Danny Jones Podcast - #225 - CIA's Hidden Weapon: The Man Who Hunted Down Che Guevara | Felix Rodriguez

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Exclusive 'behind the scenes' w/ Felix: https://patreon.com/dannyjones Felix Rodriguez is former CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer in the Special Activities Division, known for his involvement in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the capture of Che Guevara. SPONSORS https://mudwtr.com/danny - Try it now for only $29. (that's less than $1 per cup) https://partner.ekster.com/DannyJones - Use code DJP for additional 5% off Ekster's wallets. https://ver.so/danny - Use code DANNY to save 15% on your first order. FOLLOW DANNY JONES https://www.instagram.com/dannyjones https://twitter.com/jonesdanny OUTLINE 00:00 - Felix's childhood 09:36 - Brigade 2506: The Bay of Pigs 20:35 - Bay of Pigs disaster 24:55 - Hiding from Castro's regime 32:04 - Kennedy vs Castro 36:29 - CIA training 40:36 - Origins of the M16 rifle 43:10 - Felix's marriage; civilian life 45:19 - HALO jumping 49:04 - Pretending to be a Paratrooper 52:33 - Vietnam 54:19 - The barrage rocketing of Saigon 58:14 - How Felix captured Vietnamese bodyguard 59:50 - Viet Cong hiding from 15ft tide 01:04:31 - Felix's awards for stopping Saigon attacks 01:07:00 - Attempts on Felix's life (plane hijacking) 01:10:49 - Felix fear of death 01:17:50 - Intel operation in Dominica 01:19:10 - Felix's battle damage 01:20:10 - Lebanon operation 1975 01:26:35 - El Salvadore guerilla 1964 01:33:29 - Problems with locals 01:36:00 - Guerilla helicopter assault 01:37:26 - Capturing female guerilla 01:39:09 - M16 full auto problems 01:40:41 - Felix's war trophy 01:43:16 - Iran Contra 1986 01:46:19 - Hasenfus and Felix (Max Gomez) 01:47:17 - Congress Testimony 1987 01:49:52 - Felix Rodriguez on Danny Sheehan 01:51:51 - CIA & FBI armored Felix's home 02:02:51 - Receiving money from Medellin Cartel? 02:14:23 - John Kerry fraud 02:16:59 - Hunting Che Guevara 02:33:35 - Battle with Che Guevara 02:39:38 - Capturing Che Guevara 02:50:38 - Che Guevara's last minutes 02:56:45 - Last wish of Che Guevara 03:03:39 - Felix's sorrow for Che Guevara 03:07:14 - Che Guevara love for killing 03:11:22 - Felix's feelings on killing 03:16:47 - Che Guevara's Rolex 03:21:16 - Attempts to assassinate Castro 03:28:50 - Accusations of Cuban exiles in Dealy Plaza 03:33:49 - Santos Trafficante 03:35:47 - Morality of war VS covert action 03:39:25 - Kiki Camarena Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So I stood in front here and said, Che Guevard, I like to talk to you. He looked at me very arrogant. He said, nobody talks to me. Nobody interrogates me. So when I saw that attitude, I said, Commandante, I didn't come in, interrogate you. I like to talk to you.

I admire you. You used to be head of staying in Cuba, and you're here because you believe in your ideals, even though I know they're mistaken. He said, can you untie me? Can I see? They're sure. Just before that picture was taken,

I put my hand around Chey and said, Comandante, look the little bird. We tell that in Cuba, told him, look the little bird, look the pagerie. So I got into the room, I stood in front of him, he was sitting in the bench, he looked at me, I look at him.

He said, commander, I'm sorry. I try my best. His order from the High Bolivian Company. The guy looked at me, and he turned white like a piece of paper. I've never seen somebody whose face turned white. I mean, literally white.

It's anything you want for your family. Tell Fidel that he will soon see a triumphant revolution in America. And then he changed and said, and you can tell my wife to remarry and try to be happy. There's a documentary out there in that documentary. They accuse you of being tied to the murder of the DEA agent. Kiki Camarena. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You smoke cigars? No. You don't? Oh, man, I brought you a couple. I brought a Cuban cigar for you. I was hoping that we can. Not even cigarette. You never ever smoked cigars?

No, nor a cigarette. Really? When I was five years old, my father made me smoke one cigarette. Your dad made you smoke a cigarette when you were five? He offered me a cigarette. I didn't want it and he forced it on me. So I got sick, I vomited that I hated this. I never touched it again.

Wow. That's a good strategy. It was good he did that. I don't know he did it for that purpose, but he definitely accomplished that. So to preface this conversation, I wanted to give some conversations. context to how I found out about you. And that was through a guy named Rick Prado, who was on the podcast. He was a former CIA paramilitary guy who was based in Honduras. And another woman who was just in the podcast, Andy Jacobson, who wrote a book called Surprise Kill Vanish, all about the paramilitary

teams and the, the covert assassination operations that had gone on around the world since, you know, the beginning of the Cold War. And you have had a legendary career and life. So first of all, thank you for inviting me here to your beautiful museum, packed with history. And for people that are listening who may not know about you, can you give me just like a brief background of your military, where you come from and your military career?

Yes, I come from a small town, Cuba, Santa Spiritus where I spent all my kids' life. I was born in 1941. I went to LaSalle school in Santaisperitus. Then in 1952 when Batista made military coup, my uncle was my secretary of public work. So he moved to Havana and my mother accompanied him to be able to set up the home for him. So he took me along. She took me along with her. So I spent the first years in La Salle School in Havana. Then for the second year, I was in the Havana Military Academy, and then I moved, you know, I used to live in my uncle's home until the next year.

Then they offer me to go to the United States if I wanted to come to school here. So in 1954, when I was about 13 years old, I moved to Perkiomen Preparatory School in Pennsylvania, that was where I started 7th and 8th grade. And then I continued through my fourth years of high school. Now, before I completed the six years of high school, and it was in December, December, 1959, my parents had gone to Mexican vacation on late 58. So I went there to visit them,

and I spent years if it was then, and that's when Castro took over. So I came back to school again. I was supposed to go to Havana, but because of the situation there, I didn't. Went back to school, and then I went back in 19. in 59 to visit my parents in Mexico.

And at that time, there was a Captain Cortez from the Cuban army who was actually recruiting people for the first operation against Castro that took place in the Dominican Republic. It was called the Anticomnius Legion of the Caribbean. It was composed of about 100 Cubans, 150 Spaniards, 50 Spaniards, 50 Yugoslavian, 50 Greek, and 50 mixed nationalities. So when I was actually recruited by this guy as a volunteer, My father didn't want to sign me the paper because I was 17 years all of the time.

So I told him that I was going to forfeiting his signature in front of him, and he agreed. He told me that he will not sign it because he might be signing my death sentence, but he respected my position and go ahead and do it. So in front of him, I did sign my name. I got the visa number 60 from the Dominican Republic. And actually, on the 4th of July of 1959, I flew on a plane from Miami to Dominican Republic an airfield that was in the middle of the city called General Andrew, that no longer

exist now. And there it was made by General Pedraza, who was a Cuban general and taken to his home for a while, to take a week in San, well, there was called the town, Ciudad Trujillo. And from there, we went to the naval base of Caldera, where we started training in there. It was 18 years

all by the time. And they were training there, until they were supposed to be the first attempt to overthrow Castro. Cuban major, Eloy Gutierrez, Minoio, claimed that he had taken over the city of Trinidad and invited the people from the Dominican Republic to support them with weapon and military personnel for training. So people in the Dominican Republic believe him. He was actually working for Castro. We didn't know that.

So there was a plane who was supposed to go there with a lot of weapons. He was working for Castro? You said he was working for Castro? The major who said that he had this defect. and he was taking over the series training that was working for Guston. Okay, got it. Hey, guys, I want to ask you a quick favor.

Over the last few months, almost 70% of the viewers of this podcast are not subscribed to the channel. The most important common denominator that allows me to keep creating these podcasts every single week is you hitting that subscribe button below the videos. I want to thank every single one of you

who watches and supports these podcasts. I would not be able to do it without you. Please hit that subscribe button if you enjoy it. Now back to the show. And he doubled crossed the people that we were in the Dominican Republic. So they were ready to sing a plane with about five instructors and plenty of military equipment. I was supposed to go on that plane.

So there was five of us to go on the plane. One was Mary Bran, who was a Spanish who was actually in the French Legion. The other two were Cuban lieutenant, lieutenant Ribeiro and Lieutenant Rodriguez. And there was Roberto Martin Pere, who was the song of a Cuban lieutenant, in the police and myself. But we were ready to go in the helicopter to fly from there to the San Francisco. Sea, the Air Force Base in the Dominican Republic,

Roberto Martin Pett's father, who was very close to my family, came to the helicopter and said that I was like a son to him, and his son had much experience that I did, so his son will go, and I will go with him when he go, and he got me out of the helicopter. I really didn't talk to him for about a week,

and then the helicopter actually, landed in San Enidro. They got that C-46 plane that did belong to Batista when Batista left Cuba. And when he landed in Trina, I actually was taken by Castro forces. All of them were arrested. The captain took my place.

I wasn't supposed to stay. My mission was to put gasoline in the plane all if needed and come back to the Dominican Republic. What happened then is this guy put a defense on the plane and he was the only one who was killed. on the operation. The other people were captured, and my friend Roberto Martim Perez spent the next 28 years in a Cuban prison. Then after that, they moved our unit to continue training in Costanza, that's an area up in the mountain. When I arrived, there were already

guerrillas in there that Cuba has sent with Delio Gome, Hocchoa, a commander, and there were Cuban and Dominican people. And of course, it was put down. Most of our people fought them, the Cuban that were there fought against those guerrilla along with the Dominican troops, and they were able to eliminate all of them eventually. So after that, the operation was eventually terminated. I contacted hepatitis, and my parents went to Mexican Republic to pick me up. So I flew back to Miami in December of 19659. I recovered in Miami.

I missed one semester in school. I went back to school, I recovered that semester, and they graduated in June of 1960 from high school. I did apply and was accepted at the University of Miami for engineering, civil engineering. That's what really wanted to be all my life. Before that happened, we learned there was something going on somewhere in Latin America to liberate our homeland. So I decided that was more important. So I joined that later became the Bay of Peak invasion, so we were flowing from the Opelaca, base airport into Guatemala and then we started training in Guatemala along with the

Brigade 25 of 6. At the time we had no idea what the CIA was. I thought, we all thought that there were rich Cuban people who have lost sugar mills in Cuba with putting up the money for this operation. You had no idea what the CIA was. We had no idea what the CIA was. We had no idea that the U.S. government was sponsoring our operation. It came later on when, you know, who did you think was sponsoring the operation when you decided to go to what? Rich Cuban, a bunch of rich Cubans. They had lost a lot of sugar meals and things in Cuba. They have enough money. And they were financing this. So that's what we all thought. Now, we went in there. Then, you know, the invasion became related to a fiasco. A lot of people asked why was the invasion

putting hand with the CIA, not the Pentagon? Because the CIA had no expertise in military land and the Pentagon did. And the simple answer is it wasn't meant to be a military landing. When the Eisenhower administration received information in 1960 from their intelligence sources that the Soviet were planning to bring offensive missile into the island, they decided to destabilize the Castro regime. So they ordered the CIA to destabilize the Castro regime. And what the CIA did was they got a very experienced military guy in guerrilla warfare, well, they called, well, they called we saw Napoleon Valeriano. Is this when, is this when Nixon was vice president,

and Nixon thought he was going to win the election against Kennedy. Or when Nixon first, I think Rockefeller dropped out of the race, and then Nixon realized he was going to be the primary candidate in the Republican Party. Yeah, Nixon was the vice president. No, Nixon was the vice president at the time with Eisenhower. It was already the vice president. Nixon, yeah, right. So what else was asking, like Nixon was the vice president, and then Nixon wanted to establish a paramilitary team to go into Cuba, to destabilize Cuba, right?

Well, I think that was the decision. of President Eisenhower, not Nixon. Okay, okay. But he was vice president. And by all means, we all know that he did win the election. And the election became fraudulent, because the major of Chicago Daley was the one who committed fraud and that election gave the election to President Kennedy.

But actually, everybody knows that the election was won by President, the Vice President Nixon. If they had been honorable, Chicago would have gone for Nixon, for Nixon and that was the state that gave the presidency to either one. So daily committed fraud and that's how Kennedy became president of the United States. His campaign, the people who are running his presidential campaign, they covertly went to all the preachers, to all the churches in like seven or eight major swing states,

and they turned them from Republican to Democratic and convinced them all to support Kennedy. So there was these black preachers that were showing all these pamphlets in support of Kennedy and all the churches and they were able to swing the black vote in like seven states to Kennedy. I don't know what happened. I knew that if it daily had not committed fraud,

Nixon would have been pressing of the United States. The rest I had no idea that was going on in there. The thing is then they contracted this guy who was a colonel graduated from West Point from the Pentagon, whose real name was Napoleon Valeriano. He used the name with a name. us of Vallejo, and he had been very effective in the war against the hog in the Philippines, and he started training us as a guerrilla warfare. Now, there were guerrillas in the Escambrite.

So the idea of the Eisenhower administration was reinforced that guerrilla to a point that they will be able to control a small territory and declaring independent territory and then bring a provisional government from there. It will be recognized by the OAS and the United States. That was the end of Castro. So we formed what was called the infiltration thing, or the great thing, or a special forces of the brigade. There were 90 of us. Actually, about only 36 of us entered Cuba clandestinely before the invasion. And there were several what was called Black Thing of 25 men-ish,

who were specialized and received weapon by air and by sea and also military training. So the idea was that we would go into the country first start bringing civilians into the Eskambright Mountain. And once there were enough people in there, they would bring the Black Team to train them. And one that was a strong guerrilla that could liberate a small territory. then the rest of the brigade will come protecting a provisional civilian government in arms that was going to promote free and democratic election within a year. And of course, it would be accepted by the OAS, Organization of American State, and 90-some percent American troops, maybe a liter percent of Latin American troops, and that was the end of Castro. That was the idea of the

operation. And was this the same thing as Operation 40? No. Fron 40 was a part of the operation of the Bay of Fig was intelligent people who was going to and to work the intelligence inside the operation itself. So that was the concept that prevailed. Now, when President Kennedy was elected president, then he had been extremely critical of Nixon telling him that he was not doing enough to stop communism in Cuba. I had no idea that we were already in Guatemala being traded

by the Axenhower administration. So when he was confronted with the fact that they already had people in there, he decided to continue with the operation, he didn't want an operation that was actually planned by Republicans, so he decided to continue it, but with a different concept altogether. They disbanded the black teams. They formed was actually a reinforced battalion, not a brigade, even though they call it a brigade. They took our Filipino colonel out of the operational area.

They brought a guy from the Pentagon, and they kept us, the infiltration team. We went additional training after December, late part of December. Panama for additional special training. And from there, in January, we start moving to Miami and infiltrating Cuba in different form. There was a group that landed in Cuba by the airport, international airport, with their true name. And the cover story was they were coming back from American University to support the revolution. One team parachuted into the island, the Camarway area. 90% of the team entered through neighborly, through the infiltration, through the coast with reception team.

And one individual entered through the Guantanamo Naval Base, held by the base and approved the chief operation of naval naval operation in there. And that was the people that were inside Cuba. So I entered Cuba in late February of 1961 to work with the internal resistance. Now, while we were operating inside Cuba, we were never told of the invasion coming in at all. We were not privy of that. when they decided to invite,

we had no idea it was taking place. We had enough explosive. Talking about the Bay of Pigs invasion. We had enough explosive inside the island and enough weapons to be able to blow bridges on the way to the Bay of Pigs and delayed the troops coming in, but we were never advised.

By the time we learned that the invasion had taken place somewhere Fidel already had thousands of people being arrested. He got all his army going house by house in the main cities of Cuba, especially in Havana. They surrounded everything.

building, and if you were a male on age of a military agent, you were not assigned to a military unit, even though you have done nothing. Maybe you were even registered in the Communist Party. But if you were not assigned to a military unit, they will pick you up and they put up in temporary concentration camp, I could call. They had baseball field with high fences. They were housed in 250,000 Cuban from Havana. There was a hotel Blankita called now Carlos Mark, who has capacity for 5,000 people. They were housed in, like, 5,500 people in there. So it was really a disaster.

They actually were able to disarticulate internal resistance because most of them were captured. Even though later on, after we seen past, all of them were liberated because they had no idea who they had. But at the same time, they were able to disarticulate the internal resistance so we could not help the invasion at all.

So when it failed, a lot of our people were, like I say, member of my infiltration team, four of them was executed by firing a squad. One of them was captured. defending a safe house, it was also executed. Then they had five people from Castro, 26th of July, who landed. He had a personal grouch against them.

They were, after being captured, they were executed by firing a squad. They were others who died, drown, all the other died in training. Like, for example, our 25 of six member, Carlos Rodriguez-Santana, And he was the first casualty in Guatemala. He fell from a mountain, trying to locate a better play for training. And he was the first casualty. And his brigade number was 2506. That's why they called assault brigade 25 of 6 in his honor,

being the first one who was killed. So, you know, the brigade fought bravely. The three days that they could, they had weapons for only 24 hours. The boat that was sank because we did not contact. control the air. We were promised the air support. They were two air strikes that destroyed 90% of Castro Air Force, but there was a last strike that was supposed to take place with 16 planes that was canceled by Adelaide Stevenson. And the situation was the Stevenson was in brief on the operation. He was told that this operation, all the planes that were attacking Cuban target were

Cuban defector planes. And that's what he really believed. And when the first attack, they shot down one of our plane and Cuban ambassador, Raul Rowe could present in the United Nations a picture of the B-26 that Cuba had that had a plastic nose. And then the picture of the planes that were attacking us because they had one down. They had the

50-color machine in the nose, completely different planes. Then at the last Steve Zhaalilisov the administration, unless they put a stop to the air strike, who will resign to the UN. So they put an stop to the final strike who was really going to eliminate all of the Catholic Air Force to convince the

Stevenson not to resign. And that was the turning point where we did not control the air. They sang the boat with all the ammunition, every supply that we had, and there was no contingency plan. So the brigade flowed bravely for 24 hours, the ammunition we had extended to 72 hours, for 48 hours. When I got to 72 hours, they run out of ammunition, and they did not surrender, but they had to go into the swamp, but most of them were captured. So during the invasion, right, when you guys were, when you guys were, initiating the invasion for the first 24 hours during the Bay of Pigs. Did you guys know there wasn't going to be any air support?

Or did you guys think that you had air support coming? We went in Havana. We believed we were going to have air support. And it did take place the first two air strike before the invasion. Now, the third one, who was the most important one, we had no idea, it had been canceled because of the Adelaide Stevenson. And that was critical. That was the air strike was going to take out.

T-33 jet trainers and the 86 planes. When they didn't take out that, they were the one who controlled the air. On the first day when the invasion landed, they were able to sink the boat, the Houston, who was bringing all the weapons and ammunition and everything. And there was not a contingency plan by the administration at all. So where people fought bravely for the first 48 hours, they took every single position on the first day they were assigned to them. But then, when they run out of ammunition, they did not surrender. But they had to get into the the jungles and then weeks later leader by leader they actually captured over 95% of the brigade how many people total oh they were they were to land about 1200 of them less than 1300

over 1,100 were captured they were also actually who died in combat was about 76 not more than that and the other people who we count like 100 and some people that died the rest of people where there were a boat called Celia who was able to leave with 22 brigade members on board. Now, we had in front of the Bay of Pigs during the invasion task for Alpha from the Navy. We have the USS carrier in front of us, Essex, by the name of the Essex. They have all the plane painted black. It was supposed to participate. We had several marine landing craft on board.

They had several destroyers. They had two submarines, the whole task force. But it was never authorized by the president to participate in. As soon as the invasion failed, they pick up a few people and they left. So this group, they were able to steal a larger boat, and 22 of the Cuban brigade member were able to get on it. And they actually drifted all the way through the south coast, into the north coast, and they also were picked up two weeks later near New Orleans.

By that time, Teng of them had died from thirst and lack of water. Who? And 10 big brigade member died during that. that situation and 12 survive. Then there were also, like you said, the five people that were executed from the infiltration team, the five people that he executed from Fidel's personal unit. There were several of them who died in the hospital with lack of medical attention. There are other that die in training before they arrive in there. But the actual toll of the brigade was minimal compared to their losses. In the Bay of Peak itself, they lost over 100 people,

But then there was what we call the Carretera de la Morte, the death road, where he was coming on the second day, with 80,000 militia. And there were three of our B-26 plane that engaged them. Now, every plane had five-inch of rocket-ish. It had 850-cabler machine in the nose, and each one of them will carry a 500-pound bomb of napalm bomb. And they went through over that column of Castro troops, and the real. result was between 4,000 to 5,000 casualties between dead and killed. Castro never talked about that. Now, we had a paramedic guy who eventually defect that came to the United States,

he wrote a book about it, and he made it available to us. He was at the other end receiving the window and the wounded and the dead. He's the one who told us that the result was, well, he would say it was over 5,000 people that were wounded and killed. And they had to send it to different hospital out of the city. they have to use a basketball field to put the wounded and the dead in there because they have no way to be able to deal with so many wounded and dead people. Fidel never count those people that could die during the Bay of Peak.

He only commemorate 100 some of them. If you love diving into culture and comedy, like on Danny Jones podcast, playoff hockey is right up your alley. NHL on T&T has the best coverage, making every game feel intense and unpredictable. Playoff hockey is a different level. level, overtime, big hits, and no one coast. The studio crew, with Paul Bissonette cracking jokes and Wayne Gretzky breaking things down,

makes it even more fun to watch. Every shift matters, and the personalities keep things lively. Watch the Stanley Cup playoffs on TNT, TBS, True TV, and HBO Max. So how long, you said it took about 24 hours until you ran out of ammunition? 48 hours. 48 hours. So walk me through, what was going? How old were you?

19. So you're 19 years old. You just invaded Cuba, and it's been 48 hours. You run out of ammunition. You have no backup air support. Remember, I was in Havana, working with the resistance. I was not at the Bay of Pigs. Oh, okay.

