US let jailed Cuban spy donate sperm for his wife's pregnancy
Gerardo Hernandez, freed in the exchange of prisoners as US and Cuba restored ties, is due to be a father in bizarre diplomatic subplot
When longtime Cuban spy Gerardo Hernandez went free last week from a US prison and flew to Havana for the first time in 16 years, he was unfazed to find his wife eight months' pregnant.
The mystery of that pregnancy emerged Monday, and it will go down in history books as one of the most bizarre subplots in the annals of US diplomacy.
It emerged that Hernandez already knew that his 44-year-old wife, Adriana Perez, was pregnant, and that he is the father, even though he was never physically close to her during his incarceration.
The pregnancy came through artificial insemination, and it was a side deal that paved the way for the much larger and sweeping agreement last Wednesday in which Cuba and the United States announced the renewal of diplomatic relations, broken more than half a century ago. Hernandez and two other convicted Cuban spies went free as part of the deal.
Call it diplomacy via paternity. It came about through the office of US Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, who has campaigned for years to restore relations with Cuba.
In 2010, Leahy began efforts to persuade Cuba to ease up on the harsh conditions imposed on a jailed American in Havana, Alan Gross, a subcontractor for the US Agency for International Development.