Today's announcement that Cuba freed USAID contractor Alan Gross as a humanitarian gesture came with news of a separate prisoner exchange: Three convicted Cuban spies were traded for a U.S. intelligence asset who spent nearly two decades in Cuban prisons.

President Obama called the unnamed man "one of the most important intelligence agents that the United States has ever had in Cuba."

"This man, whose sacrifice has been known to only a few, provided America with the information that allowed us to arrest the network of Cuban agents that included the men transferred to Cuba today, as well as other spies in the United States," Obama said. "This man is now safely on our shores."

Cuban President Raul Castro, in a televised address, said the man was a Cuban national.

A statement from the Director of National Intelligence said the man provided the identification that led to "the identification and conviction of Defense Intelligence Agency senior analyst Ana Belen Montes; former Department of State official Walter Kendall Myers and his spouse Gwendolyn Myers; and members of the Red Avispa network, or 'Wasp Network,' in Florida, which included members of the so-called 'Cuban Five.'"

Three members of the Cuban Five were released in exchange for the U.S. agent.

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