CIA Black Ops | Ric Prado

Summary

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Tier1 Podcast: CIA Black Ops | Ric Prado

Host: Brent Tucker
Guest: Ric Prado, former CIA operations officer and author of "Black Ops"
Date: June 22, 2026

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Overview

In this gripping episode, Brent Tucker sits down with Ric Prado, a legendary CIA paramilitary operations officer, to trace his remarkable life from a harrowing Cuban childhood to orchestrating Black Ops at the highest levels of the CIA. Prado’s firsthand accounts cover everything from revolutionary Cuba and the Peter Pan exodus, to jungle warfare with the Contras, building the Bin Laden task force, the real story of the CIA’s war on terror, and the tough trade-offs between national security and political constraints. The discussion blends history, operational detail, and hard-earned wisdom, offering listeners a rare look inside elite operations and the personal values behind them.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cuba, Revolution, and Sacrifice

Timestamps: 04:46 – 18:25

• Childhood in Cuba:
  • Ric describes an idyllic life until age 7 when Che Guevara’s fighters attacked his town.

    "I lived an ideal life... I was seven years old when Che Guevara and his group did an attack on the town that I lived in." (04:46)

  • His father's business was confiscated under Castro’s regime; Ric was sent to the US alone at age 10 via Operation Peter Pan.
• Sacrifice of Family:
  • The pain and bravery of his parents sending him away to freedom.

    “If she keeps crying like this, I ain't going... [Dad] took a knee, put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'you have my word, I will see you again.' That was my security blanket for those eight months." (15:47)

  • The family reunited eight months later, starting from nothing in Miami's ghettos.
  • No government aid accepted—his father insisted on starting over with hard work and dignity.

2. Freedom, Socialism, and Identity

Timestamps: 09:52 – 22:38

• Warning about Socialism:

  “Socialism is the mask that communism wears to suck you into their web.” (10:20)

  • Ric cautions about the American left's embrace of socialism, citing the loss of freedoms witnessed in Cuba.
• Immigrant Experience & Gratitude:
  • The difference between “what can I give this country” versus “what can I get” attitudes among immigrants.

    “We have something to compare with... Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, Vietnamese, ... those who have left because of oppression get it.” (21:25)

3. Military Beginnings: Air Force PJ to CIA Application

Timestamps: 25:02 – 32:26

• Pararescue Journey:
  • Ric’s unlikely path to Air Force Pararescue; desire to serve and try “dangerous, meaningful work.”

    “I was 20 years old when I went into the Air Force... ‘That may others may live’ aspect of pararescue has been a motto that has followed me.” (25:14; 26:48)

  • Early CIA application rejected during post-Vietnam drawdown; spent years in Miami-Dade Fire Rescue (1970s drug wars).
  • First CIA contact in the 1980s—recruited for ground branch, Special Activities Division.

4. Black Ops and the Contra War

Timestamps: 37:43 – 53:42

• Nicaragua & Contra Missions:
  • First paramilitary CIA officer in the Contra camps: “Monday through Friday for three years, sleeping in a jungle hammock… The best job I ever had in my life.” (37:43)
  • Cover as a Honduran military intelligence officer.
• Guerrilla Warfare, Underwater Ops, and Moral Motivation:
  • Led indigenous lobster divers on combat dive missions, blew up strategic Sandinista supply piers (notably Puerto Cabezas).
  • Motivation of the local fighters:

    "Not a single one said, ‘Marx and Lenin' … It was like, they raped my daughter, burned my church, beat up my priest…" (44:48)

• Impact & Results:

  “This became the first black op since before Vietnam that the agency was successful… Sandinistas had to capitulate and have an election.” (52:19)

5. Tradecraft, Street Smarts, and Farm Training

Timestamps: 53:42 – 62:51

• From “Blunt Instrument” to Case Officer:
  • Ric details the transition from paramilitary ops to the formal CIA “Farm” (training).
• Value of Street Smarts:

  “I had street smarts that the average student in that class didn’t have... there were curve balls that if I had been just a very smart college kid, I would have sat there and I had an answer for it.” (53:42)

• Recruitment Mindset:
  • The importance of reading people quickly and adapting, which can’t be taught—only gained by life experience.

6. Counterterrorism, Bin Laden Task Force, and Missed Opportunities

Timestamps: 69:03 – 79:54

• Founding Bin Laden Task Force:
  • Launched in 1996; input from legendary operator Billy Waugh (“I got so close, I could've killed him with a pencil.” 72:18)
  • Multiple formally proposed ops to neutralize Bin Laden in Sudan—political unwillingness to act.
• Heartbreak of 9/11:

  “Imagine the guilt for me, knowing what I tried to do in the early 1990s... And now we just got our asses blown up and we could have stopped this back there.” (77:39)

  • Political calculations and rules of engagement often tie hands and have real-world consequences.

7. Agency Culture, Paramilitary Evolution, and First Boots in Afghanistan

Timestamps: 81:24 – 94:39

• CIA's Role in Afghanistan:
  • First American boots on the ground post-9/11 were CIA paramilitary officers, not DOD SpecOps—established vital Northern Alliance relationships.

    “My guys were on the ground doing this, bringing the choppers in, and that's glossed over.” (81:24) “Those guys went into a situation that is unprecedented—like OSS paratrooping inside Germany during the war.” (91:49)

  • Legendary operators like Billy Waugh, age 72, deployed to mountains of Afghanistan—examples of unique American warriors.

8. Politics, Oversight, and the Burden of Restraint

Timestamps: 102:35 – 107:56

• Operational Frustration:
  • Political risk aversion repeatedly hampers effective security action.

    “You have a moral responsibility because of the skills that God gave you... and for all the wrong reasons, you’re being negated that opportunity.” (103:30)

• Burden of Leadership Weakness:
  • Lessons from history (e.g., Carter vs Reagan) and real consequences when US projects weakness.

9. The Cuban Question and the Future

Timestamps: 110:46 – 116:39

• Why Cuba Still Matters:
  • Chinese and Russian intelligence presence in Cuba; 67 years of exported revolution justify US action.
  • Opportunity and moral duty to act in America’s own hemisphere.

10. Writing “Black Ops”: Legacy & Purpose

Timestamps: 120:38 – 127:15

• Motivation to Write:
  • Encourage the next generation, correct media misconceptions, and honor the agency’s “true” warriors ("so a widow could show her child what mommy or daddy really did during the war" 124:48)
  • Avoid the “look at me” type of memoirs; preserve the moral high ground.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Socialism vs. Communism:

  "Socialism is the mask that communism wears to suck you into their web." – Ric Prado (10:20)

• On Parental Sacrifice:

  “He took a knee, put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'you have my word, I will see you again.' That was my security blanket for those eight months." – Ric Prado (15:47)

• On Guerrilla Motivation:

  “Not a single one of them said, 'I read Marx and Lenin...' No, it was like, 'they raped my daughter, burned my church, beat my priest.'” – Ric Prado (44:48)

• On Bin Laden Task Force Frustrations:

  “Billy used a line for me one time. He says, Ric, I got so close to him that I could have killed him with a pencil.” – Ric Prado (72:18)
  "Imagine... if they would have allowed us in 1997 to take out bin Laden. It'd be like taking Hitler out in 1937." – Ric Prado (73:10)

• On Missed Opportunities:

  “It wasn’t our decision, but it was our inability to convince them… The blood of those Americans are on your hands.” – Ric Prado relaying Mike Scheuer’s words to DCIA (78:22)

• On Agency’s Quiet Sacrifice:

  "We have about 144 stars on our wall... a third are post 9/11. That means I ... It's a very emotional thing." (122:46)

• On Black Ops Philosophy:

  “Black ops are where the American hand has to be hidden. That’s a real black op.” (39:45)

• On Peers Like Billy Waugh:

  “If Billy goes to Afghanistan and he survives, the legend lives on. If Billy dies, the legend lives on.” (94:17)

• On Agency Diversity:

  “We are not the Central Airborne Agency. We’re the Central Intelligence Agency.” (85:13)

• On Legacy:

  “If we go to war with Cuba tomorrow, I’ll go kill Cubans.” (113:40)

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Memorable Stories

• Underwater Sabotage:
  • Swam with indigenous lobster divers to destroy key Sandinista docks, improvising combat diver doctrine.
• Never Leave a Man Behind:
  • Rescued stranded operators in Nicaragua using improvised tactics, including a combat helocast (127:26 – 135:32).
• Agency’s First Boots in Afghanistan:
  • CIA paramilitary officers greeted Special Forces in country, paving the way with local alliances.