Oh, you're in advance. Yeah, I entering in Cuba a month and a half before the invasion to work with the resistance inside. Okay. That's what I said. They never advised them. They never told us of the invasion. Otherwise, we had enough equipment to be able to blow bridges.

on the way to Playa Hiron. I could delay the troops going in there. But when they told it was too late, Fidel was already picking up thousands of people in the city, and there was no longer safe house that will give you safe passage. So you were no longer safe? No.

What did you do at that moment? Well, I was lucky that the lady who was driving me around had contact with the Spanish Embassy. So here, come Alejandro Vergara, with the, it was actually, his title was Prince and Propaganda for the Spanish Embassy in Havana. but he was the intelligent officer for the Spanish government in there.

He knew her who was a Spanish origin, and he came to pick her up to save her at the apartment that we were. They were coming to be checking within the next few minutes. So I went with them. So we got into his car, and we were pulling out. There was a truck with militia surrounding the building where we were. So we went to his apartment at the Edificio-Millian. Of course, he had diplomatic immunity,

and there were already eight people hiding in his apartment, sleeping in the floor. That's where I stayed there for a while, and it was an amazing situation because his apartment was in 2B, and my grandparents were in one A of the same building. So from his apartment, I could see my grandfather and my grandmother on my father's side

having breakfast down stairs. So I tried to contact different six houses to move because he told me I couldn't stay there too long, and nobody will answer you. Everybody was afraid, even if they answer you, they will not accept you. Before people had the, they knew, or they thought we were going to win, so they didn't mind taking chances of being picked up because they knew we were going to be out soon after the invasion.

But after the invasion failed, nobody will give us any support at all in Havana. So I was lucky then that this lady was friends with this guy Vergara, and I spent about a week in his apartment, and then eventually they took me to the Venezuelan embassy where I did seek political asylum. So this Venezuelan embassy where he lives live, it was a big house from one of the rich people of Cuba, the Mestri, who owned the CMQ television station in Cuba. And it was a huge shop for a big family, but not to be able to lodge 120 people in there.

So we were 120 people living in one home. It had a big job, can you imagine, you know, there were fights after a while. We had to make crews to cook and to clean the house. and, you know, I slept in a room with 20-some people in the dining room on top of shares. It was really not easy. I had to spend there five and a half months before they finally were able to seek political asylum papers to be able to leave the country. Was this guy not concerned? Was he not worried at all about harboring you guys in his house?

No, there is a treaty that is signed by all Latin American countries in general, with the exception of the United States, Canada, and Dominican Republic. Trujillo never signed that treaty. If you are a national, you have to be a national from that country, in a specific that you are asking for political asylum, is you are being persecuted politically, and you can prove that they will give you political asylum protection. And the government is compelled to give you a safe conduct out of the country

in a reasonable time. Now, the Cuban interpreted a reasonable time any way they want it. It's supposed to be a few days, maybe a week. In my case, they hold it for close to five and a half months before they will allow me to leave. I had to leave there. Then eventually, they give you a safe condo to leave the country. So on the 13th of September of 1961, that's when I left from the Venezuelan embassy in a plane with another hundred-some people to Caracas, Venezuela. And then I stayed in Caracas for about a week. I did have contact with the agency there. They provided money

for my ticket. My mother, while I was in the embassy, was able to say my Cuban passport who had a student visa on it. So I used that student passport with visa to be able to get into the United States at the very end of the months of September. Now, the main thing is, they contacted me again, and before the October month was over, I already was going back to Cuba. intelligence purposes. I made seven trips to Cuba after the Bay of Pig, bringing people, material, eating and out during that time. And you were doing this by boat or plane? By boat. No, it was all by boat. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Mudwater. Mudwater is a coffee alternative containing four adaptogenic mushrooms. With only a fraction of the

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I found out a way to contact. them one guy who worked at the Maiketia airport who was in contact with the agency and I contacted him explain my situation he was the one who provided the ticket and everything arranged for everything for me to to fly out of Caracas for for Miami so when we landed here the normal procedure was they will pick us up and take off to a palaka for debrief for about three or four days okay it's sad because I had my I lost their my they should have given back to me but they kept my Cuban passport. The Navy gave it back to me. Then after that, of course, the agency already knew that I was there, and they were

part of the debriefing, so from there he continued to work with Dane back and forth. And I worked with the agency like that. I actually shook the hand of President Kennedy when he visited the Orange Bowl at the end of 1960. Oh, really? Two, yeah. He was, that's when the brigade gave him the flag, allegedly that was at the Bay of Peak, Kennedy accepted the flag in custody, and he promised that day that he will soon return the flag in a free Havana. He meant it. I honestly believe that he meant it, and I believe that's why he was assassinated in Dallas.

He darn well knew that if he didn't assassinate, Castro no he didn't assassinate Kennedy. Kennedy was going to assassinate him. It was true. The president was planning the assassination of Castro after that for sure. Wait, say that one more time? Peter Castro knew if he didn't assassinated Kennedy, Kennedy was going to assassinate him. Oh, got it. Okay. Okay. It was a matter of, he knew that. And that's why he was, I'm convinced he was part of the assassination of the president in Dallas. And we know that there was a Cuban captain, Fabian Escalante, who was a perfect shooter and a sharp shooter. He spoke fluent English. And we all knew that he was in Dallas that day. then he was the second shooter.

And then he left for Mexico and from there to Cuba on private planes. So you don't think it was Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone? I think Arby Alps was one of the shooter. I am convinced that this guy, Fabian Scalante, was the second one. That's the famous bullet that is impossible to be able to trace because it was another shooter. Now, at that time, the Johnson administration knew and they had information from the Bureau of the participation of the Cuban

and the assassination of the president. But for national security consideration, they had to cover that up because if they had to recognize at that point in time that the president of a foreign government, like Cuba, assassinated the president of the United States, they had to invade Cuba. And they knew they were already inside Cuba four offensive missiles. Cuba was able to sneak in four offensive nuclear missile into the island.

I guess that's why when Khrushchev knew that we knew that they had been able to put in four offensive missiles, that's when he decided openly to bring. those boat full of nuclear. That was the October crisis took place. Mm-hmm. Keep a missile crisis. What did you think, what was your opinion of President Kennedy? I thought that it's a different opinion from brigade members. A friend of mine here, he believes is a traitor, he hate him. In my opinion, I believe he was a young president in experience and very ill advice. And we had to pay the price. There's no question about it. And he

was responsible for him, like he took for responsibility. But then I believe he tried to amend it. and that got his life. He was, actually, he and his brother wanted to eliminate Castro Alcoast. It was something that they could not help it. I mean, that was one of the major things he ran on during his presidential campaign against Nixon. No, and he meant it. See, the fact that what he did after that, he opened the armed forces of the United States for the brigade officer. So there were 212 brigade officers.

I was one of them who joined the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines in Fort Ben, Georgia for basic training. And then also opened the Air Force of the United States for regular soldiers for Cubans to join the army, not only in Fort Jackson and all the military bases. There were thousands of Cuba who joined that. They were called Unidadas scuba, Cuban units. We were training for, like saying, for being a second lieutenant, 212 of us. And then he started organizing the assassination of the president.

Actually, we actually graduated after eight months from the train that gave us was called a special officer training program. They had to call it that because we were already second lieutenant. But the block of training was based on the OCS officer candidate school that they gave to the sergeant, which are going to be promoted. the second lieutenant. But they couldn't call it OCS because we were already officers. So they used the same block of training but call it SOTP, a special officer training program. So when I graduated from that program in late, I think it was like October or November,

before the November, it was in September or October. We graduated from the program. I was supposed to go to Fort Hallibur in Virginia to take intelligence training. But before that, our team came to visit me in Fort Benning and they asked me to resign my commission and to join him in a special operation that was a sponsor of President Kennedy to eliminate Castro. Right. And then he told me, this time, we are going to be the one in charge. We are going to be commanding this special operation. Either we win or we lose on our own. They are going to give us everything that we need. All right. Last time, we trusted the American. We did not participate in any planning of the operation. This one, we were going to do all the planning.

and he wanted him with the resign to be his head of communication. I told him and said, Manolo, what guarantee do I have the President Kennedy is behind this? He said, what guarantee do you want? He said, well, you want me to leave the army and go to a motel and being trained by the CIA in communication? Tell your source of whoever it is with the administration, I want to be trained in forebending, in full uniform of the U.S. Army, being paid by the U.S. Army. If they do that, then I'll resign my commission go with you. So it told me, fine, go and see your supervisor and ask him you want to take a special communication training. So here I go and see Major Angel Torre, who was in Puerto Rico in charge of our training of all the Cubans.

What was his name again? Angel Torres. So I went to the hearing and said, Major, you know, Lieutenant Rodriguez, all right to change to a special communication training. So he looked at me and he said, look, Lieutenant, first of all, as far as I know, that it's not such thing as special communication training. Second, if it were, it's too late to change, you are going to Fort Hallower in Virginia

for the intelligence training. And third, who told you? Sir, I cannot tell you. He threw me out of his office, which was normal. So we left Fort Benning, went to Miami for vacation before we went back to Fort Benning to pick up our things, to continue on to intelligence training was supposed to go. When I received a call from Aurora Street,

which is the Recruing Center in Coral Gable, to ask me to call Major Torres immediately. So I called Mayor Torres. in Fort Benning and the first thing that he told me is Lieutenant Rodriguez, come to Fort Benning. Immediately we have here, Mr. Musa and Mr. Flanagan, to give you your special communication training.

So I enlisted to all the members from the brigade, Luis Sierra, and Jorge Girot to go with me. We went back to Fort Benning. We were giving an empty building inside the military base and they got these two guys, Mr. Flanagan,

from the CIA in civilian, closed, who gave us a month and a half of communication training, and they assigned to us a sergeant from Puerto Rico origin, whose last name, by the way, was Castro to do the translating. Because I did not speak English because I went to school here, but the other two didn't. So we had this guy Castro to do the translation for us. And after we finished the training, we did resign to our officer commission, and we went with our team into Central America. He had enlisted the president of Costa Rica and the, and the president of Nicaragua, Somosa and Chico Orlish from Costa Rica.

And we had like three bases in Nicaragua. It was a naval base, a commando base, and infiltration team base. And guerrilla base. Then in Costa Rica, we had a communication training base and infiltration team base, both with the full support of both presidents. And we started training and the operating of that operation. I think unfortunately, President Kennedy was assassinated. When you were down there. Then because of the respect that they still have for Bobby Kennedy,

Bobby Kennedy was our direct contact with the CIA. Our team had dealt directly with Bobby Kennedy, and Bobby Kennedy was the guy who contacted the CIA on our behalf. We received, for example, all the weapons we received down there came in a huge barge that was towed all the way from Hamburg, Germany, U.S. military base, army base. It was given to us in the ocean. We had the M16. The M16 was experimental at that time.

The U.S. Army was still using the M1 Grand. We were giving the M16 the original one. We were the one who told the agency that this thing whenever got stuck in mud didn't work. It was a, it was a, but not something, the AK, for example, was much better. They seemed got stuck whenever you got in mud. That's why they then added up that plunger

on the right side that you push it in when that happened. Oh, okay. You get in mud, they would push it forward, will continue to operate. Right. But we were the one who told them about that defective that the M16 had. Oh, wow. We had 20-cali-ar machine that we were using.

We had a huge 200-some boat as a mother boat. We had two swift boats that were normally used in Vietnam that came out from being built in New Orleans. We had B-20 boat. And we have all kinds of armament from 20-cali-a-machian, a 50-caller-machine machine, and 20-millimeter machine. I mean, anything that we need, plenty of explorers, plus even everything. We started an operation doing raids against Cuba during that time.

Now in 1965, that was as far as Johnson put up with us, and at that point in time, he completely terminated our operation. They sent an assistant to President Kennedy, who was his assistant, who was Joseph B. Califano Jr. and he came to visit the people in the army, and they told they on behalf of the president, that the promise of President Kennedy, to liberate Cuba, die with President Kennedy. And there was no longer a commitment from the United States President

to liberate Cuba. If you wanted to stake and make a career in the armed forces, you are welcome to it. But be knowing there is no longer a compromise to liberate Cuba. So some of our people left, they went to civilian life,

and some continued in the military career. A lot of them became later on and retired at full colonels, lieutenant colonels. One of them, Oliver, who was deputy commander of the brigade, rose to the rank of Brigham, a general in the Washington National Guard.

Upon his retirement, he got his second star. So he retired as a major general from the U.S. Army. Most of our people, maybe 10 or 15 officers, retired as full colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, and some captain. We have three brigade members captains who die fighting in Vietnam. And we have the picture, honor their picture here, and the picture of all the people who participated in the armed forces at that time. So that was really a design.

unfortunately. Then after that, that failure, I came back to Miami. I have met my wife in Cuba when I was 15 years old and she was 18. First time I saw her, I told myself she's going to be my wife. Really? Yes. I mean, I was a stone when I saw my wife and she was three years older than I was when I was 15. So when I infiltrating to QI, I exchanged a letter with her when she was going to Virginia Interimont in college in the United state, maybe three or four letters. Then when I infiltrated you, I went to visit her at her home in Havana, but she wasn't home. She was in Siem Fuego, what she is from.

So when she came back, it was in early 1962, I went to visit her, and within six months, we were married. Wow. So we got married on May 25th. It's still my present wife. We are still have, we are going to have already, we are going to our 63rd years of marriage. That's impressive. We have 62 already.

When I got married to her, I told her. her I was going to leave the agency and everything. I was going to make a civilian life with her, but I want her to understand if there was something serious about liberated Cuba that I will go. What did she think about that? Well, she made a mistake of a second to that. She agreed to it. She did. So this is what happened. Here we are. We got married 25 of us. I started working a company called Ace Letter Service, $1 an hour. They were companies that the deep propaganda. for the hotel in Miami Beach, which only opened about four months of the year during winter only. The rest of the year, the hotel in Miami Beach were closed.

And then from there, my uncle was able to get me a better job in a company called Toving Packaging Company. I had to do with meats and ham and things like that. I was making, instead of $1, $1.35 an hour. Well, while I am working towing packaging company, I received a call in October from Tom Klein, was one of my case officer from the CIA, and he asked me, he wanted to meet me when I finished my work at the parking lot of the Howard and Johnson across from the University of Miami. So I arrived a little bit at the 5 o'clock in the afternoon in my leader car, and he had his big car in there. I sat in his car and he looked at me very serious. He said, Felix, the Marines are going to land in Cuba,

and we need you. I look at him and say, Tom, if the Marines are going to land in Cuba, what the hell do you need me for? Right. He said, well, you know how to operate a radio beacon. That's a signal you can set up somewhere to be able to the red plane to a specific location. They will get to that beacon and then whatever target, it would be very close to there. It was very easy for the plane to hit the base with precision. So he told me, I'll allow you to parachute behind a Soviet missile base near Santa Clara area and then set up this radio beacon and pre-located determined position we will give you so that our Air Force, when he hit with precision the air base.

Right. So I agree. I could not even call my wife. She waited for three hours in downtown for me to pick her off. She finally got a bus to our apartment. I was putting a safe house and asked for two other friend of mine who come to be three of us in the team. My only basic training was they put an instructor in parachute. And what they did, they had different table of different altitude, which will jump from the top end, the three point of contact. We didn't break a leg. So we practiced that. high altitude low yeah well one table will be this low and then it will be much much much much higher oh okay close to that high in there okay close to that thing up there then you have to jump and you know and do the three points of contact you don't break a leg so we did practice that during the time that we were there how high do you jump how high is the plane flying when you jump out uh it would probably be about a 600 feet you don't even carry a emergency parachute and you only deploy that high no no no there one

me to, when you are coming down on the parachute, you're going real fast. Right, right. Okay. So when you jump from that altitude, it's about as fast as you're coming down with your parachute on. So unless you are a professional, you can do like this, you know, and then let it go. And you know, people that actually walk. That's for professional.

Right, right, right. And you're coming down with a paratro without doing that, you come at that speed. If you jump from there, it will be the same speed you were coming down with a parachute. So you have to be able to have the three points of contact. you don't break your your your legs okay that's what we practice in there but then uh crucived back down the day that the plane was coming to to take us to parachute into cuba the operation was terminated so i was no longer working with the uh i lost my job at tobin packaging compass so i continued to work with the agency uh and then from there as when we joined the after after their operation

what do you do what do you continue to do for the agency for work like what no after that so that's when we went into the into the army the army Yeah, after I was out, and in 66 I went to Venezuela with a special communication team to set up a communication system for the SIFA, Service Information Forces Armada, was an intelligent server from the Venezuelan army, and also helped them in communication gear that they had problem with in the jungle when their special unit called the Casadores was fighting the Cuban trip, guerrillas in there. That was Captain Ochoa, who later was executed as a colonel in Cuba, he was the one who was handling the, the, the, guerrillas in Venezuela with Cubans and Venezuelans. Then I came back to the United States again. Then in 1968, they sent me at the beginning, they sent me to Peru. Excuse me, they sent me first to Ecuador, which we trained an intelligence unit for the presidency of Ecuador at that time. At that time, I had the rank of captain as a US army

captain with another name attached to the US embassy there. Then from there, they sent me to Peru was a paratrooper unit. I called the 48 Commandantia Warrior Civil. There's only two paratrooper units in police unit in the world. I think one is in Peru, the local Los Inches, and the other one is in Canada. The only police unit, they have paratrooper capability. So I went there, the Special Forces already left

when I arrived, they already trained then how to rigging the parachute and everything. And I became advisor to that unit. I recalled when I first arrived, the commander of the unit, Daniel Ogramonte, he asked me if I was a paratrooper. And out of embarrassment, I said, yes, sir. He said, how many jump? He said, 100.

I never jumped from a plane. But I was embarrassed to tell him what his advice and I didn't want or what's not a paratrooper. So asked me if I would jump with him that afternoon Sunday. He said, yes, of course. So I called a friend of mine whose name was Davier Devin Sanction and say, how the hell do you put this thing on? And say, you have never jumped. I say, no, you're not.

You're going to get killed. I say, bullshit. I practice already, you know, the three points of contact. Like, do that. So I went to my room. Then we went to the dining room in my pushing there, and we practiced jumping from different altitude. So I jumped with then 13 times. I got my win from the Peruvian Air Force for what I was civil.

Now, it was supposed to be there two years, but within several months, there was the military coup of Velasco Elvarado against constitutional president, Belawunda Terri. And actually, our unit was not in agreement with the military coup. The commander of the unit called for us. he asked for a plane for training, and he gathered all of us, and the idea was that we were going to take over the plane with full military gear and asked the force the pilot to drop us on top of the presidential palace, to regain the control of the presidency for the constitutional president, Belaunda Terri.

But the Army never released the Air Force plane that was assigned to us to do some training. At the end, about no, about 12 o'clock at night, the director of the police, General Barrios, he knew that they had consolidated the military coup. So he agreed, he went along with... So the army that was surrounding all from the Peruvian army, they just went back. So when we came to this country for vacation,

they terminated, actually, our participation in there because Velasco Blasovadavos were buying all the equipment from the Soviet Union and went completely to the other side. So they stopped the military assistance to Peru. Then in late 69, volunteered to go to Vietnam. They had me had a meeting with the Chiro Station from Venezuela who wanted me to go there and be an advisor to a 10,000 police unit. And then they called me and said, look, both people want you

for you to select. Tom Polgar in Venezuela wants you to go there to an advisor to this police unit, and Ted Schachlin in Vietnam wants you to go to Vietnam. I say, well, if you believe I will do better in Venezuela, in Venezuela, I will go there. But the same to you. I'd rather go to Vietnam because I'd never being in that part of the world.

So, you know, they were glad to give it to me. Not many people were volunteering to go to Vietnam at that time. When did you meet Billy Waugh? No, it was later on in training. Much later. Okay. Yeah. In basis here.

Oh, okay. We never coincided in the field. Oh, okay. So I, that's why I bought my home in late 1969, because I didn't want to leave my wife, you know, in a rented place. that we bought a house we still have here in near my between miami shore and north miami and then i went to vietnam in early 1970 i spent from vietnam from nineteen seventy 71 and 72 two and a half years now the agency tour is a year and a half

which i completed and i extended from another tour when i first arrived i was assigned to military region three vietnam is divided in four military region the i corps that they They call military region one, that's with the Nangis, that's north-closed to the North Vietnamese border. The second one next to it is Natrang, the second military region. And guess the most important one is the one that I was, the third military region or three corps, which is 11 provinces around Saigon. And then they call the fourth military region, which is the, where you have canto, that's what you have, the Delta, you know, the Delta area with the swamps.

And then they call Saigon region five. It's not a region. It's only a city, but they used to call it Saigon Region 5, which is not a region at all. But we were the ones surrounding and responsible for Saigon. With 11 military units around it. The PRU was called a Provincial Reconnaissance Unit. It started with another name many years ago. And then they changed for Provincial Reconnaissance Unit.

It was military unit that it was totally paid and controlled by the CIA with our intelligence to conduct operation against the Viet Cong in the different areas that we were. We had PRU in all four murals. military regions. Now I commanded the military region of region three and the one from region four from Kanto in that area. We had to advise then. The biggest unit was the one in Tainin with about 180 PRU. The smallest one was one of the room site with about 40 some 60 people. We have different units, different sites, which we paid, we advised, and we tasked them with intelligent besides the one that generated themselves. Now my main objective or really

challenge was to stop, they asked me to stop the rocketing of Saigon and stop the rocketing of the boat coming into Saigon. At the time they arrived every single week of the month, there was one or two, one hundred twenty two round Soviet rocket who would land in the Saigon area. They always tried to point to the American embassy and to the presidential palace with they hardly ever hit it. Right. But it was a psychological operation to be able to said that United States with half a million troops in country could not stop the rocketing of Saigon. It was a challenge for the government to do that. And also they were having both coming through the river all the way to the city of Saigua and they were always attacked

on the side by all the units from the Viet Cong called Sapper. Sapper is like our special forces in the Vietnam. And they could not stop it. They would have always an escort for Navy C world gunships coming into the river and they saw the explosion, they shoot the hell out of the area, and they never got anybody. So that was one of my main ideas, my main target that was given to me challenged to be able to stop the rocketing of Saigon and the rocketing of the boat coming to Saigon, besides other operations I conducted throughout the region. So were you riding around in helicopters looking for?

