Ep 35 | Félix Rodríguez | The Glenn Beck Podcast

It is a strange irony of history that the person you're about to be introduced to will be forever linked with Che Guevara, because the two men could not be more different.

Che devoted his life to tyranny and death, and this man has devoted his entire life to freedom and life.

He played an important role in stopping Che's murderous quest for communist revolution all around the world.

Alongside Castro, Che terrorized Cuba, the nation where my next guest was born.

So it was fitting, I guess, strangely, as you hear him tell the story, that he was there in the mountains of Bolivia in 1967 to be the man who heard Che's final words.

He was in the CIA.

He was part of the Bay of Pigs disaster.

He was in Vietnam, played a huge role there.

He put a price on Che's head and because of that, had a price put on his head.

He also fought communism in El Salvador in the 1980s.

He was a a victim of a witch hunt by a U.S.

senator.

He participated in some of the most pivotal events in the last 50 years of U.S.

history and has a different look at even the JFK assassination.

But in the end, as he's written in his memoir, he is just a man from an island nation of Cuba who's just having a really hard time getting home.

Today, the man who helped capture Che Guevara.

I've interviewed celebrities, I've interviewed presidents, and my staff doesn't usually get excited.

You, on the other hand, everybody is very excited to hear what you have to say because you have been not just a witness,

you've been right there

and a catalyst in many cases of some of the biggest stories since Kennedy,

since Castro went into Cuba.

And I can't wait to get to the part about Che and to hear

what he was really like from somebody who met him, talked to him.

And

I gather in some way,

kind of liked him,

appreciated him at the end as a human being when you were talking to him?

Because you were extremely kind to him.

Yes, it was very hard.

You know, I had in my mind what he had done.

Yeah.

The people he had assassinated.

But then when I first saw him, the image that I had from him was completely different.

Here's a man that was completely in Iraq.

He looks like a beggar.

I remember his picture when he went to see Mao and the people at the Soviet Union and then see the way he was.

You know, like a human being, you feel sorry for him.

And that's what happened to me.

But you can get past all the feeling sorry for him when you actually know what he did.

And I want to get into that.

But you were born in 1941 in Cuba.

And

your parents did what in Cuba?

My father had a store in my hometown, Santi Espiritus, that he run there.

Okay.

Then actually in 1952, when Batista took over, my uncle was my secretary of public work.

And my mother went to Havana, and that's when I moved with her.

We spent a couple of years there.

Then my uncle offered me to go to school in the state.

So actually in 1954, I came to Pennsylvania.

I went to Perkillom and Preparatory School for high school.

And I spent there until 1960 when I graduated.

Okay, so before we get to that part, moving to the United States and where your parents ended up, tell me about Batista, because people don't really know about Batista and what the revolution was all about in Cuba.

Batista comes from a very, very poor

ancestors.

He was working railroads before.

He saw his brother, for example, die from pneumonia and he didn't have any hospital to treat him.

That's why he built Opas de Coyante.

So when he first took over in 1933 and he became president legally, you know, by vote, he was a very good president.

And then when he went wrong for election, he lost, he turned over the presidency to whoever had won the elections then.

Then later on, he moved to the United States and in Florida.

And actually, he didn't plan the military coup that took place in 1952.

People went to him from the military who were very, very in disagreement with the president Prillo, who was treating them very well.

They had very low salaries.

And the army was going to make a military coup no matter what.

And he was the only leader that everybody will go around him.

Otherwise, it's going to be probably some bloodshed.

So he agreed to go ahead and head the military coup that took place in 1952.

Now, he interrupted the democratic process in Cuba, but at the time there were a lot of problems in Havana.

For example, a lot of these gangsters were like in the time here when Al Capon, they were taking banks.

The army was in very poor shape.

And

he restored a lot of that.

And it was the area where Cuba really progressed a lot of.

He did a lot of buildings, construction, highway, hospital, school.

But of course, then the, you know,

power becomes a problem.

And yeah.

Yeah.

Now,

the Castros.

Who were the Castros before they became

Castro?

Well, Castro was always a

kind of a revolutionary.

He was not in agreement with the local situation at all.

He participated in the Bogotaso in Colombia

and he was

a guy who

is not in tune with the society.

Okay, okay.

He wanted to do something extraordinary.

I recall people told me one time he went to visit the president of Cuba, he wanted to throw him down from

the balcony to become prominent.

He wants to be recognized.

He runs for congressman, he didn't make it.

So he did the Moncada attack where he became notorious because of that, and how he became then public to the Cuban people.

Which was,

what attack was that?

In 1956, 67, he attacked the Moncada barracks in Oriente province.

And they killed a lot of soldiers.

It was actually part, they have a hospital in there, they killed a lot of people in there.

Then he rode into the mountain.

That's when he became known.

That took place on the 26th of July.

So he used that momentum of that operation to call his movement 26th of July.

Okay.

Now, you're not there at the time.

Your parents, they're there.

But you're living in Pennsylvania.

You get an offer to live there and be educated in the United States.

And your parents say, you got to take this opportunity.

Yeah, but I went back to Cuba in every single time that I had an opportunity to.

So I went back to Cuba five times a year for Christmas vacation, summer vacation, spring vacation, everywhere.

Yeah, it was home.

And then your folks, during the Cuban Revolution, your parents happened to be vacationing in Mexico.

Right.

And so you're in Pennsylvania, they're in Mexico, the revolution happens.

If they would have been there, what do you suppose would have happened?

Well, they took my uncle's home in Havana.

They ransacked everything.

But my parents were already in Mexico for Christmas during that time.

So I went from Pennsylvania to meet them in 1958, December of 1958.

We spent New Year's together.

That's when Casa took over, Umbatista left.

And I actually had a ticket to go from there to Cuba, which I never used because of the revolution itself.

Then the scene that really impacted me, that made the difference, was when I saw those massive executions that took place.

Cuba never had the death penalty before.

And this guy was executing people right and left.

And the process were so unbelievable,

unreal.

The one that really impacted me when they did

a trial of Sosa Blanco.

He was a major in the Cuban army.

And they brought a witness who claimed that So Sablanco had assassinated his brother.

And when the guy got into the room, he started pointing at the prosecutor and telling the prosecutor, you killed my brother.

He had to be told, no, no, it's the guy next to him.

So I mean, it was ridiculous.

And then later on, we found out, and Sosablanco was executed, that his brother was in Miami, and he never told the family.

So he was never killed by anybody.

He went back to Cuba after that.

So that impacted me to the point that I decided I had to do something.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So people, strangely, here in the United States, either know who these people are and know that they were monsters,

or they look at them like, I don't know, Swedish socialists.

Well, the thing is, remember, when Castro was visited by Herbert Matthews, the newspaper guy in the Sierra Maestra, he made him like a hero.

He made him like a Robin Hood to the American public and portrayed him like this guy who's going to save Cuba, who was a bunch of few people who were fighting this bigger army army and all of that thing.

And that was one of the things that really impacted a lot of the American population here.

So it's very similar to what the American press did with Hugo Chavez in Valentine's Day.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Now,

you graduate from school.

This is your home.

You want to free your home and claim your home.

And you go...

Where do you go and see this big anti-communist movement?

Well, Glenn, before I graduated in 1959, I went to visit my parents.

And the member from the Cuban Constitutional Army was recruiting people for the first operation against Castro that took place in the Dominican Republic, what was called the Anti-Communist Legion of the Caribbean.

I was 17 years old at the time.

So I joined that.

I actually had to forfeit my father's signature to be able to get a visa because I was a minor.

at the Dominican Embassy in Mexico.

So I, actually on the 4th of July, I arrived in the Dominican Republic.

That was a fiasco.

I came back, I graduated, and then I applied to the University of Miami for engineering.

And I was accepted.

I got my letter of acceptance.

Then when I got to Miami, I found out there was somewhere in Latin America, a place that they were training to fight against Castro.

I decided that was more important than going to school and go to the university here.

That's when I joined what later was called the Bay of Pig.

I can't believe I'm talking to somebody who is there at the Bay of Pigs.

Explain for anybody who doesn't know what that is, what that was.

In the early 1960s, President Eisenhower received information from the intelligence services that the Soviets were planning to bring offensive missions to the Cuba.

So that's why Eisenhower ordered the CIA to destabilize the Caster regime.

That's what a lot of people believe, you know, why do they give an invasion to the CIA and not the Pentagon?

It wasn't supposed to be an invasion.

It was supposed to be a guerrilla warfare in the Escambrai.

They brought a Filipino colonel by the name of Aju, whose real name was Napoleon Valeriano, who was very successful in the war against the Hawk in the Philippines.

And the training that he started in Guatemala was three different groups, what they call the Great Teams, the Black Teams, and the Occupational Force.

