This is the last photograph of Cuban revolutionary, Che Guevara, alive. It was taken in Bolivia in 1967. It's a very famous photograph, probably familiar to most people watching this. This man, standing right there, is not familiar to most people watching this. He should be. He's about to be. His name is Felix Rodriguez. He's a longtime CIA officer in the operations directorate, and he joins us now to explain this picture and to tell us about his life. Mr. Rodriguez, thank you very much.

Pleasure to be here.

It's a remarkable picture. The longer I look at it, the more I think that. Can you tell us where this was and what was happening?

Well, that was in Laguera, Bolivia. That's where he was captured. I came in in the helicopter with the colonel in charge of the operation. After a while, I got to talk to him. I even thought about taking the picture, but while I was talking to him, the pilot of the helicopter came with a camera from the head of intelligence who wanted a picture with Che. I asked him, Commander, do you mind? He said, No. We took him out of the schoolhouse and gave my camera to the pilot, and he took that picture.

You talked to Guevara, of course. What were the circumstances? He'd been captured by Bolivian soldiers, is that right?

Yes. Actually, they thought that he had been killing Africa. But then when they captured De Bray and Bustu, who was a French intellectual, and then a newspaper guy from Argentina, they confirmed that Che Guevara was there. As long as they understood that he was there, they sent a Special Forces Union from Panama to train a Special Battalion to operate against him because the Bolivian didn't have any experience. Then they sent a couple of us from the CIA to provide them with intelligence. The reason they sent us is because we were not US citizens. At the time, Vietnam was taking place and there were people coming back in plastic bag from Vietnam, and they didn't want any American coming back in plastic back from Latin America. At the time, we were not even residents. We were not citizens, so we didn't fall into the restriction of Ambassador Henderson. That's why we were able to go there.

So you were working for the CIA full-time, obviously, carrying a weapon, obviously, but not a US citizen.

Yes.

What was Chey like that day?

Why first... A lot of people ask me what I thought about Chey. Chey at the time was nobody. Chey became a figure after he was dead. Cuba made him a figure after war, even though they were the one who sent him to be killed. Fidel could not stand him there because Fidel depended on the Soviet Union, and Che Guevara was pro-Chinese. When he was in Africa in 1965, 1964, all the weapon he received was from red China. Then he didn't want to go back to Cuba. He went to hire in the Czech Republic, and they had to send people to convince him to go back to Cuba and to give him an opportunity in another place. But when he was sent to Bolivia, it was definitely in mind for him to be killed because the Soviet didn't want him to be any successful because they knew that Che was pro-Chinese. Chinese, and if he took a revolution in there, it would be towards the Chinese. At the time, the Chinese and the Soviet hated each other very much. When he was sent to Bolivia, his transmitter was not even working. In December of '66, when they had a dinner with Mario Monge, the head of the Communist Party of Bolivia, who had been with Fidel two months before, complete or complete procage, he told the Bolivian guerrillas that were with Che.

If they stayed with Che, they were expelled from the Communist Party. Then they had an officer intelligence that they had sent to La Paz, Rena Monte to help him. As soon as he was seen with all 17 people, they took him out of the picture and told Che that they had to take him out because his visa had expired. Actually, he was a Bolivian citizen by then. He was definitely sent there to be killed by Cuba because he could not succeed because it would be a revolution that would be pro-Chinese and Cuba dependent on the Soviet Union.

So obviously, he's a prisoner in this picture. Does he know when this was taken that he's about to die?

Not at that time. No.

So what happened in the moments after this picture?

Well, in the sequence, first of all, when we arrived with the helicopter on the following date, which is ninth of October on Monday, we came to the room with the officers, and he would not talk to anybody. A colonel was trying to interrogate him. He looked at him, he didn't say any word. To the point, the guy said, Look, you invaded my country. At least you can have the courtesy of answering me. He didn't say a word. So when we finished that, I came out. I asked all his documentation to photograph it from my government and the colonel order his bag be given to me. He had some Chinese code books. He had some picture of his family, some medicament for his asthma inside. He had a diary. It's a German A book was written in Spanish. That's his diary. I photographed all of that. Then while I was there, they came a news, the telephone call at the gueras. I was the highest-ranking officer. There was definitely the orders to execute him. We had a very simple code, 500, 600 kill him, 700 keep him alive. So it came 500, 600. When Colonel Centeno came out, I told him, I said, Look, this order from your high Bolivian Command to Eliminate the prisoner.

The order from my government to try to keep him alive at all costs. We have helicopters taking to Panama for interrogation. So he looked at me and said, Felix, my name was Felix Ramos. He said, You have been very helpful to us, but this is order from my President. He looked at his watch and he said, The helicopter is going to come several times, bringing him food and ammunition, taking our wound and our dead. But after two o'clock, he's going to come up and pick up, check about a dead body. You cannot use the CIA him any way you want because we know how much harm he has done to your country. I said, Me, Colonel, try to make them change their mind, but if they're not changing mind, I will give you my word of honor. I will bring you a dead body of shit. We embraced and he left. Sure enough, the helicopter came several times. That's when the mayor came and asked for for a picture with the prisoner. Then I start waiting and see what happened. Then there was a school teacher who came to me and said, Why are you going to kill him?

