Brian Latell worked for the CIA for nearly 40 years. He formerly ran CIA’s Latin American office. In Talking to Strangers, Gladwell describes a meeting Latell had with former Cuban spy Florentino Aspillaga, who has kept a low profile under an assumed name since his defection in 1987. During their meeting, Aspillaga gave Latell a manuscript of the memoir he wrote about his years as a spy. The manuscript contained shocking details about the high number of CIA agents stationed in Cuba who were working as double agents for the Cuban government. Latell thinks these agents were able to continue working undetected due to their skill, but Gladwell thinks the more accurate reason is that people—even trained CIA agents—are simply not good judges of whether someone is lying to them.
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Brian Latell Character Timeline in Talking to Strangers
The timeline below shows where the character Brian Latell appears in Talking to Strangers. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter One: Fidel Castro’s Revenge
...a low-profile life under an assumed name. He has only been spotted once, by Brian Latell, who ran the CIA’s Latin American office. Latell’s meeting with Aspillaga occurred after Latell received...
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...CIA, which should be hypervigilant to such a threat. Looking back on Aspillaga’s unbelievable story, Latell can only speculate that Cuban double agents must have been very good at their job....
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Chapter Three: The Queen of Cuba
...kept the codes she used to communicate with dispatches in Havana in her purse. Brian Latell, a CIA Cuba specialist who worked closely with Montes, described her as strange and observably...
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