It was supposed to be an operation to increment the guerrillas in the Escambrai mountain in the middle of the island, who was already taking place and once we'd be able to have a stronghold in there declare a provisional government in arms and what happened well elections took place in this country and then the president kennedy was elected president when he was briefed on the operation he decided to continue but changed the concept altogether so they took this uh former colonel vallejo valeriano out of the picture they brought a gap from the pentagon they disbanded the the black teams because the idea was that the great team will go into cuba before that was what I was part of it, infiltration team.

We started working on the resistance.

And once the people start going to demand that they bring the black teams, there were 25 men each, highly trained, explosive demolition, air reception, maritime reception to receive weapons.

And once there was a guerrilla strong enough to secure a small area, they will bring the rest of the brigade with a provisional civilian government.

A powerful radio station will declare to the world that was a government in arms promoting and guaranteeing a free election within a year.

And that's what's going to be recognized by the OAS and by the United States.

Of course, we all know 99% American troops, 1% Latin American troops, and that was the end of Castro.

Now, before the Bay of Pigs, though, you were part of a three-man team

that, is that right?

Three-man team that went in, or

you were off the coast of Cuba with Soviet weapons, and you were going to go in and assassinate Fidel.

Yes, well, we were in Panama on training after they took the infiltration thing, or great team.

Now, this was not, was this an American mission?

No, no, let me explain.

Okay.

We went from, you know, the great teams, we went from Guatemala into Panama for additional training.

We soviet equipment, everything.

While we were there, a frame of mine, Beneo Segundo Borjo and myself went to talk to the CIA guy responsible for, and we volunteered to kill Castro because we felt if we could eliminate him, it would shorten the war and save a lot of life.

So when we went in January, we came to Miami and went to a place place in the homestead area, they told me the operation was approved.

So they gave me a rifle, it was a telescopic side, a very powerful rifle, 20 rounds of ammunition.

They told me I only needed a few.

And he said not to touch this side.

I was already pre-sighted to do this and I was going to kill Castro.

So they added one more man to my team who was the radio operator a half years old, who is now a present commissioner in Day County, Florida.

They gave us a luxurious jet to infiltrate Q, a white boat.

Later on, we learned it did belong to Sergeant Shriver, relative of President Kennedy.

Wait a minute.

That's Maria Shriver's father, right?

His father had a boat, apparently.

Yeah.

A very luxurious one.

And they used that boat for that operation.

It was an American captain and then a Ukrainian and Romanian crew, all with Soviet equipment.

And they were supposed to infiltrate us into Cuba, and then they will tell us where to go to a place to assassinate Gastro.

So here's a Kennedy using the boat, and you wouldn't think that a Kennedy or someone in the Kennedy family would

be a part of that.

At least history would tell us that a different.

Am I wrong on that?

Well, let me tell you, later on, after the Bay of Peak, they were very much committed to eliminating Castro.

When we had an operation after the Bay of Peak, we say our team in Central America.

So

that didn't happen.

No, twice we got into the Cuban coastline.

The boat who was supposed to be meeting us,

we were supposed to go into that boat, never arrived.

So the third time we came back, and then they threw the rifle away.

They told me it was

terminated that operation.

Somehow they canceled and I went in like the member of the infiltration team for Las V.

There were five of us, including Edgar Sopo.

We all infiltrated Cuba on the last part of February of 1961.

And

how did you avoid

the trouble off the Bay of Pigs?

How did you...

Well, we were part of the Bay of Pigs.

So we were like, we call it the Special Forces of the brigade.

So our group, there was about, altogether, we entered less than 40, 30-some people inside Cuba.

There was very few of them who entered through the airport.

This was legal documentation claiming they were coming back from American University.

One team parachuted over in Camaway Province.

And the rest of us entered clandestinely by boat to the Cuban line.

And we had a mechanism with the resistant that they would have a guide to pick us up at the coastline.

They would walk us like several kilometers into the main highway.

Then car from the resistant would pick us up and take off to say houses in Havana.

And then there we start working with the internal resistant against Castro.

And so what they changed the they changed the

team and the strategy, but what happened in the end on the ground?

Well,

one thing that we always make comments about is that they never advised us of the invasion coming in.

We had enough explosive and equipment to be able to blow bridges on the way to the Bay of Peaks.

But they never never confided in us.

They never told us anything when they actually learned of the invasion coming on through the radio, through the Cuban radio on the 17th of April, when they started calling all the militias to join, you know, go to their military units and all of that.

We never received a thing from our stations in Miami until after the invasion took place.

And it was impossible to do anything at the time because Castro did something that was very intelligent.

Especially in the main cities, including Havana, they went house by house and block by block.

They surrounded with soldiers.

And if you were a male and you were not assigned to a military unit, even if they had nothing that you weren't against the regime or anything like that, they would pick you up and put you in a temporary, let's say, concentration camp.

Like baseball field with high offenses had 250,000 Cubans.

Wow.

The Blanquita Theater, who has the capacity of 5,000, had 5,500 people in there.

So they were able to disarticulate the Cuban internal resistance, who was very well organized.

They pick up a lot of our people who were released later because they had no idea who they had.

But they destroy the operational capability of our units.

Were the Soviets involved with intelligence with Cuba?

No,

they supported the English intelligence, but that was strictly a Cuban operation.

Okay.

But they did support later, and how active were they and all along, all along?

They seemed to be ahead of everything.

And the Czechoslovakian intelligence, all of those were very closely with the Cuban intelligence.

So

you leave this, and you're not really working for the government.

You're kind of just a revolutionary at this time, if you will, or a freedom.

I didn't know that we were working for the CIA.

You didn't know.

No.

Yeah, okay.

But you were actually.

But we were.

Okay.

And I read something where it said that you volunteered to go to work for the CIA.

I didn't know they took volunteers.

Well, it was not a way of volunteering.

You know, when you are in that system, you are part of it.

And then, you know,

later I learned it was the CIA, so I continued to work work with them after the Bay of Peaks.

So after the Bay of Peaks was a fiasco, I had to seek political asylum in the Venezuelan embassy in Havana, which I spent like six months as a political

asylum people.

And on the 13th of September of 1961, they flew us out of Havana with diplomatic coverage, being a political exile to Venezuela.

I spent a couple of weeks in Venezuela and early in October of 1961, the agency asked me to go go back inside Cuba to re-establish contact with the resistance.

So I started traveling to Cuba with intelligence team in October of the same year.

I made like seven different trips to Cuba during that time, brought in teams and everything until after the Bay of Pigs.

And it was the Bay of Pigs that really kind of turned the psyche of

Cubans, wasn't it?

That it was, they kind of lost hope that

after the fiasco, a lot of people who were helping us, when they saw that no longer a success, then a lot of people retrieved the support from us.

They were afraid because they knew that if they were captured, they will spend years and years and years in prison.

So actually, let me tell you, in 1962, I completely quit the CIA.

1962?

Yeah, I decided to get married to my present wife of 57 years.

Oh, good for you.

And, you know, what I told her before we got married, I said, look, if there is anything serious about you, I will go.

If you agree on that, we get married.

If you don't, we don't.

And she made the mistake of agreeing to that.

Because it only lasted two months.

We were married on the 25th of August.

I started working, first of all, in a company who did manufacture some propaganda for hotels and then in a meat company called Tobin Packaging Company.

In October of that year, I got a call with Tom Klein, a guy from the CIA, who asked me to meet him at the parking lot of the Howard and Johnson across from the University of Miami.

So when I finished my work, that was two months after we got married.

I go to this parking lot, I sat in his car, and he looked at me and said, Felix, the Marines are going to land in Cuba and we need you.

I look at him and say, Thomas, the Marines are going to land in Cuba.

What the hell do you need me for?

I say, well, we need you to parachute near a Soviet base in Santa Clara with a radio beacon to set it up and a pre-located area that we're going to give you so that our Air Force can hit with precision the missile base.

Because at the time, they didn't have the GPS and navigation system we have today.

So I agree, and from that point on, they took me to a hotel.

I couldn't even call my wife.

She didn't know anything.

And they gave me the training from a table, my three three point of contact to jump in.

That was my parachute training during the time.

And then the day they brought the parachute, they were ready to go into Cuba, that's when Khrushchev backed down.

If he had delayed for 15 hours, we have to land in there, and nothing happened.

But we were lucky that he did that before we were able to land inside Cuba.

So then after that, you know, I was...

without a job, so I continued to work from the CIA from their own.

Well, who else asked you to jump out of a plane and stop the Cuban missile crisis?

Tell me about Che and who he was.

You see people wearing these t-shirts of Che,

and to me, it is like wearing a T-shirt with Hitler's face on it.