I said, Why do you say that? I said, Look, we saw that you took a picture of him outside and look, the radio is already giving the news. So at that point, I knew it was nothing else to be done. So I got into the room, I stood in front of him and said, Commander, I'm sorry. I tried my best. He turned white like a piece of paper and he said, It's better this way. I should have never been captured alive.

So you told Che Guevara he was about to be killed? Yes.

In a way, the way I say, I'm sorry, I tried my best. And he understood what I was saying. Then he took his pipe out and said, I like to give this pipe to a soldier who treated me well. At that time, Sergeant Tearán, who he knew was the one executing the live prisoner, burst into the room.. So I ordered him three times to leave the room. When he did, I look at Chea and say, Would you give it to me? She actually said, This is Telo. I will give it to you. I put my pipe here and say, Is there anything you want for your family? Then I will say in a sarcastic way, he said, Well, if you can tell Fidel, he will soon see a triumphant revolution in America. Then he changed his expression and saying, If you can't tell my wife to be married and try to be happy. That was his last word. He approached me with shook hands. We embraced. It was a very strange, unique moment in my life because we never ordered prisoner to be executed. At the time, I even thought about cutting the telephone line and telling the pilot that my government was able to convince them to bring Chey alive.

I remember what happened when Batista released Fidel Castro and what happened to my country. I told myself, Look, this is not your world. You're here to advise, not to command. This the Bolivian decision. So let history run itself. So I let it go the way it was, and that was the end of it.

What happened to Chey at that point?

Well, after we embraced, which was, like I say, a very strange moment for me because he was my enemy at the same time I feel sorry for him. He conducted himself with dignity at the end. I left the room and there was Sergeant Terran. I told him that not shoot from here down, because he was supposed to die from combat. See me, Capitan. See me, Capitaine. And he left. So it was one o'clock in the afternoon Bolivian time when I left there, about 1:15, I heard the burst. And that's the time that he was killed, executed.

He just shot him in the room.

He was shot by M2 caravan that was borrowed by this sergeant from Lieutenant Paris, who had an automatic caravan. I understand because I wasn't present. He came in and said, Che Guevara, I'd like to talk to you. And he told him, said, Look, I know you're coming to kill me. He said, No, we're not going to kill you. You're worse to us, our life than dead. And then told him, I know you. I want you to know you're going to kill a man. So he opened fire. Cheve went like this, or it's a bullet that hit here, which is a normal reaction to try to cover yourself. So he was shot and killed. I came back a few hours later with two of the captains from the operation, Captain Gary Prado and Celso Torreli. We got into the room. His head was facing the ceiling. He was covered with mud. So there was a dead body of two Cubans behind him that had been killing operation. One was Captain Pantohan, another captain from the Cuban army who died in combat. We embraced him there. Gary Prado, semi-capitán, we have finished in the guerrillas in Latin America.

I told him, Mi Capitán, we haven't finished it. At least we have delayed them for a long time. We could hear the helicopter coming and they immediately left. I asked for a bucket of water. I cleaned his face. I took all the mud out of his face. I tried to close his jaw with my handkerchief, which I lost in the helicopter with the wind. Then I tried to close his eyes and it was impossible. They have been open too long. I tried to close it, pop up again several times, so I gave up on it. We took the body and we tie at the right side of the helicopter. While we're finishing to do that, I remember- Tied it to the struts of the helicopter? To the right pontoon of the helicopter, the right side. I remember the pilot, and I high my name was a man to me, Capitán, moved forward to balance the helicopter. I put my hand under him and pulled it out. When he brought it out, it was completely covered with blood. Apparently, shot in the Aorta. And they seen these plastic things are and didn't allow the water to go through.

It was a big pool of blood in there. I look at it, I didn't say anything, but I thought to myself, there are people who have blood in their hands. I have the hell of a lot of here. So I cleaned the blood in this right side of my pants. I came in and then a soldier came and said,, Father Schillers went to see him. So we stood with the helicopter running for maybe a couple of minutes. And he was a priest who came on a mule. He came around. He got down on the mule and he gave him the last benediction, which I took a picture of it with a Minox camera that I have left. I thought to myself, this guy was an atheist. He didn't believe in God. Nevertheless, he received the raffle ritual from the Catholic Church. From there we took off and then we landed in Vallegran. There were thousands of people waiting at the wrong way. There was like 15 different planes from the press or from the military waiting for him to arrive. I put my cap and run into the people. My picture was never taken.