Yeah, what I did, I implemented the Army had a concept called Pink Teams. What they did, they had a huge 500 helicopter flying at three top level with no intelligence in general area where they knew the Vick Kong War, whenever they took fire from the enemy, or they saw the enemy, they would drop a smoke grenade, and they would be gunship shooting the hell out of the area. And then they continued to another area. What I did, I took that type of a concept and implemented.

First of all, I went with intelligence. They didn't go like they did. When I was going to an area, I knew they were going to be there. Then I did the same thing. I went with the huge 500-top level and found them, or took fire from them, marked it. Then the gunship will hit it. Then I'd come back again,

and then we bring troops, but they never did. We bring troops into the area to pick up the result with dead people or weapons or whatever documents we picked that out. We added that to the concept. It's what called corporations relampo, no, like, as raios, lighting, operation. For years, society has been shoving, dumbass, bulky George Costanza wallace down our throats,

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extra.com slash Danny Jones. It's linked below. Now back to the show. So we start operating in that. Now, I was lucky as hell to be able to stop the rocketing of Saigon. The thing is we never look at the right place. There was an area where they were staying and we never went there. Why? Because the water type will come down like 15 feet high. Nobody will be able to be and leave with 15 feet of water coming up and down. So I was able to. to capturing the operation, I don't know when he was going out of that area, Quak, who was the bodyguard of Tutank. Tutank was the commander of that specific unit who was attacking the Saigon.

It was lieutenant colonel in the Vietcon area. And then this guy, he was very pissed off at them because he was the only male in his family. When the North Vietnamese dig when they were losing, Viet Cong in the south, they would replace them with North Vietnamese army. soldiers. That's why it would never end it because if you lose 10 people here, there's thousands of people coming through the Hoshimin Trail with different capacities and they have contact through all Vietnam with different military units of the Vietnam inside. Hey, we need

10, we need five, we need 15 and they would be refurnished. So you kill 10 and in the next 10, 20 day you have another thing taking those people places. It was a never ending situation. So when I arrived, there were Viet Cong, when I left the Nouveecone, there was all North Vietnamese Army on those Viet Cong positions. So this guy told us and said, look, I was the only, normally what they do, they're a big family, Vietnamese families. They go to a home in North Vietnam, and there are maybe five males, they take four, and they always leave one to be able to attend to the family.

This guy was the only son, they got a five sister. And because they needed him, he was a paramedic in the Habakkuk province around Hanoi, they took him. So he was mad because they left his mother and his sister with nobody to help them. who was not very happy what he was doing. So he was extremely cooperative. And then through an interpreter, he told me, and say, you are looking at the wrong place.

This is the area where they are. I say, how come? How come? They say, well, they have 55-gallon drum, one on top of the oil that they solder, high enough that the water won't get to them. When the water starts coming up, they go on top of that on the trees,

and they sit there. What? And then they leave there. Then when the water comes down all the way, they will run down, they take the 122 mm-meter rockets they go over the river they shoot into sagon they went right back and go up in the in these in this five-gallon drum truck up there and they leave there so imagine with that information plus he gave us the general area where the areas were we were with him in the

helicopter and of course we waited until the tide went down all the way and then we go in with the helicopter at three top level they were running around and because it was mud you can see the the his feet going different so it was very easy to to find them. So we started eliminating then and then on the 4th of December of 1970 we had a big combat with Tutank himself on his main group near a small river in there and we were able to kill like 17 of them including Tutank including the commander. I recall because we went down there and that we had people badly, I thought badly wounded. I went in with one of the helicopters and I recommended the pilot. His name was

Bruce Bomberger. He was a warring officer from the army for a decoration. He received a medal for that. Because that guy landed on the heavy fire and he wouldn't move until we bring these three bodies into the heli. I pick up one, two other of my Vietnamese pick up the three. We brought all three into the helicopter thinking they were wounded. But at the time we arrived to, we're a steady-for evacuation helicopter. They were all dead. They were all dead. They were all dead. but we were able to disarticulate that. From that day on, there was not a single rocket to hit Saigon until after I left. Wow. We had to continue because they continue to bring people. They didn't give up. They continued to bring rocket personnel and we continued to eliminate them. And then I had, I picked up a sapper. One of the special units was doing the rocketing of the boat in Saigon and going up to Saigon.

And I found out that his backpack, he got a green electrical wire. It's about 60 meters. long. And then we interrogated the guy and another thing we had an advantage. A lot of our PRU were former Vietcon that we had recruited. Oh, really? And they were also compromised to a point that we

trusted he get this guy more than the normal guy from the street because he knew they double Croft then and they knew he would never be able to go back. So most of them, even when we pick up somebody, some of them maybe knew him, I've worked with him in the past. It was easy to work with those people in there. Yeah, there was a guy that was like a double

agent, right? That's that they, uh, they took him out and they killed him and they got, there was a couple guys, army officers that were out there. Yeah, maybe they were seeing. Yeah, but that's, I mean, that was like very, a big concern there. Where's like people from the Viet Cong who were being spies, who were, no, this way was, well, our people never, we had defect from our troops after we recruited them, the way we did. So this guy told us that he would set up a, on a, on a, on a platform, pointing at the middle of a boat going by. Then they line, at the line, 60 meter away,

with an electrical activator. And then they had a point of reference given to them. So they knew when the boat hit that point of reference, the rocket was ray in front of the boat. Then they activated. So what happened is there was a big explosion here where the rocket came out. The gun ship would hit that area.

They were not there. They were 60 meter on one side or the other. So what I did, I asked the commander of the unit, of the commander William, who was the commander of Naba, Naval Base, to bring the pilot of the gunships. They were the Sea Wolf's gunship escorting these people, a bunch of the pilot in one helicopter next to this area on the river.

And I set up one of my PRU with a red smoke grenade in the middle, then we measure that cable, 60 meter, and we put a yellow smoke grenade, or a yellow smoke grenade in the mirror and red smoke grenade on both sides. So they can visually see more or less the different, the explosion where the people were. So from their own, whenever they saw the explosion here, they would shoot the ship out of the area on both sides.

But you don't know what side they were. They were able to eliminate eight teams, and they had no idea what was going on. And they stopped the rocketing of Saigon. Wow. That's what I got from the commander of the Vietnamese Navy, I got the Naval Medal of Honor from him. And for stopping the rocketing of Saigon,

I got what they call it similar to our Medal of, honor for the army is called the the is the gold cross of gallantry with gold star that's the highest that they give then i have one of that i have two silver star with eight and six bronches star during my my whole time in vietnam in there that's incredible but it was it was extremely affected the way we run the operation with them in vietnam now during that time there was an argentinian general who visited vietnam uh in late uh in 1970, pardon, in 1971. He visited because the Chiva Station in there was the Chiva Station in Argentina.

He was a very prominent general, Thomas Armando Sanchez Bustamante, he was the head of the First Army Corps in Buenos Aires, number two to the president. The president was a military one, Alejandro Gustin Lanusei, was a military president. So they asked me to translate for him, and not only that, they asked me to give him a tour of the military region, explain what we were doing. which I did. So only one day I spent with him. Then they called me at the next day and said, look, General de Bustamante went to see Ambassador Bunker and he asked him, he wants you to be his advisor in Buenos Aires. We told him that you were still here, but if you really wanted you, he could

request you later on from our embassy in Buenos Aires. So he went by. I was, I had several helicopter accidents if I shot down five times. My back was in real poor shape. You got shot down five times. Yeah, my back wasn't really bad, bad shape. I could hardly walk at one point in time, so they decided to evacuate me in 1972. I didn't complete my three years in Vietnam, two and a half or less. And then I flew to Washington.

They had doctors who see me and everything. And then they told me that the general have asked me by name to go to Buenos Aires to be his personal advisor at the First Army Corps. And they were interested in me to go because he was the highest, after the president was number two guy, and they didn't have anybody in that position. They created a slot for me. And they say, okay, we're going to give you a waiver for your back problem.

You have to go to Panama for checkup every six months. And you can take the family with you. That's the first time I ever take my family with me. So my wife and I and my two kids, we all flew to Buenos Aires in the late 1972. And actually what they did. Now, before that, what happened, before Christmas time, when I went to Miami, I was called by Ted Shackle and told me not to fly into Miami

because there was a Cuban intelligence officer who defected in Paris and told them that his body having a drink with him, told him that he was involved in an operation to hijack the plane of the Cuban involved in the assassination of Che Guevara. He got no idea who it was. To hijack the plane of the Cuban who was involved in the assassination of Che Guevara. So not to fly into Miami, go anywhere else, but not to Miami. Meaning your plane? Yeah, the commercial plane.

Right. So what I did is they told me not to fly into Miami. So I flew into Atlanta, Georgia. I rented a car. I drove to Miami from there. Holy shit. Spained the 24th of December with my wife. Spending a year's Eve with her.

We call the Reyes Mag on the 6th of December or the kid beside the Santa Claus. And then on the 7th, I drove back to Atlanta. I had a plane that leave Atlanta, Houston, Houston, San Francisco, and then I had to wait like four hours, five hours in San Francisco to get another plane to go to Hawaii, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Hawaii, whatever. I had a cousin who lives that just still there. She's married to another Cuban here there in Atlanta. So she came to say goodbye at the airport. So I found there was a plane that lived one hour later. So instead of waiting five hours in San Francisco, decided only way for, say one more hour here with my cousin.

So I changed plane. Instead of the plane that went from Atlanta to Houston, I got a plane in Atlanta, Dallas, Dallas, San Francisco, one hour later. So I spent with her. So when I got to Vietnam that day, nobody was waiting for me at the airport. So I took a Lombretta. I went to the Duke Hotel, the CIA Hotel. I changed. I got into the embassy. The first guy who looked at me and said, what are you doing here? Say, hey, I supposed to ride today. Nobody was waiting for me. I said, no, no, no. your plane that we had in record had been hijacked to Cuba and we were finding out

what the hell do we do to get you out of Cuba they were very concerned that's why when we me and my wife went to Argentina they took our passport my wife and I and they took it to the State Department

they had all the details right you know my name and everything but then place of births they put Colorado instead of Cuba so in case our plane was hijacked they would claim me as a US citizen born in the United States I remember I still have a copy at home

of the passport that said place of births Colorado. That's insane. And then when I came back, of course, I tell people, I was a U.S. citizen born here for less than a year. Born in Colorado. Born in Colorado. So that, what year was that plane hijacked? That was jacked in December from 1971 to 72.

And it was hijacked and it was flown to Cuba. Yeah. And whatever happened, whatever happened, did they catch the person who hijacked it? Do you know what happened with that? No, nothing. The financial hijacked was probably a member of the Cuban intelligence. He had no problem.

And what about the passengers on board? Were they all fine? They probably returned everybody. The interest was having to get him. And it wasn't there. That's why why I always traveled. And imagine this. What happened was the Cuban had access to the airline to knowing what flight I was going.

If I had not done that, and I would have lived from Miami, they have no change to change planes. They would probably hijacked the plane from Miami. Because if they were able to find out that I was flying from Atlanta, they would never believe, but they would definitely find out that I was flying from Miami. Right, right, right. But what saved me was that I went to Atlanta and I changed plane in Atlanta. To stay with her.

Otherwise, I have no reason to change playing in Miami. We live on the same plane and they probably were taking me. So I was really lucky during that time. Did that make you paranoid at all after that? No, no, I believe in destiny. You believe in destiny? Oh, yes. Look, when I was in Vietnam,

Ted Shackley, my boss, used to tell people that I had a death witch. Yeah. Because the way I conducted myself in operation, believe me, I am no brave like that. He's not a death witch. God gave me the conviction

that I wasn't going to be hit. I was convinced. And no matter what I did, I knew that. Look, went down five-time helicopter. My helicopter was shot with bullet, wriggled with bullet, 40 times at least during the time. I flew like 300 mission in Vietnam.

40 times at least. I never touched me. I had a bullet. I had my home a fire extinguisher from a helicopter number 38. The bullet came through close to my leg. It hit inside the fire extinguisher. And boy, it was white of smoke all over the place in a helicopter. Everybody thought we were shut down. I was in El Salvador. Of course, we fly with no doors, so we took the trim out and on the air came down.

I kept the fire extinguish at my home with the bullet inside. the fire extinguish of there. But I knew. I just knew it wasn't want to happen to me. And he did. It didn't. That's super interesting. That's, I mean, do you think that was the same attitude

that a lot of people you worked with had? Or did you? I think that was unique on me. I really believed. It was unique to you. I, you know, there was a conviction that is not something that is hard to explain. I knew. I knew, beyond doubt.

That's why, you know, there shooting me I could come up with body if I didn't mind because I know it wasn't going to hit me. I didn't. Wow. Ever. I don't have one bullet in my, in my, in my, in my, my people who wanted next to me. Yeah. Not to the helicopter in different place, but I never got a bullet myself. Is there is. But in no bravery. It was the convention. I knew it wasn't going to happen. It didn't. Was there, were there any moments that you can think of in, in all of your tours, everything that you did that you thought you might not make it?

Like what was the closest you ever came to to death? Not to death. Well, you could see, yes, in Cuba. That time that I was supposed to leave, you know, when they got the house and everybody was executed. Right, right. Actually, we went to be to, and the boat wasn't coming that day. Didn't come that day.

We had to return back. On the way back, there were six of us in the in the car. was the driver, who later was the owner of the Erasmus Martinez, it was the owner of the Supermercados Presidenta here in Miami. We had three members of the Cuban Institute of Petroleum Institute in Cuba who had just performed a sabotage and destroyed 15 oil trucks, fuel trucks. I mean, they were looking for them for execution, all three of them. Two of them, I think, they were driver, one were driver, the other one were security for the area, and they blew up that. And then one guy came from the guerrilla from the Escan Drive called the Osado.

He is the only one in the group who had a revolver with fight bullet. And he got one thing that was missing. He was shot during combat. He got a typo. So we are coming back 1 o'clock in the morning in this car. And we make a turn. There is a stop of Castro's troop in there, a checkpoint. Never was there before.

One o'clock in the morning. We were coming like 120, 140 kilometers. an hour. And the driver said, why do I go say, stop? I just came to my mind. I had a big envelope with name written Clarence in black ink. It was for the CIA guy in Miami. So I put it in here. Oh, Jesus. And we stopped beyond the checkpoint, the speed that we went. I said, I told the people, look, lower the windows, take the safety out. And if they ask for our documentation, let's try to throw the door to them and try to take a weapon front. And that's the only thing we can do. But then when they way by, I put my head out, say,

Compaio, pass a little strong. And they look at me and say, no, companion, no, pass a nada, see. And they let us go. What does that mean? Yeah, they saw six men inside a vehicle. And the car was a Chevrolet from from 1958 black, which similar to the one that the G2, their Italian service used. So the language that I use, the language that they use. So they saw six men inside. So I guess they probably thought two things. Maybe they are one of us. If they are not and they stop, maybe they are machines and they're going to kill us.

Yeah. So they told us to continue. Now, when I came back on the following two days, which I finally lived, the three people from the petroleum thing, they declined to be taken out by boat. They all went to different embassy. When I got to the Venezuelan embassy, one of them was in the Venezuelan embassy. They didn't want to go through something like this again. Wow.

Let me tell you, if they have picked us up there, we were having executed by firing squads. Definitely. because there were three people from the Skaanbright, one people from the Skaan bright, three who blew all of these oil for the Cuban government. And it was me from the infiltration thing. So, you know, that was early on. That was tremendous. That was when you were very young, you encountered. So you had this.

I was when I was in Vietnam, I was in Bolivia, it was 26. I was less than 30 years old. Right. So, but that experience early in Cuba kind of like primed you for all the stuff. stuff that you did after. So you had experienced, you'd come close, you'd have a lot of near-death experiences before that early on in your life when you were very young and you'd experience lots of death early. Yeah. Now this, after Vietnam, I came back from Vietnam. There was a, well, it was a lot of Argentina. Then when I came back from Argentina, it was an eventual tour

in the Caribbean. I was what they called Island Hopper. Now, Miami is the only, CIA base called a station. You know, the CIA when they have people in cities, they don't call it a station. Station overseas, all of them. All these cities are called it base, like the New York base,

the Chicago base, CIA people, San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles Bay, those are bases. Why do they call Miami Station? Because Miami is the only one who run a station out of here. For example, there is no chief of a station for the Caribbean. So they have one chief of a station

who operates out of Miami. Got it. There are different in the Bahamas. There are different people that we don't have enough people or intelligence to have a personnel in one embassy in those places. So they run our intelligence capability from the Miami area. So I took the responsibility of one of those. I had to take out the Dominica, Forte, France, all of those little island, we had alien

that I had to attend to. And it was really uneventful, you know, it was very boring doing it. The only thing that later on I learned was kind of interesting was, I was assigned to evaluate a lady in Dominica, in Rosso, the city of Rosso in Dominica. And she was a school teacher or something, and very bright, a very black young woman. I talked to her, we invited her for dinner. I gave her a very, very high report about her. When they invaded Grenada, I learned that she had become the Prime Minister of Dominica.

Eugene Charlotte. And she was who headed, she was the head of the coalition who attacked, even though the United States was behind the whole thing, but she was the head of the coalition who attacked Grenada. And we're in charge this from Dominica. I was the one who evaluated her for the agency. And what did you do to evaluate her? Like what did you? No, no, I never even talked to her. I just learned that. Oh, you just learned it? Yeah. I felt cheat. I was the one who gave good war about her to the agency. Apparently it came through and they made. may have heard Prime Minister of Dominica.

So you weren't really into the spy stuff? No. You were more into the combat, the hand-to-hand, the guerrilla stuff. In the paramilitaria parloria of the Agencies. For example, after that, I had my backwax in pretty poor shape in 75. You know, I could, even today, I have lost, I can show you my driver's licensing. He said that I have five feet 11 inches high. If I have five, six now, it's much.

I have lost so many from the accident, the grinding from the helicopter. I have missed disc. I have one vertebrae, which is 50% embedded into the other one, and the nerve goes 90 degrees and goes down. The radiologist took a look at that and said, look, if I don't see you in front of me, I will look you in a wheelchair. You should not be walking. Now, I can sit.

I can go in bedside. I cannot stand or walk. It's a tremendous pain in my back. that's what I have I have an electric when I give touring here I have an electric little car like oh really

and there because for me to walk it's it's torture well I mean the body is one thing but your mind is still sharp you still got it together pretty well

you know so someone who's been through when I finished that I did a couple of interesting the worst time that saved my life was I was still with the agents in 75 I had yet been operated from a hernia

from the Hyalea Hospital I was in my home recovering and I got a call from Washington and said, look, you have to come immediately we want you to go to Lebanon. Lebanon. Lebanon. I said, Lebanon. I said, look, Tom, I just been operated, you know,

I'm just second day in the house. I don't care. Put a a, uh, put something around, but you have to go. And don't tell anything to our chief of station there. Now he's the boss. He's in Washington. So the guy who was chief, of a station here, Dick, I told him and said, look, you know, I went, I was trying to, I was planning to retire then. I went to go to the keys to try to find a job. Okay, fine. So I flew to

Washington. They instruct me to go to New York, meet this guy, and go with him to Lebanon. What happened is the chief of intelligence of the Lebanese army. I wanted to set up some infiltration team, intelligence thing to penetrate the hesbollah. And since I worked in infiltration thing, had the experience and all of that, they wanted me to have. helping with that. And then they introduced me to this guy, which is well-known. He died already. Sarkis G. Zoganylian, he was an armed dealer. He represented at that time coal industry for Lebanon army. Really? He was the representative of them. But a lot of people call him the Merchant of Death. And he had his own private plane in Portugal full with Soviet military equipment. It was for Christian

guerrilla, but there were Soviet material that he bought in Poland. He just bought the plane from American Airlines. From Pan American Airlines. He's like Victor Boot. So here we are. We had dinner with him with his mother and brothers in New York. And the following day, we flew on TWA, first class, to Lisbon. Lisbon at that time was communist.

Portugal was communist at the time. So when we landed there, he didn't even have a visa something like that in his passport. But he had a big roll of $100 bill, a huge one. He started giving tips to the people at the airport. About 10 minutes later, we had the head of the airport with us. You know, I don't know how much money he gave the guy. The guy drove us in his Jeep all the way to his plane.

Now, his plane was painted Pan American, but he didn't have the name Pan American. But the tail yet, the tail was November 711 Papa Alpha, PA was being Pan American. That was the tail of the plane. He had an American captain, he had a Cuban navigator. called Garavito, last name was Garavito.

When we took off, and the plane was loaded, with like K-47, RPGs, ammunition, oh, God, but it was for the Christian guerrits. It was for the right people. It was for the right people. So we were supposed to arrive in there about 8 o'clock at night,

and the army was supposed to be waiting for us. These pilots grew up with the GMT time, and we arrived an hour earlier. I remember landing in Beirut, a beautiful view of Beirut at night. You know, I landed from the coffee, I remember he calling the tower and saying there was a male Middle East airline contract the plane by the military to go to the military ramp.

So they took us to the military ramp. Now when we arrived there, the authority, which are Muslim at the airport, they didn't saw a Middle East airline plane. So it's an American pan-American airline there. So that's where I learned that the word Chathamuta, man, SOB in Arabic. Because Herzakie was hanging at the door inside the place. plane. The authority on the other side was trying to open the door and they were calling Charamuta back and forth. One hour. I was seeing there. I looked at the bag and see all of that

weapon and say, shit, I didn't tell my boss in Miami, you know. I was thinking what's going to happen. Now, we waited for one hour. The army arrived. They threw all the mottling out of the area. We didn't even go through costume. They unloaded the plane with military trucks and then we went to the city. Well, I had meeting with the head of intelligence. We started, I'm trying to organized that, but then I just spent about a month in Lebanon. The day that the war broke, completely, they closed the airport. I left on the last plane was a golf airplane from Lebanon to London. Wow.