He was not a good man, and somehow or another, he's been turned into a good man and a product.

Who was he?

Well, he was a cold-blooded assassin.

Let me tell you how I got there.

In 1966, I went to Venezuela on behalf of the agency to set up some communication equipment.

In 1967, they called me to a meeting in Miami with an interview, like 16 Cubans, and they got two of us to go to Bolivia to advise the 2nd Ranger Battalion.

And the reason they were using Cuban was because we were not U.S.

citizens.

Ambassador Henderson, who was the U.S.

ambassador, had a prohibition of American citizens participating in combat or areas of danger because Vietnam was already taking place and there were people coming back in plastic bags from Vietnam.

And they didn't want that to happen from South America.

So I remember that after my interview with this guy who selected me,

and later on I asked him, why do you selected me?

He said, the question I asked you at the end of every interview was, when would you be ready to

go to Bolivia in this case for an operation?

Everybody told him, I need a few days, whatever.

My answer to him was, if I have time, I'll go to my home.

I say goodbye to my wife, to my kids, bring my clothes, and we go.

If we don't have time, I give me the phone, I call Ross and tell her I have to go.

And if we don't have time, let's go.

I'll give you her number.

And you call her and you tell her I have to go.

I guess nobody ever told him that.

That's why he selected me to go to Bolivia in that operation.

Wow.

So we landed in Bolivia

and started.

First of all, the first day that we arrived, they took us directly from the airport to see President Barrientos.

Stop for a second because you're telling me the story now of capturing him.

Right.

Right.

Tell me who he was.

Tell me the butcher that he was.

So people have an understanding of who Che really was.

In Cuba.

He was really, I think, a frustrated individual,

and he developed a love for assassinating people.

Even wrote his father saying that he has tasted that, and he loved to kill people, which he did.

He was responsible for hundreds of executions at La Cabana Fortress.

He personally executed a lot of people himself, personally.

There were two incidents that I learned from later on.

One was a lady who I met in a funeral home home in Miami, and she was telling me when she learned that I was in Bolivia at that time that her son was 17 years old in 1961.

They had picked him up and they were going to execute him.

And she went to see She at La Cabana and asked him for mercy.

So Shed looked at her and said,

what is the name of your son?

And she gave the name.

When is he going to be executed?

It was a Monday.

They said, this coming Friday, Commander.

Please save his life.

He's not going to do it again.

So he called for an assistant and she thought she had saved his life when he told the assistant, what get the lady's son now and execute him now.

So she doesn't have to wait until Friday.

That was his version of mercy.

That's right.

And she fainted.

Later on, I met about a few months ago a lady whose father was later executed in Cuba, was in the police.

And she claimed that she was at 10 o'clock in the morning this line to be able to see his father, Lacavania fortress.

And this lady who was with her started asking, calling Shea when he arrived.

And when she arrived, she said, please, Commander, you know, my son, I've been in prison now for two weeks.

I haven't been able to sleep in this two weeks.

Please save his life.

He's very young.

He has the same thing.

What's the name of your son?

He called and assisted to bring her son right in front of her.

And there was a bunch of people waiting to see their different families who were in prison there.

And he told the kid, get on the floor, USOB.

You have your mother two weeks without sleeping because of you.

He put out his pistol and shot him in the head.

Oh my gosh.

He said, all the people in the line started calling him assassin.

And they stopped.

That day, nobody could see their.

They disbanded everybody.

They could not go in and visit uh their prisoners that was the type of man that he was

do you have any thoughts on why he has been turned into such a hero

well Kew is responsible to a great extent for the propaganda they made worldwide using the the picture with his beret yeah and that became like a symbol

but people really doesn't know who really he was the people of Cuba still know who he is a lot of people are beginning to know now who he was yes but before now even in the school they have to say pionero poro comunismos aremo comoche you know pioneer for communism would be like she every day before they start classes in the morning

So it was a continuous indoctrination of, you know, like a big figure who died for the revolution for the poor, which was not the case at all.

All right.

So now you're in Bolivia and you go meet the president.

It's what year?

That was in 1967.

67.

And everybody's looking for Che.

Right.

First of all, let me tell you,

they found out that Che was there when they captured the Bre and boosters.

There were two, one Argentinian journalist and an intellectual from France who were captured.

Because before, they had to believe that Che had been killing Africa.

Che was in Africa in 1964-65.

All the military equipment that he received in Africa was for Red China.

Che was pro-Chinese.

And that's why Cuba had completely abandoned him and were under destruction to try to get him

captured or destroyed in Bolivia.

Because Cuba depended on the Soviet Union and Che was pro-Chinese.

So the thing that I can tell you this definitely was like that was, first of all,

the radio station, the radio that they gave him to transmit back to Cuba when he arrived to Bolivia was broken.

He could not communicate with

Cuba.

The head of the Communist Party in Bolivia, Mario Monge, who had met with Fidel two months before, went to see Che the 31st of December of 1966, where they had dinner together for New Year's Eve, and they retrieved all the support from the Communist Party from him.

Even told the people from the Communist Party who were accompanying him that if they stayed with him, they would be expelled from the Communist Party.

And then the man that they had to help him, his name was Renan Montero, intelligent from the Cuban intelligence section, who was in place in La Paz, who got tremendous contact.

The guy was even invited to some of President Barriento's Paris at the presidential palate.

Once Che was in all 17 people, they retrieved him back to Cuba with the pretext that his visa had expired.

And he had acquired the Bolivian citizenship.

So it's a strong indication he was sent there to be killed, definitely.

So this is bizarre.

The guy who they still have on sides of buildings, his face and the beret.

Right.

Che, they say they love him.

They're still making him into a hero.

But it was Cuba that wanted him dead.

Right.

And Russia.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Do you know why did he flip or was he always against Russia?

I think he was always a sympathizer of Mao.

Who is even a bigger monster?

Well,

well, let me tell you, in 1963, when he went to that trip through Algier, They gave him a reception at the Cuban embassy in Cairo.

And one diplomat who was there who later defected told us that during that thing, he actually went to a fit fight with the Soviet ambassador because of

ideology, because he was pro-Chinese.

So definitely he was in no good terms with the Soviet Union whatsoever.

So they send him to Bolivia?

Yes.

To be killed.

And

how does this involve you now?

Well, I was supposed to be advising the 2nd Ranger Battalion in intelligence with them, give them the capability.

When they learned that Che was there, and of course the Bolivian army was very poorly prepared, they sent a special forces team, MTT from Panama, headed by Papi Shelton, a major from Tennessee, who trained a second Ranger battalion, specialized in counterinsurgency.

So those were just two factors, the special forces training this battalion and we representing the intelligence community supporting the intelligence in not only in La Paso, also in the operational area.

So I became like an advisor to the 8th Division headquarters at the area where he was operating.

And I was working directly with Colonel Centeno Naya, the commander of the division, and Major Arnando Sauced, who was the head of intelligence.

So whenever they captured some documents and things like that, I went with them to oversee the documentation, do the exploitation of the documentation, etc.

So that became very effective.

For example, there was an encounter of a commander of the Cuban guerrilla, Juan Vitalio Acuña Nuna, who had separated from Che to do a sort of exploration on the other side of the Rio Grande.

And he was trying to come back to where Che was on the 4th Division headquarters.

And of course the Rio Grande is very difficult to cross when there is rainy season.

They have to know where, otherwise even the guerrilla lost on people trying to cross it by themselves.

So they went to this campesino called Onorato Rojas to tell him where to cross and he already was working for the army.

So he went to a captain nearby and told him the location where they were going to cross and they basically annihilated the whole guerrilla with the exception of three guys.

One left by the river, one was captured, Paco, Jose Casteo Chavez and Esto McMurray was executed after he was captured.

And we knew from the briefing in Washington that Paco wanted to defect to leave, because

he was not a guerrilla.

He was a communist, but not a guerrilla.

He was told he was going to EC Cuba, the Soviet Union, when he arrived to this place.

They gave him a rifle and you are a guerrilla.

So Paco would be an excellent individual to be able to talk to.

So I was able to save his life when he was brought to Valle Grande and brought him with us.

And he was the one who gave us all the information on how Shea will move, who became very, very important to us later on.

He told us, for example, when Shea moved from point A to point B, he divided his guerrilla in three groups.

About 506 guerrilla will go ahead of him, what they call the vanguard in front, one kilometer ahead.

He will be in the middle with the strength of the troops, and then in the back, one kilometer behind, another five of six guerrilla.

He gave us all the name, Zudo, that they were using at the time.

So later on, in late September of 1967, when there was an encounter of a Lieutenant Galindo with the guerrilla, they got three guerrillas killed.

So we went to meet him in Pucará to receive the three bodies.

