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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 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. And 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. So we took him out of the schoolhouse and gave my camera to the pilot, and he took that picture.

So you talked to Guevara? Yes. Of course. What were the circumstances? He had been captured by Bolivian soldiers, is that right?

Yes. 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 bag 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 Che 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 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. So 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 Chey was pro-Chinese, and if he took a revolution in there, it would be toward 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 brokerage, he told the Bolivian guerrillas that were with Chey.

If they stayed with Chey, they were expelled from the Communist Party. Then they had a officer intelligence that they had sent to La Paz, Renan Montero, to help him. As soon as he was in 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 there. 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 depended 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.

What happened in the moments after this picture?

Well, in the sequence, first of all, when we arrived with the helicopter on the following day, which is ninth of October on Monday, we came to the room with the officer, 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. When we finished that, I came out. I asked for 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 book. It was written in Spanish. That's his diary. I photographed all of that. Then while I was there, there came a news, the great telephone call at the guedas. 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 When the bomb came out, I told him, I said, Look, this order from your high Bolivian command to eliminate the prisoner.

The order from my government tried to keep him alive at all costs. We have helicopters to take him to Panama for interrogation. 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 food and ammunition, taking our wounded 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 this shit him any way you want because we know how much harm he has done to your country. I said, Me, coronel, try to make them change their mind, but it does not change in mind. I will give you my word of honor. I will bring you a dead body of shit. We embraced and he left. And sure enough, the helicopter came several times. That's when the major came and asked for a picture with the prisoner. Then I start waiting and see what happened. And 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 this was nothing else to be done. 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 said, 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 soldadito who treated me well. At that time, Sergeant Teran, who he knew was the one executing the live prisoner, burst into the room.. So I ordered him three time to leave the room when he did. I look at you and say, Would you give it to me? He checked me and said, See, at least I will give it to you. I put my pipe here. I said, 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 remarry 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 Che 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 is 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 Che at that point?

Well, after we embraced, which was, like I say, 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 Teran. I told him that not shoot from here down because he was supposed to die from combat wound. See me, Capitaine. 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.

They just shot him in the room.

He was shot by M2 carabine that was borrowed by this sergeant from Lieutenant Paris, who had an automatic carabine. 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, say, Look, I know you're coming to kill me. He said, No, we are not going to kill you. You are worse to us, most of our life than that. And then he told me, I want you to know you're going to kill a man. So he opened fire. Chef 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. There was a dead body of two Cubans behind him that have been killing operation. One was Captain Pantohan, another captain from the Cuban army who died in combat. We embraced him there. And Cadiplao said, Mi Capitán, we have finished in the guerrillas in Latin America.

I told him, 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 a little 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 tied 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, Guzmán Túnin, and my 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, it was shot in the aorta. Since these plastic things didn't allow the water to go through, it was a big pool of blood in there.

I looked at it, I didn't say 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, Major, Major, 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 wasn't an atheist. He didn't believe in God. Nevertheless, he received the raffle of 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, Me, general, you cannot do that. They 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 a proof. 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. 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 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. Let me just back up really quickly. You were born in Cuba.

Right.

When did you come to the United States?

I came in 1954 for a school. I came to Perkeum and Prep 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 thing that was against Castro was the Anticommunist 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 Pig 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 kinds of equipment and trying to do an uprising in another area. Then actually, the Bay of Picts supply us because they never tell 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. 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.