The last day in there. I never got to go back and follow up on that training. It was because the war already broke to a point that there was no impossible to do that. So I came back and went back to Miami. Then in 1970, in 1983, I tried to do. go to El Salvador because I knew that my helicopter concept would be helpful in El Salvador, knowing the guerrilla in El Salvador. I even went to El Salvador at that time, met with the minister of foreign affair,

Fidel Chavez Mena, through his close friend of his was a millionaire. Nothing came through. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Verso. The older I get, the more I'm prioritizing my health. The goal is to keep my mind sharp and my body strong. If you've watched this podcast before, you might know that. that I'm very much obsessed with health and longevity and the things you can do to hack your biology

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I had the log that my boss from Vietnam, Don Gregg, was then the National Security advisor to Vice President Bush. Right. And he knew darn well how effective was my operation in Vietnam. And explained to me what I was trying to do the same thing in El Salvador. So he helped me from the vice president office. He got me an appointment with Thomas Motley, Secretary of State for Latin America. Let me tell you, I didn't realize it was so difficult when you volunteered,

not charging a single penny to go to the place for yourself. It's almost impossible unless you have something like this behind you. It would not happen. Right. Why? Because the military commander was General Gorman, Paul Gorman. He is the one responsible for the advice all over South America. He's not an interest of one guy from Cuban origin from the CIA,

retired to come to implement a concept that he had no idea if it works or not. And he is the military commander, and he got no control over me. So he will oppose that, definitely. Now, what we did is don't Greg got me in touch with. Thomas Molley, Undersecretary of State, to explain him my concept. I also brought the picture with Shed. I've helped, you know, the operation were a capture Shed. Yeah.

So I briefed this guy. Then they got me a meeting with Nestor Sanjic, who was Undersecretary of Defense for Latin America. We did the same thing with him. And at that point in time, then General Gorman asked the White House, the military assistant to the president, it was Admiral Murphy. They asked him that he wanted to talk to me before I went to El Salvador. So I got a call from the White House and told me, you know,

I called this guy Captain Elder, who is the Special Assistant General Gordon. The General wants to talk to you before you go to a Sabbath, so I called this guy. We later became a friend. He later became a colonel. He was a captain, a major, a major elder. So I called him and said, look,

he said, the general director of you come to Panama to see as soon as possible. I said, all right, nine o'clock in the morning. Can you pick me up at the airport at 7 o'clock? You mean today? I said, hey, you say as soon as possible. Well, let me check. He checked with the general and said, well, can you come tomorrow? Because generally busy to say, no problem.

I like somebody to pick me up at the airport because I bring in some things that I don't want the Panamanian to see. Say, no problem. Captain Santiago will be waiting for you at the airport. So I brought up my album with the thing that I did in Vietnam, you know, that shows them exactly the capability that I had implementing counter insurgency operation. So we landed, they picked me up. They put me up to a VIP general's room. And on the following day, I went to Horry High to the quarter of General Warman.

And I spent like five hours briefing him personally. We were interrupted once because there was a two-star Peruvian general who arrived, and he went to say hello, and then he came back again. And then after I finished briefing exactly what my... And he liked the concept that I was going to bring. He said, look, I told him, and said, look, I think now that I am here, if you can get me a meeting with Ambassador Pickering, the U.S. ambassador in El Salvador, so I can brief him with that.

They say, fine. but I want you to brief my middle group commander, Colonel Jim Steele, too. So I will send you on my private plane. So he had a huge plane to travel to the United States. He got a spoiler twin-engine plane, corner C-12 plane. And he got his plane to fly me from there to El Salvador. So for people that are listening that may not know, can you give the context?

What was the U.S. doing in El Salvador? Well, they had military assistance in El Salvador. They had a full colonel called James Steele. He had a lieutenant colonel who was a friend of mine from the Bay of Phoenix. Lieutenant Lou Rodriguez in there. They have a full crew, and they were the one who support with military equipment and training. They had a bunch of command sergeant mayor

advising the military unit. They had an advisor of the CIA, had an advisor, for example, La Pral, who was like special forces of the Air Force, the special unit. Who were we training, and what were we training them for? No, they were training for a special operation. La Pratt will go in clandestinely to run into base camp.

They did the same thing our special forces did. Right, okay. The special unit of the Air Force. And the middle group supported them with weapons, ammunition, fuel everything for the operation itself. But my concept was different. They weren't implemented. They had no idea what my concept worked like.

Right. Now, they were used to fly in, for example, a helicopter at over 2,000 feet. They never go loud because they were afraid. Or sometimes, if you fly lower, much lower than 2,000 feet, then you're really inspired, that's exposed. Either you fly at three top level, you go high, you're high. top level, you go high. You don't fly in between. No in between because you're supposed to But they don't know that. They didn't ever experience that before. So I got then the meeting with

General Bustillo, the head of the Air Force. Finally, he's the one who will give us the final decision. And I explained him, the con say, I mean, what he told me is say, fine, I have no problem in you doing that, but we have a problem. I said, well, what is the problem? I said, well, I cannot pay you. And said, who is asking you for pay? I have my retirement for the CIA, the only thing that I need is a place to state, give me some food, and that's it. You don't need to pay me a cent. He said, okay, fine. Then we'll accept you. Now, when I finally got there, he had me like a 10 football. I didn't know why. He rejected me. If I came this way, he went the other way. He would not even talk to me. I couldn't understand that. I said, look, you know,

I hear and come myself and risking my life for these people, because I believe that I can help them. And this guy won't even talk to me. But, right? Let's go along. So I finally started trying to teach them how to fly the concept. It was hard. Because when I got in the helicopter with one of the other pilots, and I put at three top level,

he started to go up and up little by liter and later. And that's just dangerous. When you are 500 feet, they can shoot you down very easy. Right. When you are in trouble of the tree, real touching the tree almost, when they hear the helix, they don't know from where you are coming

because the sound of the head. helicopter is diffused probably to... They don't know you're coming this way or that way, when you're really close. But the time they see, you're gone. Because you're going over 50 miles an hour. You're gone. But they understand that. So we program the first operation.

A friend of mine, Luke had me with an owner of a property near the Lempah River, whose mechanic from boat mechanic was kidnapped by the guerrilla to their base camp to fix some sandpans, some engine of the boat in there. So I got the guy. He told me exactly with the camp. I flew him with the helicopter like he did in Vietnam.

We took the picture of the area. He told me exactly with the camps where I had a full intelligence package. I tried to do it commemorating the Bay of Pigs April 17, 1985. Like I hit for that day. So I took all my intelligent package, go to the Estado Major. I presented the package. They looked at it. They knew it was good in Italians.

They liked it. They told me, no, you're going to do on the 17. You have to do on the 18. They had a army battalion not far from that area. They didn't tell us anything. They told the battalion to come in to the base camp, okay? They didn't tell him that they were going in that day. What happened?

These people have posed all around the perimeter. They saw the army coming. So when they arrived into the camp, it was empty camp, brand new empty camp. They have just left the camp, okay? So when we go in the next day, there was nobody there. So the people are still laughing at me that my intelligence was false. We didn't know that the army had gone there the day before. So it got to a point that, you know, they were making fun of me

that I carried this little granaditas, the wound when they fired with a heavy weapon. Because they were not used to use a smoke grenade to color smoke grenade to mark target in the ground. They never did that at three top level. So I have to borrow the Air Force didn't have any. We have to go to the paratrooper unit to borrow this smoke grenade from them. from them to be able to use in the operation. So when we came back, we didn't find anything. We found a camp, empty camp.

I came back. You know, they were making fun with me. I told Cornyn and said, look, I am leaving. These people doesn't want any help. No, no, no, no. I told me, look, I have faith in your operation. Let me talk to the commander of the helicopter units. What's Captain Triggeros.

So he went to sit Trigero and say, look, you know, you didn't do it. Because we didn't do a wall either. I was supposed to fly in first three top level. My machine and they didn't work on the river they came back to fix the machine and the helicopter arrived before I did.

It was all wrong. Even though they were not already there. If they had been there, they would have probably been gone. So they told them, look, you have to do the way Max, my name was Max Gomez. Max tells him how to do it. So at that point in time, they arrived at intelligence from some parts saying, hey,

their guerrilla movement in Cerro de San Pedro. So Trigeros Tell the colonel We just received some information Some guerridden this area We are going to try Max concept And then you can rate us

To see how good we did Why they call you Max? Okay, making fun of Right I didn't even when I was said Let me try it so I got my grenade I got into the goddamn helicopter Ready to go to Cerro de San Pedro

Well, he was a gold mine It was they were all there First of all they are not used to helicopter flying at three top level. Normally what they tell the guerrilla is when you hear a helicopter, even if you are in the open, you hit the ground and don't move.

And it's true. You're flying at 2,000 feet, for example, and you're looking at the ground. Any small movement is attracted to your eyes. Right. You cannot spot him. So what happened? I am flying on top of the trees.

This guy here, the helicopter and they go down, they don't move. I, slower down, I can shoot them, they're not shooting back. It's ridiculous. Because they were told to hit the ground and don't move.

But they didn't tell him not with the helicopters on top of you. I was on top of them. So I eliminated, I don't know, maybe 15 or 20 of them that way. Wow. Then continue to go. Then they come and say,

hey, there are a bunch of people going on the top of a ravine, going into a wooded area, not much, on top of two mountains, you know, empty, no, no. So I went out with the helicopter, my other pilot, he emptied the mini-gang completely on them. They were about eight of them. They killed like seven of them. And there was one that survived, and another little kid that rung into the woods in there. Okay. And here are some huge backpack, especially there was a female gorilla, I got close to her. It wasn't even more than 15, 16 years old.

Wow. And she had a blue, huge backpacking back of her. We know what it was. It was the commander, Ninda Diaz, moving from one base camp to the other. So they have all the documentation from the PRTC. Partios Revolutionary of Los Travajadores Central American. It's the Workers Party, Communist Party, from El Salvador, or Central America.

They were moving on. So I told my pilot, said, look, as Triggeros, Captain Triggeros, Sander Triggero, to bring some troops. He called back, it was Sunday. They didn't thought we went to happen and there was no trooping and standby to go to react to the operation. You got to say, no, no. The captain said that, no, they don't have any troops to come. I said, okay, put me down.

I am going to pick up those backpack, and I will bring him to the helicopter. I'll pick it up. All right. He started putting me down, and then right next to this guy. This guy was, I don't know, maybe like a cue. He was bigger than the Salvadorian dark hair, and he had a foul. And he started moving the file toward me. So I already had on a strap from the helicopter.

I opened fire with the M-16 and killed him. The helicopter and told me, listen, machine and fire, and they tell him my pilot. I wasn't even connected to communication. They tell him, you are taking fire and leave. I almost, you know, had to have myself in the helicopter because he just took off. Wow. And I said, look, we weren't taking fire.

I am firing at the guy. Right. But the pilot didn't want to come down again. So he convinced Trigero's to bring some troops finally. And then we see this guerrilla moving behind the trip. Okay. We wrong out of ammunition with that. So I always carry my M16 with about 18, 30 round magazines, 30 bullet each.

I learn, which I tell them because they didn't know that. A lot of times, if you try to fire all 30 rounds one time, it will get a jam normally what will happen you pull the tree with third round to jam to let it go at one time normally they get jam right and the only reason i learned vietnam they don't get jammed you put the bullet out you get wd 40 oil and you spray a little bit like this then you go and put it one by one you don't have a misfire all 30 will go straight and when you fire a gorilla you're flying you don't fly till till all 30 round and you try to spread toward where the target is because it's impossible to eat somebody when you're flying at a surging a speed

So I started doing that with her. I didn't know it was her. I thought it was a heat because she had his hair on the side of a leader. It was a little hat, a camouflage hat. You hit her? Yeah. And she said six times. It was being in very important place because she survived.

And then they come to helicopter and they pick her up. They pick a little kid. They carry, and one was a lot of the world. We didn't shoot at him. There were two kids about six, seven years old. They kidnap those kids to be able to send documents to the cities and pick up documents from the city because a kid nobody bothered with them.

So they bring to the city, go to this location, he picked up and have the point of contact with the city. So he captured her and a little kid. That was kidnapped in another place. So when I came back to the clinic where she was being treated, I wanted to get a souvenir and there is, everybody has taken everything as a souvenir. their uniform, everything.

The only thing that was left was her panties and her brazier. That's all left. Wow. The panties didn't smell good, so I took the brazier with me as a souvenir, okay, which created a problem

you would not believe, you know. When I was coming home, I always came home with an Air Force plane that came once a month to become PX sing for the PX, okay, because I didn't have money to fly back and forth.

So every single month, the plane will come for three days to become things for the for the PX in armed forces PX in in El Salvador. So I used to come in the plane and spend three days with my family and then fly back in the plane. So I flagging the plane here, I had the goddamn brassiere inside my suitcase. I forgot to mention to my wife.

So when she unpacked, she saw the brassiere and she could not believe it was a war trophy. She was convinced I was doing hanky-punky in El Salvador. I tried to tell her. Well, I was in the doghouse. hard sell. I was in the doghouse close to two years. In two years, Nidia Nida wrote a book after she was released because eventually she was released, she went to Cuba, then she came back and became a congresswoman in the part of saying in El Salvador. And she wrote in her memoirs, she wrote a book

called Nunca Tuva's All right. I was never alone. And she mentioned at the end there that I was the one had that disrespectful because I took a personal thing of her as a souvenir. So I showed to my wife. Then she apologized to me for the first time. She believed me after that. Before that, she didn't believe me. What a story. Well, I was flying with the Salvador in 85. That's when I got involved. I went there to fly my helicopter concept. But in December, September of 1985, that's when Jorge Masken also asked me. First of all, he asked me to pick up Posada Carrele. Remember the guy. Bruce Posada Carreeligley has escaped from a Venezuelan prison. had him in Aruba. So he asked me if I would go to Aruba and protect him in El Salvador.

I said, look, I cannot fly to Aruba because I have a lot of operations. But if you fly him to El Salvador, I will give him protection. That's what we did, you know. So he started operating with another name, helping me in El Salvador during that time. Then one point in time in 1986, I got a call from a communication and a letter from Oliver Norris. What happened to him was they, there was. a plane from Caleros, one of the head of the resistance brother, who was bringing things pro-the-contra from the United States. Now, the only thing at the time,

because of the Boland Amendment that you could bring from the United States legally, was uniform, booth, sacks, backpack, communication equipment. That's it. You're going to bring a single bullet or a knife or anything from there. Well, they had this C-54 plane full with all of these things, civilian clothes. And then what they did, Mario, who was the brother of the other Calero, he brought a television crew, I don't know, it was CBS or NBC, one of those crews.

The plane landed in the Palmedora Military Base, which is American and Honduran. When the Honduran saw a crew of television, now everybody knew they were helping, but not to the point, put it like so black and white on television. So when they saw that crew coming out of the plane, they said, oh, go back, you're not authorized to land here. So they sent the plane back with everything that was on board. Okay.

They couldn't do anything. By that time, Oliver North had a C-130 from Southern Air Transport in Portugal. They have bought a lot of weapons in there. And they bought the K-47. They bought some hand-grenate that were old, by the way, all kinds of things. They bought them from where? Hang-narene from Portugal. The government of Portugal.

The plane was already there loading it up. The Honduran, because of what happened, is that you are no longer allowed to bring any plane in here. until we saw this problem with your with your buses right so he couldn't fly the plane there the plane was costing him every day standing there doing noise so then he came to me he said look uh felix and you are very well connected with the salvador and they respect you see you can get authority from their minister of defense for us to bring this plane down and they we can unload all of these but over a hundred thousand pounds of military

equipment put it temporarily in a salvadorian warehouse until we can can solve the problem in Honduras. We can bring them back to Honduras. Right. Okay. So I went to see the head of the Air Force, General Bustillo. I explained to him what it was. Of course, they wanted to help the Nicaragua resistance, but they knew most of the the weapon, all the weapons coming into El Salvadori that came directly from Cuba by boat or through the Sandinistas from Nicaragua. So they very are ready to help the Nicaragua resistance. So he told me going to talk to Vides Casadon, the Minister of Defense, and tell him that I support 100%. So they agree. So in the following day, I was waiting in there. Here come the C-130

from Southern Air. They unloaded the whole thing. We put in a warehouse in El Salvador. And from there, they asked me, ask the Salvadoran, if we could do maintenance of the aircraft in El Salvador. We will pay for the fuel. We will pay for the mechanics. We will have our own mechanic. We'll pay for every spare part. Oh, they agree. That's how we got involved with the Salvador, for the Nicaran resistance. That's how when shit, he's defense that the plane of Hassanfoss went down in Nicaragua. He named you, right? That's, he named me. Well, he didn't know my name. Oh, I thought, I thought he actually gave your name up. He named Max Gomez. Max Gomez. Now, Mike Wallace went to date a 60 minute with

him, with Hassanfoss. He did later on in 89. Mike Wallace did a 60 minute of my life. Did anybody know that you were Max Gomez? Who knew you were Max Gomez? I'm Felix Rodriguez, the Cuban government. So the Cuban government, the one who gave the intelligence to the Sandinista that I was Felix Rodriguez. So they gave the information to Mike Wallace. Hasse and Fawkes didn't say Felix Rodriguez because he didn't know my name. Got it. Got it.

He only told him. I understand. Got it. And then Mike Wallace wanted to say, well, Max Gomez is Felix Rodriguez because the Cuban told him. Got it. I see. I see. And that's how my name came involved in the Iran-Contra thing.

That's why then they asked me to testify in Congress as a witness in May of 1987. What was that like going through that whole thing? Let me tell you, it was, how can I put it? It was, it was not, I would say, it was bothersome. You know, I feel bad from a point of view that it is disturbing. They have to be involved in something that I have nothing to do really with that thing. And see the political angle that they. was going to bring. They all wanted to bring George Bush into that operation.

Because of my friendship with Don Gray, they wanted to be able to say that George Bush, that what they did say, actually, that Felix Rodriguez went down there, sent by the Vice President to violate the Boland Amendment. And the helicopter flying was a cover-up operation for his real operation who was to be able to violate the bulleting amendment and help make a round resistance. It was not the case. It was the other way around. It was by coincidence. I got involved in that thing. They asked me to testify 27, 28 of May of 1987.

And then, of course, when the plane went down, I had to leave El Salvador, went to Miami. I had to hide. The plane was, I had people in front of my house. It was a pain. He asked to move from there. Couldn't go anywhere. And all the paper was trying to, you know, to ask you question.

It was a mess. Then I received a subpoena to testify in front the Iran contract committee. I had to go several times And the problem is that Everybody wanted me to bring a lawyer And I didn't want to Well first of all I could not afford one Right

But Jorge Mascanoza The leader of the Cuban American Foundation offered to pay a lawyer for me And the White House offered to pay a lawyer for me Mascanosa because he didn't want to come out That he was the one who asked me to hide in their Posada Carrillas

Even though I told him I will never mention that But you want to make sure I didn't talk about that because he was the one who was made to bring Posada Carrilyt into El Salvador. And then the White House was concerned about the vice president. And I told them, look, I told them, at one point, I was, I was as a witness of the Senate. One time, there is, I don't know, five, six, seven deposition at different time with different people. One of them was at the top floor of the Senate. And they were mostly Democrat and maybe three or four Republicans.

Who was deposing you? The Iran contract committee. The Iran contract. Is that Danny Sheehan? No, no, no, no. That's nothing to do with the Iran country. Oh, I thought you were... I was a liar from the Christing Institute.

Oh, okay. No, nothing to do with this. Oh, okay. No, he even had to pay... Everything he was saying was BS. Nothing was true. Right, right. No, Xi had nothing to do with this.

It was really the U.S. government. So as I am waiting, the guy who came out before me was McFarlane. They were deposed in McFarland. Oh, yeah, yeah, Macfarlane. Yeah, I was next to McFarland. And I told them, I said, look, because they asked me and say, look, people want me to bring a lawyer. But I tell you what, if I have to bring a lawyer,

for what I have done, I am in the wrong country. And I don't believe I am in the wrong country. I don't need a lawyer. So everybody would look at them like it was nuts, all right? So time goes by, the White House insisted again that they wanted me to bring a lawyer. They asked me to go to Washington, talk to Boydon Gray, who was the lawyer to the vice president, and later became lawyer to the president.

And he told me, I said, look, Felix, we know the vice president didn't do anything wrong, but you don't know this congressman. They might trick you into saying a thing that might hurt the vice president. We allow you to bring a lawyer. I said, I won't. I would not bring a lawyer.

Well, at least talk to one. I said, okay, but I didn't talk to anybody. So I came back to Miami again. Now, my son and my daughter heard your story that if I didn't bring a lawyer, I was going to go to prison. That was what people said, told them. No, they were kids. I didn't know that until maybe six months ago.

I always kept a contact with the FBI. Because the situation with Che Guevara, the advisor, I was, his advisor, Centeno and I was assassinated in Paris by the sole command of Che Guevara. Major Quintanilla, who was a colonel who was assassinating in Hamburg, Germany, with the command of Che Guevara. And at that time, we're talking to the 70s.

I got a call in my house, I didn't know Felix Ramos, the name I used in Bolivia, you're going to be next. But I told the agency. So the agency at the time wanted me to change name

going to another state, which I refuse, because it's hard. It was traumatic for my son and my daughter to change their name and lose all their friends and then see our immediate family

every six months in another state. It wasn't worse. It wasn't worse than being killed. So I refused that. So what they did, they came to my home. They put iron fences in my house. They built a garage, so that my car will sleep inside the garage.

They gave me a... Elize to carry a concealed weapon. It was very difficult to get one. And now everybody can get one, not at that time. And they gave me a telephone in my car. Now, the telephone are waiting at least... They're not sold. They're the old one in the car that was with sick line...