And the name of the three bodies coincided with the vanguard of Shea.

One was Coco Peredo, he leaded on the Bolivian side.

The other one was Marigo Tierra Sadari, a doctor,

a Bolivian doctor, and the other one was Miguel, a Cuban captain, who later we learned was Manuel Hernandez Rosorio.

Dig was a member of the vanguard of Shea.

Then when I talked to Lieutenant Galindo, he told me in Mi Capitán, I saw the guerrilla in the distance, I started preparing the ambush and suddenly the guerrilla surprised me.

What he saw was Shea's group.

The vanguard was coming up.

So that confirmed that was Shea's group.

So with this information, I went to see Colonel Santeno Naya and asked him to cut the training of the battalion short, who was basically finished already on the whole training, and bring it to operation.

And because we knew that Shea was in the area.

And he did so.

So on the last part of September, actually in the first of October, the battalion was deployed in the operational area, four companies.

One stayed in Vallegrande to support them with communication food and ammunition one company commanded by Captain Lopez Leighton was along the Rio Grande so they could not cross to the other side once commanded by by Celso Torelio captain another captain who later became president of Bolivia he was a reaction force and Captain Gary Prado was the one doing the search in the area they actually started on the 1st of September and on the 7th of September in the evening they got information from farmers that there were these people in guerrillas in this area So on the 8th they surrounded the area.

On the 8th when they advanced it, that's when Che was there and that when the firefight took place and he was captured alive.

And were you there?

I was at in on the 7th I was in Valle Grande setting up some PRC-10 radios on Bolivian combat planes.

because they didn't have frequency compatible and they could not get air-to-ground support to the troops.

So I borrowed three PRC-10 radios, started installing one in every one of those aircraft.

So on the 8th, I had that radius already in place and then when they told us that Papa Canzado, who was the code that the leader of the guerrilla, was captured alive, and we didn't know whether it was Shea or was Inti Peredo, Coco's brother, I flew in the back of one of the 86s and the head of operations arrat in the back of the other and we were confirmed that Papa Canzado was the foreigner.

So we knew that Shea was there.

So that day Colonel Centeno dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Sellis to be able to gather all the documentation, trying to interrogate Shea, And we had a dinner at the hotel in Valla Grande, and I asked the colonel if I could accompany him.

Everybody wanted to go with him.

But I had an excellent relationship with all of them, so he agreed that I accompany him.

And on the following day, that was the 9th of October, who was a Monday, we flew in a small helicopter who was piloted by Jaime Inu Eggsman, a Polivian mayor, and we landed right next to a schoolhouse where he was.

And there was all of these officers waiting for us in there.

We came into the room.

Che was

on the floor on the left side under a little

window.

In the back of the room was the dead body of two Cubans.

Major Pantojo, Captain Pantojo, another Cuban officer.

And he started asking questions to Che.

Che will look at him and didn't say a word.

He didn't answer even nothing.

To the point that the colonel said, look, you are a foreigner.

You invaded my country.

The least you can have the courtesy to answer me.

He didn't say a word.

So he came out and then I asked him if I could get all the documentation from Colonel Selly to photograph for my government.

So he gave me his bag, who had a German diary, a big book,

of course, written in Spanish, but it was bought in Germany, where he wrote his diary.

He had some photographs of the family, some medical men for his asthma.

He had some small, very small codebooks, numerical codebook that he used to communicate to be able to transmit a receipt from Cuba.

Of course, he could not trust me, but he could receive from Radova Havana, Cuba.

It was given to him by the Chinese.

He had some little booklet with typewritten typewritten messages that he had received from Cuba signed by Ariel that we thought was Fidel.

And later on, Benigno, who was one who defected and lived in Paris and we became friends, told me that it wasn't Fidel, it was Juan Carretero, the head of communication for SHED during that operation.

So I got all of that and I started photographing all of those documentation.

Then I left it with the soldier.

I came back to talk to him.

So I stood in front of him and said, Chevara, Bengal Lar Contigo, I come to talk to you.

And he looked to me from the floor, very arrogant, say, nobody talks to me.

Nobody interrogates me.

So when I saw that attitude, I looked at him and said, Commander, I didn't come here to interrogate you.

I admire you.

You used to be head of a state.

You are like this because you believe in your ideals, even though I know they are mistaken.

I came here to talk to you.

So he looked to me for a while to see if I was laughing, if I was serious, and he said, can I sit?

Can you untie me?

So I asked a soldier to untie him.

So we untie him.

We sat in a little bench across from where I was and we started talking.

Now, whenever I asked him a question that was of tactical interest to us, he would say, you know, I cannot answer that.

But I did push him in, for example, in his stay in Africa.

He didn't want to talk about it.

I said, well, you don't want to talk about it, but your own people said you had like 10,000 guerrillas and they were very poor soldiers.

I was in the Congo.

And he looked at me and said, well, if I had 10,000 guerrillas, it would have been different.

But you're right.

They were very poor soldiers.

Then we talk about the Cuban economy.

And he started blaming the embargo for the Cuban economy.

Okay, no, hang on.

Because he was trained as a doctor, right?

Yeah, he never graduated, but he was trained as a doctor.

Okay, so trained as a doctor, and then he becomes a revolutionary where he's killing people.

And then once the revolution is over in Cuba, didn't Fidel come to a group of people and said, hey, who knows anything about finance?

And he raised his hand.

No, no, it wasn't like that.

It wasn't like that.

How did it happen?

He told me, when he told me at that point in time, that the Cuban economy was like that because of the embargo, I looked at him and said, Commander, that's ironic in your part to say that because you were the minister

of economy and you were also the president of the national bank and you are not even an economist so he looked at me and said you know how he became president of the national bank i say i have no idea he said i was standing one one time i understood fidel was asking for a dedicated communist and i rose my hand and he was asking for a dedicated economist

so i honestly

i honestly believe he was trying to pull my leg he didn't want to answer the question

But later on, when I met Benigno in Paris,

we had an interview in Paris, he told me it was true.

He was right next to Camilos Infuego himself, and she understood he was asking for a dedicated communist and rose his hand.

He became the head of the National Bank.

Didn't feel free, they didn't want to correct himself.

Oh, unbelievable!

Yeah,

um, all right.

So, you're in you're talking to him, you're having conversations with this guy that took your country, killed, I'm sure, some of your friends, um,

destroyed uh, so much.

You know that the people who have him want him dead.

How are you feeling at the time, looking across the table at Che?

What does that feel like?

Well, first of all, I had a mixed feeling.

When I arrived there, I said, well, he should die the same way that he killed so many people.

But then when I saw him, he looks like a burger and all of that, I felt sorry for him.

At the same time, we were told in Washington they wanted Che alive no matter what.

And I believe now the reason was because they knew of the problems that he got with the Soviet Union.

So that's probably why the agency wanted him alive.

I even thought for...

For what reason, do you suppose?

Because

he was pro-Chinese.

He didn't get along with the Soviets at all.

And Cuba depended on the Soviet Union.

He would have information?

Maybe they...

I don't think he would have done it.

But the agency felt that maybe he would talk to them about that because of that feeling, that situation.

Wasn't he the guy who said we should use a nuke on New York City?

And he said that it would be worthwhile millions of people to die if it was going to implement socialism in the United States.

It said that at the United Nations.

Wow.

And somebody here thought that, oh, maybe this guy will turn on.

They forgot all of that.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

I even thought at the time, Glenn, that

because they wanted him desperately alive, that I could cut the landline.

We had a telephone line at that time in Igueras.

I could cut the landline.

When the helicopter arrived, I would tell the pilot that my government was able to convince President Barriento to give him a life.

And I know he had no communication with Vallegrande.

And once we brought his body alive, then nobody could do that.

At the same time, I thought what happened in Cuba when Batista released Fidel Castro and what happened to my country.

So I talked to myself and said, look, if you do that and he survives and later on he goes to other places, a lot of people kill, you will feel responsible for it.

Let history run his.

This is the decision from the Bolivian government and not yours.

Because they have him.

They caught him.

But they not only wanted to kill him.

Right.

They wanted to behead him?

No,

let me go by a step.

First of all, when we were there, Colonel Centeno was in the operational field.

While he was there, we received a phone call in Igueras, and they asked for the highest ranking officer.

I had the rank of captain.

There were only two lieutenants.

And that's when I received the order from the Barrientos regime to kill him.

There was 500, 600.

500 was shed, 600 dead, 700 keep him alive.

So we received a specific instruction to eliminate him.

When Centeno came back before he left in the helicopter, I called him aside and said, My coronel, this order from your government to eliminate the prisoner.

Now, the order from my government is trying to keep him alive at all costs.

And we have helicopters to be able to move him out from here up to Panama for interrogation.