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 working with the resistance. We had a mechanism of the internal resistance to pick us up near the highway and then take off 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 would take you and put in custody. There were baseball field with 250,000 Cubans in their theater, the capacity for 5,000 people, 5,500. So they were able to disarticulate internal resistance that way. Even they pick up some of my friends that came in, and then they released them because I 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. And then by the end of October, I was back inside Cuba I went back seven times because I was the only one who left the contact open after 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 hand grenades, 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 My husband 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 Propagand. Then I was improving Tobin Packaging 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 you 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 Marine They 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 air base. 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 they didn't break a leg. I couldn't even call my wife. My wife went back to the apartment. And of course, that night when Kennedy went on national television and declared the October crisis, so she realized it was something related to that. So the day we were going to parachute into Cuba, the day the crew chef back down the operation. And then after that, we had 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 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 the 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 said, Felix Ramos, you're next. That's the name that I use in Bolivia. That never came out. The 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 bulletproof my car in Limeley, 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 a paper for them. If I got killed related to my job, my family could 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 in Vietnam as a CIA officer?

Well, my responsibility was to stop the marketing of Saigon and the marketing of the boat going 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 marketing 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 Tutan, 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 up 17 feet. What they did, he told me, they had 55-gallon drums. They sold one on top of the other. They were sleeping there when the water went up. When the water went down, they rung across the river, they fired the rocket into the area, and then they came back and hid 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 Saibun after that. For that, I got equal to the Congressional Medal of Honor from the Vietnamese armed forces called the Cross of Galanthrop with Gold Star. I got one of that, two Silver Star, and six Bronze Star during the time that I was with them. Then I got the Intelligen Star for Valor from the CIA because of the operation in Vietnam.

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 who 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 for failure. Looking from another point, I believe that he was a young President, ill-advised, and We pay 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. And 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 there 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 Cuban also had a very long hand. So it wasn't a matter either Kennedy or Castro. I think that's why 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 hours 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, a CIA, we had pictures and 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 it 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 the Kennedy-Khrushchev Treaty, 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 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 I don't believe so. I know there's a lot of allegations to that effect, but I don't think so. I don't believe so at all. I don't think so.

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 our team at 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, however 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 Howard Hunt from 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.

He's saying, Why did the CIA not want you to see Howard the hunt?

Because they don't want to see. Maybe they believe there is a connection between the CIA and then... Even though our hunt 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 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 getting the result. I volunteered to go to El Salvador in '85. 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 is El Salvadorian Air Force? Yes. But it wasn't easy. It was very difficult because you have the US military commander, General Gorman, Four Star 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 he was from Vietnam as his National Security Advisor, and he knew how effective my concept was. So 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, who was extremely Very 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 excellent relationship with the Salvadorian, so 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 agree. That's how I got involved in the Iran Contra thing. They brought the plane. It 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 Nicarican Resistant operation in El Salvador. That was 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 Contra broke, they blamed Actually, they came out to say that I was sent to El Salvador to violate the Bolan Amendment to support the Nicaroan Resistant, and 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 way I was going to pay for it.

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 hurt the vice president. I refused. I was the only one who went without a lawyer and without immunity. And he came out fine. And the only guy that I really don't like at all, because after 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 Truce, 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. I was It was a pain. It was very hard for my family because I was flying El Salvador, and my wife called me and said, Look, it's from patient, the Miami Herald, your picture when you were in the army that you received $10 million from the Medellian cartel. I said, You know that's not true. She said, I know, but here is a subpoena from Senator Curry's committee. I called from El Salvador Senator Curry's, and I asked them, I said, Look, you don't need a subpoena with me, but send a ticket in Easter because I am doing mileage, which they did. I flew to Washington. We spent four hours in a deposition I was in a discussion with him. He was represented by a man.

Mich McAnnel was the minority. There was Robinette representing Mich McAnnel and another guy who represented him. After we finished the testimony, they wanted a closed 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 here. When I had the opportunity at the time, 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 say, Senator, this would be the hardest testimony of my life. I said, Why do you Why is that, Mr. Rodriguez? I said, Senator, it's very hard to have to ask a question for somebody that you do not respect. I don't 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 press. 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's perception was your metal. You were throwing all the White House fan. So really didn't hit very well during that hit. At all. And 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 scratch himself. He claimed it was from a hunger. He never got a bullet hole. He got scratches. He always claimed that he had been wounded that time, get a Purple Heart. The third one, it was denied. The guy didn't say he 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. Then who went with James Fonda talking about the our 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 I 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.