Massive. ...in the back, and they didn't think that... It was 10 years waiting period for a darn phone. Wow. So when I apply, I recall the guy, I called me from the phone company. I say, Mr. Rodriguez, if I am still here, call me in 10 years. I called the agent and say,

look, this is what I've been told. So they called me back and said, call the guy again. I said, look, he told me 10 years. Call the guy again. So I called the Mr. So I'm sorry. I know you told me 10 years,

but have you heard anything about my phone? His answer was, Mr. Rodriguez, I don't know who the hell you are. For your phone number, so-and-so, will be connected the day after tomorrow. And then they took my car, it was a 12. year old Cadillac, Seville, they took it to Landley and they bulletproof my car.

And then I did sign a document for the CIA that if I got assassinated, connected to my service, to the agency, my family could not reclaim anything from the agency. Because they offered me what they considered was going to be the real security of my life. So I did sign the paper and, you know, we never, you know, I stayed in Miami the whole time, my same house all of this year. And they provided security for your family? No, I had contact with the FBI. If I ever felt I had any problem because I am federal agency, I could not call local police.

I have to call the FBI. So I always had a contact with the Bureau of Officer. So when I was going to dishing through the Iran-contrast, my contact was Carlos Durant from the Bureau, from the FBI. Okay. Six months or eight months ago, my wife learned from his widow because he died from cancer that. We didn't know that.

My son and my daughter went to see Carlos. And they told Carlos, you are a very close friend of my dad. Everybody tells us that if he doesn't bring a lawyer, he's going to go to prison. And we know you are very close to him. Please convince him to take some lawyer with him. So I remember Carlos called me and said,

look, I like to talk to you. He said, fine. So we went to my floor and all two of us along. So what he told me and said, look, Felix, I want you to listen very carefully. You are going to be testifying from Congress and you're going to be under oath. You cannot lie.

Believe me, I have experience. If you lie, they are going to have 15 different depositions and they are going to ask the same question, 15 different times. If you lie, it's going to come out. And you are going to go to prison. You cannot lie to them. Now, if something you are, you don't want to talk about it for whatever reason,

you don't remember. They cannot do you anything if you don't remember. Fifth Amendment. That was the best advice ever got. I never lied. Right. I didn't remember very few times. Well, you were also there following orders.

Like you were, you were, it's not like. No, it was independent. Remember, I was flying on my own. Nobody was paying me. I have ordered for nobody. Independent, okay. Yeah. I went as a Salvador as a private citizen to help them.

Okay, I understand. No, no, nobody was. That's why you need to lawyer. That's why he wanted to talk to me. Because here's a guy who went from playing a military concern in my area, in Air Force, where I do have advisor. and when I went there, Gorban asked me,

I want you to talk to my middle group commander also. And I became very close to Jim Steele. He helped me a lot. I, the fight with him the operation. He loved the operation I was doing. At the time, he will fly with me. After I learned how to fly,

I was not a pilot. I was not a pilot. When I was in Vietnam, my pilot told me, I said, look, at least you need to fly this and land this thing. But in fact, I get badly wounded,

flying at D3 level, we're both going to get killed. So he taught me how to fly the helicopter. And then in El Salvador, I perfected. I could take the helicopter by my field and start wrong. I could take a Huey or a WHOH 500 by myself on flight. After, you know, I've got flight many, many, many, many times. So what is you...

But I never went to school. What did you think when you found out about this whole Iran-Contra scandal blowing up and all these people making all this money with the weapons smuggling? That's what it was concerned. Smuggling the drugs back. Because I knew the Seacor was making a lot of money on this. And that's why my relationship with North broke when I told him. He didn't want to accept it.

Seacore was the one controlling the whole money. I had met Seacore before one time. One time I was asked when I was retired after retired from the agency to do an evaluation of the political advisor of Oman. So I spent living in Cairo more than six months with the political advisor of the old time of a man who was actually born in Libya. I met Mubarak. I was in Hosni Mubarak home when he was vice president.

Oh wow. Teaching him how to operate American 160 submachine and that this Arab bought 10 of them. One for Mubarak, one for the president, for, so that he seeks for the intelligence service. So I have to teach things. It was the first submachine with laser beam. The laser was this big. I mean, it's a huge thing.

I mean, with attaching under the machine. And so I went to Mubarak's home in Heliopolis with this Arab to teach him how to handle this so he can tell also the president how to operate this goddamn thing, which they have drums with 154 bullet-ish. So that's what I made Mubarak became close friend of Ahmed Kamil, the head of intelligence for Egypt. I have some very good friends in there.

So I stayed there for a while and all of that. So I met a lot of people in different places there. So going back to this, I have to testify, like I said in Congress, and I went by myself finally with no lawyers. It was, at the end I was tired. I could tell you was really, really tired on the second day. Now, the first day when you go in there, now I'm the only one who goes without immunity,

without a lawyer. And I made a point of not taking one drop of water. Because I saw when everybody was drinking water, the camera would be facing you. So I said, I'm not going to touch the water during the whole time. Purpously, which I didn't. You can see my testimony in C.S. They still do that today.

You go to C.S. Pan and my whole testimony is there, 27 May, 28 of May of May of 1987. So the first day, day, it's the easiest day, really. The first day is the lawyer that was assigned to me was Paul Barbado. Kecker was assigned to, Young Kecker was assigned to North. He was the prosecutor from North. Right. This guy, Paul Barbador, was assigned to me. I was not prosecuted, I was a witness. So we had a good relationship with him. At one point in time, I bring a lot of thing to his deposition. And he told me, I said, Felix, if you don't want us to see what you

have in that drum ring, but we have the power to subpoena anything that you bring in there. I said, look, I have nothing to worry. You can see everything I bring here. Right. And I don't have to worry about that. So the first day of the testimony was 27 of May. There was the second witness that day. They go all the way from the day that you were born. From the day you were born, they go all the way altogether until the grand contract thing. Wow. They go all the way. minute by minute, hour by hour, they go in there, and in details, when you go to the Iran-Contra thing. Then it goes into definitely details. Before that is a general thing, where you were born, when I went to school, Perki Homi, everything, high school, everything

that you did in your life, regular life. Now, when they hit the point that you started, not only the Bay of People, when they started the Iran Contra, then they really go and do details, you know, to dispose of the whole thing. Right. That was the first day, only for that. The second day, they have the first hour. It's dedicated what they call the heaters, baseball heater. The heater were four people, two senators and two congressmen. One Republican, one Democrat.

One Republican, one Democrat. Those people were supposed to be the one who were assigned to read everything about me, all my depositions. So those four people would know more about me than anybody else. The rest of the committee can read whatever they want. But these people are obliged to read everything. In these four cases that were my hitter, they had to read everything about my life, what I did everything, everything.

So they know more about me, than myself supposedly. Then they start for 15 minutes asking questions, I have to answer question, okay? One of them was Mitch, he was actually the chairman of the Senate, the hell of the Senate, on the Democratic side.

So you have to go through. through 15 minutes of questions from both of them. That's one hour. Then they open up the whole scene for the whole people to ask questions. Then anybody in the committee can ask questions. I got question for Peter Rodin. I got question from the vice president of Bush.

What is his name? His daughter is the one who became very critical of Trump. Remember, the Congresswoman. Cheney. Oh, Cheney. The Cheney was the last one who was question of me. So the...

Liz Cheney? Yeah. So they go through the whole thing two days. So when I finish, when I finish my testimony,

if you are able to look at what CNN said, the lady from CNN came and said after Mr. Rodriguez's testimony, nobody can touch

the vice president with a silk glow. That was her comment at the end of my testimony in there. So, and then I went back to El Salvador. I continued to fly

with the Salvadorian Air Force, that's what I did. So I finished in 87. I continue to fly with the Salvador Air Force until December of 1988. I testify in May of 87. Wow. Now, when I am in El Salvador,

my wife called me and she was very, very upset because there was my picture when I was in the Army, as a second lieutenant, appear in the front page of the Miami Herald. It was put out to the press by John Kerry. that I had received $10 million from the Medellin cartel for the Contra's.

10 million from the Menaging Cartel? The accusation of Cuban being involved with the CIA in drug, he came from Cuban intelligence. Really? Oh, yes. It's amazing. And John Kerry had a... Carrie found out

that I had contact with Ganga, who was the head of the Medellin Cartel finances. Cuban, or Remainz Ramon-Milian Rodriguez. Okay. In 1985, Raul Diaz, who is well-knowing in the police community, he was the head of the Centec, a special unit against narcotic,

who persecuted this lady Grisela. They have a movie about her. Grisela Blanco? Grisela Blanco. He was the head of the task for who factually got her. Raul Diaz, a good friend of mine. He called me and said, look, I have a guy from the Medellin cartel who is the accountant for that cartel who told me that he can compromise.

the Nicarabwean resistance in narcot trafficking. He don't want to deal with the FBI or the DEA because he said they're penetrated. He wanted to deal with the CIA on somebody who had connection to the vice president office because at that time, George Bush was the czar

and, you know, anti-drugs are of the administration. So he told, I'll bring you to your home. You don't bring the SOB to my house. I go to your office. So I went to Raul Diaz's office and here's this guy, a tall guy, thank God.

I didn't like him, because he was kind of arrogant, you know, and very, excuse me. Okay. You can take it if you need to. Very arrogant. And then, yeah, I thought I put this thing in. Yeah, I have put in the ring, the alarm. Alarm this is and go by the ring.

So this guy started telling me that he had a recording for an assistant of Daniel Ortega, who was then president of Nicaragua, who asked him to John Baile. He actually said he went from Nicaragua to Guatemala to call, to call him in Miami. And this is a system that Niel Tregor, Milian Rodriguez, look, we'll like you to run bail to be able to set up a money laundering operation for a Nicaraguan government in Panama, and we will pay whatever you lose in your bail. Okay. But he said he didn't want to go to prison because what he did, he told me,

he would probably have to go to prison for five years. He didn't want his son to see his son. father going to, I didn't know whether he had a son of, but that way he told me to go to prison. So I listened to his story. When I left, I mentioned the whole thing to Carlos Durant from the FBI. I didn't give it down. He said he didn't draw the FBI. He did trust them. So I passed the whole information to Carlos Durant. Then when I went to Washington, I went to the CIA. I asked for the guy who had to do narcotic for the agency. And they brought me a small guy, bowl, heavy. And I passed in the whole information of this guy. I told me, and he seems to be interested.

what the guy had to say. Time went by, they never called him. Raul Diaz called me and say, hey, what happened? I said, look, Raul, if they didn't call you because they're not interested. Later on, I found out that this guy from the agents who was interested, before he did anything, he called Leon Kellner. Leon Kellner was the prosecutor for Ramon Villan Rodriguez case here in Miami. And Leon Kellner told him, don't bother to talk to this.

This guy is a liar. That's bullshit. He never had anything to do with the Sandinista. he will do anything to get a lower sentence. That's why they never call him. Okay. Now, Kerry, while I was testifying in Congress, one Republican senator asked me

if I had any knowledge of Sandinista being involved in narco trafficking. So I remember this case. So I mentioned this case of Ramon Miliang Rodriguez, who wanted to throw money laundering operation for the Sandinista. Kerry listened to that, and he sent his assistant, Jack Blum, to find out where the hell this guy is,

Ramon Lerner Rodriguez. Rominald Rale was at the time in a federal prison with 45 years, not five like he told me, with 45 years to do in jail. And Jack Blum told him, if you can compromise the vice president through Phileas. Now, you cannot lie to us. It has to be true. But if you can compromise the vice president through Phyllis,

we are going to lower your sentence. What did the guy say? Now, you have to be true. Okay, what does the guy say? Oh, yeah, Phyllis is a patriarchal. He never touched a penny. He saw his poor troops in the field that didn't have any weapons. So he came to us, and we gave him $10 million from the Medellin cartel to help the

contract, and in turn, he was going to have the vice president to be lenient with us, which is ridiculous. So Kerry put his opinion on me because of that, accusing me of receiving $10 million for the Medellin cartel. Now, my wife is working at that time at Barrett University, right next to our home. Imagine from page of the Miami Herald that your husband has received. $10 million from the main cartel. Of course she's upset.

So she called me and I said, look, Ross, you know that's not true? I know that. She, I work at the university. You have to clear this. And these people looking at me, like my husband is involved with $10 million of the main cartel. So by the way, you have a subpoena from Senate of the Kerry's committee here. It's like, give me the number. So I called his office.

I talked to Jack Blum. I said, look, you don't need a subpoena with me. But send me the ticket in Easter because I'm doing mileage. Semmitting Eastern and the goal So the semi-a ticket in Easter I flew to Washington They deposed me for five hours At Kerry's office

No, Kerry wasn't there It was Jack Blum And the other one was Robinette Who was the assistant of Mitch McConnell Mitch McConnell Mitch McConnell was the minority at the time In Curry's committee Because they controlled the Senate at the time

So Kerry was the chairman And Mitch McConnell was the At the end of my five-hour deposition At Robbenet and myself From Mitch McConnell office I said we wanted an open hearing Oh, Jack Blon won a close here And I say, well, it's classified here.

Look, I retired from the CIA for security consideration in 1976. This thing happened in 1985. Where is it classified about it? No, no, no, no. He had to be a close. He didn't want the truth to come out. He didn't want the truth that people believed

that we were involved in narcotry. He knew it was going to come out that it wasn't true. He didn't want that to happen. Oh, no, no, you have to be a close hearing. No choice. That's why it was so, so, unhappy when I got in, the first thing that I told them, they were all the senators, Mitch McConnell and Kerr in the middle and all the other senators from both sides of the aisle.

And they asked me, I wanted to say something. I say, yes, I look at Kerr and say, Senator, this will be the hardest testimony of my life. Now, believe me, this is happening after my testimony in Congress, which is May 27, where you after that? I'm saying, what do you say, Mr. Rodriguez? I say, Senator, it's very difficult to have to answer question from somebody that you do not respect. I don't respect you what you are doing here. Mr. Rodriguez, because we disagree with you, we are no less

patriotic as you are. Because, Senator, you didn't even have the guts throw your own metal when you were protesting the Vietnam war. Mr. Rodriguez, don't believe everything that you read. Senator, I know that the hell of a lot better than you do. You didn't have the courage to throw your own metal through the

Vietnam War. Say, that was a veteran who asked me to throw his medal. It wasn't me. I said, bullshit. It was everybody perception. It was your metal we were throwing through over the Vietnam over the White House wall. Well, we didn't it didn't. It wasn't very unpleasant the exchange.

So we went through the whole testimony. Of course, he knew it wasn't true what he was doing, all right? Then we asked for an open hearing. My uncle, who is a lawyer graduated from Tulane, wrote a letter to his committee during eight months,

asking for an open hearing. They never happened. Ten months later, I got a call from Robinette. Senator Mitch McConnell said, if you're willing to come to Washington, to request an open hearing with him at the press conference at the Senate. I said, of course. So I prepared with my uncle a statement of three pages long, enumerating in details my relationship with Ramon Miliard, what happened, how we became to talk to him, the whole thing in detail.

And the end I wrote, and I'm sure that this will serve, I hope that this served as a, for a true situation, and not for Chenna to carry political agenda. That came out in there, okay? Next month he gave me an open hearing. Friday. Friday is the only day which is stipulated in the Senate

that there is no cameras in the room. There are cameras in the room from Monday to Thursday, but not on Friday. It was the only date of the week that don't have cameras in the room. Yeah. Monday to Thursday, there is cameras.

But they always reserve Friday for some reason they don't want to be camera. He selected that day for me. There was no camera. I was the last witness to be put on, which meant that a lot of people already gone home by that time. There was very few press to cover that. In there, he told me that he apologized, that he believed me. But I said, at the same time, he asked me if I would take a light detector to him. I say, yes, but I want you to take one because you're doing this politically. Well, I would not take one.

take one. Say, fine. You don't take one? I won't take one. If you do it, I'll take it. So on those turns, he told me, you are not excused. I say, okay, fine. So we finish his testimony. He did a good thing. He called the best polygraph operator in the nation when the name was a doctor by the name of Dr. Raskin from the University of Utah, brought him to Washington, and he gave a light detector test to Ramon, Medellon Rodriguez. First question. The Mr. Rodriguez solicited for you $10 million from the Medellian cartel? Yes. Deceptive. It was lying.

Second question. Dmitz Rodriguez gave you carriers in Central America to channelize those $10 million from the Medellian cartel to the contrary. Yes. Deceptic was lying. Third question, did Mr. Rodriguez received in any way or form any money from the Medellan Cartel? Ramon-Lirang Rodriguez refused to continue with the light detector tests.

How does it carry right that in the congressional record. First two, he had no choice. First question, well, it was lying. The second question. On the third question, whether Mr. Rodriguez received some money from the medical counter, the operator could not determine the veracity of the question. Now, you read that, what do you think? Maybe some truth to it. Right. Well, they don't tell you they could not find out because the guy refused to continue with the right detector test. Right. No, I have been saying that all around, because I saw a copy of the record at that time. Since then, they sound of a big changed that. Now he said there that exactly what I said. Okay. At that time he put that. Now the second

time he said the guy refused to continue with the light detector trace. But on the first version that he put out, they didn't say that. But he knew I've been saying that everywhere. Somehow, you know how hell he did that. We went then and corrected that. In his testimony. That's why he hates the SOB so much. Every time I speak, now when there was the Vietnam veteran for the truth, no you heard that at the time they had a big rally on the west wing of the capital over 100,000 veterans against Kerry when he run for president

you remember that? Check, okay? There was a rally on the west wing of the capital. They were a speaker. I was one of them. I spoke to the people that was with Kerry in the boat. When we got it together, I was one of the AIS speakers

so we all got together in there. He was never, ever wounded in Vietnam. He got triple per heart. Really? He doesn't have a single hole in his body from a bullet. He would have scratched it somewhere and say that was from a hand grenade or was from a mortar fire that he got a skil-la, metal skil-la. The third time the guy refused to give him the purpose because he didn't deserve it.

He had to wait to the officer to change to be able to get the third one. And you know why he did that? Because it was an unwritten law that if you got wounded three times in one tour, you could request to be taking away from the operational area. That's what he did. No, it wasn't automatic. You requested. Immediately that he requested to leave there. And he claimed that he got some silver star and convinced that he fabricated that with his friends in the Navy. That is no, it's not, he's a complete fraud. Wow.

He didn't spend one second. He didn't spend more than five minutes in a hospital when he claimed he were wounded. He made a scratch, got a little blood come out of there and say that was from a hang grenade during a coma. If you get wounded by a hand grenade, you get wounded from a skil or from a, mortar, you are a recipient of the, you doesn't have to be a bullet, you're a recipient of the Purple Heart. Right. But he didn't. He got, he got the three, the three Purple Heart that way and immediately he left the service. And then he went with James Fonda, you know, to call that people were assassinating people, kids and all of that in Vietnam. That's why, I, I talk, why I speak to the different military unit that I go? I am, I tell them, I, I tell them, I, I,

how proud I feel today to see how the public treaty, the military coming from overseas. Because I have been in plane, they applaud them, they buy a drink for them, they offered their first seat for them. At that time, they hide it. They hated, they hated going uniform because they were the way to spit on you. Because you were supposed to be war criminals. You were supposed to kill, and that was due to Kerry's and Jane Fondas perception of the war, the war, but that's why I don't like the guy at all.

Right. Let's talk about Che Guevara. Oh, yeah, forgot. And when you... I left that began. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a... After Bolivia, that's why I went to Che.

That's an important story right here. Thank you for this photograph that you signed. Actually, I went to, I actually went to Bolivia after being in, I forgot about the, the more important one for you. This is you right here? Yeah. I went, when I went to Bolivia, I was 26-year-old. It was right after coming out of, no, before I went to, before I went to Ecuador and Peru. How long did you hunt Che for?

Very short. We arrived, I think we arrived in Bolivia in June. Now, first of all, the way went, there was an American pretty high guy in the Western Hemisphere, CIA, by the name of Larry Sternfield. Bradley Larry was the one who answered to Mr. Sterling Jake State rang he was the

number two guy responsible in great extent for the Bay of Pigs and Larry was working for him Larry was pretty high in the agency

he came to Miami and interviewed 16 Cuba to select two to go to Bolivia and go they already had three Cubans in

Bolivia at the level of La Paz they were advised to the Minister of Interior Arguedas and Mayor Roberto Quintanillo was the advisor to the Minister of Interior there.

But then they wanted two guys to be able to accompany the military units in Bolivia and to what supposedly be going against She. The first combat in Bolivia were a complete total disaster because the Bolian weren't trained properly. Most of the crumbs script, you know, the soldiers were never used military training, Bariento used them in the Corps of Engineers to build roads for the people. That's why they love Barriento so much. And he had an agarion reform before, a lot of farmers had a lot of land.

That's another mistake for him. He went there telling them, I'm going to give you the land that Barriento is still from you, and Barriento gave them land. So they look at them like, what is the guy telling me? I mean, it's an empty message.

That's why during the whole time, which has never happened any guerrilla in the world, there was a single guerrilla and never recruit one single farmer in close to a year of operation. Not one guy went with them. It was the Cuban that he brought within 17 altogether

with two Peruvians and one German, and the member from the Communist Party, the Raul Kispa and the Paredo brother brought from the Communist Party. That was all he had. Okay. Now, when Cuba sent him there, it was sent him to be killed. She was pro-Chinese.

Right. And the Soviet had no interest that we will succeed anywhere in the world because it will be a revolution that will turn over to in favor of Mao Zatou in China. When he went to Africa in 1964, 65 that he was in Africa, all the weapon that he received was from Red China. Benigno told me that. Nothing from the Soviet Union. Benigno. Benigno. I became very close friend. Benigno was one in Chesh's right-hand man in Bolivia. He was wounded once in Bolivia. He was a captain at the time. He was one of the three survivors of the guerrilla chain. He was the only one of the three who defected to Paris later on and wrote a book

about the Cuban Revolution against the Cuban Revolution. And I was in Bolivia after the whole symphony. I was in Bolivia three times. First of all, with BBC of London to do a documentary. the second one was Telemundo, Channel 51 here from Miami, and the third one was sick from Portugal. Now, in Telemundo, I had to go two times. One, we did, no, that was sick of Portugal. I went to Bolivia once. They did a documentary, my visit with Che.