So he looked at me and said, Felix, my name is Felix Ramos.

Say, Felix, we have worked empirically.

We're very grateful to you, but this is order from my president and my commander-in-chief.

If I don't comply, I'll be fired.

He looked at his watch and he said, the helicopter is going, after I leave, the helicopter is going to come several times, bringing food of ammunition and taking our dead and our wounded.

After two o'clock in the afternoon, it's going to come back to pick up the Shevara's dead body.

You can execute him.

Actually, you can use TCA him any way you want.

because we know how much harm he has done to your country.

But I want your word of honor that you would bring me back the dead body of Sheik after two o'clock.

Wow.

So I say, Mikor tried to make them change their mind, but it it is not changed.

I will guarantee they'll bring you back the dead body of Sheikh.

We embraced and he left.

And sure enough, the helicopter came several times.

At one point, the pilot came to where I was with a camera from Mayor Salced and to me, Mi Capitan, Mayor Souceda want a picture with the prisoner.

So I look at Chi and say, Commander, do you mind?

Say, no.

That's when we took him around in the schoolhouse.

And that's when I gave my camera to him and that's the picture that I gave you.

And then I took his camera and I put 2,000 speed and closed the lanes.

The picture never came out.

Because I thought if these people release him,

they release the picture and

they are telling everybody that he died from combat wounds, it's going to be embarrassment to the Bolivian government.

So that picture never came out.

So the helicopter left and we started waiting to see what happened.

Around 12.30 in the afternoon, this lady came with a little radio on her hand.

Mi Capitan, Mi Capitan, when are you going to kill him?

I say, lady, why do you say that?

They say, look, we just saw you photographed with him right in front of the schoolhouse here.

And look, the radio is already giving the news that he died from combat wounds.

So at that point, I thought there was nothing else to wait for.

So I walked into the room, I stood in front of him.

He was sitting on a little bench that we had put him.

And I looked at him and said, Commander, I'm sorry.

I tried my best.

It's ordered from the high Bolivian command.

Did he know what you were saying?

He knew exactly what I was saying.

He turned white like a piece of paper.

I had never seen somebody to lose the expression like he did, but then he composed himself and said, it's better this way.

I should have never been captured alive.

And he pulled the pipe that he had on his side out and said, I'd like to give this pipe to a soldadito who treated me well.

And at that point in time, Sergeant Mario Terran, who was the one executing people, burst into the room.

Yo, kidela pipe, mi capitan, I want the pipe.

And she did, yo, no, tino tele doi.

So I have to order him twice to leave the room, which he did.

And she had the pipe here.

So I look at him and say, Commander, will you give it to me?

He thought for a few seconds.

He gave me the pipe.

I put it here.

He did say, yes, what?

He said, yes.

And he said, yes, he gave it to me.

So I put the pipe here and say, if I can, do you want anything for your family?

Then actually, what I will say in a sarcastic way, he said, if you can't tell Fidel that he will soon see a triumphal revolution in America.

Which is, to me, it's like telling him, you know, you abandoned me, but this is going to be successful no matter what.

And then he changed the expression and saying, if you can't tell my wife to remarry and try to be happy.

That was his last word.

He approached me, we shook hands, we embraced, and he stood in attention thinking I was going to be the one to shoot him.

And let me tell you, that was a very emotional situation for me because as a soldier, as a military guy, we don't order the execution of a prisoner.

But this was a very unique situation, which is pretty hard to take to go out.

And when I came out, I told the sergeant, It's ordered from your high command to eliminate the prisoner.

Don't shoot from here up, shoot from here down because he's supposed to die from combat wounds.

See me, copy down, see me, copy down.

It was exactly one o'clock in the afternoon, Bolivian time, when I left.

I went to the area where I was taking the photograph of the diary.

At about 1:15, exactly, I heard the burst, and that's when he was killed.

Did they not

take his hands or?

That came later on.

Fay Grande.

Okay, what?

What?

Well, after that, after a couple of hours, so then...

What did they do with the body?

Did you go back?

Yeah, well.

A couple of hours later,

Gary Prado and Celto Torelli, Duke Captain, came and we all went to see the dead body for the first time.

He was on the floor, facing

the ceiling.

His face was covered with mud.

It was probably because he hit the ground and the ground was muddy.

You know, you had

a lot of mud in there.

And then we went around the body and Celto Torelli had a leader stick and said, you son of a beast, you have killed so many of my soldiers.

And then Gary Prado said, Mi Capitan, we have finished the guerrillas in Latin America.

And I told him, Mi Capitan, we haven't finished them.

At least we have delayed delayed them for a long time.

At least what?

We have delayed them for a long time.

Okay.

Yes.

So they left.

So I asked for a bucket of water.

So they bought a little bucket of water.

I went down.

I cleaned his face.

I took all the mud out from his face.

I tried to close his jaw with my handkerchief, which later on blew with the helicopter air.

And I tried to close his eye, which I could not.

It will pop up again.

Why did you feel it was necessary to do that?

I don't know.

It's something like common decency.

Yeah.

Good for you.

I felt you know, I have to do that.

Good for you.

And then they brought the stretcher, we put the body in the stretcher, we put it to the right side of the helicopter.

I remember we were tying it, and then the major, Ninja Guzman, told me, Mikapitang, moving forward, you know, to ban off the helicopter.

So I put my hand under his body and I pull up.

When I got the hang, I was completely covered with blood.

Apparently they hit the aborta and because it was a plastic

stretcher, the blood concentrated there.

I remember, I didn't say a word, but I remember thinking, say, there are people who have blood in their hand.

I have the hell of a lot of.

I cleaned the hand on the right side of my pant, finished tying him down, jumping to the helicopter a little bit with the left side to balance.

And then a soldier came and said, Mimayor, Mayor, Father Cheetos want to see it.

It was a Catholic priest.

So we waited like two, three minutes with the engine run, and here come this priest on top of a mule, all around, close on the right side.

I almost got decapitated by the helicopter.

He was this close from the blade.

He came down from the mule, he looked at him and gave him the last bed, which I took a couple of pictures with the Minox camera that I had left when he was giving the beds.

And I thought to myself, this guy was an atheist.

Nevertheless, he received the last ritual from the Catholic Church.

And from there, we took off.

We landed in Valla Grande.

When I left, there was nobody there.

It was 2,000 people on the wrong way.

There were like 15 additional planes, four additional C-54 military planes with all, you know, the generals and admiral, everybody was there, and the press.

There were like 15 small planes from different CBS, NBC, whatever,

in the area.

So my friend who had arrived took the body and they took it to the hospital, Metro Señor de Malta.

And I stayed with the pilot and the head of intelligence.

That evening, we had a meeting in the headquarters in that area.

When I arrived, a general was telling this colonel, if Fidel denied this is She Guevara, we need tangible proof of it.

Cut his head and put in formalehyde.

Oh my God.

Se me general, you cannot do that.

I said, why not?

Supposedly, Fidel denied this is She Guevara.

You are a head of a state.

You cannot show the head of a human being as proof.

Say, well, what do you suggest?

Say, Mijenieral, you want some tangible proof of it, cut one finger.

We have the fingerprint from the Argentinian federal police, and they can be checked.

So he ordered Bo's hand to be cut.

Both hands to be cut.

So I left there because I had to take all of the documentation back

to Santa Cruz and from there to La Paz.

And my friend stayed, and he claimed that about three or four o'clock in the morning, when there was no press around, the doctor came and they cut Bo's hand and put him for Malahai.

And then in a a pickup that they called Volqueta, they drove the body of Shea and two more.

There were three bodies altogether to the very end of the rungway.

And that's where they had a bulldozer who were expanding the wrong way for a bigger plane to land.

They dug a huge hole in the very middle of the wrong way and they dropped Shea and two bodies there.

And they covered it.

Now, when Fidel claimed that he found Che Guevara's body on the side of the wrong way, there were seven other bodies next to him.

I don't know who the hell he got out of there, but it wasn't Shea, believe me.

So he kind of was buried like Jimmy Hoffa.

But his hand turned out in Cuba because the Minister of Interior Argedas took the hands to Fidel.

So at least if they put that in his burial place, he will have a part of Shane there because the hands were turned over to Cuba.

But the body, that was not Chegabada's body.

Wow.

Okay.

So that's 67, 68?

67.

67.

October 1967.

Right.

And then

you volunteered to go to Vietnam.

No, after that, they sent me, first of all, for a short time to Ecuador, which I trained in Talium, equal to their secret service.

So we trained them.

And then I was sent to Peru to an anti-guerrilla unit in Peru, where my little training

for the October crash took place.

Because I arrived

in Peru, in Massamari, the same area where the CIA was training this special

police unit, as a paratrooper unit.