Then he was taken into a schoolhouse, to a hospital, Nuestro Señor de Malta. Then in the evening, there was a meeting and the general was telling a colonel, if Fidel denies this is Che Guevara, we need tangible proof of it. Cut his head and put him from Al-Ahaj. I said, Min General, you cannot do that. He said, Why not? I said, Supposedly, Fidel denies this is Che Guevara. You are a head of a state. You cannot show the head of a human being approved. He said, Well, what do you suggest I said, Well, you want some tangible proof of it? Cut one finger. We have the fingerprint from the Argentinian federal police, and it can be checked. So he ordered both hands to be cut. So I left with all the documentation for Santa Cruz and my other friend staying there. Then about three or four o'clock in the morning when the press was gone, they took his body. They caught both hands and put him for Malahide and two other bodies, and they took it to the very end of the wrong way and they buried him in there with two bodies. There was a bulldozer there who was making longer the wrong way, and he was buried right there.

Now, later on, years later, when Fidel said he found the body on the side of the wrong way with seven other bodies, I can assure you that was not Che Guevara because he wasn't buried there.

Amazing. And so what did you do? That was 1967. It was back up really quickly. You were born in Cuba. When did you come to the United States?

I came in 1954 for a school. I came to Perkeum and in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I spent six years in there, seventh and eighth grade in my high school. I actually went off my last year to go to the first scene that was against Castro, was the Anti-Communist Legion of the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic. I participated in that operation when I was 17, 18 years old, and I came back. Then after graduation, I was accepted at the University of Miami for Civil Engineering. But before I went there, I learned there was something going on in Latin America against Castro. I joined what later became the Bay of Pigs invasion. I was 19 years old at the time.

What was your role in the Bay of Pigs invasion?

I was part of what they call the Special Forces or Infiltration Things. I was a group of about 36 people. We got into Cuba a month and a half before the invasion to work with the resistance. I came in clandestinally by boat. I started working inside the island, helping them with all equipment and trying to do an uprising in another area. Then actually, the Bay of Pigs to try us because they never told us anything. If they had been able to tell us that the invasion was coming, we had enough explosive to be able maybe to blow some breaches toward the Bay of Pict and delayed the advancement of Castro's troops. But they never told anything. We learned through the Cuban radio. So at that time, was lucky, was able to make it through the Venezuelan embassy, where I spent five and a half months- In Havana? In Havana. Then finally got safe conduct, went back to Venezuela at the end of September.

I How did you get from the Bay of Pigs to Havana? That's a long way, isn't it?

No, I wasn't in the Bay of Pigs. I landed near Havana a month and a half before the Bay of Pigs and worked with the resistance. We had a mechanism of the internal resistance to pick us up near the highway and then take We love to safe houses in Havana. Then we start working with them in there during that time. I wasn't at the Bay of Pigs at the time. I was lucky because I didn't have any idea of any embassy there. But the lady who was driving me around was close, connected to the Spanish embassy. The Spaniard, Alejandro Vergara, who was in charge of, they call propaganda, actually was intelligence, came to pick her up because they were surrounding our building. Fidel very successfully, what he did, he surrounded every single block in Havana. If you were a male or military Asian, you were not assigned to a military unit, even though you might have been even a Communist, they will take you and put in custody. There were baseball field with 250,000 Cubans in there, a theater that capacitated A city for 5,000 people, 5,500. They were able to desertificulate the internal resistance that way.

Even they pick up some of my friends that came in, and then they released them because they had no idea who they were. But I was lucky to make it to the Venezuelan embassy and then back into Miami. I actually got to Miami on the very first of October of 1961. Then by the end of October, I was back inside Cuba, went back seven times because I was the only one who left the contact open after for the failure of the Bay of Pict to bring people and equipment in and for intelligence purpose.

What equipment were you bringing in?

We were bringing explosive. We were bringing in three machine guns, all handgranates, and all those things that they were still bringing in to be able to support a future resistance. But then it didn't work out. Then I decided, actually, in 1962, I decided to marry my present wife of 62 years. I told her, I said, Look, Rosa, I'm going to quit. I'm going to go into civilian life, but I want you to know if there is something serious about you, I will go. She made the mistake of agreeing to that because we got married on the 25th of August. I start working a company for $1 an hour called Ace Letter Service Propaganda. Then I was improving Tobin Package & Company, $1.35 an hour. While I was working there, and remember, I got married 25th of August. In the month of October, I got a call from a CIA guy and said, Look, I need to talk to after you work at that company. I went to see him at the parking lot of the Howard & Johnson across from the University of Miami. I sit in his car and say, Felix, the Marines are going to land in Cuba and we need you.

I look at him and say, Tom, if the Marine is going to land in Cuba, what the hell do you need me for? Good point. He said, Well, you know how to operate a radio beacon? We let you to parachute behind a Soviet missile base in Santa Clara to set up a radio beacon so that our Air Force can hit with precision the airbase. At the time, we didn't have the GPS system that we have today. At that time, I agreed. They took me to a safe house, and my basic training was romping from different altitudes on the three points of contact so I didn't break a leg. I couldn't even call my wife. My wife went back to the apartment. Of course, that night when Kennedy went on national television and declared the October crisis, so she realized it was something related to that. The day we were going to parachute into Cuba, the day the crew chef back down on the operation. Then after that, I was at a job, so then I continued to work with the CIA.

