Felix Rodriguez
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Félix Rodríguez is a former CIA intelligence operative.
Born in Cuba, Rodriguez fled the country in 1959, shortly after Fidel Castro took power. Most of Rodríguez’s family including his father and two of his brothers were either executed or disappeared within the first months of the new Castro regime. He left Cuba for the United States when he was 18 years old, and became a US citizen in 1969, soon enlisting in the Army.
He soon joined the CIA-backed Brigade 2506, and was infiltrated into Cuba a few weeks prior to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. He would be involved in many anti-Castro operations throughout Latin America over the next 30 years. In 1967, the CIA recruited him to train and head a team to hunt down the famous leftist guerrillero Che Guevara in Bolivia. When Guevara was captured, it was Rodriguez who interrogated him —the order the execute Guevarra reportedly came from the CIA, and the act was designated to a Bolivian soldier. Rodriguez took Guevara's Rolex watch as a souvenir.
In the Vietnam War, Rodríguez flew over 300 helicopter missions, and was shot down five times. In 1971 Rodriguez trained Provincial Reconnaissance Units for Operation Phoenix. He was also involved in anti-Communist operations in El Salvador employing mobile helicopter strike units similar to those he developed Vietnam. He flew over 100 combat missions in Central America, and captured the Cuban-backed Martí National Liberation Front’s top commander, Nidia Díaz.
In 1988, senator John Kerry began holding Congressional hearings on the alleged involvement of US intelligence agencies in Central American drug trafficking. On June 30, 1987, a story leaked from the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism and Narcotics, in which Rodríguez was accused of soliciting a $10 million donation from the Colombian cocaine cartel. Rodríguez requested that he be allowed to testify in public to the Senate Subcommittee, but Kerry insisted that any testimony given to the committee be done in private. Rodriguez refused to testify in private, demanding that any allegation made against him be made in public so he could refute it in public. After several months, Rodríguez finally did testify privately, but when he soon asked that his testimony be made public, Kerry refused. Kerry later publicly apologized to Rodríguez for his treatment during the affair.
During his career with the CIA he also went by the name Máximo Gómez. He was awarded the Intelligence Star for Valor from the CIA and nine Crosses for Gallantry from the Republic of South Vietnam.