The special force already has trained them.

So when I arrived the first weekend, the commander of the police unit, Danilo Gramonte, said, Mr.

Advisor, are you a paratrooper?

And I was embarrassed, he said, yes, sir, I am your advisor.

He said, how many jump?

I said, 100.

I never jumped from a plane in my life.

So I went to see a friend of mine, Javier de Vincenci, who was a captain, and said, look, how you put the signal?

He looked at me and said, you have never jumped?

I said, no.

I said, you are nuts.

You're going to get killed.

I say, bullshit.

You know, I got the training already.

So let's go to my room and let's jump from a table, my three point of contact.

And that's that's what I did.

And then I jumped with them like 13 times.

Wow.

I got my win from the Peruvian

police.

But then I was supposed to be there two years.

Then the military coupe of Velasco Albarado took place in late 1968.

And with that,

we were surrounded by the army because the police unit was not in agreement with the coup.

As a matter of fact, the commander wanted to ask a plane for training and he was going to jump the police into the presidential palace to regain the presidency to President Belauna III, who was the constitutional president

of Peru.

And he asked me, Mr.

Abasho, will you join with us?

I look at him and say, This is a training exercise, right?

The guy said, Right.

I say, Of course I go with you.

But of course, then the army never sent the airplane for us to train.

And then when we rotated for Christmas, because Velasco Barad turned to the Soviet Union, all the military assistance was terminated.

And that's when I volunteered for Vietnam.

I went there in early 1970.

Then in 76, you decided, were you still with the CIA when you were in Vietnam?

Yes.

I was with the advisor to the PRU Provincial Reconnaissance Unit in Vietnam.

Which meant what?

What did you do?

It was a special paramilitary unit that we had in every single province, all over Vietnam.

I was assigned to Region 3.

Region 3 is the 11 provinces around Saigon, the most important region.

And we had every one of those units were former Viet Cong and Shu Hoi, people who had turned over from the Viet Cong area.

And they were very effective against the Viet Cong because they knew them.

They knew the tactics and everything.

So we advised them, we provided them with intelligence, and we run operation with assets from the U.S.

Armed Forces against the infrastructure of the Viet Cong in the area.

During that time, it was shot down five times.

But, you know, I came out fine.

Well, eventually I had to be evacuated because of back problem because of this helicopter accident.

You were shot five times, did I hear you say?

Yeah.

Well, it was during the over two years.

I spent the whole tour a year and a half, they extended for another year and a half.

But then because of my back problem, they evacuated me back to the United States in April of 1962, 70, 72.

And 75 or 76, you leave, the CIA?

Right, 76 I left the CIA.

And that's because

there was a death threat?

Yes.

First of all, for example, while I was still there

in Vietnam from 1970 to 1971, I was called by the GOS station, told me not to fly directly to Miami because they had a Cuban intelligence defector in Paris who claimed they were going to hijack the plane of the Cuban involved in the assassination of Che Guevara.

So I flew to Atlanta.

Even though Cuba wanted him dead.

Yes, but today it's a symbol to be able to get somebody who claimed that their hero was.

So I did fly to Atlanta, took a car, went back to Atlanta, and they have a cousin in Atlanta.

So I stayed.

There was a fly going back to Vietnam who left actually Dallas, Dallas, San Francisco.

And there was another one who was Houston, Houston, San Francisco an hour later.

So I took the one an hour later to stay with my cousin one more hour.

When I arrived to Saigo, nobody was waiting for me.

So I went to the Duke Hotel change.

I got to the U.S.

Embassy, and they looked at me and said, what are you doing here?

I was supposed to arrive today and nobody was waiting for me.

I say, no, no, no.

Your plane was hijacked to Cuba.

the one we had in the program that you were going to fly from there to San Francisco.

So even after when I was evacuated, later on they sent me to Argentina, what the agency did, they gave me a passport for me and my wife that said that we were born in Colorado.

That's the only time I was a born United States citizen for less than a year, because in case our plane got hijacked, they could reclaim me as a U.S.

citizen by birth.

And

they offered to change your name and change your life, and you were like, nah.

Yeah, in 1975, they assassinated Centeno Anaya, the one who was his advisor in Paris, and they put the so-called commando Che Guevara.

They assassinated a colonel Roberto Quintanilli in Hamburg, Germany, who was the consul general for Bolivians, leave the same message, Che Guevara's commando.

And then they called my home and using my eldest name, Felix Ramos, you are next.

That's what they told me.

So I told the agency.

So they came back and said, look, we are going to change your name.

We're going to send you to another state.

But with two kids at the age that they were, it was a trauma for them to be able to move them from their school, their friends, to another unknown place with different names.

So I told the agency I couldn't do that.

So we got to an agreement.

What they did was they built a garage in my home next to my car.

It was staying inside the garage at night.

I got a license to carry a concealed weapon.

It was very difficult at the time to get.

They

put iron fences in my house all around the area.

You know, they gave me a telephone in the car.

That was, at the time, that was 10 years of waiting period.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And

actually when i applied for the phone they told me called me in 10 years i told the agency and when i called by the guy said mr rodriga i know who the hell you are your phone number is on so we'll be connected after tomorrow i got in 48 hours my phone wow i signed a relief if i got killed connected to service my family will not uh claim anything because i refuse what they really consider uh a a

security a package for me but they did give you one other thing at the time

they gave you uh a silver silver star.

When I came from that, they gave me the Intelligent Star for Valor, which is for what they call extraordinary service of heroism from Vietnam.

That's awesome.

I received like nine cross of gallantry from the Vietnamese

Army and also a Naval Medal of Honor from the Vietnamese Navy because I studied rocketing of the boat of Saigon.

I studied rocketing of the city of Saigon too.

That was very, very difficult.

Nobody had been able to do that before.

How did you do that?

Well, the one on the boat was, you know, they were having a unit unit shooting at the boat whenever they came in and all those boats coming in were escorted by the Navy Seawolf gunship.

Whenever they saw the explosion they never got anything.

I was able to capture one of these paramilitary units of the Viet Con that they called Sappers and what they had they had they put the rocket in a wooden platform and then they run an electrical cable about 50 meters.

and they had a point of reference.

So whenever they had the point of reference they from a 50 meter distance they activated the rocket who hit the boat.

Now the gunship was hitting the explosion.

Nobody was there.

So I got on the following day, all the guy from the Navy gunship, and put a red smoke grenade in the middle, a yellow 50 meter on both sides so they can see, take a look at the distance.

And from there on, every time they saw an explosion, they would hit on both sides.

We never know what they were operating.

And they were able to kill six teams and they had no idea what was going on.

We stopped the rocketing of the boat.

I also got the Medal of Honor from the Vietnamese Navy.

And then the rocketing of the city of Saigon, we could not find the people in the unit we were looking for until we captured one guy who told us

where they were actually had the base camp we never looked in that area because it's a very high tide water of tide it will go like 15 feet and nobody could live there so we we never looked for them in that area so this guy told us they had 55 colon drums shouldered one on top of the other so at night when the water started racing he will go on top of that drum and leave there when he went down he walked through the rocket 122 rocket into the side into the area of Saigon City and then went back into that hole so we started looking to that area and it was very easy because they were walking and it was fresh mud so we could see the step We were able to eliminate most of them.

And in the 4th of December of 1970, we were able to kill Tutan, the head of the unit that was doing the rocketing of Saigon.

And then, after that, they were not able to hit one single rocket to the city until after I left.

So from

1960, 61 to 1976, did you ever see or feel at any time that the United States was being dishonorable?

No.

As a matter of fact, when you talk about the Bay of Pigs, there are some Cubans, especially from the Brigade, who claim President Kennedy was a traitor.

I don't believe he was a traitor.

I believe he was a young president because you are a traitor because you do something purposely.

I don't say he purposely wanted the Bay of Peak to be a failure because it was a failure to his administration.

I think it was a young president with no experience and very, very badly advised.

And because of my experience with our teammate, after we went to, because when the president received us at the Orange Pole in late 1962, after he pulled the brigade out, he promised us to give us,

return our flag very soon in a free Havana.

I actually was able to shook the president's hand because he came to say hello to the survivor of the infiltration team.

So I remember shooking the president's hand told him we shall return.

Of course, you know, that was a symbolic thing.

And then he opened the Armed Forces of the United States for the brigade.

So I was one of the 212 officers from the brigade who went to Fort Benny, Georgia as a second lieutenant, commissioned by the president.

When we finished that, our teammate asked me to go with him to a special operation in Central America sponsored by the president.

And I asked him at the time, I said, look, Manolo, you know, what guarantee do I have that the president is behind this operation?

He asked me, what guarantee do you need?

Say, well, you want me to leave the army and go into this motel to get a training from the CIA in communications?