For how long?

Until 1976, when they retired me for security consideration. After Colonel Centeno Naya, who I was his advisor, was assassinated in Paris. He was the Bolivian ambassador there, and he was killed, and they left a sign saying, Che Guevara Commando. Then they also assassinated Major Quintanillo, who was a colonel then, Roberto Quintanillo in Hamburg, Germany, who was the Consul General from Bolivia there, also left a sign saying, Commando Che Guevara. They called my home and say, Felix Ramos, you're next. That's the name that I use in Bolivia. That never came out. The agency proposed me one of those programs to change my name and go to another state, which I would not accept because of my kids. What they did, they went to my home, they did a security evaluation. They actually gave me a bulletproof car. They bulletproofed my car in Lining, Virginia. I got a license to carry a concealed weapon that was difficult to get at the time. They gave me a total disability. I didn't have to work, have a routine of work, put some iron fences in my house, some security. Then I signed a paper for them. If I got killed related to my job, my family could not show.

They can not sue them in any way or form because what they offer me that they consider I refuse to. But then after that, I continue independently to do some things like I went into El Salvador, flying with Salvadorian guerrillas, a volunteer with a concept that I developed in Vietnam, where I spent two and a half years in Vietnam after Bolivia. It was very effective in El Salvador when I was there.

What were you doing in Vietnam as a CIA officer?

Well, my responsibility was to stop the rocketing of Saigon and the rocketing of the boat coming into Saigon. We were advising a unit called the PRU Provincial Reconnaissance Unit. It's a CIA unit who was managed, paid, and controlled by the CIA. It was almost impossible to stop the rocketing of Saigon. It did it for psychological reason. Every week there will be one or two 122-point Soviet missiles going to the city at random. Normally, they tried to hit the presidential palace and the US embassy, which they never did, but it was a psychological thing. We started looking in an area. It was impossible to locate these people until I was able to capture one who was the bodyguard of two time, the commander of that unit. He told me that they were hiding in an area that we never thought of because there was the tie of the water will come 17 feet. What they did, he told me, they had 55-altern drums. They sold one on top of the other. They were sleeping there when the water went up. When the water went down, they run across the river, they fired the rocket into the area, and then they came back and high again.

Then I started looking in that area, which we never did before. Actually, on the fourth of December of 1970, I was able to establish contact with the commander of the unit. We killed 18 of them. We lost three of our PRU. From there on, we continued the pressure. There was not a single rock of firing to Saigon after that. For that, I got equal to the Congressional Medal of Honor from the Vietnamese armed forces called the Cross of Galantery with Gold Star. I got one of that, two Silver I started and six Bronze Star during the time that I was with them. Then I got the intelligence start for Valor from the CIA because of the operation in Vietnam.

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I'm sure you've been asked this a thousand times, but since you worked there, you worked for President Kennedy. Yes. He was, of course, killed in November of 1963. Countless books have been written blaming Cuban exiles, people participated in the Bay of Pigs, for being involved in some way with the CIA in that assassination. What's your assessment of that claim?

I'll tell you, most of the brigade member believes President Kennedy was a traitor. He was the one who definitely had the responsibility, and he was responsible where it was failure. Looking from another point, I believe that he was a young President, ill-advised, and we paid the price. I believe that actually he was killed because he tried to amend that. After he was able to pull the brigade out of prison, he opened the Air Force of the United States for the brigade members, became a second lieutenant in the US Army in 1963. Then he promised also special operation, which was started in Central America in three different bases that not many people know about it. But then he was assassinated. A lot of people believe that it was only one shooter. I believe it were two shooters. We have information that there was a Cuban, which is now a retired general, Fabian Escalante, who was a captain at the time who was in Dallas, and he was the second shooter in the assassination of the President.

Okay, I'm sorry. Will you say that one more time? What's his name?

Fabian Escalante. Escalante. Fabian Escalante. He was in Dallas that day, and then he left. It was something that Castro said that he knew that the United States was trying to kill him. To be very careful because the Cuban also had a very long hand. So it was a matter either Kennedy or Castro. I think that's how he got killed.

So you believe that Kennedy was assassinated by Cuban forces, Castro?

A great thing, yes. Remember that Oswald was in the Cuban embassy for several an hour before he went to Dallas that day. We also have the fact that there was no question about it, that Fabian Escalante was there. Then Cuba denied at the beginning that he was ever in the Cuban embassy. Later on, when they learned that we, as CIA, we had pictures, a movie of him getting into our embassy. Then they said that they went into a very distinct check and they found out that indeed, yes, Oswald was in the Cuban embassy, and they claimed that he came in there to get a Cuban visa, and he was denied. But I do believe that it was a participation of Cuba in the assassination of the President. And later on, one assistant of President Johnson said that they knew about it, but for security consideration, they denied to the public the participation of Cuba in the assassination of the President. Because remember, at that time, there were already four offensive missiles inside Cuba. When the October crisis took place, they already had been able to bring into Cuba four offensive nuclear missiles. That's why when Khrushchev thought, and he knew that the US knew that they had four offensive missiles inside the island, it could bring 20 of them.