Then the second year of the anniversary, they wanted to do something about She, but they already had run this first one. So they call it El Reuncuentro, the re-encounter. So they put two enemies together, that fought in but you live against each other. The way they claim they have seen each other will kill each other.

Now they are together in Paris on the same side, fighting for the same cause. Because Benito defectant, he was against Castro in Paris. And what was against Paris? So they flew me to Paris at that time. And we had the meeting at Eliana de LaGuardia, the daughter of Tony de la Guardia, who's married to Massetti, that Argentinian,

and her apartment, his apartment, which in front of a restaurant called Amore, Italian. And they had a real encounter. They had Benino waiting for me in his apartment, with one camera behind him, then one camera followed me. When I entered the room, for the first time I see each other, we shook hand, and we sat we started talking. So they have a genuine gathering together to people that they know each other, which was interesting.

After that, we became very close friends, to the point that every year we go twice, at least twice to Paris. He picked me up at the airport and I'll go to his home. I stay and sleep at his home in an expert room that they had, and his wife will cook for me the whole time. I spent three days without going anywhere, only talking to him. The last day I used to tell him, if I don't see the Eiffel Tower and the Arch of Trump,

I haven't been in Paris. So we'll draw me to his little car. We go to see the Eiffel Tower, the arch of Pard. the arch of, and then we want to see my daughter used to live there for five years near the Senate, to her apartment, and then back home, to his home. We became very, very close friend. Then after everybody did the interview with him, he wanted to talk to me alone. And then we spoke, he told me at the time, said, look, the guy who really hated you was Raul Castro,

not Fidel, for whatever reason. And he said that, We were close killing you several times. He told me we never knew about it. That they sent Captain Jesus Bermude Coutinio, who later became a general to Vietnam, to assassinate me. He had two Vietnamese.

Another people on two Vietnamese with him. One Vietnamese declined was working at the U.S. Embassy as Spook-fluing English. And they said one time they were trying to follow me in the car, I was too fast. They couldn't keep up with my car. And second time, it was very heavily guarded.

I don't recall it. We, yes, I flew. When I drove, I drove very fast with my driver. That's true. And the only time that I could call that, they might call I had bodyguard, which I didn't, is that we had an operation in south of Saigon.

I was saying at the Duke Hotel in Saigon. The PRU will come to my hotel in fully gear because so will be, so will I. We'll be in full uniform with the M16 and everything. And then we will go in several gyps to the operational area. We're going to launch an operation. Yeah.

but not because I was heavily guarded, because everybody was up to here with ammunition and hand grenades and everything, because we were going to an operation, not to guard me or anything like that. And then they also knew knowledge when they tried to hijack the plane there. And then they claim another time that they sent Gorriaram Eluts assassinate me in Miami.

He was lucky that it was in my office. Then I went to Beirut in 75. It coincides with the same time. And then this guy told the Cuban government that the CIA became aware of the life attended in my life. life and they took me out of Miami. We never learned anything. I just went out because they had the thing to go in Beirut. So it was luck also. So I asked him later on why do you select

me because all of us have basically the same training. I had a little bit more because I was in the domain of the Republic and the Communist League of the Caribbean before but that's it. The rest is the same. They told me what you, at the end of every interview he will tell you, if I select you, when will you be ready to be mobilized? People will tell I need a day, a week, whatever time they needed. My answer to him was, okay, if we have time, I take my car, I go to my home, say goodbye to my wife, to my two kids, pick up my clothes, I come and we go. It's not time for that. I will call here to my wife Rosa and tell her I have to go. It's not time for that, let's go, and I'll give you her number, and you call her and you tell her I had to go. He said,

Nobody had told him that. That was the reason, really basic point he selected me. So we went to Bolivia, and I, for some reason, I was assigned to war directed with the head of the 8th Division headquarters, Colonel Centeno and Ayia. He was the commander of the region, military region, where Che was operating. My friend, Ode, Wustav Iolo, stayed with the battalion that's been trained at La Speranza, old sugar mill. There was a special forces unit trained.

what was called the second Ranger Battalion of the Bolivian, about 600 to 800 men. With the maximum weapons, they were used the same guarant that the U.S. Army was using at the time, because they were no M16 at the time. They were using that. They were using Caravans M2 for the officers. Everything that we had, everything. They were being really trained because the Bolivian troops were terrible. The first combat was a disaster, disordial. The soldiers were captured. They were taking their uniform, their booth,

and they were sent back with their underwear only and the weapon everything away. So they trained at a special battalion. So when I was an advisor of the second, the 8th Division headquarters with Colonel Centeno and Aya, the head of intelligence, Arnold Saucedo, whenever they had a capture of some guerrilla, would go with him,

or would they capture some document, I went with him to do the exploitation or intelligence of the documentation. So we were locked at one point in time when there was, they had a prisoner called Paco, Secastillo-Chavez. Now, before we went to Washington, we went through some reading in Washington about everything had to do with the guerrilla

to familiarize what we were facing when we got in there. In there were the transcript of the interrogation they had the Regis Debray and Ciro Bustos, the two, one Argentinian and one Frenchman that were captured with the guerrilla, and they spoke a lot of China. So I knew during those interrogatories that Paco was a communist from the Bolivian Party

who wanted to leave the guerrilla. He was a communist indeed, but he was offered to go to Cuba and Russia. And by the time he was ready to go thinking he was going to go to this place a day, and he drove to this place thinking, a plane will take him to Uruguay or Paraguay and then give him documentation to go to Cuba.

He was giving a rifle, and he was not a guerrilla. And he was more of an intellectual, even though he didn't look like one. And he had a tremendous memory. He can tell you meetings that took place six months ago, the address of the building and the name of 15 people that were there. The wife was fantastic. So there is an encounter where they killed basically everybody in the guerrilla except two. That's Tanya, the famous guerrilla, the intelligent officer from West Germany that was killing that operation.

She was the girlfriend of Shea and she was sent actually by the Soviet to keep tap on Che. And there's two survivors, Ernesto Maimoude and this guy at Paco, Jose Castillo Chavez. I was able to save the life of Paco. And Ernesto Maimu at that night, he didn't have even a bullet in his body. He became arrogant with the arm and they shot him before they brought him to Valle Grande. They brought Paco back. Paco have a couple of bullets here. Oh, really?

To be worried about. So I flew with the Mayor Saucsio, the hell of intelligence into Vallegranting in Bolivian Air Force plane. I talked to the guy, the guy had a tremendous memory. Fantastic. So they were ready to kill him. When I went to the headquarters, the Colonel Seles was telling General Davila Fuente, they already interrogated this guy. He could not contribute anymore, given the word, they already told the president he was badly wounds.

So I interfered with them. I asked the general, who knew. that I have documentation from the President and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, General Obando Candia. When we both arrived, an American was waiting for us, and the two of us arrived in La Pazes, they took directly to the House of the President Barriento.

He gave us a D-Card to give all the support we requested. And then they took us to the Minister of Defense, who gave us similar D-Card that we should receive any support that we requested from any authority, civilian or military. And also they were bringing ID-Card as captain in the Bolivian Army, both of the military. Both of three of us, the American and the two of us.

So here we had Paku, I flew him finally back to Santa Cruz. And we put him in a room, we interrogated him. I helped him, first of all, I got the nurse to come from the hospital, I paid her to treat him because he wasn't allowed to go to the hospital. She had all kinds of worms, thousand worms in there. She told me that saved his life, because he will eat all of the things.

Otherwise, he had got gangrene. And then she got something to put in there that they put to the pigs. And, you know, there were thousands of the silly things coming out died. Maggates? Yeah, the thousand. But there was something a very small worm. Yeah, maggots. Yeah, but they finally got them out with that thing that they put on pigs, really.

It's purple color, a lot of that liquid. And then they injected him with antibiotics, and they saved his life, really. And I allowed him to communicate with his mother. And I brought some newspaper. He was very, very, very, very cooperative with me. Fantastic. He gave us exactly, and that's how we learned how he move around the area. Whenever he went from point A to point B, he would send they had a group of, they called the vanguard,

fixed a six guerrilla will go one kilometer ahead of him. He will be in the middle with the head of the guerrillas and then five six guerrillas in the back, one kilometer behind. In case there is an ambush, he will be protected in the middle. He could maneuver out of the ambush. So in late September, last day of September of 1967, there was an encounter of a lieutenant

Eduardo Garindo Grandchand. It was a lieutenant from the army, regular army, which is all regular troops who had an encounter with Che and they were able to kill three members of the vanguard. And they advised us in Santa Cruz. They said, look, there is three bodies coming up to the city of Pukara which is passing Bale Grande, so you can come pick up the bodies.

who they are. So Sausado and I, the head of intelligence, we drove all the way to Pukara. We waited five o'clock in the afternoon. Here comes Lieutenant Galindo, with three mules and three bodies on top of the three mules. So when I look at the three bodies and took the documentation, one of them was Coco Paredo, was the leader of the guerrilla on the Bolivian side. The other one was Miguel, whose real name was a Cuban captain, Hernande Osorio, and Noel Rlande Hosorio, and the other one was another Bolivian who was a doctor, three of them. And when you look at the documentation that Pac were given, and three of them were the vanguard of Cher.

And then when I talked to Lieutenant Gallego Semi-Capitaine, I saw the guerrilla in the distance. I stopped preparing my ambush, and the guerrilla surprised me. Okay. They did what? Surprise him. The other day was Mario Gutierre Hardaya, who was a Cuban doctor, the three dead. They were member of the vanguard.

And he said, what he saw was Che Guevara's group in the distance, the vanguard was already coming up the hill. Right. That confirmed what Paco Atollo, that I was shared there. So when I go back, I was the very end of September, I go back to see Colonel Centeno and Selvich, the chase there, we have to move the battalion. When there was Felix, Roman, say,

Felix, you only have two weeks from radiation, you know. They already finished the training. But they're going to be shooting to see who got the highest marks, in shooting. The president is going to come to issue a diploma signed by the president to all of them. I said, me, Coroner, we know that Che is there. I explained them what Paco have told us and what this guy told me, definitely Che was there. I said, me, Coronel, now we know where he is. In two weeks, we have no idea where he is. So I convinced him. So he ordered the battalion to stand down the training immediately to go to the area of operations. So they have four companies.

One company stayed in in Valle Grande, where I stayed with my friend. They stayed in there to maintain the communication and the supply of weapons and food to the battalion operation. One company of less 200 men was commanded by Captain

Raul Lopez Leighton. He was assigned along the Rio Grande. So the unit could not, the guerrilla could not move to the other side. We could operate anywhere in country, but the other side represented the force division headquarters with Colonel Terang. It's different. different areas operation from us.

And these people were already used to, and they respected Colonel Centeno and Ayah in 8th Division. So they didn't want to go to Rakeetaran on the force division. So they put a company there to make sure they didn't cross the river. The one company was put in reserve by Captain Selso Torrelli, who later became president of Bolivia. And this captain was in the last place where Che was being seen, was I get us to react and support the company

was doing the search, because the Garri Prado Solomón. They started basically at the first day of October, moving into the operational area. Here comes the first weekend. Okay. It is a Sunday was the 8th of October. On Saturday, the 7th, we learned that later. On Saturday, on Saturday, which is the 7th,

we had, my friend had trained a special unit, a Bolivian unit in intelligence, soldiers that spoke the different language, Keshua, Aymarah, and Guarani. And those people were sent in civilian clothes with no weapon ahead of the battalion

to talk to the civil population. It was easier for them to communicate in civilian clothes. They see militars sometime. They resented. So these people went ahead of the battalion to get intelligence for the battalion. And they came back that evening on Saturday and said, look, a farmer has an or talese

you know, where he had cultivated some tomatoes or whatever, and he said the guerrilla is right there. He gave the location in the map. All of them are located there right now. So that night, Gary Proust around with his 200 and some man, he's around at Cabrador, Jr., completely. That was that on Sunday morning, he started advancing, moving in later. That's when the firefight took place.

And then all hell broke loose. All right. I was in a man. My friend had a girlfriend, I understand in Santa Cruz, they wanted to go there, so he left for the weekend. I was the only one who stayed. And what I took the time was, I know there were 3-86 combat aircraft that had the capability of firing 50-caldered machine and 2.75 rocket.

But those planes didn't have any communication with the ground troop because they had PRC-10 radius that communicated on 55 megahertz. the planes that the Bolivian have was working on VHF, 100 and some megahertz. They cannot talk to each other. Right. So I borrow three PRC-10 radio from the Army and I start installing one next to every pilot. There's one pilot in front, one in the back. So they'll be able to talk to the ground, be able to help them get air-to-ground support.

If they don't talk to each other, they cannot do that. Right. I had just been finished. That was Sunday. I was Jim being finished. I was working on the third plane when Sausedo, saying Semi-Captain, just got work from the operational area, the Papa Canzado, that is tired, which means that the head of the guerrilla is captured alive. I think it's wounded. But we don't know whether

is Che Guevara or is Inti Peredo, Coco's brother, who is the head of the guerrilla on the Bolivian side. So I stood in the back of the second plane, Mayor Cerrata, the head operation, when in the bag of the pilot of the first plane, we took off. So we flew over the operational race, but in my review, they told us, Papa Canzado is the Extranero, is the four So we know it was shade that was captured alive. So we came back, informed that to Colonel Centeno. He dispatched one small helicopter, shitty helicopter. It was one long seat for three people, and the pilot was only one seat in the middle.

Very small helicopter. He sent that helicopter with Lieutenant Colonel Andres Sellis to go to the operational area and try to secure all of Che Guevara documentation. So the people will not take a souvenir or shit like that. Right. So the helicopter went dropping him, the operational area came to the operational area. the operational area came back. The pilot was a major from the Bolivian Air Force called Jaime Niño de Guzman, the

captain, the commander of the helicopter pilot, a major. So that night, I had a couple of battles in Scots and there was no better time. Balletown was a teacher, one of the two. I brought it up and we had to bring this, we drank for the finish of the guerrillas in Bolivia. That's what Santeno told them that finally peace is going to come to his country after they did. He foresee that was the end of the guerrillas in there. And then I asked him if I could go with him.

Everybody wanted to go with him. Now because of the helicopter would carry four people all together, including the pilot. But because of the altitude of some, where we were, you could only take the pilot and two more. Peron, Senteno, somebody else. There was a lieutenant colon, all the other were major. I was captain.

But I had an excellent relationship with all of them. So I asked if I could go with him. So Centeno spoke to all his officers, after we had to bring this, a drink with all of them and say, look, I know all of you want to go, but I want you to understand Captain Ramos, this guy has done a lot of harm to Campa Ramos country. You don't mind we'll take him with you. Everybody agree. So I am also radio operator. I have an RS 48, a little briefcase where I transmit in telegraphy, in code. So that night, I sent a message to Washington

through an embassy nearby telling them, say, look, Chase captured a life, you have told me to keep him alive, if you still want to keep him alive, move at the highest level because these people are not keeping any prisoner. And I asked for another contact, permanent contact with a day, but they give me a contact another day in the morning, about 10 o'clock in the morning or something like that. So, man, I guess I didn't sleep at all. It was 5 o'clock in the morning. I was ready. I went to the wrong way, waited for them. At 7 o'clock in the morning, we took off in the helicopter. Centeno and I, sitting in Santano here, I was sitting on his right, the pilot, Jaime and Ivo,

Uwuzman, half an hour flying time, we landed right in front of the house of Laigeras, a schoolhouse. Now, what they present now that the air where shed die is not that depleted, because the Bolivian army destroyed, completed the old building where he was. Now, the Cuban government rebuilt that in concrete,

which is not the original, it's the same area, which completely different building. Right. So we landed next to the... original building, they were waiting for him, all the officers, you know, Selich, who had all the documentation sharing it back, Ayurroa, who was the executive of the battalion, all the captains that were waiting for him. So we went into the room.

I accompanied the colonel and the other, three or four other officers with him. We entered the room. It was the door is here. The wall is right here, and there's another door here for another room in there. And there is a little window on this side. The other room doesn't have any wind in front, have a little window on the back side on the left. So we're entering here. The first thing that I see in front is the dead body of two Cubans.

They had the two body of his friend, two captains that died in combat that they put him right inside the same room on the back of the wall. And Che was tied down under this leader window here, hands and legs. So Centeno starts his question, he looked at him, he didn't say a word, nothing. To a point that Colonel Centeno said, look, you invaded my country, the least you should have the courtesy of answering me. Nothing. So he was bad. He left the room with all of us.

Then I asked him, Coroner, can you give me his documentation? I'd like to photograph him from my government. So he turned to Colonel Settis and telling him, give Captain Ramos here, you're back. Now, he already taken, but I didn't find the passport. The colonel already put in his pocket, the NCD passport.

But he had inside there a big book, made in Germany. It was written like in January, February, and the number was in German numbers, but it was written in Spanish. That was his diary. Okay. He also have a little booklet, a black booklet,

that was type reading messages in Spanish signed by Ariel that message that he received from Cuba. Now, he could not transmit to Cuba. Because Cuba, I think, purposely sent, the only transmitter they sent was in a right broken. So he could not communicate with Cuba.

He could only receive message, but he could not send any message to Cuba. Okay. And he had the cold book. The cold book had been given to him by red China. The Chinese have, their codes are in numbers, numeric codes. So they're a little booklet like this. It looks like this high, one inch and a half, one inch and a half, and this high, and you have glue around, and it's numbers.

One, a group of four numbers, one in red and one in black. One for ciphering, one for deciphering. There is more complicated because you have to write a letter, then that letter corresponds to a number. Right. It's impossible to the same hour. For hour, it was letter. It's more simpler, but the same thing. It's impossible to decipher.

When it is letters at random, there is no computer who will decipher that. Okay. So he had that from Chinese. There are several, like eight or ten books like that in different color. Then he also has some medicament for his asthma, some picture of his family in there. Yeah, asthma. Yeah, yeah, he got that. But not when he was with me, he didn't have any asthma attack.

But he got asthma and he had equipment in there for the asthma. So I got all of this. I went to a room they called a telera. He doesn't error where they have one telephone line. Later on, I went back with BBC of London and the other people. There was nothing, okay? They don't have any communication out of Uyghera. At that time, they had one telephone in a room that communicated

which was lying all the way through the jungle to the Valle Grande that one of this crank thing. Lozzy, but you can understand, more or less, okay, to be able to do one line line at the time. So I stay in there, I put a table out in the middle where it was the sun, and I took my camera, I had my Pentex camera with a bunch of film. I used all my film of 35 millimeter.

Fortunately, I have the Minox German camera and the roll that I had, at 40 pictures each, I had a bunch of roles. So I was able to photograph the computer. completely the diary, every single page of the diary that you go on there. In the middle of that, I interrupted that, went back to the room where he was. So I stood in front of him and said, Che Gueva, I like to talk to you. He looked at me very arrogant, said, nobody talks to me, nobody interrogates me.

So when I saw that attitude, I said, Commandante, I didn't come in and interrogate you. I like to talk to you. I admire you. You used to be head of staying in Cuba, and you're here because you believe in your ideals, even though I know they're mistaken. I just came here to talk to you. Did you really admire? You looked to me for a while to see if I was making laugh of him, if I was laughing when he saw that I was serious.

He said, can you untie me? Can I sit? Say, sure. So I called, Soldado, see my Capitan. He came in. He got me, quita the hamas, commandant de Gavara. You know, untie commander Gavara. You know, untie commander Gavara.

So they untie him. I had a little chair and got a little bench on this side. We got the bench and we helped him because he would hardly move all of that time, putting it and he had a bullet in me here through here he have been uh it have been new gaze white was very clean was put on but you could still the blood coming out a little bit from the side in there the only win nothing nothing serious really so we sat in the bench and then he i and started talking now whenever i asked him anything that was of tactical interest to us he will tell me and say you know i cannot answer that so i went along with that

We continue to talk about different things. At one point in time, he started telling me that the Cuban economy is in shambled because of the embargo, American embargo. When I look at sea, I say, commander, that's ironic that you tell me that. He said, why? He said, because you were the Minister of Commerce in Cuba.

You were the President of the Cuban National Bank. You were not even an economist. Do you know how it became President of the National Bank? He said, I have no idea. So I was sitting one time listening to Fidel. I was talking to Camilo Xienfuegos. I understood that Fidel was asking for a dedicated

communist. I rose my hand. And he was asking for a dedicated economist. So in my opinion, that I thought he doesn't want to answer the answer. But then when I met Benigno in part, he told me it was right. He said, Felix, I was with them. Because Benino

was also, it was at one point in time in La Sierra Maestra. He was working with Camillo Sienfuevo, not with Che. He said, he understood the Fidel was asking for a dedicated economy, and he wrote his end. He Fidel was asking for dedicated economies, and that's how he became president of the National Bank and Minister of Commerce, industry. He heard communists when he was asking for an economist.

Then we continued to talk at one point in time, and then I told him about, when you were in Africa, you had the African, they told me we're very poor soldiers. Oh, I want to talk about that. Well, you don't want to talk about it. But you're not going to talk about it. But your own people have said that you had like 10,000 guerrillas. And they were very poor soldiers. So you look at him and say, well, if I had 10,000 a rule, it would have been different.

But you're right. They were very poor soldiers. And then that's the only time he admitted that. Then we talk about it. They say, why do you select the Bolivia? He had the three criteria as why he selected Bolivia. First of all, in his mind, imperialist, the United States will not be that much interesting in a very poor country like Bolivia. Bolivia have no real rich resources for the United States.

If it was Venezuela with soil, yes, but Bolivia don't even have port. They felt the United States would not be that much interesting in putting so many things in a country. It doesn't mean anything economically. Second, they knew the Bolivian army was very poorly trained. Absolutely right. That's why at the beginning was a total disaster. A third, most important to him,

Bolivia has boundaries with five different countries. If you take Bolivia, he could export the revolution, border to Burbank with Brazil, with Argentina, with Paraguay, with Chile, and Peru. With all five different countries. That was more important thing. So we talk about, you know, very things. At one point in time, look at me and say, you are not Bolivian. The commander, who do you think I am?