Give it to me in uniform, being paid by the U.S.

government.

You do that, I'll resign, I'll go with you.

So he told me, fine, go and see your supervisor and tell him you want a special communication training.

So I go and see this Mayor Angel Torres, who was a Puerto Rican in charge of training, and said, Mayor Torres, Lieutenant Rodriguez, I'd like to change to special communication training.

I was supposed to go for intelligence training.

So he looked at me and said, look, Lieutenant,

first of all, there is no such thing as a special communication training.

Second, if it were, there is no time to change.

You are going to Fort Halloween, Virginia, for intelligence training.

And third, who told you?

He said, Sir, I cannot tell you.

He threw me out of his office, which is normal.

So I go to Miami on vacation, and about a week later, I got a call from Aurora Street, the recruiting center.

Call immediately, Mayor Torres.

So I called Mayor Torres and said, Lieutenant Rodriguez, come to Fort Benning immediately.

We have here Mr.

Moose and Mr.

Flanagan to give you your special communication training.

So I went back to Fort Benning.

They us a room inside the base with two other guys that was with me.

They gave us the training and then we resigned to the commission and we went with him to Central America.

But then the president was assassinated.

And later on, Johnson told the member of the brigade that the promise of the president to liberate Cuba died with the present.

Those who wanted to stay in the armed forces, they were welcome.

So there was no longer a commitment to do that.

But Bobby Kennedy was very, very much committed on that.

Bobby Kennedy was different than his brother.

He seemed like a decent guy.

When we were walking the operation in Central America with our team in Costa Rica and Nicaragua running raids against Cuba in 1964, 65, Bobby Kennedy was what liaison between us and the CIA for that operation.

And when the president was assassinated, our team went to see him in Washington.

The first two words that he told him said, my brother had two big enemies, the mafia and Fidel Castro.

And I believe it was the last one who assassinated him.

And what do you think?

I think so.

I think that the president.

You don't think that it was Lee Harvey Oswald or?

It was Lee Herbegal, with another shooter who probably was a Cuban captain who was expert in shooting, also spoke fluent

English, Fabian Escalante, who was in Dallas that day.

And then it's documented that he left in a private plane for Mexico after the assassination.

Of course, even I saw one time in the paper, one assistant of President Johnson claiming they did have information from the Bureau of the Cuban participation on the assassination of the president.

And they had to cover it up for national security reasons.

If they had to admit that a country like Cuba had participated in the assassination of an American president, they had no choice but to invade.

And they still had some offensive mission inside Cuba.

They didn't want to face that.

So they covered that for national security.

So I believe that Fabian Escualante was the second shooter.

Wow.

I mean, you are at event after event after event.

You leave 76, then in 85, you come back and you are part of something

that becomes a gigantic deal.

The Contra scandal.

You were down in El Salvador.

Right.

Well, actually, when I started that, it had nothing to do with the Contra.

I had a helicopter concert that I developed in Vietnam against the guerrillas.

It was very effective in Vietnam.

And I thought I could do that with the guerrillas in El Salvador.

So I turned to my friend Don Gregg, who was my boss in Vietnam, who turned out to be then the National security advisor to Vice President Bush.

And he knew how effective this concept had been in Vietnam.

So he helped me with the administration to get contact.

For example, he sent me to talk to Thomas Molly, the Secretary of State for Latin America, Nestor Sanchez, Secretary of Defense for Latin America, to brief them on a concept I wanted to develop in El Salvador.

And then I met the head of the Elvadorian Air Force.

And I offered my service to, you know, to go there and try to implement this concept.

Of course, the general told me, he said, fine, he saw my credential every there is a problem.

I said, what's the problem?

He said, I cannot pay you.

He said, who's asking for pay?

I have my retirement from the agency.

The only thing that I need is a place where I can operate from to implement my concept.

So he accepted.

Now, then there was a problem with General Gorman, Trip Forester General of Southcom, who was in charge of all this military assistance in Latin America.

And here is this guy retired from the CIA who wants to implement a military concept in his area.

Of course, he's of concern.

But erroneously, he had been told I was very close to Bush.

I was not.

I was close to Don Gregg.

So he asked asked Admiral,

who was in charge

of advisor to Vice President Bush, that he wanted to talk to me.

So I went to Panama, I briefed General Gorman, and then he sent me to El Salvador to brief Ambassador Pickering, and then we all agreed for me to go down there.

So I moved into

El Salvador to start preparing my helicopter concept.

And in the first day of my operation, which I actually programmed for the 17th of April, this date of the Bay of Peaks.

But then when the Salvadorans saw the intelligence that was good, they put me back to the 18th of April.

On that day, they sent some troops in the ground to the area that I had selected.

So, when we arrived, there was nobody there.

But in the afternoon, we went to another area, and we were lucky that we were able to capture Nidia Diaz, the commander of the PRTC.

She was the highest guerrilla commander ever been captured by the Salvadoran.

And she was the one who was responsible for the assassination of the Marines at the Sona Rosas in El Salvador.

The PRTC was her unit.

Partido Revolutionario los travadores in Central Americano.

So, we captured her and she was then exchanged for President Duarte's daughter who was kidnapped.

And she went to live in Cuba.

Then she went back to El Salvador.

Now she's a congresswoman in El Salvador to this day.

From there on, the operation was very, very effective.

And

you met Ali North at this time, right?

Yeah, I have met him one time, sent by a guy from the State Department, to meet him in Washington.

But I had nothing to do with him at all.

But then what happened was, Glenn, at the end of 1980,

at the end of 1985,

he had a problem

with some weapon that he had bought in Portugal for the Honduras.

And Honduras stopped all the operation in there because Calero's brother, who was the head of the contract at that time, brought a plane from New Orleans with a uniform and things like that.

And he got a crew of television on the plane.

And they landed in Palmerola military airfield.

So when the Hondurans saw that, they were mad because, you know, everybody knew they were helping, but not that open to have a plane land at their military base and have the crew film everything so they sent the plane back with everything including the crew and they stopped the operation and Nor had a plane a southern airplane

in Portugal loaded with weapon he could not bring it it was costing a lot of money so he knew I had been very successful in the Salvador with the operation I was so he asked me if I could ask the Salvadorian to storage

all of this military weapon coming from Portugal.

So I went to see the head of the Air Force.

He sent me to talk to the Minister of Defense.

I convinced them and they allowed to do that.

That's how I got involved later on with the Iran-Contra thing.

They used the

plane to our area, they storage there.

Then they asked me if they could do the maintenance of the aircraft in El Salvador.

They will provide everything.

So, no, they agree, and that's how I got involved in the Iran-Contra thing.

But, Senator Kennedy or Kerry.

Oh, don't talk to me about it.

I hate that son of a.

I'll tell you what.

Tell me what you really feel.

Okay.

Because of that, I had to testify in Congress.

They called me as a witness to testify in Congress.

I testified on the 27th, 28th of May 1987, open hearing in Congress.

During that time, there was one actually Republican senator who asked me if I had any information about the Sandinistas involved in narco-trafficking.

In early 1985, a police officer, a friend of mine who was in the Day County Police, who had a private company, then asked me to meet this guy, who was a money launderer for the Medellin cartel, who claimed that he could compromise the Nicaraguan resistance in narco-trafficking.

But he said he wanted to deal with the DEA or the FBI because they were penetrated.

He wanted to deal with somebody from the CIA or from the vice president's office who had to do with narco-trafficking.

So I met this guy whose name was Ramón Milan Rodriguez.

He claimed he had a tape from an assistant of Daniel Ortega who called him from Guatemala asking him to jump bail to set up a money laundering operation for them out of Panama.

So I mentioned that during the hearing.

Kerry, who heard that, sent his assistant, Jack Blom, to find out where this guy was.

Now, Ramon Milian Rodriguez at this time was in a federal prison with 45 years because of his narco-trafficking thing.

Because he was picked up in Miami with $10 million of the drug cartel to fly to Panama.

So they went to see him.

And what I understand, they told the guy, if you can compromise the vice president through Felix, it has to be true, you cannot lie to us.

But if you can compromise the vice president through Felix, we are going to lower your sentence.

So the guy comes back and says, oh, yeah, Felix was a patriot.

He didn't touch a penny of this thing, but he got from us $10 million from the cartel for the contracts.

And in exchange, the vice president was going to be lenient with the Medellin cartel, which is ridiculous.

So after I testify in Congress, I am back in El Salvador and I am flying with the Salvadoran Air Force.

And my wife called me pretty upset.

It was my picture in the front page of the Miami Herald.

When I was in the Army as a second lieutenant, I claimed I received $10 million from the Medellin Cartel.

I said, Ross, you know, yes.

I said, no, no, no.