That's when the October crisis took place. But there were still four missiles inside Cuba that were offensive. At the time, everybody said, Well, they cannot attack Cuba because Kennedy Khrushchev's It was never implemented because the important part of that treaty was that it would be a personal ocular inspection by American personnel in Cuba to make sure that they had taken out those four missiles. Cuba never allowed them to be able to come in to check for that. So That compromise was never. The Kennedy's crew check was never implemented at all.

Do you believe the CIA had any role in Kennedy's assassination?

No, I don't think so. I don't believe so. I know there's a lot of allegations to that effect, but I don't think so. I I believe so at all. I am convinced.

Did you ever come across Howard Hunt during your- Yes, I met him after he came out of prison.

Actually, he was coming for Christmas out of prison. I have met his daughter, with her team is home, Kevin. We run to each other into Sears, so I invited him to come to my home.

You ran into him in Sears?

Yeah, in Miami. I invited him to come to my home. While I am sitting there, I get a call from the chief of station from Miami, say, Felix, by the way, our home would be in town. Make sure that you don't meet him. The guy was sitting right in front of me. I already had given him my car to use for the three days he was in Miami. So later on, I called my boss. I said, You should have called me sooner. I said, What? He said, Well, I had Powerhunt in front of my house. No. I said, Yes. You didn't tell me. I drove him to Sierra. I brought him to my house. It's the first time I ever met him.

Why did the CIA not want you to see Howard Hunt?

Because they don't want to see. Maybe they believe there is a connection between the CIA. Then even though our hon was working for the CIA, but he was head of the task force for the White House with Nixon. So there was a connection there.

Yes, there was. Interesting. How did you get involved in the Iran Contra story?

Well, when I was in Miami, I thought what the war was going on in El Salvador. I had implemented a helicopter comp set in Vietnam that was extremely effective against the Viet Cong in there, with intelligence going to the area with gun ships and then spotting them. I was flying on the low helicopter, spotting them, then coming back with troops and get the result. I volunteered to go to El Salvador in early '85. That's why I went to El Salvador then as a volunteer. Nobody was paying me anything.

Who did you volunteer to?

Who did you- With the Salvadorian Air Force. Yes. But it wasn't easy. It was very difficult because you have the US military commander, General Gorman, forestry general, who command all the military assistance to the area. Here is a Cuban retired from the CIA trying to implement a military concept in his area. But I was lucky that the vice President of the United States had Don Greg, who was my boss from Vietnam as his National Security Advisor, and he knew how how effective my concept was. He helped me to be able to get the clearance from the State Department and other people for me to go down there. I started working with the concept down in El Salvador, was extremely successful. At one point in time, Oliver Norse had a problem with a plane that was stuck in Portugal that he could not bring in because of Honduran closed the entrance of his plane there because of an incident they had with a plane with the resistance. He knew that I had an in a relationship with the Salvadorian. He sent notes to me that if I could get the Salvadorian to hold all of this military equipment from Portugal until he was able to solve the problem with Honduras.

I talked to the head of the Air Force, he sent me to the Minister of Defense, and they agreed. That's how I got involved in the Iran Contra thing. They brought the plane, was storage in there for a while. When they saw that, they asked me if I could ask the Salvadorian if they could do the maintenance of the aircraft from the Nicaroan resistant operation. Even El Salvador, and that's how we got started in that operation in there. But really, the vice president had very little to do in this operation. Of course, when the Iran contract broke, they blamed that... Actually, they came out to say that I was sent to El Salvador to violate the Bolan Amendment to support the Nicarican resistance. My helicopter concept was a cover up, which wasn't true. That wasn't the case at all. Then they subpoena me to testify in front of Congress. I was the only one who went to Congress without a lawyer and without immunity. Everybody else went with a lawyer and immunity. They tried. Even the White House called me and said, Boydon gray from the White House, they wanted me to bring a lawyer that the White House was going to pay for.

I said, Look, I have done nothing wrong. If I have to bring a lawyer for what I did, I am in the wrong country. I don't believe I am in the wrong country. They told me, No, you don't understand. You know how these congressmen are. They might ask you to push you into saying something that might the vice president. I refused. I was the only one who went without a lawyer and without immunity. He came out fine. The only guy that I really don't like at all, because after that, he caused me to testify in his committee was John Kerry.

Why didn't you like John Kerry?