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Important Timestamps

• 04:46 – Ric’s childhood in Cuba disrupted by revolution
• 10:20 – “Socialism is the mask...” warning
• 16:28 – Father’s promise at airport
• 37:43 – First steps into Black Ops with the Contras
• 44:48 – Motivation of guerrilla partners
• 53:42 – Transition to the Farm and street smarts
• 69:03 – Founding the Bin Laden task force
• 77:39 – Personal reflections after 9/11
• 81:24 – CIA’s true role in Afghanistan post-9/11
• 94:17 – Billy Waugh's Afghanistan deployment at 72
• 102:35 – Operational frustration and political constraints
• 110:54 – Why Cuba is strategically and morally vital
• 120:38 – On writing “Black Ops”
• 127:26 & 131:29 – Favorite operational story: the rescue mission

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Summary

Ric Prado’s journey unfolds as a masterclass in resilience, loyalty, and leadership in covert operations. His experience across continents proves that personal ethics and adaptability are as vital as any technical skill. He offers both a warning (against complacency, against the seduction of easy ideologies) and an inspiring blueprint for service and sacrifice. If you want a true understanding of what black ops mean—far from Hollywood, rooted in deep personal and national conviction—this conversation is essential listening and reading.

Book Mentioned:

• Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior by Ric Prado

Where to Find:

• Major booksellers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble), possibly a TV series in development.

Brent Tucker’s Note:

• “If you enjoyed this interview, there’s so much more in the book. It’s worth your time and a read… supporting a great American.” (135:58)

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For further insight and behind-the-scenes content:

• Join Tier1 Podcast’s Patreon to support veterans’ storytelling and leadership education.

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Transcript

[Rick Prado]

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[Brent Tucker]

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[Rick Prado]

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[Brent Tucker]

That's why you rack. When you finally find your thing, you want the whole world to know about that thing. So you use a thing called Canva to make it an even bigger and better thing. Whether you want to create flyers for that thing, make presentations for that thing, or design merch for that thing, you can do anything so people can see your thing, feel your thing, love your thing. The next thing you know, it's a thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. Welcome back to another episode of the Tier One podcast. I'm your host, Brent Tucker, owner of FRCC. That's First Responder Coffee, Cigar and Cast Company. Go to FRCC Shop and use promo code TIER1 to get 15% off the world's best coffee cigars and bourbon. And I'm Drew Tucker, expert of tape guns at First Responder Coffee, Cigar Cast Company. See us at RCC Shop.

[Rick Prado]

I invite you guys to join our Patreon.

[Brent Tucker]

It's brought to you by Cobalt Kinetics. As a Patreon member, you'll have behind the scene access to exclusive content. There's a fitness forum, there's a weapons forum, and in that weapons forum, there's

[Rick Prado]

a Cobalt Kinetics weapon expert ready to

[Brent Tucker]

answer all your weapons questions. So join the Patreon today. And as always, this episode is brought to you by human performance and TRT. Go to hp-trt.com use promo code tier1 and get 20% off all of your testosterone and peptide needs. I'm currently doing a 30 day challenge. I posted it on our YouTube channel. You can follow me doing that using all of our products from hp, trt, including some of the creatine from Tasty Gains. Follow me and I'll show you the results you can get with the right stuff. All right, Drew, let's do it. Welcome to the Tier one Podcast. This is amazing, dude. Check this out. And with us today, we have Rick Prado, author of the book Black Ops. Also as. As a child fled Cuba, was an Air Force PJ early on in his career, spent 24 years in the CIA and at one point rising to the highest levels of the CIA. What? I. I don't say this ever. And we've had some great men sit in that chair. But when, When I read your book and saw your interviews, I just. I just think you have the most interesting story holistically between where you came from, what you did for this country, and the amount of time you did it. I am excited about this episode and to hear your story. Rick, thank you so much for coming on.

[Rick Prado]

Oh, thank you for having me. It's a great honor.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, trust me, the. The honor is all mine on this one, I assure you. On that one. Heck, we. We had to stop talking before the podcast because I don't think the stories would have. Would have ever ended. So I. I couldn't wait to. To get into it. Sometimes when this episode's over, we're going to have. We're going to have more stories to tell in the garage over cigars. Yeah, but I want to get right into it. We normally start with, you know, where you came from, because whether they're first responders or special operations, I always want people to know what this person's childhood and upbringing is and what, what molds them to become the. The person that they are. But your beginning story is truly unique, and it's true. Let's start there.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with you. I think that God's got a plan for us and gives us a path, and if we're willing to take it, he grooms you for it. And he started grooming me at the age of seven. Cuba. I lived an ideal life. I had a bicycle, a horse, and a BB gun when I was six. A small town, cattle town. My dad was a cowbo until my mom domesticated him. He became a businessman, but he was always a cowboy. I was seven years old when the Che Guevara and his group did an attack on the town that I lived in. It was at the bottom of the Escambrai Mountains, which is where Che Guevara was operating. And my parents were out of town, so I was with a nanny. And all of a sudden, this firefight breaks out right in front of my house. Small town. And I go to the window, open up the jealousy, and I'm watching people shooting each other. A couple of people are down, but I didn't notice under the parapet of the window, there was a guy with an automatic weapon. And all of a sudden he pops up and he lets out auditory exclusion, you name it. So at age 7, I got a glimpse of that. The revolution, of course, changed everything. I mean, that was a drastic change. Within six months, my dad's business Was confiscated. I was wearing a uniform. We're being indoctrinated. You don't pray to God. You pray to Castro. That kind of crap. And so my dad decided we. We got to leave town. We got to leave this. You know, I don't want my son. I'm. I'm an only child.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

So my. My dad decided. Not my mom. My dad decided that we were going to leave and. But they couldn't get out. And that kept dragging on. And eventually, because we had the visas, we didn't have the exit permits, which was what they were messing with us with. So through a program called Peter Pan, which is a Catholic church thing, I'm one of 14,000, 40 some kids that were taken out by that program. So at the age of 10, my dad put me on an airplane to go to Pueblo, Colorado, Sacred heart orphanage. Turned 11 at the orphanage. And this is the point where most people go, oh, poor you. Yeah, oh, poor my mom and dad.

[Brent Tucker]

No kidding.

[Rick Prado]

That sacrifice for freedom. Not for. I mean, we were more the middle class in Cuba. My dad had a 57 Pontiac, you know, had a TV and a phone in a house in 1958. So, you know, we were solid middle class. But that's where the real sacrifice is. My parents.

[Brent Tucker]

I have a son about that same age. I can't imagine. I couldn't imagine putting my son by himself on a plane to go to a foreign country as. It's the greatest form of love I can. I can really think of. With no guarantee to see him later?

[Rick Prado]

No, there was no guarantees of that.