You also have a subpoena from Senator Curry's committee.

So I asked her to send this subpoena to El Salvador.

I got the subpoena.

I called his office.

I didn't talk to him.

Of course, I talked to an assistant and said, look, you don't need a subpoena with me, but send the ticket in Easter because I am doing mileage.

I'll go there and I'll talk to you.

So they sent the ticket in Eastern.

I flew to Washington.

He was the majority of this committee in narco-trafficking and special operations.

And the minority was Mitch McConnell.

So there was an assistant of Mitch McConnell, a Jack Blum, on behalf of Senator Kerry.

They deposed me for over four hours.

At the end of our testimony, we wanted an open hearing.

There's nothing to hide.

They wanted a closed hearing.

He said, why?

I retired and back in 1976, we're talking something that happened in 1985.

What is this secrecy?

No, he didn't want the truth to come out.

So they insisted on a closed hearing.

So it had to be a closed hearing.

So we went to a closed hearing.

I recall there were all the senators and they asked me if I wanted to say something.

So I looked at Curry in his face and say, Senator, this would be the hardest testimony of my life.

I already had testified in Congress today without lawyer, without immunity.

And he said, why do you say that, Mr.

Rodriguez?

I say, Senator, it's very difficult to have to answer questions for somebody that you do not respect.

I don't respect you and what you are doing here.

Boy, he blew his top.

Oh, I bet he did.

No, because we disagree with you.

We are less patriotic than you are.

I say, Senator, you didn't even have the courage to throw your own medals when you were protesting the Vietnam War.

Mr.

Rodriguez, I don't believe you see everything in the press.

I said, Senator, I know that a hell of a lot better than you do.

Then he told me, that was a veteran who asked me to throw his medal.

I said, bullshit.

Everybody's perception was your medal we're throwing over the White House fence.

So we went back and forth.

It didn't go very nicely.

We finished the hearing, closed hearing.

For 10 months, my uncle asked for an open hearing.

He would not give it to us.

Until Senator Mitch McConnell called me and asked me if I would go to Washington and ask on a press conference, an open hearing.

So I did.

I went to Washington.

We had a hearing, not a hearing, we had a press conference at the Senate.

And there I had a statement where I explained

every detail of my connection with Ramon Milien Plasriga, everything that transpired.

And at the end, I wrote, I hope this is for honest purposes and not for the political reason of Senator Kerry.

So on the following day, he gave us an open hearing.

On Friday, that's the only day of the week they don't have any cameras in the Senate.

There was no camera.

I was the last witness with me.

By the time I went to testify, 90% of the press was already gone.

And there he apologized to me.

Oh, then he asked me, Will you take a light detector test?

I said, Of course, but I want you to give you one too because this is political.

I said, Well, I won't take one.

I said, Well, if you don't take one, I won't take one either.

But if you take a lie detector address, I'll take it.

So he didn't, so I didn't.

So that was the end of that.

Then he asked for, which is great, he asked for one of the best polygraph operator in the country, Dr.

Rafkin from the University of Utah.

They gave Ramon Million Rodriguez a lie detector test.

First question, did Mr.

Rodriguez solicit from you $10 million from the drug cartel?

Yes.

Deceptive, he was lying.

Second question, did Mr.

Rodriguez gave you couriers in Central America to channelize this $10 million?

Yes.

Deceptive, he was lying.

Third question, did Mr.

Rodriguez receive in any way or form any money from the Medellin cartel?

Ramon Milian Rodriguez refused to continue with the light detector test.

How is Santa Carrier writing the congressional testimony?

First two, he had no choice.

On the third, he write.

On the third question, whether Mr.

Rodriguez received any money from the Medellin cartel, the operator could not determine the veracity of the question.

And he leaves it like that.

Wow.

So you listen to that, you say, well, maybe some truth to it.

But they never tell you that he didn't determine anything because the guy refused to continue with the light detector days.

That's why I hate this on a beast so much.

So, let me just ask one, you know, 60-minute question.

So, what did you do with the $10 million?

That's what my wife has to ask me.

Why are we still living here, Felix?

If you have $10 million, I wouldn't over here.

That's right, that's right.

Um,

when the Berlin wall fell,

what went through your mind?

A lot of us thought that Cuba was going to be next,

really.

And then, because of special circumstances, they didn't.

The Cuban intelligence has maintained a tremendous force in control in the island.

They went to a special period, and then Venezuela came to supply the money that was cut off by the Soviet Union.

Did you foresee this resurgence

of

socialism like it like is happening now?

I mean, the Venezuelans,

that was a prosperous country.

It had its problems, but it was a prosperous country.

And they have just destroyed it, just destroyed it, and people are starving.

Absolutely.

Let me tell you, that was a factor in the election in Costa Rica a few years ago.

The leftist candidate who was in front of the polls,

ahead of the traditional candidate in Costa Rica, who was a sympathizer of Ugo Chavez,

what the opposition did, they started putting movies of Venezuela.

Here's Venezuela before socialism.

Here's Venezuela with socialism.

That guy didn't even go to the second round.

Wow.

We lost completely.

How do you feel about ⁇ I don't want to talk about politics per se, but

none of the ⁇ or maybe there's one

of the Democratic candidates, they won't say that they're free market-based.

Many of them are saying that they're democratic socialists.

It's amazing.

I don't know how anybody can believe in socialism after what happened in Cuba and what is happening in Venezuela.

Like you say, it's the richest country in Latin America.

Cuba in 1958 was one of the most prosperous nations in the continent.

They will have number two or three in the whole hemisphere.

I will tell people that come back from Cuba that they will not believe that during that time people will look at the newspaper to find out where the meat was cheaper.

No, that was meat, that was cheaper.

They cannot understand that to be true because of the lack of everything in those countries.

Socialism destroy the insensitive of people to work and destroy the economy.

Nobody could have perceived that Venezuela with all the resources, the richest oil in the country in Latin America, with the richest, largest reserve in oil nationwide, worldwide, could be the way it is today.

When they destroy the private sector, they destroy the capacity of people to

really progress.

And it's amazing.

Are you optimistic for America?

or pessimistic?

I am optimistic in a way.

I worry a little bit about what's going on, you know, in

Bernie Sanders and all of this.

And I cannot believe these young people that support him.

He's declared socialist.

And look what socialism went on.

They should understand from history what's happened to this socialist country.

They have never worked.

It destroyed the economy.

It destroyed what they do equally, bring poverty to everybody.

It's what they do.

That's the only equality that they bring.

And it's amazing that there were people that will support guys like him.

But I understand also also it's a lot of American universities who have very leftist professors.

And they have been watching those people for years and years and years.

And that's why they really believe that socialism can work.

When in reality, we all know it doesn't work.

They'll point

to Sweden and say,

that's a socialized country.

They'll point to Sweden or...

you know, the Netherlands and say, well,

this is a socialist.

Yeah, but we are not Sweden.

We are American.

That's the difference.

What's the difference?

The mentality, the people that we were formed here from different countries,

the way we operate, the freedom that we have in here, the opportunity that we have people to progress in this country, you don't see anywhere else in the world.

It all depends on you.

What I tell people is people should have the opportunity to progress.

They should have the opportunity for school and all of that thing.

But they can depend on you.

You cannot expect everybody.

Like, put an example of two brothers, one that works like hell from 8 o'clock in the morning to 8 o'clock at night, the other one who doesn't do anything.

You cannot expect both of them to have the same thing at the end of the month.

Right.

Because one have earned it, the other one has not.

Opportunity you should have, but then it depends on you as an individual.

You've lived in exile your whole life, almost your whole life.

Do you feel like you're

an exile, or do you feel now just all-American?

For many years, I always wanted and I we all respect this country very much.

It gave us what we didn't have down there.

We love America.

But for many years, I thought, you know, I wanted to go back to Cuba to live in there.

Eventually, when that changed.

After so many years, my son and my daughter were born here.

We have a granddaughter going to university.

We have a grandson.

And now all my, you know, I will just visit there.

And I consider America more my home than really

in reality.

Tell me what you think is going to happen to Cuba.

It's hard to say it right now.

With the pass away of Fidel and now the probability of passing away of Raul, they will have to face a reality.

I don't think they will be able to maintain what they have today.

It could evolve.

I mean, nobody knows whether it's going to be a long time or a short time.

But it could change drastically.

drastically.

Especially now if it looks like in a way Venezuela goes down from communism into a democracy.

And if it does, it will stop the barrel of oil that they are giving you for free.

And they won't be able to maintain that at all.

They will be forced to go to have changes.

And hopefully then we could start working on a democracy as we know it.

Felix, thank you.

It has been a real pleasure being with you.

He is

remarkable to meet a man

that has

been at the center of so much of American history.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

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