He's a funny. He was not war hero. To be honest with you, I was invited when he run for President, the Vietnam veteran for the truth, make a big rally on the West Wing of the capital. At that time, they asked me to be one of the speaker against him because what he did to me, he accused me of receiving $10 million from the Medellín cartel for the contract, which wasn't true. It was a pain. It was very hard for my family because I was flying in Salvador, and my wife called me and said, Look, it's from patient, the Miami Héral, your picture when you were in the army that you received $10 million from the Medellín cartel. I said, You know that's not true. She said, I know, but here is a subpoena from Senator Kerry's committee. I called from Salvador, Senator Curry, and I asked them and said, Look, you don't need a subpoena with me, but send a ticket in Easter because I'm doing mileage, which they did. I flew to Washington. We spent four hours in a deposition with him. He was represented by a man. Mich McAnnel was the minority.

There was Robinette representing Mich Mccunal and another guy who represented him. After we finished the testimony, they wanted a close hearing. We wanted an open hearing. There was nothing classified about it. I had retired in '76. We are talking something that happened in 1985. But the Kerry didn't want the truth to come out, so he refused to have an open hearing. We have to go into a close hearing. When I had the opportunity at the time, when When I first came in, they asked me if I wanted to say something. There was all this senator, and they asked me, I said, You want to say something? I said, Yes. I looked at him and said, Senator, this would be the hardest testimony of my life. I said, Why do you say that, Mr. Rodriguez? I said, Senator, it's very hard to have to ask a question for somebody that you do not respect. I respect you and you are doing here. Mr. Rodriguez, because we disagree with you. We are no less patriotic that you are. A senator, you didn't even have the gut to throw your own metal when you were protesting the Vietnam War.

Don't believe everything you see in the He said, I know that the hell of a lot of that you do, Senator. He said, That was a veteran who asked me to throw his metal. I said, Bullshit, it was everybody perception was your metal. You were throwing all the White House fans. So really didn't hit very well during that hit at all. Then I talked to a lot of people who were with him. Do you know that he was never, ever wounded in combat? He doesn't have one bullet hole in his body, and he claimed three Purple Heart to be able to leave Vietnam. He knew that there was an unwritten law that if you got wounded three times in one tour, you could request to leave Vietnam. Yes. And that's exactly what he did. What he did, he scratched himself. He claimed it was from a hunger grenade. He never got a bullet hole. He got scratches. I always claimed that he had been wounded at that time get a Purple Heart. The third one, it was denied. The guy didn't say it was worth it. He had to wait until they changed that guy to be able to convince the other guy to give him a third Purple Heart.

And that's why he left Vietnam. And then he went with James Fonda talking about the hour people in there. It was a shame because today I see how our people treat the military with respect in the plane. At the time when he came back, they would not even wear their uniform because they were called war criminals and all of that because of John Kerry and James Fonda. Cowards.

So what was the resolution of Iran country? You testified.

Well, at the end, really, actually, When you look at it, they didn't have a case at all because the only reason they brought the Iran Contra hearing was because the violation of the Bolsa Amendment of using US money to support the Nicarican resistance. So What happened is when General Cicor did some transaction with Iran, remember with Israel, he got the millions of dollars from that transaction. The Congress determined that that money that he had belonged to the US government, not to Cicor. It's still in court today. It's over $8 million. And he used a million and a half to help the Nicaragua resistance with that money. So because of that, since the Congress determined that that was money that belonged to the US government, they violated the Bolan Amendment. That's how We came together and put up the grand contrahearings and committees and all of that that I went through. Let me tell you, it wasn't easy because after so many questions, I was tired. Before that, my son and my daughter went to see... I had an FBI agent that always I've been in contact with them for my security. I learned recently he already died from his widow that my son, my daughter went to see him before I testified in Congress.

They told him, Look, Carlos, 'cause everybody's telling us if my father doesn't bring a lawyer, he will go to prison. Please convince him to bring a lawyer with him. He didn't tell me that. He came to see me and said, Look, Felix, you're going to testify in Congress, and you're going to be on the rose. You cannot lie. No matter what happened, you cannot lie, because if you do, they would ask the same question in 15 different way, and they will know. Now, there is something you are not very happy with it or you are not very content with it, you don't remember. You don't remember, they're going to do anything. But don't lie. And I never lie. So I came out fine.

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Have you ever wondered how you you live so long, having been through all these conflicts?

I believe, honestly, I believe in God. For example, when I was in Vietnam, my boss, Ted Shackly, who was a legend with the CIA, used to tell people that I had a death wish, that I wanted trying to get killed, which was not at all. I was so convinced, Tucker, that no bullet was going to hit me. God gave me that conviction. So I could sit in the helicopter, see the shooting, and may I come out and shoot at them because I knew it wasn't going to touch me, and I never did. So it wasn't not bravery. It was my conviction that I knew it wasn't going to hit me.

You were a married man at that point. Yes.

I had two kids already.

And you were never worried about getting killed?

I knew it wasn't going to get killed. Not even wounded. I didn't. I had people wounded next to me. My helicopter took 30 different occasions to fire, took hits in the helicopter body, but I was shot down five times. We were down in El Salvador for a neighborhood.