[Brent Tucker]

There are some other, like, really interesting things that are happening to you and throughout Cuba at this time about the. The revolution. And it just, It. I want to say it boggles my mind, but after what I saw, things happen here during COVID It doesn't as much. And it's the. It's the sheep mentality of the masses. You were talking about in your schools, in the book, that the teachers would encourage the kids to rat. Rat on their parents. And when I first read that, I think the biggest thing that blew my mind is, sure, someone can ask you to do that because they're local teachers at local schools. They know you, they know your parents. They come. They come from the same community that they would follow those orders and do it, but they did. It blows my mind.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah. I mean, I think you're. You're the one big difference is we live in a free country. So the COVID thing, there was people that fought it. And you have every right to do that when Castro took over very, very shortly, it was total control. Every single neighborhood had a neighborhood watch person that recorded whatever was going on on that block. And same thing with the teachers. They were all threatened that, you know, this is what you taught.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, yeah, I think. But you described it very well. When it makes a little more sense, when you, you peel the, the layers back because they, they kind of flip the things on its head because the. The have nots are now in power and they, and they can have things that they, that they didn't have before. That's kind of a general statement.

[Rick Prado]

That's the way it always starts.

[Brent Tucker]

Right. And it just. And when you, when you look at it through that lens and that's. And you think, how does this happen? And then you get an answer like that again, you know what? I can, I can absolutely see why, why people would do that. You know, out of selfishness, greed.

[Rick Prado]

Oh, without a doubt.

[Brent Tucker]

Just. Just a lack of. Just a lack of integrity and what's best for the community. It's just. It's tough. It's tough to watch. And it's also tough to watch when you hear stories like that. When you see the young people in this country want socialism. And I don't know if you can remember the phrase you used, but you had a phrase about socialism and communism. Can you remember that?

[Rick Prado]

Socialism is the mask that communism wears to suck you into their web.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right. I love that. What's your reaction when you see the young people of America almost yearning for socialism?

[Rick Prado]

Obviously, it scares me and it breaks my heart. They're not as big a majority as people think they are.

[Brent Tucker]

I agree with that.

[Rick Prado]

You know, I taught at Fort Bragg at the Aesot for seven years. And my wife used to wonder if I had a girlfriend. Fayetteville. Because I hated Fayetteville. I hated the drive. And I would become home bitchy. And one day she literally asked me, and I said, it's real simple. I'm spending all these weeks up there with guys that I have nothing but respect for. And there's a small vignette with both my sons when they went off to college. When they came back the first time, the first words out of their mouth unrehearsed, was, dad, I thought you and your friends were normal, because that was their first taste of civilians. And. But it is very scary and it's very naive. And of course, that's part of the great thing that the Russians and the Chinese do, which is undermine our society. They've been doing it to our Colleges for decades. We just now going like, oh, gee, this is going on. So it's part of the big plan to undermine us. But it does scare me, and I will tell you, there's no coming back from it. Name me one single Democrat, democratic country that went communist and has, you know.

[Brent Tucker]

Right. Can't do it. Yeah. The. Speaking of Russia, you were. Before you. Before you got your ticket out, you were on a list to go to Russia as. As a kid. Correct?

[Rick Prado]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Tell me about that.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, yeah, I was. I went to school in Santa Clara, which was the. The capital of the. What. What was the state back then? And my uncle, who was communist, I mean, he was a schoolteacher, he saw that my name was on the list of probably 30 kids that were being proposed to go to Russia to study. And I'm glad that blood is thicker than politics, because he reached out to my dad immediately. And that's when the decision to go to Peter Pan, go solo, kind of popped out.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, I could imagine that that was a defining moment to. To kind of push that one over the edge, that we have to do something. Do you ever stop and think, maybe not, and we'll get into the, you know, the PJ and the CIA work here in a second. But. But that was, you know, that. That was. We let off with that. So they know you did that. So you were, you were. You were capable of. Of. Of doing great things for a country. Never stop and think if. If that. If you had gone down that path, you'd have done the same great things for the wrong people.

[Rick Prado]

Probably so. Because I think, you know, we're all wired from. By nature. Right. And if you're. If you're immersed in that kind of, you know, away from your parents, away from the good influence, and you're brainwashed, and then your loyalty changes to whatever it is is feeding you. And, you know, and I don't mean feeding you just, you know, physically, but morally and, you know, using the term lightly but without a doubt, that. That would have been. That would have been a nightmare for me, you know.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. I thought on several occasions, particular, whatever reason, particularly Afghanistan, every now and again I'd sit back, I was so lucky and blessed to be born in America, because if I was born here, I'd probably be the same person. You know, he said, that's how we're wired. And I'd be. I get it. I'd probably be fighting Americans, too.

[Rick Prado]

You would be.

[Brent Tucker]

You know, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Absolutely. So it is it is. It's always interesting to see how it's. Such small changes in your life at. In a fork in the road will have drastic changes later on in your life.

[Rick Prado]

That's me, my whole life.

[Brent Tucker]

Right. So your parents did get to come over to the States at some point and reunite with you, Correct?

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, I, I turned, I turned 11 at the orphanage. Polo Colorado was a. If you think it's a blue collar town now, imagine back in 1962. Luckily, I love horses, so the only place they would take us was a rodeo. So I was happy. But it was a rough start. You go into a. You don't speak the language. There's two or three different cultures, ethnicity differences, and a lot of pissed off kids because who wants to be an orphan, Right?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

So after my first clipping, I learned to hit first and that's why I learned to fight. That ain't happening again, but yeah, I think that that was arguably the first real molding of or forging of my sword, of what I was supposed to become first. You know, the having to leave your parents, having to leave everything behind and end up in an orphanage. But my parents came out about eight months later. I was one of the lucky ones and we were able to reunite.

[Brent Tucker]

But still, when you're that young, eight months is an eternity, you know, that's 10% of your life, you know. Did, did you think you were gonna see my. Your parents again? Did you have hope as a kid?

[Rick Prado]

You know, my dad was an exceptional guy. My first hero and still my number one. He brought me up to be the little cowboy. This is how a man acts, you know, this kind of stuff. And I remember when we were going through the process at the airport, which was pretty brutal, before I went into what they called the fishbowl, it was glass. After that, you were actually going to be searched and stuff. And I told. My mom was crying and I told my dad, if she keeps crying like this, I ain't going. And my dad took a knee, put his hand on my shoulder and said, you have my word, I will see you again. That was my security blanket for those eight months.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, yeah. How hard was it for him to get out of the country?

[Rick Prado]

Well, you know, they had to do bribes and all that other stuff because what people don't understand is when you were in Cuba and you applied to leave Cuba, all your assets were frozen on the spot. Your bank money. They took inventory of the stuff in your house. So in a small town, my dad had 57 Pontiac, he had a deuce and a half. He had a jeep, he had a beer. So it was like, who's going to get what? And until that's settled, you ain't, you know, you're not. They're not going to let you go. So.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, it's, that's, that's kind of crazy on one aspect, but I could imagine that Pontiac went, went pretty far and, and, and, and leveraging his, his escape.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, if, if they're going

[Brent Tucker]

to be greedy, you can also use it against.

[Rick Prado]

And he had stashed a little bit of money and he spread it around and eventually he was able to get his.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, it's. There's just so many aspects of this when you really kind of step back and, and look at it and, and now I'm looking at it as a parent and I'm sure it was to some degree an easy decision, but it doesn't mean it's not, you know, a difficult process. Like I said, they, they were middle class, they had things. He had everything he wanted to some degree. Yeah. Making some assumptions here, but had a family where he wanted to be in a country he wanted to be at the time until it changed and then he didn't. Did he know English?

[Rick Prado]

Not a word.

