attacks that were planned by right-wing extremists in the Miami Cuban community in the wake of the collapse of Cuba’s protector, the Soviet Union.