You were shot down five times? Yeah.

But my back is in bad shape, but still alive. I believe it was God who definitely was his hand on me. That's why I didn't worry about it. Not that I was brave. I was convinced nothing was going to happen to me.

You were right, it turned out.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

What was Ted Shackley like?

He was the most intelligent man that I have ever met in my life. He was the one responsible for the Berlin tunnel. He was a station in Miami, and we became close friends until the day he died. We were close. We used to meet. He was the head of a station in Saigon, and we developed a personal friendship. He's the one who one time told me not to fly. They had a defector in Paris who had said that they were hijacked, were going to hijack the plane with the Cuban involved in the assassination of Che Guevara. So Chagli called me in the station and said, You're going to Miami on vacation. Don't fly into Miami. So what I did, I flew into Atlanta, rent a car, went back, spending Christmas with my family and back. Then I went back to Atlanta on the sixth of January of 1971, and I had a cousin in there. She was at the airport. I had a flight who lived Atlanta, Houston, Houston, San Francisco. I had four hours overlay in San Francisco. Then I found out there was another plane stopping in Dallas one hour later. I changed that to stay with my cousin one more hour.

When I got to Vietnam, nobody was waiting for me. When I got in there, I went to the to the dog hotel. Our hotel changed. When I got to the embassy, they told me, and said, What are you doing here? I said, What do you mean? I supposed to arrive today. Nobody was waiting for me. I said, No, your plane was hijacked to Cuba. We're trying to find out how the hell we can get you out of there. That's why when the agency sent me and my family to Argentina in In 1973, they got our passport, our passport of my wife, and I set place of birth, Colorado, instead of Cuba for that trip. So in case I got hijacked, they could claim me as a US citizen. That was the only time I was a US citizen by birth for about a year. I have a copy of the passport. Amazing.

Did you ever meet Fidel Castro? No.

I wish I had because he would not be there a long time ago.

What do you think of Cuba now?

It's a disaster. I don't know how they are still be able to stand the way it is. The economy is completely on the ground. I cannot understand these people who talk about socialism, who talk about progressive Look, whatever socialism touched, completely destroyed. Look what happened to Cuba, was one of the most prosperous island in 1958. The dollar, if you know, it was the Cuban peso were higher, 3 cent on the dollar. You You had to buy Cuban peso, you had to pay $1.03 for the Cuban dollar. The same as the Dominican Republic, it destroyed the economy. Look at Venezuela, the richest country in America with the reserve in oil. Unbelievable. Look how it is. Whatever they touch, they destroy it. That's what I have been very concerned in this country of all of these people talking about socialism, all of that. They have no idea what it is. Unfortunately, we have a lot of professors in the university that inculcate this idea that they have never lived through. That's what I tell people when I talk to them. People can tell you what socialism is when they have never lived it. When you live in there, you see what happened to you, you understand what socialism is.

We know because we suffered that in our own flesh.

Have you ever been back?

No, I can't. I have three death sentences in absencia. Well, I was back. The last time was in 1965, but I was with a team to photograph a Soviet submarine base in Lasiwanea in the Isle of Pine. But that's the only time that I've touched given soil, but I never- How How did you...

You said you went back a number of times in a clandestine way. How did you get in?

I bought clandestinally. We had people working for us in the inside who will contact us at the coastline.

You trusted them? You were never worried about being betrayed or executed?

We had to trust them. We had no choice. There were people that were betrayed later on, but I was lucky as hell, really. I was very, very lucky.

Did they get out, the people who helped you?

Some of them are still living in there, but they haven't been, but nobody knew that they were to help us.

You just go from Key West, or how did you- Well, it was in between Key West and Isla Morad.

They will... A boat will pick us up in there, take us up in there, take off to the mother boat, and then we take for Cuba from there for the operation inside Cuba, in and out. Only one team from the Bay of Pict people who entered Cuba, only one team made it by air. They were parachuted in, only five people. Most of us entered by boat clandestinally. There was a group of about five or six who came in through the airport with the real names, which cover a story that they were coming back from American universities. But most of us came in clandestinally by boat. The mechanism was we will go to the coastline. There was a reception team there with lights. We disembark. Then there was a guy who take us maybe four or five km into the main highway with a car from the movement, will pick us up and take us to a safe house in Havana. We had to trust them. We We had no idea who they were, but we were lucky.

Was anyone from the CIA, any of these teams ever caught?

No. Personal from the CIA itself, they never participated inside Cuba. They didn't allow them to do that. They were only Cubans involved in that operation. Cia case officer. We don't call it the controller. We call it a case officer.

Were any of them ever caught, though, by the Cuban government?

No, our people did. Yes. From my infiltration team, four of them were executed by firing a squad. One of them was killed defending a safe house. And there were 17 of them who spent 20 years in Cuban prison because when the treaty became to release the brigade from prison, Our people, even though we were brigade members, were not considered who landed the military. They consider us a spy because we came to the conflict of destiny. We were not part of that exchange of prisoner. My people from my infiltration team spent 18, 20 years in prison before they were released.