[Brent Tucker]

You have to assume not your dad or your mom. And then they get out and they have nothing now. They have nothing. They have nothing in a foreign land. Their, their son is somewhere over there. They have to, they have to go find him and start fresh. And not even. It's just, it's just a monumental thing to ask a family to do and led by the father to make those decisions. What a great man.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah. I mean, that, that experience, you could imagine. When I finally came down from the orphanage, we were sub poverty. I mean, literally.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

And the only thing my dad ever. He never, he never took a, A government check. He was mowing lawns and loading trucks. My mom was working in a sweatshop. She did that for 10 years. But yeah, you know, it was a brutal, very brisk decision for my dad. But my dad also made another decision shortly thereafter. We hadn't been in this country a year when my dad sat us down and said, we're not going back. Yeah. Because the dream of every Cuban was to leave, because we have to. But eventually come back 67 years later, we're still in this mess. But my dad, less than a year in country, he said, we'll go back to visit, but this is where I want my son to grow up. Your next chapter in healthcare starts at Carrington College's School of Nursing in Portland. Join us for our open house on Tuesday, January 13th from 4 to 7pm you'll tour our campus, see live demos, meet instructors and learn about our associate

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[Rick Prado]

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[Brent Tucker]

I don't intentionally mean to turn and make this political, but in the day it's, we have to live in reality. I think there's some Americans that are upset about the, on both sides and one side, I would say rightfully so upset about the immigration situation that our country is in right now. And they, they think the right hates immigrants. And that's, and that's just simply not true. I love that story. I'll take as many as those immigrants as we could get.

[Rick Prado]

Thank you.

[Brent Tucker]

Because they, they came over grateful to give back. You said he wouldn't even accept any welfare check. Any welfare checks. That's amazing. They, that's what, that's what they came over here to do. The problem isn't that the country changed, it's the immigrants that are, that came over here changed, if you will. It's more of a what, what can America give me as soon as I put my feet on this soil? And that's what has to stop. Not, not the immigration doesn't have to stop. The, the type of immigrants we get has to go back to. Has to go back to that.

[Rick Prado]

Well, you know, the illegal part is a very big deal. I mean, our country is our home. And if you knock on my door and you're my neighbor and I know you, I'll let you in. But if you break into my house, I'm going to shoot you. That's what we protect. Right? Same thing with our country.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Rick Prado]

So I'm all for immigration, legal immigration. We need them at all levels, from people who paint your house to doctors and lawyers and Indian chiefs, because those exist. But you know, the biggest difference between the immigrants, especially from our generation, was the average American has nothing to compare this country with. The average American travels, they usually go to a five star hotel in Italy, they spend two weeks there, they come back, oh, I want to live in Italy. It isn't the same. There's nothing like this country. We have something to compare with. And I think that's the bonding between, you know, Venezuelans are left, Nicaraguans are left, and of course the Cubans and many more that have Left because of oppression. Vietnamese. I remember doing Rolling Thunder in Virginia all the time and Vietnamese families in the street corners waving the American flag. I'm going like, they get it. They understand. They're enjoying the, they're assimilating. Yeah, that's, that's the idea. Yeah, that's, that's the goal. That should be the goal.

[Brent Tucker]

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[Rick Prado]

We settled in a ghetto, literally in, in Key Biscayne, I mean Biscayne and 22nd, which back then was, you know, shambles. And we had a one bedroom efficiency, but it was my mom, my dad and me, but also my aunt and my two cousins that had come out the same way. And we were all living, like I said. My mom and dad share the couch. I had a cot and my aunt slept with the two kids in a full size bed. That was it. Our pets were cockroaches. And, you know, there was nothing there. So it was definitely tough. And I remember one day, my cousin's younger, about six years younger, and my dad had just come back from loading trucks or mowing lawns, whatever he was doing, and the ice cream truck drove by. And being kids, you know, I was 12, you know, hey, can we get an ice cream? My dad started crying. He didn't have a nickel in his pocket to buy his son or his nephew.

[Brent Tucker]

So, man, that's, that's just a story of sacrifice. But, you know, like, like everything. Bad times don't last, but they come, you know, but they come and go. If you do the right thing, you do the right thing hard enough, they

[Rick Prado]

don't last and if you're tough enough to survive it, a lot of people get tough. A lot of people cave in. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. How old were you when you was the Air Force? The. Was that your first. I want to say first job. Something tells me you had. You had a bunch of jobs before then. Making, making ends meet for. For the family?

[Rick Prado]

Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean I loaded trucks. My dad factory. My dad was a foreman at. When I was in high school and. But yeah. And I was 20 years old when I went into the Air Force.

[Brent Tucker]

Why the Air Force? What drove you that way?

[Rick Prado]

I get that all the time. That's the biggest. Why did you go this. You know, nobody in my family had ever served, so I really didn't know the difference between Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines. And I wanted to be a dive dive guy. I mean that was my dream. I was going to be a professional diver. That was what I was doing there in junior college and in an oceanic freak a class there was a guy sat next to me. We became friends. The name of Glenn Richardson and he was a pj. He was on the reserves. And we got to talking and after we got to know each other he started telling me, you know, well, we show me pictures and I'm going like wait a minute. I get to jump out of airplanes and shoot guns, do medical shit, mountain climb and I get a cool hat, you know, I'm in. So that, that was the deep thought that went into pararescue. It just happened. But you know, again, like everything else in my life, when I've made a decision or I should say when he makes the decision and tells me which way to go. Sometimes with a two by four it is always worked out. I don't think my life would have been the same if I had not gone the pararescue route. I think that may others may live aspect of pararescue has been a motto that has followed me through my life.

[Brent Tucker]

I completely agree. Of course when I say why the Air Force of course wasn't a derogatory hit towards the Air Force. I just love that you signed up and you served. I wouldn't have cared if you went to the Coast Guard, the Navy, the Air Force, what you did, but you said it several times and of course that the book on the corner of my desk will be an indicator that we probably share the same belief system. But there was a plan and you went to the Air Force PJs because as we'll find out later, it gave you airborne status. It gave you the military combat or that military dive experience that. That is a really cool story, can't wait to get into. And it gave you medical training that you're going to use as a singleton or using in small teams and austere environments. And you have that. It was really the perfect first.

[Rick Prado]

It was for.

[Brent Tucker]

For what you're about to do.

[Rick Prado]

I've looked back a couple of times and said if I would have gone green beret, 18 delta or anything like that, it would have been the same. It wouldn't have been the same.

[Brent Tucker]

How long did you spend as a. As a PJ?

[Rick Prado]

Well, this. I went into Pararescue in 71, December of 71. Got my beret in late 72, early 73. Vietnam was over. I went in because I wanted to go to Vietnam. So I was stationed at Homestead Air Force Base. So I did two years active training, one year active. And yeah, it was fun. I was jumping three times a week and going out on the boats and doing all this, you know, great stuff, but I wasn't making a difference. And that's why I started getting hungry for doing other things.

[Brent Tucker]

But, yeah, I get that. You know, I changed careers as well for the same reasons. Because you want to. You want to do something tangible, you know, and did. And you applied for the CIA.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, I.

[Brent Tucker]

Right out of there. You spent some time in 20th group as well.

[Rick Prado]

Had.

[Brent Tucker]

Had that all intertwined.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, it was. Like I said, I always wanted to be. You know, I read a lot. I've always been a reader. And so for me, you know, OSS days and, you know, even Vietnam stuff, that wasn't that much back then, but, you know, and of course, the James Bond novels and all this other stuff was. Sea Hunt is what got me into diving. Thunderball is what got me into pararescue. Because I want. That was like the tipping point. And it was. It was just what it was meant to be. I could have planned it. I've never planned my life. I've always gone with my feeling of making a difference.

[Brent Tucker]

It wouldn't have mattered if you planned your life anyway. It wouldn't have gone according to your plan. And thankfully, it wouldn't have gone without.

[Rick Prado]

There isn't a morning I don't pitch myself. There isn't a morning I look back and I go, you are a blessed individual. What you experience, the friends you made, hopefully the difference that you've made, that's. That's a great badge for me.

[Brent Tucker]

And I believe it was the first time you put in for the CIA. Was early 70s, correct?

