In this climate, Juanita Castro started collaborating with the Central Intelligence Agency after being recruited by someone close to her brother Fidel. She later reported that the CIA "wanted to talk to me because they had interesting things to tell me, and interesting things to ask me, such as if I was willing to take the risk, if I was ready to listen to them... I was rather shocked, but anyway I said yes". As part of her work with the CIA, she was credited with helping at least 200 people leave Cuba in the immediate post-revolutionary period. "Time" magazine reported that "after the mother Lina Ruz died in 1963, there was a violent episode when Fidel decided to expropriate the family land once and for all. Juanita started selling the cattle; Fidel flew into a rage, denounced her as a 'counterrevolutionary worm,' and rushed to the Oriente farm."