Did they come to the US when they got out? Yes. Amazing.

So a lot of people got caught in- Oh, yes. It was a disaster.

What do you think of the CIA now?

It's not what we used to be. I recall in my time, we were given a task. We would run an operation if there is any problem. Then we went to our legal service, the council, to ask how we solve That's the problem. Because of the situation that happened in the past, that a lot of agents have lost their retirement, all of that because of operation. Now, when they are given a mission, they go to the lawyer first and find out what they can do and what they cannot do. They put a tremendous disadvantage on us. In my time, you could do a hell of a lot of more things that they can do right now. They try their best anyway. The guy who really destroyed the CIA was Jimmy Carter.

How?

Well, I talked to Shackler. He told me about it. We had very high penetration, for example, in Al Qaeda and in Sendero Luminoso. If we had those people, 9/11 would have never happened. When Jimmy Carter became President, He asked for a briefing from the CIA. He wanted to know how those penetrations were handled. Shackly was the one in charge because he told me personally, he was the one in charge to brief the President Carter on that. He told the President, If you have a guy who infiltrates into a cell, the The guy was becoming more and more access higher in the organization, he will come up, for example, with an operation that we're going to do a terrorist operation. There is a very pragmatic group who will study the operation. It was a very minimal damage, they will allow the operation to go through. Because if every time you have a guy inside and the operation fail, they know somebody's infiltrating there. So you have to allow some operation to go through with minimal casualties. Jimmy Carter said it was immoral to do that. So he actually ordered all of those penetrations to be terminated.

So people that took years to be able to be able to get and set them inside the nets, like in Al Qaeda or Sendero Luminoso, they had to be told, Sorry, we cannot support you anymore We recommend that you leave the cell. We cannot pay you anymore and terminate it. We lost all of our eyes and ears inside the terrorist group with Jimmy Carter, and he put a lot of emphasis on satellite. Satellite doesn't get inside the head of people. We lost that. That's why we had 2011, we had the Sendero Luminosa take over the embassy of Japan in Peru at that time. If we had what we had before, that would have never happened. Then it was authorized, but it take a long time to rebuild that type of situation.

The CIA, it seems more a military force now than it once did. Do you think that's accurate?

No, always we have the CIA military branch. We have our own, for example, Air Force. We have our own Navy with different specific equipment that nobody else has that have been developed for a special operation with us. There is a paramilitary apparatus which I did belong to. We used to call Special Operations Division. Now they call Special Activities Division that operates paramilitary operation in areas that... They do a tremendous job. That's the thing that we never got recognized for it. People are blaming the CIA blame for many things that happen, but there is a lot of successes that can never be told. We have saved a lot of life in the process that nobody knows about it and nobody can take credit for the situation. We have in our world several stars with more than 100 people have died within the CIA. Most of them doesn't even have the name in their only one star because they were so classified that the name never appeared. You have to be dedicated to do that because it's one of the organization that receive very little credit and do a lot of.

What Where do you think this country is going right now?

Well, I hope it changed. A lot of people used to say in Cuba, it could not happen here. A lot of people say it could not happen in the United States. After what happened in Cuba, where I have seen other places, I am concerned about this country. I hope that we can regain the presidency because this thing goes to what they call socialism. It would be a disaster. We will never know the United States where it is. I am concerned because I know what happened in Cuba. Unfortunately, we have a lot of professors, high-level universities who are leftists, who are brainwashing the head of a lot of our bright students, and that's a very concern to me.

Have you seen that in other countries.

But more than the United States and any place else. They have concentrated in the United States because they know the importance of the United States. That's what is really concerning me in this country here. I think this coming election is very important. I don't know who the hell is going to be the President, but if the Democrats get the power in there and they continue the way they are with the open border and all of that, in a few years, we will know the United States where it is now today. We can lost the United States. I never thought I could I think that, but now I can say that I'm very concerned.

How can it be stopped?

Well, I hope that people realize what's going on. They were always going on in the United States, and people realize and vote intelligently this time, see the reality of what's going on. I don't want to say more. I think people in telling you will be able to understand that.

Looking back, my last question, if you could do something different with your life, would you have? It seems like you got into this amazing line of work almost accidentally.

I always wanted to be a civil engineer. Really? Really. My grandson now is in I'm in the third year of Civil Engineer at the University of Washington, George Washington University. But that's where I wanted to be. Look, history took me to a different place. I was never able to graduate from high school, never from high school from Everford University. My son, my daughter did. My wife did when she was a bar at Barre University, but I didn't. But I don't complain. I think that I had a life that I can see myself and think that I contributed a little bit to have a better world that we have today. I don't regret what I did. No one bit of it.

Well, you certainly had the most interesting life of almost anyone I've ever talked to.

So that's a lot. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Rodriguez, thank you very much for telling me. Pleasure.