[Rick Prado]

Yes, that was, that was a bad

[Brent Tucker]

time to put it in an application.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, they came back, you know, and of course it was handwritten because, you know, and, and it was, hey, I'm Cuban, I hate communism, I speak two languages, I'm a pj, I'm single, love to mingle, you know, put me in coach kind of shit.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

And they came back with a really nice way of saying, we are firing, not hiring. Because this is post Vietnam. As you know, the attrition in both the federal government, especially CIA and the military was drawn down. So with that I went into the Miami Dade Fire Department as a rescue again. I never thought of being a fireman, but one of the senior PJs was the captain of Metro Fire Department and he was in charge of rescue. So he's the one that recruited me to go into rescue. And I rode rescue indeed for in the 70s, which were the drug years and the drug wars. I had six years of hands on experience that if I ever got shot, I'd rather have a Rick Prado next to me at the time because my skills were really, really good. Yeah. And that was the tipping point for the agency. I applied again in 1980 and this time, this was when I was with the 20th. They came back and said, well, you know, we could use you on contract. We have this thing called Special Activities Division, ground branch. I didn't know anything about it, so I said, that's our paramilitary group. And you know, because your language and because your advanced medical stuff, we could use you as on contract sometimes for admissions and times for training. And so I did that, you know, I would take leave and I would go spend three weeks with them and back. That's, that's how I got my toe in the door.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

And then in 81 or. Yeah. Early when, when Reagan took over and he declared war on communism, the agency did not have a native Spanish speaking guy with a paramilitary background. So they called me up and I had just gotten divorced from my first marriage and so it was again, perfect timing. And they asked me if I wanted to come back to work. And I said, well, if it's contract, no. If it's full time, yes. He says, no, this is full time. And that's where it started.

[Brent Tucker]

And before, before we get into that, was there any with your background, you know, being Cuban and with JFK and the, and the Bay of Pigs debacle, did that have any effect on, on you as far as, like as how you viewed America? Because that we, we really that wasn't our best showing. You know, we left some. We left some people hanging on, on that one. And I'm not going to go into the whole history of Bay of Pigs, but if you guys don't know exactly, I'm the Bay of Pigs, please look that up. But we basically sent in a force, just a really bad general overview. We sent in a force to, to take over Cuba and push back against communism. And then when they hit the ground, we were like, no, we're not gonna give you your support after all.

[Rick Prado]

It was actually three days. It was actually even worse than that brand because I had the pleasure of working with CIA guys that were part of preparing that program. And the original plan for Bay for the, for the invasion was nowhere near Bay of Pigs. I know Bay of Pigs because I used to go fishing there with my dad. It's mangrove. That's all there is. There's a town, Cienfuegos, which had a deep port right by the mountains. Highway went through there. That was the original plan that Eisenhower bought off on when it came to Kennedy. The politics. You cannot do politics. You cannot do special operations of any kind. Through a political optic, they started. Well, it has to look like. It cannot look like an invasion. It has to look in. To put a couple of thousand guys in a mangrove. And then, like you said, the air support that was promised was negated at the last minute. But that didn't affect me as an American of my opinion of the United States, mainly because I came to the United States, I saw what this country was all about. But it was also reinforced when I went into the agency. And now I'm talking with people because I thought it was. I thought it was a fiasco also, you know, what a screw up, you know, and having. Sitting down with them and them explaining to me how that happened, it was, it was eye opening.

[Brent Tucker]

It was no use crying over spilt milk. And there's nothing you can do about the past. But how crazy is it that they were so right to do that and they were so close to taking care of that problem that was going to be a thorn on our side for

[Rick Prado]

decades and 67 years, decades to come? Well, you figure the, the missile crisis, which happened literally a year almost to the day of Bay of Pigs, and I remember people giving credit to Kennedy for, you know, diffusing that situation. And of course, the Cubans in Miami were going like, if you would have let us take over and done it right that time, you would have had a missile crisis, because there would have been no missiles there.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, after hearing that, and had they put them in the proper place that the military planned on, but even the wrong place, more than likely just with air support, it had changed.

[Rick Prado]

It would have at least, I think with the late plan, with air support would have at least allowed an insurgency to grow, to gain momentum and gain momentum and be supplied and everything else. The original plan would probably have been the downfall of the regime immediately because the impact of the attack, once stuff is neutralized, we're well supplied with weapons. The guys had the training. It would have been pretty easy to get on a.

[Brent Tucker]

Go down a rabbit hole here real quick, just because it's relevant to this particular conversation. You might know this, probably know this. JFK was never a big fan of the Vietnam War and, and getting involved in that. And when they told him, you know, why they're doing this, it's to stop the spread of communism, JFK had a. Had a great rebuttal and basically said, well, if communism is what we're worried about, why are we worried about Vietnam? Halfway around the world, we got. We got Cuba at our doorstep. And so he had the right idea, which makes it almost a little bit even more perplexing that it was his call to not continue with the air support. But we had the right idea to keep communism off of our doorstep then. And we just.

[Rick Prado]

Well, you know, presidents are all influenced by the people around them. There were some State Department, real heavyweights that kept. They're the ones who kept pushing away from a real military solution and into more of a let's make it look like one and let's see what happens kind of stuff, which were a doubt.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, the back. Back to your days at the CIA. So you finally get into the CIA as a contractor, you get your toe in the door, as you put it. What brought you in full time?

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, when Kennedy. Sorry, when Reagan took over and declared war on communism, that's when they went after Nicaragua first and Salvador. We were very much involved in Salvador also. But my main job for the next three years was to train and lead and work with the Contras, which were the peasant force that was fighting the Sandinista regime, which was declared communist even before they took over, and it was fed by Russia via Cuba. So that was my foot in the door. And like I said, I spent Monday through Friday for three years sleeping in a jungle hammock in the border of Nicaragua and Honduras. And it was the best job I ever had in my life.

[Brent Tucker]

And just so everyone can keep up and zoom out A second. What was going on? Just like you referenced, but specifically Russia was pushing communism through Cuba and then they were continuing the spread of it and they, they wanted to communize as much of South America and Central America as possible.

[Rick Prado]

Without a doubt. I mean, Cuba became the conduit. You figure they went into Africa even before really getting down in Latin America. They were down there for decade messing with that. But yes, Salvador was on fire. There was a communist guerrilla groups were making great advances there even in the city. Nicaragua was overthrown very quickly, but that all came through Russia, through Cuba. You know, the same thing of Chegoena, Bolivia and all that other stuff. It was part of that.

[Brent Tucker]

And why not? They had success and they had success in Cuba flipping that. They were just going to keep flipping countries.

[Rick Prado]

That was the goal.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. And that, and that was our answer to stop it. Not as much as an overt answer, but a covert answer.

[Rick Prado]

It started as a covert problem. And this is why the book is called Black Ops. As you know, Black ops are for us is what the American hand has to be hidden. That's a real black op. So for the first two years of that program, it was a black op. It hadn't leaked. For the first 14 months of those three years, I was the only CIA officer allowed in the camps.

[Brent Tucker]

And, and let's, let's dig into that a little bit because that, that, that sounds very professional, and I'm not saying you weren't, but it sounds like you were a highly trained person that, you know, went, you know, into this mission, you know, from the CIA, and you hadn't been to the Farm yet. You basically got pulled in and sent right, right down there, Elias Docs and gone.

[Rick Prado]

That was it.

[Brent Tucker]

What, what a welcome to the CIA moment. You know, that's crazy. That's. And you were, you were the only boots on the ground there for a while as well. You had, you had a support team. But Ford, it was just you.

[Rick Prado]

It was, it was just me. We actually started the program with five people, okay. One of them, Ray Doty, we call him Colonel Ray, was Green Beret, Vietnam vet, jumped into Corregidor at a 17 kind of guy, bigger than life. He was my first boss. And I was blessed with that because his orders to me were, go there, make yourself indispensable, okay? And win their hearts and minds. Move it. Got it. So that was the training that I received was three sentences.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, I don't, I don't know if you could, if this applies to this situation, but I'll. I'LL you, you let me know. There are instances where the less you know, the better. And, and even to some degree, the less indoctrinated and, and I mean like militarily or paramilitary indoctrinated, because you go in with this mindset of, of playing within this box. But when you go in without that, everything's open to you because you don't know any better. I don't mean that in a bad way.