He said, well, you can either be a Puerto Rican or you can be a Cuban. And by the question you have been asking me, you are working for the United States intelligence service. I said, yes, I was a member of the Bay of Pig infiltration teams. And what's your name? He was interested in my name because they had an infiltrator with the infiltration team where I was. His name was Benigno Perez. He was a lieutenant in the Cuban army who allegedly had defected to us. He was part of the infiltration team. His team won land that everybody was captured. And then people saw him. They promoted him to captain. In captain, he was a captain. In captain, uniform of the rebel uniform going to a different prison after the Bay of PIC to see if he could

identify person like me that were in prison because he knew our faces and he knew our true name. But we went in Cuba with fake names. So if we were raised her in prison because we were captured, we were giving them the documentation, which is not our true name. So they were using him to go through different prisons to see if he could identify people like me in there. Benigno Perez. But I didn't know what's going to happen to him. So I say Felix and Felix really didn't mean anything to him. So we started, continued to wait to see, to see what happened.

Now, when Centeno came, before that, I got a phone call from a lady. Now, Centeno was in the operational area, still during the combat was going. You could hear the mortar fire and the shooting and all of that from where we were. Here comes a little lady and said, first of all, came the Lainline.

Capitan, there is a phone call for the highest ranking officer. which is you. We have two lieutenant here. You are the only captain. So I go to that. We call telegraphia the area where I made the photograph the diary. And then they say, I think what's how said, because a very poor communication said, 500, 600, order in the alt-o-mando, order from the high command, 500 and 600. We had a very simple code. 500, Che Guevara, 600, dead, 700, keep him alive.

Okay. I asked twice, 500, 600, 600. The one of him killed. So when Centeno came before he left, I called him as I said, me, Coronel. There is order from your high Bolivian command to eliminate the prisoner. We received the order 500, 600 from your people. My instruction from my government is to try to keep him alive at all costs.

It's very important for us. We'll have helicopter and plane to fly him to Panama for interrogation. He looked at me and say, Felix, we have worked empirically. We're very grateful to you, but this is order from my president, and my commander-in-chief. He looked at his watch and said, when I leave, the helicopter is going to come several times, bringing food and ammunition and taking our wounded and our dead. After two o'clock in the afternoon, it's going to come,

to pick up Che Guevara's dead body. Jokane, I used to see him any way you want, because we know how much harm he has done to your country. Cepernel tried to make them change their mind because it's very important to us, but I give you my words of honor that is, There is not a counterord. I will bring you the dead body of Shea. Later, I say, you can't use to say him any way you want.

We know how much charm is done to your country. Yeah. And he left. Sure enough. The helicopter came from one time. That's what that picture was taking. Because I never even thought about getting a picture with him. I was talking to him when here come the pilot.

Heimony was man, same capitan. Mayors have said he won a picture with the prisoner. And he got the 35 millimeter camera from the head of intelligence. So I look and see, commander, do you mind? Say no. So when we helped him, I was the one who helped him. I hold him. He was limping a little bit because of the bullet he had in his leg.

We went around the schoolhouse. We sat in there. This is right now. The door is in this way here, about here. This is the little bit of a wall that is not even a building behind that. This is empty behind this. Okay. And we, I gave my camera to the pilot, Hymen and E.

Guzman, and he was the one who took the picture. Just before that picture was taken, I put my hand around and say, Comandante, look the paharito. Look the little bird. We tell that in Cuba, tell him in Nognejo, you know. Look a little bird, look at the paharito to take a picture. And he was laughing. No, he was laughing.

He laughed. And I looked at the camera. I thought, actually, when I sent this picture to the CIA who was embedded in one of the role that I put an ex, I told the guy from the agency in La Paz. I said, look, this is a role of picture of me with Che was Chase, he's laughing because I thought he was laughing at the time the picture was taking but he changed for that expression. Second before that I was laughing like hell. What did what was the conversation like between you and Che after you got the order that he needed to be killed? No, I didn't tell him

anything. You didn't tell him anything? No, no. I started waiting to see what happened. I went back, we spoke several times on and off. Wasn't there a moment? No, let me tell you. Even I thought, you know, in myself, talking to myself, all right? They went him alive. how about if I caught the land line, telephone line when the helicopter comes? And I tell the pilot that my government convinced your government to keep him. We just got a phone call, said to change order that my government were able to convince your government to keep him alive. And if they tried to call it caught in line, they could not communicate by it. Maybe, maybe yes, maybe not.

Then I thought to myself, hey, remember what? happened when Batista released Fidel that December, what happened to Cuba. And I told my say, you are here, actually you're here to advise, not to be the commander. I told myself, if you do that and you are successful and he is released, eventually, and he goes to another country, a lot of people get killed because of him, you are going to be responsible. And that's not your responsibility. It is the responsibility of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, let history run its course. So I didn't do anything else to save his life at all.

And then I started waiting to see what happened. And then the helicopter was gone. Here come this lady. About, I don't know. It was 12.30, 12.40 in the afternoon. With the radio. Be Capitaine, me Capitaine. Why are you going to kill him?

Say, signora, why do you say that? I said, look, we just saw you being photographed with him in front of the schoolhouse. Look, the radio already gave the news that he died from combat wounds, and he was still alive. So at that time, you know, there's not going to be any counter-order, so I got into a room, I stood in front of him, he was sitting in the bench, he looked at me, I look at him, said, commander, I'm sorry, I try my best. It's ordered from the High Bolivian Command. The guy looked at me, and he turned white like a piece of paper. I had never seen somebody whose face turned white. I mean, literally white, like the blood had sprained out of his face.

He didn't move a mask, and then he said, it's better this way, and should have never been captured alive. And then he got the pipe and said, I like to give this pipe to a soldier who treated me well. Now, he got the pipe. When I arrived, he went into smoke. He didn't have picadura from tobacco. So I asked a soldier to give me a couple of cigarettes.

So he got the regular cigarette. He opened it up and put the, what was inside his cigarette, inside the pipe, and then he smoked with me. I allowed him to smoke from cigarette. go within half pipe, smoke for the pipe. So I wanted to, then I said, at that point in time, when he said that Sergeant Tehran, he knew what the one security people burst into the room.

I want to hear the piper, my capitan, I want to hear the pipa. And Chee, he goes, no, you don't tell you. He goes, out of here. That I want the pipe here. When he went out, said, I look at him and say, Commander, would you give it to me? He suffered a few seconds. See, at this he, see, tell you it.

I would give it. So I got the pipe. I put it here. It's anything you want for your family. Then I will say in a sarcastic way. He said, well, if you can tell Fidel that he will soon see a triumphant revolution in America. And then he changed and said,

and you can tell my wife to remarry and try to be happy. That was the last way. It was very emotional, me especially because I have never ordered anybody which is in prison being killed. This was a very unique and very, unusual circumstances. So it was emotional tremendously for me, that moment in sea.

So we looked at each other, he came to where I was, we shook hands, looked on his other face, he embraced me, I embraced him, hard. Then he left goal, he's tuning attention, I looked at him, I went back, I shook his arm again, I embraced him, and I left. And it was hard. I hope I never had to go through that again.

And then I went out, it was hard. out it was Sergeant Tehran was next to the other officers in there. And I told him and say that Sargento, do not, they're ordered from high Bolivian command to eliminate the prison. Don't shoot from here, right? Shoot from here down because this man's supposed to die from combat. See me capitan, see me capitan. It was exactly 1 o'clock in the afternoon because I looked at the watch when I left.

I walked toward the area where it was photographed in the diary. I sat in the bench taking some note. At 1.15, I heard a short burst of machine gun fire. It was an M2 caramine. He borrowed, because the soldier had a regular garand, he borrowed the full automatic M2 carabine from Lieutenant Paris, who was next to him. It was a lieutenant that was very, very, very short, very small.

And it was 115, I took note. Then I went in there, you know, I would say, for a long time, maybe two, three hours later, here come Garry Prado and Sessotorrelli, two captains, and then I joined them, I'm going to the room. When we arrive into the room, his body was like this sideways, this door was like this.

His head was looking at the ceiling. The two dead body was still there, and his face was covered with mud. Now, the floor is dirt, it's mud in there, very humid, okay? The walls were made out of clay, type of clay or dirt. Mixed it with a little stone and some things from the trees. That's the way they mix together. And it's very, very, as they say, insulating.

It really keeps the cold out or keep the heat out. It's very, very insulating. And then, of course, they are the straw on top of the... The wall itself has some straw, a small stone. Because a bunch of those stones later on, when I went back and finally brought a bunch of that back home before they destroyed the house in the other side. So here we are, I asked them,

I could hear the helicopter coming. No, they don't know. They, when they heard the helicopter come and they left, both of them. All right. Now, when we came in, Selso Torrelief had a little stick, and said, you son of a beast, you have killed so many of my soldier. And then we embraced on top of the body

and Garry Prasemi Capitan. we have done with the guerrillas in America Latina. We have finished the guerrilla in Latin America

and told him and Capitan if we have not finished them, at least we have delayed them for a long

time. They hear the helicopter they took off immediately. So I asked to a soldier who was there

to bring me a bucket of water because his fake was covered with mud. So I got

a bucket of water and I sat next to him I got with my hand I cleaned all his face

and completed to all the plot out of his face completely Nimot out of his face I tried to close his job with my anchorship

which I lost with the air of the helicopter it was successfully closing in there but then I lost and he went back again I tried unsuccessfully to close the ice several times put it back in and went back on I've been up in more than two hours

Is that normal? Yes When you are so long even you have to try to move an arm you won't they are there At the beginning, yes, you can move it. If it was maybe a few minutes, you can keep a wire and it will stay there.

When there are several hours, it's already frozen that way. You can't bring it down, but when you let it go, it goes up again. So I could, I wouldn't close the eye. This I could. But then with the air of the helicopter, I lose my handkerchief, and when you see the picture, his jaw is down in there. So I got the body, the two captain left. He didn't want the helicopter to see or anybody to take pictures.

him and the body. I took the body on one side, two soldiers on the other side, we took to the last right pontoon of the helicopter. Why I was trying to tie it down, the Major Neino and Guzman, the Pais de Semi-Capitan, move him forward to balance a little bit of the helicopter. Apparently, it's a little bit to the... So I put my hand under him. It was a, a camilla, a treasure under it with plastic. I pulled it out. When I got the hand out, I couldn't see it, completely covered with blood. Apparently, the... One of the bullet hit the aorta, and it was a big pull of blood. When this thing is black, it doesn't allow the liquid to go down, to drain down.

I didn't say a word, but I thought to myself, in my mind, their person had a lot of blood in their hand. I had the hell of a lot of it. So I didn't say a war. I just thought that it came to my mind. Then I cleaned the blood on the right side of my pen. I went down and continued to tie the helicopter, tie the thing around his,

which I lost with the arrow, the helicopter. to the helicopter, a little bit to the left to balance the helicopter on the long ship. And at that point, a soldier came saying, Major, Major, Father Chiller went to see him. So we stayed at two, three minutes with the engine running. Here come this priest, riding a mule all the way around. It was fairly close to being decapitated, because we were a little bit lower ground than the, where he was coming from. But just this much from the play, he came down from the mule. He went a little bit closer, and then twice

which I took a picture of it which my Minox camera that's the only one that I had left I thought to myself this guy wasn't an atheist he didn't believe in God nevertheless he received the last ritual from the Catholic Church and we took off and we took off for

and let me tell you there were time that we were talking I wasn't paying any attention be honest with you I don't know what he was saying I was looking at this guy in front of me the guy looks like a beggar. It's a guy who didn't have proper clothes. He had a jacket who was in racks, filthy.

The hair was filthy. He didn't have any pair of booze. He had some couple of leather very badly tied down to his foot, like shoes that weren't shoes. Very very. To a point, you feel sorry for some individuals like that. I feel sorry for the guy. And my mind, when he was talking,

I wasn't even paying attention what he was saying. My mind was, well, I never met him in person, but I remember him when he visited the Soviet Union, when he visited Mao Zetoon in China. I remember that guy, which seems to me much taller that what he was right there now, with this big abrigo, you know, the cover coat,

was the leader of the Soviet Union, and the leader of China, very arrogant talking, and looking at this guy, it could not be the same person. It's impossible. I mean, it strikes so different, too different, what I was looking at and what I knew or remembered from him and that. So it wasn't, it wasn't, but it was probably one of the hardest moments on my life to go through with that decision.

I knew I had to do it. It was no other question about it. I hope never had to do it again. I never will, hopefully. Did you really respect him? In that moment, did you have some respect for him? When a guy accept his faith and he died like a man. For example, he took people in exile.

He would say, oh, Che Guevara pleaded for a life. He begged, he cried, bullshit. He didn't do that. Other people would say, Cuba, would say, for example, he talked to me and say, I don't talk, traitors, and he is pitted me. We both treat each other with mutual respect. all the time. All the time.

Now, some of my friend will tell me and say, you know, if he had been the other way around, he would not treat you like that. I say, I know, but that's the difference between them and us. It's a hell of a difference. What we fight for and what he fight for.

What kind of person was he? How did he treat people? How did he treat prisoners? Well, being captured, you take another personality. You are, you are, you are, you are down. It's different when you are in power. Now, I had some experience that tell his real character,

tell a lot of who really was. For example, here in the museum about five years ago, came a lady, and she came in a wheelchair. She was the sister of a friend of mine, who is a paratrooper during the Bay of Cape Castaño. Their father was a captain. in the Cuban police, the anti-communist police called Braque Partio Repression Anticumunista,

the Batista had. It was specifically like anti-communist unit, and Fidel and Che hated them. Now, he was lieutenant in that unit, a very decent guy, okay? They had him to be executed, but they allowed the family to visit him. So she was telling me here one day, and say, look, I went to visit my father a Saturday.

I get up normally about two, three o'clock in the morning to be at La Cavaena's early, very early, because there would be a long, there would be hundreds of people to visit their family that were in prison. So I arrived one of the first. When I arrived, there were already people there. They arrived at three or four o'clock in the morning, waiting in line. By 11 o'clock in the morning, it was a huge line. We were fairly in front.

There was a lady in front of her. Che Guevara arrived about 11 o'clock in the morning. He came in the jeep. And this lady in front started jailing on Che Guevara. And he said, Coe, calmate. No, no, no. She was so perceived that Che Guevara noticed her and she came in the jeep. Came down in the jeep,

Saniora, what happened to you? Then the lady told him, Commander, my son is 15-year-old. He's being in prison for two weeks. He had done nothing. He was not condemned to death penalty. How old? Fifteen.

Fifteen. He was not condemned to death penalty. He was just in prison for whatever he did. Okay. I haven't been able to sleep in two weeks. Please release him. You know, he's 15-year-old. He even done nothing.

what is the name of your son? Bring her son now. She waited. The guy went, when he saw they went. They took a little while. Came with the kid. When the kid came, 15 years old. Praying front of her.

He hid him on the face. He said, I'm a kidd puttap. For your culpah, your mother, because you are responsible for your mother, not sleeping in two weeks. Put out his pistol and shot him in the head in front of everybody.

And everybody in the land start calling him, a, his pooh, assesino, communist, son of a bitch

you saw assassins communism. That's the end of the visit today. Everybody go home.

There is no visit for prisoners today. So everybody had to leave there. That was

the true Che Guevara. And when you read his letter to his father, the first time

that he had killed people, he wrote to his father. It's a matter of a Cuban record that

he found out that he enjoyed killing people. Okay. When I talked to there was a

guy who trained them, was a Cuban, which I met, but he became friends him later on. He was with me, even though I didn't see him at the time, the Dominican Republic in 1959. He was working with the Dominican Chief of Intelligence, Avis Garcia. He told me, he said, Felix,

he was the one who trained Che and Fidel and everybody in Mexico. They called him the Korean, Korean, Miguel A. Sanchez. They called Korean because he was in the Korean world with the U.S. Army. So Carlos Priozoubaras, who was the former president of Cuba, who Batista deposed, paid him. At the beginning he was with Fidel before he went to the Sierra Maitra, pay him to one train Fidel in Mexico, because this guy had experience, military experience from Korea.

He was the one who trained all of them, say, Felix, I knew all of them. Che Guevara was nothing. It was nobody in the training camp. Nothing. And he said, let me tell you one thing. Che will come to me because he knew that I was in Korea. asked me several times, you have been in combat, you have killed people.

What does it feel like when you shoot somebody, when you shoot your enemy and you see the blood coming out? He has a fascination to find out what was your feeling when you do that. Back in training in Mexico, World Koreano. So he had that from inside him all the time. And he loved to give the Kube de Tad shot in the head to the people that he can. We enjoy that. What was your answer to that? How does it feel? to you when you when you murder it's not it's when you're in war it's different when I arrived I had a lot of the this did this happen later on but I knew that he wasn't assassins I know he killed a lot of my people but then it was a transformation

what I had in my mind it the race against him when I saw him which is not what I expected I saw a poor guy a beggar a guy who was being he lost who was really really down you felt sorry as a human being you feel sorry

when you see somebody like that and really I forgot everything that he did against my people when you hear the guy who trained Che talk about Che's fascination

with killing with death how does that compare to your experience with taking people's lives well I never I've taken people alive in combat

right They're shooting on you and you're shooting on death. It's not execution, but it's still, it's still taking. Or torture. I never torture anybody. A lot of people said in Vietnam, no, our people never torture anybody in front of me. Okay. We got more being nice to then, like for example, the guy who met the position of Tutank,

the guy who was fighting the rocket into Saigon. I was friendly with him. He started working with Osden, accompanied our units, okay? He really was pissed off at them. because they took him being the only male in the family. Look, when I was in the helicopter and we put a strike right on top, he was sharing.

Like, yeah, you hit the target. She's your friends. You were with them maybe 10 days ago. You were with them down there. It's amazing, the transformation of these people. He was happy that we were killing his friend down there. I couldn't understand that, really. It's amazing.

I had some very interesting experience during my career with the age and different part, and that was one of them. to see this guy who just came out with them, was supposed to be their brothers in there, and he would enjoy it when, yeah, you are on target. You're hitting the right target.

You can see, honestly, he was feeling good about that. Maybe he had such a big resentment that they made him do that that he didn't want to do, that they expressed it that way. Did it change you when you first started going into combat and even in, like, Vietnam, some of the things you had to do, you know, in firefights,

seeing all the death, taking people's lives. How did that affect you personally? Did you become numb to it? Let me tell you, to be honest with you, I didn't even talk about Che when it was in Vietnam. She was nothing. It's amazing.

People think that was the biggest thing in my career. That was the least thing in my career. I feel the hell of, I know I contributed a hell of a lot more in Vietnam. I have much more fulfillment what happened in Vietnam than in Bolivia. It was only one hour, two hour, three hour, four hours with him in there.

That's all. and advising them. It was nothing. He was nobody at that. So a lot of people, I mean, what do you feel when you saw, Che? Now, they are thinking the Che that Cuban created in your image after he died.

He seemed to say that they created the man of people that Superman, you know, that people admire, some people admire and love him, even though he was a criminal. That the Cheye that I met, when Che was there, was nobody. Nobody knew him like Chey.

Nobody was using his tissue or anything like that at that time. It was nobody. He was really a very, very, very, poor guerrilla. It was the worst guerrilla in the world when you look at it. He could not even recruit a single farmer. Benigno used to kid with me and say, Felix, the only guy that we'd recruit was a dog and he left because we couldn't provide him with food. Nobody ever joined him. He went from whatever career was in, people got killed or people defected from the gorilla. That was it. But to me, when you look at my career, you know,

I was to say, look, nobody told what I really did in Vietnam, all the things. Everybody wants to talk about Che Guevara, and that's the least thing that I consider I did. It was a matter of circumstances to be there what I went through. But Bolivia were the one who captured him. By circumstance, I was there. But it wasn't the highlight of my life, really, to be honest, with you at all. Right. My, really, the highlight of my life was Vietnam.

When you look at it, really. Where you put accomplishing El Salvador when I captured Nidia Diaz, as the commander. No, I mean, I guess like my, what I was getting at was like the amount of blood and the amount of death and suffering that you've seen in your life is more than most people on our, I mean, it's like the top one percent. Look, let me tell you, Prona, I had that home. When I came back at home, my kid, for example, will be, we'll have some fever.

Okay. They were, they had a cold and they had some high fever. I didn't ask about them. And my wife, you don't love them. I say, no, no, no. I have been in hospital all the time.

I see kids like them. Right. With no eyes, with no legs, with no hands, you know. You're lucky that they have only a cold. You're lucky that you only have

a little bit of fever. That's nothing. It's really in a way insensitive. Insensitive you. You know, I wasn't that. She was very sensitive when my son had a fever,

a high fever or felt bad. I didn't. But I saw, many agony of this little kid, saying like my kid, even younger or older, what they have gone through, my kid only had a cold. It's no comparison. So in a way, it didn't move me to see him with a cold. Yeah, you had a call.

Give him some medical, he will get rid of it. It's nothing, which is what, really nothing. Right. Now, perhaps if I hadn't gone through what I did, maybe I would be more worried about them. And she used to tell me, you don't love things. I love them. But you should see the people that are showing in Vietnam, this is nothing. Right.

Absolutely nothing. Is the legend true that you have Che's watch? No, no, no. That's not the way it was. No, I had bought in Miami long before that and a GMT watch. It's exactly the same to the one that they had. So when I arrived in Ligera, there was one soldier that had one of the watches. Now, remember, there were about seven or eight GMT in there.