Howard. So what was the resolution of Iran country?

You testified 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 country hearing was because the violation of the Bolam Amendment of using US money to support the Nicarican resistance. 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 C Corp. It's still in court today. It's still in court today. It's over $8 million. And he used a million and a half to help the Nicarican 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 he came together and put up the Iran contract hearings and committees and all of that that he 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'd be 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, 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 would know. Now, if 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 cannot do anything. But don't lie. I never lie. So I came out fine. Your Our journey to owning a 242 Mercedes Benz starts now at msl mercedesbenz order event. Order your dream car and receive a luxury five-star getaway. With options ranging from electric to hybrid, petrol, and diesel, msl has the perfect model and engine type to match your preferences. Visit the MSL Mercedes-Benz order event between May 27th and June first at Balls Bridge, South Dublin, North Dublin, and Cork, or visit msl.

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

I believe, honestly, I believe in God. For example, on When I was in Vietnam, my boss, Ted Shackley, who was a legend with the CIA, used to tell people that I had a death wish that I wanted 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 I come out and shoot them because I knew it wasn't going to touch them, 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 ever worried about getting killed?

I knew I 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, took fire, took hits in the helicopter body, but I was shot down five times, Vietnam, one in El Salvador, door for an ever good- 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 here at 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 of 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 overlaying 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.

So when I got to Vietnam, nobody was waiting for me. So when I got in there, I went 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 will hijack to Cuba. We're trying to find out how the hell we can get you out of there. That's why when we went, the agency sent me and my family to Argentina 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 wouldn't 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 wanted 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. And 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 Pai. But that's the only time that I've touched given soil, but I never- You said you went back a number of times.

Yes. In a clandestine way. How did you get in?

I bought clandestine. 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 We keep West and Isla Morad. They will... A boat will pick us up in there, take us to the mother boat, and then we take off 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, with cover a story that they were coming back from American universities. But most of us came in clandestinally by boat. And 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 kilometer into the main highway where the car from the movement will pick us up and take us to a safe house in Havana. We had to trust them. 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. They were only Cubans involved in that operation. Cia case officer. We don't call it the controller. We call it 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 military. They considered 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. A lot of people got caught in case.

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 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 Alcaeda 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. So Shackly was the one in charge because he told me personally, he was the one in I have to brief the President Carter on that. So he told the President, if you have a guy who infiltrates into a cell, the guy was becoming to 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. If it's a very minimal damage, they will allow the operation to go through. Because if every time you have a guy inside and the operation failed, they know somebody is infiltrating there. There you have to allow some operation to go through with minimal casualties. Jimmy Carter said it was immoral to do that. He actually ordered all of those penetrations to be terminated.

People that took years to be able to be able to get in and They made 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 sale. We cannot pay you anymore and terminate it. We lost all of our eyes and ears inside the terrorist group when 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 9/11. We had the San Pedro Luminoso take over the embassy for 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, we have always, we have the CLA within 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, the We used to call Special Operations Division. Now they call Special Activities Division that operates paramilitary operation in areas, and they do a tremendous job. That's the thing that we never got recognized for it. People are blaming the CIA is blamed for many things that happen, but there is a lot of success 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 had died within the CIA. Most of them doesn't even have the name in their only one star because they were so classified that their 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.

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 would never know 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, and that's what I really concerned 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 know the United States where it is now today. We can lost the United States. I never thought I could say 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 intelligence will be able to understand that.

Looking back, my last question, if you 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 the third year of Civil Engineer at the University of Washington, George Washington University. But that's what I wanted to be. Look, history took me to a different place. I was never able to graduate from high school, I graduated from high school, never from university. My son, my daughter did. My wife did when she was a bar 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 almost anyone I've ever talked to.

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

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