[Rick Prado]

No, it's actually a great, great, great point. And I actually compliment you because this is the first time anybody has caught on and it's absolutely true. I tell people I said I did stuff that I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

You know, they told me, go there, make yourself essential, Lead these guys, train these guys. And of course that opened up a lot of doors for me to have a lot of fun. But without a doubt, without a doubt, it was when I got to the Farm and started getting indoctrinated into do's and don'ts, I'm going, oh, glad I didn't write that one up. You know, it's just kind of stuff. So.

[Brent Tucker]

But you know, when you, when, when you maintain that problem solver mindset along with training, that's when you can be really dangerous. And I'll tell you why I know to ask that question is because I was running human ops within our ASO cell in Iraq and I wasn't level two qualified. I just got pulled in to do it and I got, I got some results that I had got done easier because I, I did them the wrong way.

[Rick Prado]

Yep.

[Brent Tucker]

I did them the right way.

[Rick Prado]

The right way.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, I did them the right way for. Not the textbook way, but the wrong way. Yeah, for textbook. And stories for another time, maybe even not completely legal because there are rules. But I didn't know the rules, so I didn't know to play by them. But I got results.

[Rick Prado]

Same, same. And like I said, that's a very astute question. It's the first time that it comes out in any of my interviews. So thank you.

[Brent Tucker]

They had you. I mean, you were playing a local. I mean, black ops. You're not down there as, as a U.S. representative. You were, you were playing the role of a foreign officer in that country.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, I was there as a Honduran major. Hondurans were extremely, extremely supportive because of course, their future was online and online to their. And that's, that's, that was my, my cover. I had my ID said I was an intelligence officer major for very seldom That I ever even use that once I get to know you, they get to know you. But it was. It was a great opportunity because, like I said, I was there when we were really cranking this stuff up and being able to make friends at every, every camp and see the quality of people, you know, I think that was one of the most rewarding things about my stint there. Besides the cool ops that we'll talk about in a little bit. It was the moral example of why I was there. At night, I would sit down at a different fire every night and I would ask the Contras, why are you here? And there wasn't a single one of them that said, well, you know, I read Marx and Lenin, and I am totally against that. No, it was like, they raped my daughter, they burned my church, they beat up my priest, they took this away from me, you know, my kid, whatever was very personal. And that was so rewarding for me. Yeah, you figure three years, you know, sleeping in a jungle hammock and waking up in the morning and never saying, ah, what am I doing here? It was never that. It was quite the opposite.

[Brent Tucker]

That's a motivated guerrilla force.

[Rick Prado]

It was.

[Brent Tucker]

And that's what you want. In fact, you beat me to my next question. Which was, which was, what was their, their motivation? Because that's so important when you partner with someone. And if it's money, yeah, you can get people to do something for a paycheck. You can. But when. When things get tough, money will not be enough. If you really want to turn the tide, it will have. It will have to be personal.

[Rick Prado]

You know, the difference between the first time I set foot in a camp and the last time I stepped out of a camp. Three. Three years later. It was incredible. I mean, the first time I went to the caps, these guys didn't even have shoes. Most of them were in flip flops, torn jeans, captured AKs, they had bolt action rifles, you know, Mausers, 308s, kind of thing, you know, very little food. Living conditions were atrocious, but we were able to prop them up, you know, get them with the light. Right. Logistics and training and everything else and. But you're absolutely right. It was the quality of individual and the conviction of why they were fighting.

[Brent Tucker]

How old are you at this time?

[Rick Prado]

I was 30.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, okay.

[Rick Prado]

I just turned 30.

[Brent Tucker]

When it's a good age.

[Rick Prado]

It was great age.

[Brent Tucker]

It's a good age.

[Rick Prado]

Old enough. I barely remember.

[Brent Tucker]

Old enough to know better, but still too young to care.

[Rick Prado]

There you go. That was exactly it. And I had no baggage. I mean, I had met my now wife of 43 years and. But we were still kind of dating. She, she didn't even know what I did for a living. I just, I'm overseas kind of stuff. But no, it was, it was a great time.

[Brent Tucker]

Is there some moments you can think of during that where you did sit back and think? Might be a little over my head on this one.

[Rick Prado]

No, love it. Yeah, I, you know, the, the, we talked a little bit about this earlier. You know that the scuba thing, that, how that came to be was very interesting because I wore, when I was in uniform, I had my scuba badge, even though the Hondurans didn't have a scuba badge. Who was going to challenge me, right? And I'm in the Mizquitia, which is where the Native Americans of Central America live, you know, and there was three or four or five guys hanging around. One of them came up to me, says, excuse me, Major, are you a diver? Say, yeah, I'm a military diver. He says, we're divers also. I said, oh, really? He goes, yeah, we're lobster divers. That's really cool. Store it, move on. Shortly thereafter, we get a directive from headquarters saying, hey guys, you're doing a great job in ambushes and harassment, but we need a left hook. We need something to let the Sandinistas know that this is serious. This isn't just a ragtag bunch of individuals out there. And that's when I came up with the idea of blowing up Puerto Cabezas. Puerto Cabezas is in the northeast side of Nicaragua. And that was the belly button for all the military material that was coming from Cuba. So I got these six guys. Two didn't make it. The other four. Well, the other three were divers. The other one was the boat captain. And we literally took an 80 pound plume charge, swam it under the bridge and blew Puerto Cabezos pier up. And the amazing thing for me with that was I did that with no other training other than my PJ background. PJs are very water centric, obviously, as you know, for the scuba stuff, but

[Brent Tucker]

not necessarily offensive scuba, Right. So that's, I love that. Even though that's not necessarily what you were trained for, it was a piece of it. And you're like, I can still do this.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, yeah. And we did. And I mean, it was very successful. I remember the first time seeing satellite imagery in my whole life was when they showed me the impact of the, the attack that we had done. And that got their attention. That was really, really got their attention and, and, but again, you know, I had the, the, the vision of what needed to be done. I had a boss that was supportive at the time. The agency was in very friendly hands. We had individuals were like minded. You know, Bill Casey, who was the best director of the agency ever had, was a former OSS guy. Dewey Claridge, one of my mentors, was his pit bull and I just had that kind of support. We were serious about what we were supposed to do and nobody was asking too many questions of me, of how we were getting it done. They were just going skin that.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, man. If as, as you tell me that, I just think of the results of that operation like through the lens of, of the enemy. You know, when you talk about sending a message, clearly it's not a ragtag bunch we're dealing with anymore. They have explosives, they, they have an underwater capability that I'm sure the enemy doesn't, doesn't have.

[Rick Prado]

Like they blew their mind. Right. It was. Who were we really dealing with? Yeah, it's one of these is it was as big of a psyop as it was a military success. Yeah, right.

[Brent Tucker]

And then of course, you know, the, the secondary effects of taking away a bridge and, and taking away a, a resupply line away from. That's going to take them a long time to.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, there was a, there was another port further south, I can't remember the name of it. And that's what they had to divert now was way, way on the southeast. Eventually, obviously they fixed the pier and they were able to. But it was damaged for quite a while and it was the impact, like you said, they got the message, this is serious resupply for you.

[Brent Tucker]

Again, everyone wants to hear a war story and so do I, because they're cool. But when you're doing these operations, I, I had a very wise team leader early on in my SF career. Tell me that Amateurs talk tactics and professionals.

[Rick Prado]

Yep.

[Brent Tucker]

And without logistics, it doesn't matter what you want to do.

[Rick Prado]

You can't do if you don't have bullets, fuel, airplanes. That's right. Everything else was you guys have a

[Brent Tucker]

solid logistical line because that's tough when you run with a gorilla. Yeah. Sometimes you can get creative and sometimes it's very difficult.

