Great Grandson of Alexander Graham Bell Busted as a Spy for Cuba

The black sheep of the family.

The 73-year-old great grandson of Alexander Graham Bell was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole for quietly spying for Cuba for nearly a third of a century from inside the State Department. His wife was sentenced to 5 1/2 years.

Retired intelligence analyst Kendall Myers said he meant his country no harm and stole secrets only to help Cuba's people who "have good reason to feel threatened" by U.S. intentions of ousting the communist Castro government.

Justice Department prosecutor Michael Harvey said the couple received medals from Cuban intelligence and were flown to the island nation for a visit with Fidel Castro in 1995. They pleaded guilty last November.

In a sentencing memo to the judge, prosecutors said Myers, a descendant of Bell, the inventor of the first practical telephone, was a child of wealth and privilege, attended a private boarding school in Pennsylvania and Brown University and obtained a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. "Kendall Myers could have been anything he wanted to be," they wrote. "He chose to be a Cuban spy."