Every single Cuban Fidel gave a GMT watch. Che and every one of them. Later on, when I got the guys from this guy, I said, look, I'm in capital. I want to see inside to see if they have any microfilm. So give it to me, I'll give it back to you. My band was different from the original one, because my band, the original one went bad,

and I bought one which is not raw, like pretty stronger. So where I did I exchange badges I gave him my band with my watch and took his Rolex with my band. He told me he took a franchise. Bullshit. He didn't take a franchise. She had two GMT watcher

with him. His and the one Cuban who had died that he was keeping the other Rolex to give it to the family. I got the story directly from them. And then Gary Prado kept both of them because they brought Che to Garry Prado. They cut his hands off. right? Yeah, so what was later on? That was the

Gary Pratt doesn't do with that. That was the day after when they were trying to prove the Fidel, indeed, that was, if he said, he wanted to cut his head off. And what was the one who told Luke, you're going to do that. I said, why not? Say, you're a head of a state, you can show the head of a human being. But what do you suggest? They caught one female. We had the fingerprint from the Argentine and federal police and they can be checked. So he ordered both hands to be cut. Okay, that was a different

story on that. Okay. But the watch actually was what was Carri Pratt had both of them, both watch. Now, they told me, and I believe for many, many years, that when they captured Shea, she said, don't shoot, I worse to you alive more than that. That destroyed the belief in it. I wasn't there. And that's the story that I gave before, because that's what I believed it happened.

That was what they told me. And that's why then Sergeant Tehran told me that when he was, when they, when they were, when he should she, he went into the room and she knew he was going to be killed, but I told him. And he said, hey, you say, hey, you're not going to get. Say, no, no, no, we are not going to kill you. You are worse to you more alive than dead. So that's repeating what he had said before. To repeat in that what he had said before, it was not the case.

I had about 10 days ago, the newspaper guy that I respect, that interview the four soldiers to actually capture Che. Because Garipado was not present when they captured Shea. They brought him to him. And he gave me the picture of the guys and done with... I got all the documentation he gave me from these four guys. These guys were the one who captured Chee.

And they claimed that Chewazade was with Simeon Cuba-Sarabia. I know that because they both were captured alive. Simeon Cuba-Sarabia was another guerrilla and like this, very small. He had more hair and more bear than Che. was really, really tough, with a lot of error.

And he was executed. As a matter of time, I was talking, I was photographed in the direct when I hear some birds of fire. I run into the room and look at Che, he looked at me. They go to the next room and they had just shot Simeon Cuba Sarabia. He was captain. He didn't have even a bulletin. He had not been wounded at all.

And what happened was these two guys said they were very close because, and then they jumped on Shee, all four of them. The only thing She said, no, no, no, no, no, no. My war is not against you. It's against your officers. That's all that she said. He said, he said, don't shoot.

He didn't say that at all. The only said, no, no, no, my war, my war, my guerra no, it's with you. It's with your officer. Now I tell that, because I've laid the truth to be knowing. But at the beginning, I said the other thing because I found hard to believe that Che would say that, really knowing him.

But that's what they said. said and I respected that. It was a lie. It was a lie to try to put him down, but he didn't say that. Going back to the beginning, we glossed over it a little bit, but I wanted to talk about the mission that you went on when they shipped you over to Cuba to assassinate Castro. What was that like when they sent you over there and the mission ultimately failed? That gone through the same way. The following word. We were in Panama.

We just moved from Guatemala to Panama for additional training. So a frame of mind, Segundo Borgen, myself, we talked to us and said, look, why do we volunteer to kill Castro? That would shorten the world tremendous

and save life. Yeah, let's do it. So we went to seeing an American who was in charge of training in there. And we told them and said, look, we like to participate in getting rid of Castro. We like to see if it's possible

we can shoot them. Who did you say to? took note. That was it. Okay. Never talked to us again. Then we spent the finish the training. They flew us actually plane as if we landed in Guatemala for one night and then they took to us to a home of the owner of the plantation in there for one night. Then we flew back to Miami and they put us in a motel in Homestead, which is excluded, nothing around. It's just trees all over the places. It farms all around there. One motel was a big swimming pool, huge swimming pool.

We used to practice with the RB12, the small plastic that we were supposed to use to land. Well, I was there. It was called a set okay, your operation has been approved. So they brought a rifle, I believe was a German rifle. When a telescope inside was in a box, it was not attached to the driver. They told me how to attach it. And they told me, once you do it, don't touch it. It's already sided to the distance you're going to shoot Fidel.

They knew that this. I had no idea where I was going to do it from. But apparently they knew the idea was from Edificiazumayan to the presidential palace. They know exactly this. And they have zero in that side to that thing. So somebody went there beforehand? And they gave me, no, they, I don't know. How they got it, I have no idea. But they told me it was already presided to this as you're going to chew it.

The other is speculation on my part. Then Seguyen, and then they added one more mantle working, a radio operator, was Javier Solto. He later, he just retired. He was a senator for the State of Florida, local, state of Florida, not federal. And he also was until a year ago, he was the commissioner of Dade County for 15, 20 years. Okay. He was my radio operator, so under my own myself. And then he lit a box of 10 or 20 bucks, two rounds.

You only use maybe one, two, or three. You're lucky three. Okay, maybe only one. You don't use that many when you, you, you, but, better do on the first shoot. So they gave us the rifle. Then they took up, we went to the middle of the key, a boat was waiting for us, and then they took to a bigger boat.

It was the only time that boat was used for an operation, was a luxurious jet from a millionaire. Later on, we were told, we didn't learn that. Later on, I told me that was the boat that belonged to Sergeant Shriver, a relative of President Kennedy. Oh, really? It was a Ukrainian, Romanian crew, and one American captain in charge of the police.

It was in late January. We went the first time. We got right to Valadero Beach. There was supposed to be a boat waiting for us to bring us in and then take us to a safe house and then take us to the area. Okay, we were in the hands of the resistance when we got in there.

There was nobody waiting for us who came back again. They waited for several days or whatever. Then I think it was in February. We went back again. The second time in the area were supposed to be because it was a huge boat, but it was a huge boat. It could not be. It was like a hundred foot longer, wood, kind of blue, painted blue. Nobody on board.

I remember everybody was with the machine, and we all have Soviet machine. All the true crew was using brain machine. They never used American weapons. It was all Soviet weapons. And they were Ukrainian and Romanian personnel, they called the Alconi, was recruited by the agency from World War II or whatever. Put the lights around the boat, not a single soul, We came back again. We went again. Then we tried to get again, I guess it was in the middle or later part of March, the boat broke. The high speed of the boat went down, so we didn't even go off to gear. We went back. And then they do the rifle of the SA. Your operation has been scratched. You are going in ahead of the infiltration team for Las Villas. So they added two more men to my team. There were three of us. There were five of us. Then we enter in February 28, as the main. as the Uygh was head of the infiltration team of Las Villas province in Cuba. Same thing. We went by land.

Then there was a guide who walked, we seen about four, five kilometers through farm farms until we got to the main highway. And then a car would pick us up two or three at a time and take us to a safe house in Havana. And then what happened? They never talking about killing Castro. They never, what? Talk again about killing Castro. Before you guys were shipped over there. Did you guys do any practice?

Didn't you guys have to like, you guys didn't have to practice? I was a good shooter. That's amazing. Right, but I know you were a good shooter, but like, didn't you guys have to like rehearse, like where he was going to be? We were supposed to. They never did that. It's amazing. You never rehearsed.

That's a lack of professionalism on my part. They didn't know how he should. Well, maybe they have the record. Yes, I am a good shooter. Oh. I got an expert shooter. You always rifle. They had the record from the, from the, from the, but normally.

you're going to do something like that. You're family right. You shoot with the rifle we're going to use. That's the way it should be done. They didn't. Somebody did the shooting. Allegedly it wasn't tired. The only thing you have to do, put the round there.

And it's already zero into it. That's one thing that called my attention. They should have put me in a range and should. Was it just going to be you or was there going to be multiple angles? Like, you know they talk about the triangular hit teams? No, no, no. As far as I know, it's only one person. Just one shooter?

I didn't. If there was another part, they didn't tell me. I don't think they were. They were talking another one because later on they tried to do it from that location with a bazooka. A bazooka? Yeah. And the battery went dead. They couldn't do it. They got the basooka and everything to shoot us there with the basooka. And I understand that from the same location, they changed from the rifle to a basooka and the battery was down. But when they activated, maybe. Or maybe the guy was afraid of doing it and they disconnected the battery and said they didn't work.

I don't know. I just heard that they tried to do that with Bazook. It didn't work because the battery was dead. Have you heard the story about when Kennedy got shot Castro? There was a reporter in the room with Castro meeting with him. And he got a Castro, his aide brought him the phone. And he picked up the phone. He listened to it for a minute.

He put the phone down. And then he looked at the reporter and said, they're going to blame me for this. No. Yeah, apparently that's a recount. I think it was in Brazil when the... That was in the... that there was a documentary on Netflix, Cuba Libre. You were a part of that.

They interviewed you in there. And it was one of the interviews in Cuba Libre with the guy who said that. And, you know, the speculation is that Castro, you know, a lot of people like to blame Castro for the Kennedy murder or the Kennedy assassinations. No, but Castro was involved. No question about it.

You think he was? Oh, yeah. There's, that's the problem. Like, the Kennedy assassination is so convoluted. There's so many theories. No, no, no. There was, and when we know the shooter, too, Fabian Escalante, he was a Cuban colonel, well, he was the captain at the time. He was an expert shooter spoke fluent English.

He was in Dallas that day. Really? Javier Encalante. He left him with a private plane to Mexico, with another private plane from there to Cuba. Really? Oh, yes. And the United States knew that. And the United States covered up for national security consideration.

Because, see, remember, when the October crisis exploded, Cuba already. already have four nuclear weapons inside the island. Okay? They put it in, that's why Cruchev first saw comfortable in bringing 20 of them at a time. Because he said, hey, the American know that I bring four missiles inside. They have done nothing. They can bring 20. They're not going to mine.

And that's when, you know, that's when they, he got to a turning point that they could not accept to bring 20 more. And that's why the Kennedy Cruzee. The death treaty was never implemented. Was he, was the guy, what was his name again? The guy used to beaacalante. Escalante. Was he a part of the Bay of Pigs at all or Operation 40? No, no, no.

He was from Castro's side. He was a captain in Castro's army, and then he became a general. Okay. I heard, and there's a lot of crazy theories. I heard one theory that part of the guys that were a part of the Operation 40, the anti-Castro Cubans were a part of the, the assassination team for Kennedy. It was the three tramps theory.

Believe me, when you look at the history itself, first of all, you're looking at Oswald. He was one of them. Oswald went to the Cuban embassy first. Soviet Yemen in the Cuban embassy in Mexico. I spent four to five hours inside the Cuban embassy before he went back to Dallas, okay? The Cuban denied he was ever in the Cuban embassy

at the beginning. happened, they say that it was not true, that it was never the Cuban embassy. As time went by, and they learned that we had pictures, a movie of him going to the embassy, they went back to us because they were questioned by the U.S. administration. And so, oh, yeah, yeah, it was a mistake. We went back, and we thoroughly went through the record. Yes, Oswald visited the Cuban embassy. He was requesting a visa to go up to Cuba and we denied the visa. Can you imagine going to a Cuban embassy and it will take five hours to deny a visa? You need a visa to believe? Maybe they would make him wait for one hour.

Right. You don't delay a visa five hours to tell the guy I know. And one thing that is for sure, and he knew that, and we knew that. If he doesn't kill, if Kennedy were not killed, Fidel will not be there. I can guarantee you. That's why we're tired of the operation with our teammate, that then the president was assassinated. And that I am convinced that he had somehow, So the guy who killed Bobby Kennedy was also Cuba had to do with it.

Really? Bobby Kennedy was more accessed than killing Castro that the president was both of them. Especially Bobby Kennedy was a very good friend of Harry Ruse William. That's why he got in contact so close with us. When we were running the Operation Central America, I were in between with the CIA was not the CIA personnel. It was Bobby Kennedy all the time. And when Bobby Kennedy was, when Bobby Kennedy was,

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, our team went with a couple of guys from the MRR went to visit Bobby Kennedy to pay the condolence, because we were at that time in Central America, an operation that the president had approved. We have both, a commando, we had everything in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. And what they told me, they recalled the first thing that Bobby told our team and the group was, my brother had two big enemies. The mafia and Fidel Castro. I believe it was the last one who assassinated him, Fidel Castro.

If Bobby Kennedy was involved in planning the assassination of Fidel Castro when we sent a silencer to Spain to be given to a Cuban mayor to assassinate Fidel. Bobby was well aware of the assassination attempt. Do you think the U.S. was somehow behind it? Who? The United States, the military? No. Not a chance.

No chance. They have tried to blame Who is the guy? I wrote it down There was a mob guy Santos Santos Traficante Yeah, yeah, yeah

I heard a lot of Miami He was in Miami Santos Traficante Was he involved at all With any of the Hit squads That were being trained The paramilitary hit squads?

Because I heard that he was apart because there was the... That's bullshit. That's all bullshit. Yeah. Okay. There was another Cuban here. I forgot his name now.

I know he was working with the Cuban intelligence. And he used to swear he worked for the CIA. He was with Alpha 66. He used to claim that he had a meeting with a CIA guy and Oswald in Dallas before assassination. And the guy that he claimed from the CIA, when I talked to my friend, was a head of operation.

He, at that time, when Dallas happened, he was a sign in Africa. He was not even here. But this guy knew him. He swore, he had been on television. He swore that he met Oswald with this guy in Dallas. So I remember when,

let me see if I can remember his name. The Cuban, well-known. When they did a series about 20 people called Legendas del Exilio, exile legends okay I was the first one I was the first legend

then the people came behind they had him to make a I ask him is this guy went to be interview for legend they'll say yes don't count me on it get somebody else

I'm not interesting in being legend if these guys went to be in Monta's group forget it do him don't do it don't do it don't they took him out of that the son of which

he was working for Cuba. Whenever you tell him that Cuba participates in the assassination of Kennedy, it will go crazy. You know, Cuba has nothing to do with the assassination of Kennedy. He defended that tremendously. What is your thought on the moral question of assassinations versus war? Because the way it's supposed to go is the first step is when it comes to international conflicts is the first step is diplomacy. The second step is war and the third step is Title 50, assassinations. But there's a huge moral question with that a lot of people argue like it would save a lot of lives and a lot of money if number three assassination came before war.

It all depends. All the circumstances are different. For example, people ask me question about torturing. I don't believe in torture, but there is a point in time. Put yourself, you are a professional interrogator. Okay. And you are convinced, be joining the evil doubt that this guy knows where there is an atomic artifact, Washington, D.C., when it begins.

he knows there is no question about that you are you are convinced that he knows that what would you do or not do to make sure that that thing doesn't explode okay I'll tell you what in a situation like that and you are convinced to me you can go to an extreme right you can take his eyes out you can kill his mother his brother, his sister, a baby in the head with an innocent guy in front of him, if he talked, you save five million or four million people. There is no limit to what you do. Only, only. But the thing is, the problem with that is that maybe people will use this without being really justified. you can use to say, well, and really it's not the case.

That's the problem in implementing something like that. But if it's going to, you're talking about 5 million people, my friend. Right. You're talking about hundreds of babies like that little one. Hundreds, it's not thousands. Or little kids, mother, father. You're talking about saving. So would you sacrifice?

Yes. you have to be true. You definitely have to be convinced. Sure, there is no question in your mind anyway that the guy knew exactly what that thing is. And this goes back to the Billy Waw thing when he was in Khartoum and he had many opportunities

to shoot and kill bin Laden. Instead, he was taking photos and he could not get the authorization to kill bin Laden. When, if he would have killed bin Laden, it would have saved thousands of lives. We didn't know that, really. Right.

It's all, right. It's all hindsight. Now we know that we have the people in the tower and a pohidiya really don't know that exactly. But we have really convinced that you got to do it. Yeah, it's all comes down to intelligence. I forget what the rules are, what the present that you, you know you're doing.

Even if you go to prison, you save millions of people. It works well. Yes. There's a documentary out there. I'm sure, I know you're familiar with it, but there's a documentary out there about the DEA agent in Latin America or in Mexico and there's people that

in that documentary they accuse you of being tied to the murder of the DEA agent. You're familiar with that? Kiki Camarena. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've been aware of that. What is your response to those people? No, no. Absolutely lie. First of all, I can prove where I was during that day

and especially now. I have since I knew what's the thing what happened, I was taking note to the thing that I do every day. Okay? And now more. In 1993, I started writing everything in detail, what I do every day. So you tell me that I did something in 1995, September 4, 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

I can tell you exactly where I was. Who do I made? What I did? What did I eat? Everything. When Kiki Kamare, when they claimed the day I was supposed to be killing Kiki Kamerera, I have a phone call with the White House. That when they called me that day

to tell me the General Gorman wanted to talk to me and they gave me a phone number to call General Gorman in Panama. That day I had a meeting with Perry Rifkin, the director of immigration here in Miami with Pedro Revereux,

the mayor of the city of West Miami. We had three Nicaraguan contra fighters who had been very badly wounded. One called the Tigrito. He had a bullet through his face here. All this thing was hanging down. He destroyed his banditula

and half of his with thumb and everything. And the other two were paralyzed. And we were able to get through a friend of mind, the hospital of Recare, in Cuba, which is now, I guess he owes a lot of to IRS. He's guiding in Spain, I believe.

He was going to allow his hospital to attend these people for free. Okay. Now, these people had no documentation to travel. They have no passport. So I got the lieutenant colonel from the Cornyn, a corner from the, from the Honduran Italian service,

to issue a document, like identity document, with their picture, high, altitude, weight, and all of this shit in detail. And then I went with Pedro Ravarra to see Pader Rizk and the director of immigration to see we'll allow to get in that paper, which is not a passport, a humanitarian visa. So I have the day, the day record,

the white, how me talking to the White House that date, and then talking to all of these people, going to immigration, the regular immigration that I was that day. What country were you in? What country were you in? What country were you in that day? Miami. Oh, you were in Miami.

We were talking to Perrier-Riscan direct-immigration here in Miami. And Pedro Revere was the mayor of the city of West Miami. Oh, okay. We both went to see the director of immigration here, and he agreed. He agreed to get the visa. And we brought the three kids here, finally. We got the three kids to fly into the United States by Challenger. I know the, and then the second day,

it was supposed to be Mexico. because I young at the airport picking up with Reboredo at the door of the plane, the channeled the three wounded people to take it to the hospital. So I have more than a record. Now, another thing, the name, they used the name Max Gomez. In that month, in 1985, I didn't know MacMovic 60. I didn't have that name at all. Three months later, when I went to flight to El Salvador,

my friend Lou Rodriguez, Lieutenant Colonel, when I got there, say, Felix, you have to use another name here, not your true name when you come to fly as a volunteer here. I am going to give you the name of Maximo Gomez. Maximo Gomez was a Dominican sergeant in the army in Dominica who became a generalissimo in the Cuban War of Independence. It was Dominican. He said, he said Dominican who flew for the freedom of Cuba, you are a Cuban flying for the freedom of El Salvador. So I want to give you the number of Max Ome. So when I supposedly was in Mexico using Macromeda, nobody knew that name.

Nobody, the name didn't exist at that night. You take him out two or three months later when I went to El Salvador. Do you think it's possible there was a CIA agent there during the torture at Kiki? No. No. Bullshit. What the guy is saying is that what they claim this guy, Berrages, Berrejes is one of the

I have to pick the copy of the because I called the DA people and I contacted the guy from the A and said look let me send you what the DA put out the same day that this guy start telling that they they were the one in the CIA involved in Kiki Kamarena

the name with David Wilson David Wilson was not recently when they came out with this thing on Amazon and Amazon Prime They added the last Narc. They dedicated the four chapter to me. When that thing happened, this guy,

David Wilson was the director of the retiree for DEA, which is not called DA Retiree. They're called Association of Federal Former Narcotics Agents. That's the sigil for the retiree from the DA. That day he put a paper, I have a copy of it, to all the DA retirees saying they had no idea why these two agents were lying about. that he didn't help.

First of all, the Berets claimed that he was in charge of Kiki Kamarenna. He was never in charge of Kiki Kamarenna's death, investigation at all. And they didn't know why they were lying, because that would hurt the real guy who did it was Karo Quintero. And Karo Kintero did it because he confiscated a huge farm in Mexico that was producing him like a billion dollars in money every year. And that he got so pissed off at a kid. Camarana, then he actually

kidnapped kid, Camarana, and then torture him, killing. At the beginning this asshole said that they had movie of me doing that. Yeah, video of you. Yeah, video and recording. I said, show it. They said it was classified, right? Then they didn't talk anymore about the video. Then talk about the recording. They couldn't

present it because it's not true. I was not even in Mexico during that time. And at least of all the agency, they claimed that the CIA was involved because the The CIA had an agreement with these people from the cartel to allow the drug to come to the United States and they were receiving money for the contras.

Right. And they claimed that the contract were trained in a finca, Veracruz de Colo, Yucatun Finka and Veracruz, that the contract were trained there. There is not one single contract ever trained in Mexico. As then to produce one contract that said that it was trained in Mexico. It was a lie. Not a single contract. All the contract were ever trained was in Honduras.

do you think your name got mixed up into all of it? Just because you were involved with the country. No, no. Well, first of all, you got Kerry, got me involved in narco trafficking. Right. Okay, which isn't true. Even though he apologized afterward. The Cuban government has been saying that for a long time,

that I'm a torture and an assassin. Now I appear in the list of the most wanted people from Cuba. Fortunately, Interpol will not take that at the value. They have 40 people in. They just put it out 10 days ago. Big Leaf accusing all of us of being terrorists. My name is in it. Ninoska Perez-Castellon, the newspaper lady from here also her name appeared in there.

Basulto from Voire to Rescue his name appeared in there. All of us are terrorists for them. Cuba have accused me of every thing except one thing. They have never accused me of being a queer. Other than that, every single thing in the book they are throwing me. accept that. Well, you're doing good on that front, I guess. Yeah. Felix, thank you so much for doing this. It's an honor to talk to you. Your life has been a movie, to say the least. Is there anything else we can say? Do you have like a website or do you have a book people can find

that you've written or is there anything people can do to contact you if they want to talk to you? Yeah, do anyone talk to me, talk to you and you tell me. Well, Felix. Felix, thanks again. I'm really grateful for your time today. And that's all, folks. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Felix.