[Rick Prado]

It was very difficult, especially at the beginning because again, we could not have the massive presence that eventually was down there. I mean, when I was running the southern front from Costa Rica, 86 through 88, subsequent to the farm and everything else, you know, we had 100 people at the base. It was the largest station, CIA station in the world at the time was Tegucigalpa, you know, because that's where, you know, our base of support was at. So

[Brent Tucker]

how did you guys overall define mission success there and did you guys eventually achieve it?

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, I mean, I think that this is the, the icing on the, on the whole cake there was the fact that this was, this became the first black op, even from before Vietnam, that the agency was successful. You know, we, it took us years because, you know, I was gone and other generations took over. But eventually, in the early 90s, the Sandinista had to capitulate and have an election that was overseen by all kinds of countries, and they lost. So it was actually the. Without the military pressure that we were able to put on them, they would have never caved in, but they knew that it was going to another level. So.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, I love to hear that. So when you've, at some point you, you leave there and, and you go back and you finally get formal training, to some degree, that has to be a little tough because you're like, I've already done this job.

[Rick Prado]

Yep.

[Brent Tucker]

Like, and you, you have way more experience than anyone else that in, in that particular field of people going. Which can, of course, help you because you're like, I, I know the, I've seen real life experiences. I know how to apply this. So it makes it, I think, a little bit easier. Do you think to some degree, you can know too much going into the school and it can hinder you a little bit?

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, first of all, I was going from a blunt object to a more surgical career, of course, because, you know that everything in CIA is not boom and bang, like, like I was doing for three years. But I, you know, I, I. The fact that I grew up poor and I grew up with a rough crowd and all that kind of stuff, I had street smarts that the average student in that class didn't have. You can't teach. They were, you know, college kids that were smart, you know, you know, they were from this school and that school. And I'm going like, geez, I barely made it through George Mason. I got my degree, you know, when. And that was with the Agency. Yeah. So it was. It was. But I had that street savvy. And even in the scenarios of training that they put us through, I did very well at the Farm. I'm not bragging. I know that I did very well because I was told by my, by my counselor, and it was a street Smart. There were times where things came up, there were curve balls that if I had been just a very smart college kid, I would have sat there and I had an answer for it. I had a way. And also I think that having the background of what I went through as a kid and then pararescue, it gives you a little different Persona when you're sitting across the table from somebody you're trying to recruit, whether they're good guys or bad guys, we don't care. We got to recruit you, you know, and for them to look across the table and go, yeah, I ain't messing with this guy. This guy is. He's straight up. I think I had that, that a lot of my, my teammates did not.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head with that one. You can, you can call it something fancy like a high social iq, but it's, it's street smarts. And you can be the smartest guy in the room and have no situational awareness. You can be the smartest guy in the room and have almost zero ability to read a person. And there's something about someone with street smarts that's just able to read a person within 30 seconds and with no real training be able to guess what that guy's background is, what motivates him, how you should talk to him, you know, how you can, how you should interact with them, what he respects, what he doesn't respect. And a guy with street smarts can do that very quickly. And that just pays dividends throughout a job like that.

[Rick Prado]

And you can't teach it eventually by experience. Like I said, all my college, all my classmates in the school did very well. A couple of them were former this or that. Military was. One guy was sf, fortunately, died of cancer pretty young. But later on in life, I saw these guys and gals just kind of blossom and you know, and really get it now because it's like everything else, you know, now they're being exposed to living in a third world country, dealing with a different culture, different language. And after a year or two of that, your magnet changes and you start really seeing things that you weren't aware of before. And I've taught this to almost every class I've ever been through especially. But when people talk about guns, awareness will beat faster every single time.

[Brent Tucker]

Yes, it will. That is, that is true. In fact, you, you may not even lack of awareness will get into a fast draw situation.

[Rick Prado]

Absolutely.

[Brent Tucker]

You know, and we'll probably talk about this a little bit later as well, but which is really unfortunate. About the Nick Rowe incident because he.

[Rick Prado]

But, you know, we. The. That's a really strong pet peeve for me because we. I got to be at Bill Buckley just once, but, I mean, it's like, oh, my God, Bill Buckley kind of stuff. You know, Vietnam, he was a legend. Legendary. And same thing with Nick Rowe. Yeah. And what they did with Bill, they send him to Beirut to be the chief of station when things got really, really shitty because he's the only guy that had the stones to say, yeah, I'll go do that. But he wasn't a case officer. His tradecraft absolutely sucked. I mean, I've read every book on that and talked to people that were, again, in that, and it was just amazing. You know, he parked his car, he had a Volvo, parked it in front of his apartment in the same place every time, ate at the restaurant across the street. And when he got wrapped up by Hezbollah, he had his Browning high Power in his briefcase. He was a fighter. He was a guerrilla fighter, but this wasn't his jungle. And that's exactly the same thing that happened with other cases that you mentioned.

[Brent Tucker]

Complacency, kills. And, and I say this all the time, even in combat, when there, you would think there would be no complacency. It is hard to be on high alert every day of your life. Like, it's just not, it's just not human nature.

[Rick Prado]

It's not human nature.

[Brent Tucker]

And you have to fight it all the time because especially in jobs like yours, the, the, the movies do a whole horrible job of keeping it action packed and sexy. And when the reality is it's boring. A lot of, A lot of it is.

[Rick Prado]

A lot of it is.

[Brent Tucker]

A lot of it is. And when it's boring, it's hard to not get complacent because you're not challenged every day.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

So it's, it's, it's, it's very tough.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, I'm very proud that I never had that, that issue. I, I remember chastising fellow station members that, you know, they're, they're going in prepared, they're, they're leaving at the last minute to a meeting, you know, and maybe because I, even in my, my case officer days, I never had the European tour where I'm meeting diplomats. You know, I started dealing with scumbags very early on. So it was all counterterrorism, counter narcotics, and all that kind of stuff. So that, that, that kept me sane. And the fact that I have my family with me, my tradecraft was sacrosanct because not only could I not compromise my asset, I had to do my two hours surveillance detection route.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

But after meeting a terrorist like I did in Latin America that I recruited at 10 o' clock at night on a Wednesday. And now I'm going home. I can't go straight home, right. Because I can't bring that crap back home. So now I got another hour and a half, two hour SDR going back around, making sure I'm not being followed and taken home.

[Brent Tucker]

So how, how would, how was your experience in the Farm? You'd been in the agency for a little bit. I don't know if you knew exactly what to expect or you didn't know what to expect at all. Sometimes we make things massive, you know, in our minds and then we're. Which is sometimes a good thing. You're kind of let down by the process because you'd built it up so much. What, tell me what you thought about your experience at the Farm.

[Rick Prado]

I think it was wonderful because again, I've. Most of us guys like you, myself, we like being challenged. You know, we like that being able to overcome something and going from the paramilitary side to there was a little bit of culture shock. But you know, I worked at a good men's clothing store when I was in high school and I learned to dress so I could clean up, you know, so that wasn't an issue. I read a lot, so. And I had my education, I have my degree. But what the difference was the granularity of. And like you said, often boring way of having to do things. I mean, people think that you walk into somebody and recruit them. You don't understand that you could recruit somebody in a week. Sometimes it could takes you three years.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

Of socializing with them and letting you know, finding out what makes them tick, what keeps them up at night. Those are all the things that, you know, do we have mutual goals and. Which is something I'm very proud of. The Agency, unlike communist counterparts, we, we try to recruit for strengths.

[Brent Tucker]

Now, you know, it's something else you, you touched on, which is really unique and a, and a special activities type of unit. And I don't know how you recruit for this, but we seem to do a good job. And that's the way it was explained to me is how explain it is finding someone that'll hit someone on the back of the head with an E tool one day and you know, and then the next day get in the, get in a suit and go to the embassy and brief an ambassador at a high level. And that Be the same man. That's, that's, that's unusual to, to change gears like that, but it's necessary.

