The Rest Is Classified - Ex Cia Officer On How The Cubans Failed Maduro In Venezuela

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

*Declassified Club exclusive: ⁠⁠⁠⁠SUBSCRIBE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to listen to the full series* What does one of the CIA's leading experts on Venezuela think about the operation to capture President Maduro? What will history say about the decision to invade a sovereign nation? And how involved were the Cubans? Listen as David and Gordon are joined by former CIA officer and Latin America Chief of Operations to discuss the Trump administration's operation in Venezuela and what this means for the future of the region. ------------------- Join The Declassified Club: Start your free trial at ⁠⁠⁠therestisclassified.com⁠⁠⁠ - go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, quarterly livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community. To sign up to the free newsletter, go to: ⁠⁠⁠https://mailchi.mp/goalhanger.com/tric-free-newsletter-sign-up⁠ ⁠⁠ ------------------- Email: [e-mail] Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@restisclassified Social Producer: Emma Jackson Producer: Becki Hills Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books. Join the Declassified Club at the rest isclassified.com. Welcome, everybody. Welcome Declassified Club members, Secret Squirrels. Welcome any new members we've got. And we've been running. I hope you've heard a series, a kind of rapid response emergency podcast series looking at those events. in Venezuela in the last week or so.

And we've done two episodes looking at the raid that captured Nicholas Maduro and also the questions of why the US carried it out. But events are clearly moving very fast. And we wanted to kind of dive a bit deeper this week and give our club members the perspective of someone who's got some real experience in Latin America and from inside the US intelligence community. So we've got a great guest, haven't we, David?

We do, Gordon, and we are very delighted to welcome to the club Dave Fitzgerald. Dave served for 37 years and did 13 overseas tours in the CIA. He was a seven-time chiefest station serving in numerous conflict zones all over the world, including Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and South Asia. He served principally in Latin America throughout his career, but also held. a number of senior headquarters positions, including the chief of our Latin America operations and Latin America deputy division chief. He was also the senior DCIA, director of the CIA representative to CENTCOM, U.S. Central Command, from 2017 to 2020. And he is currently the president and co-founder

of Vector 1 Global, a strategic consulting and trading companies. We are very fortunate to have with us, Dave Fitzgerald. Welcome to the show, Dave. Glad to have you here. One thing you did mention was the Cubans, who obviously supplied kind of bodyguards, we understand, for Maduro, but also kind of wider counterintelligence support. Is that right? I mean, what kind of things have the Cubans done for the Venezuelans when it comes to, you know, either personal or kind of wider security for the regime? For me, the Cuban angle is just fascinating. So what we've seen here over the decades, I mean, starting in 2000 when President Chavez was elected, you know, you had this instant, you know, Vulcan mind-milled between, for our older listeners, a Vulcan mind-milled

between Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, as far as, you know, their aspirations and their goals and, you know, where they wanted to take the, quote, revolution. So at the, from the very start, I think, and even more enhanced with Maduro, the Cubans were the only ones, Chavez, and even more so Maduro trusted with their personal security, right? So we saw where the Cuban government announced 32 of their security officials were killed during the operation. It does not surprise me at all. Within the immediate perimeter of Maduro, there were probably zero Venezuelan security officers. And on the outer perimeter, maybe a mix of both. Okay. So they had taken care of it. This, again, this was part of Cuba's basically a way to not only

influence, but also gain funding from Venezuela. So Cubans don't do anything for free. That's number one. It's just like the Russians. Russians don't either. So no doubt, Venezuela is paying a lot of money to have that Cuban, quote, expertise to surround Maduro. And it wasn't just the physical security. This includes all the tactical intelligence and strategic intelligence, as we've seen in the press. The Cuban CI officers had been placed all through all the ministries, through all the military and intelligence agencies. I read somewhere it was down to the brigade level.

Again, their job was kind of like the old Soviet political commissar to keep tabs on the units and the agencies and the ministries to make sure that there was no dissent and that there was no attempt to create any type of coup within those units. So, I mean, looking back, this was just complete failure by the Cubans. You know, people view them as 10 feet tall. And you can become a very good intelligence agency when you basically only have one target to work on, and that's the United States. And so just think if the CIA only had to work on Russia or only had to work on China, we'd probably be extremely good at working that one target. And so that's how you kind of have to view the Cuban service.