[Rick Prado]

It is, it is. And in our businesses, it will, it will help you stand out if you have that, that, that ability to, you know, do, do both, you know, clean up well, fit in. And like I said, when you sit across the table from somebody who's a hostile individual that you recruited or a friendly individual who's a badass because you're dealing with local counterterrorism guys and that kind of stuff, they, they've thrown people off buildings, they look across the table to you when you're sitting there having a cigar with them, and they, There's a level of mutual respect there that, you know, this guy bites back.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

And not everybody has that.

[Brent Tucker]

And, and I'll tell you, even from our unit, not everyone could do that. So we would send certain people to do, to do certain things. And hey, some people are just knuckle Jaggers. And, and we need those guys.

[Rick Prado]

We need them all.

[Brent Tucker]

And some people are just briefers, and

[Rick Prado]

we need those guys, too. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

But there's, there's a special group of guys that can do both. And those, those are really special people. They, they just are not like. And again, like street smarts. I don't know how you train for that. I don't know what it is in someone's background necessarily that allows them to do that, but when you find it, it's special.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah. I think it's all part of your, your, your grooming in life, you know, how your experiences was what gets you to the next step, you know, surviving the next step.

[Brent Tucker]

Would speak of next steps. What would you do? After the farm,

[Rick Prado]

I was supposed to go to El Salvador to help run the programs down there. And the last minute they called me up, they said, the chief of station in Costa Rica wants you to go down there and run the southern front for the Contra program. And you're talking night and day. First of all, the people. Second, the platform in Honduras. I was in uniform. I carried mini grenade, a pistol, a knife, and an IR everywhere I went.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

Now I'm in cotton tie. I'm still carrying a gun, but I'm in cotton tie, working out of an embassy, trying to run what was a French resistance light kind of program, because the Costa Ricans, unlike the Hondurans, were very hostile to our program. Okay. So they were always trying to find out what we were doing. They were trying to bust us. So it made it a tradecraft. Really, really got Sharpened up there at the time because we were under those kind of circumstances, but it was night and day. I did that from 86 to 88.

[Brent Tucker]

When was the Contra Iranian affair uncovered?

[Rick Prado]

I would say that was probably. I was in South America in a country that I couldn't, they didn't let me mention. But that was my first counter, official counterterrorism job. And I remember that's when all of a sudden I started getting called in and, and you figure I was a GS12 when I was in front of a grand jury. So, so I was, you know, first lieutenant in, in front of the grand jury because of the, the Contra stuff. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Do you remember what year that was?

[Rick Prado]

Roughly 88, 89, 90. Yeah, yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And, and can you tell the audience why? Why, why it was a scandal?

[Rick Prado]

Yeah. You know, it's amazing because what I know of it is all after the fact when the stuff was going on, I knew what I was doing for the agency and that we were supporting these folks. But you know, you're this busy, you're not looking into all the politics but you know, the Boland amendment was going on and all these other things. And you know, Ollie north, who ended up being a good friend of mine much later on in life, had some really cool ideas. He was one of those guys that had a PhD but could win a bar fight, which is another way of putting it. And he was guys a stud. He came up with ideas that eventually became very controversial because we were funneling monies from deals with Iran back then that, but none of that was transparent to me while I was there. This is, once the balloon popped is when I got dragged into all that.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, we had certain policies in place that we wouldn't support certain rebel groups and then we were supporting rebel groups and like you said, with Iran at a very. We were funding the whole Contra through the sale of arms to Iran. Right. Right after the Iranian hostage situation when we shouldn't have been really doing anything with them. So it, it was, it was a bad look in the form of the government saying we, we won't do these certain things and we won't deal with these certain people. And then we were, then we were doing both.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And it goes back to one of those good intentions because even though was a controversy, it wasn't one of those where America was doing something bad necessarily. You know, we were doing good things. We were stopping communism. We, we just, we just got caught trying to hide it.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

I guess maybe the best way to

[Rick Prado]

quickly explain it, it was quite, quite Painful. It deflated a lot of us because obviously the greater majority of us did not know what was going on behind the, behind the, behind the curtains. But, and you know, we all have 2020 hindsight. Right. And obviously it's, it was not the smartest thing to do at the time, but it was the only thing that kept the contras going.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Rick Prado]

And I, I witnessed that firsthand. Right.

[Brent Tucker]

It's unfortunate that it played out at a political level because the guys on the ground were doing good things and like you said, had no idea. I don't even, I still have questions to some degree. I'm not sure we really needed the money from Iran to fund that.

[Rick Prado]

No, I think it was the idea. The, I think the idea was that now we had funds that we didn't have to tell people that we had so we could keep funding something that half of the politicians were against. So.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, and it's not like America was, you know, we're in the middle of a, of a cold war still. It's like America didn't want us to, to fight communism. So it just, it just seemed to be a little bit unnecessary or unfortunate that unfolded that way. And I'm sure that had its domino effect on, on what you guys were doing down there. Did we have the classic knee jerk reaction where we just.

[Rick Prado]

Absolutely. The pendulum swung in the opposite direction. The. You know, I've always tried to explain that the agency enjoys incredible oversight, but we do because, you know, we're the only organization that has Title 50 authorities.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay, and can you explain Title 50 authorities?

[Rick Prado]

Gladly. And I'll give you the perfect example.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Rick Prado]

SEAL team goes into Pakistan and kills bin Laden. Okay, well, that mission. I started the Bin Laden Task force in January of 1996. I was the Deputy chief of station and the senior ops officer in that. And that same little cell that we started with eight people was the cell that eventually was able to terminate bin Laden. But Seal Team All Special Military has what they call Title 10 authorities. That means in a battlefield you could do whatever the hell you want as long as your commander signs off on it. Pakistan. We were not at war with Pakistan. So in order to do that military option option, the SEAL team was scounded to the CIA under Title 50 authorities. Title 50 authorities are lethal findings that the President, if he puts his signature on it, those are your marching orders. And that protects our guys legally because yeah, it was a President that said to do so, but that's what it comes up to.

[Brent Tucker]

That's a great, that's a great way of, of explaining it. So let's get, you mentioned it. Let's, let's get to the, the, the UBL task force days, if you will. Had. So by the way, one of my favorite books is Hunting the Jackal by, by a man I knew a little bit, but you know, much better. And that's Billy Waugh.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And that was a, that, that book was, was tough to read post 911 because it was, because it was both a success story with Carlos the Jackal and then the unfortunate. The unfortunate. Not really, not as all, almost as always, not by the ground guys at the agency, but at a political level

[Rick Prado]

without, without a single doubt. You know, when Billy was in, in Khartoum in the early 90s chasing Carlos the Jackal, I met Billy in 1990 in the Philippines. And for some reason he liked me. We became friends. We actually, he became a very big mentor for me. So when I got to that position where I was deputy chief of station for the task force, first guy I called in was Billy because he had been doing surveillance on bin Laden while he was in Khartoum. He was still in Khartoum when we started these programs. So we, with the guidance from Billy and talking to our ground branch guys and our brothers like you from the outside services, we kept coming up with ways of neutralizing bin Laden. And politically, the willpower wasn't there. I remember in the 18 months or so that I was in the task force because then we had a family medical emergency and I had to leave. We must have proposed, formally proposed six times operations that were cleared sane by guys like you. We sit around with our counterparts and go, can this be done? And with a guy like Billy was, and I've seen him, I know where it is, where he lives. Billy used a line for me one time. He says, rick, I got so close to him that I could have killed him with a pencil.

[Brent Tucker]

He could have.

[Rick Prado]

And I'm going, you probably could have, Billy. Yeah, I know you could have. So that was the mistake. But imagine we started it in January of 1996. By 1997, by January of 1997, we had at least 50 fold more information on bin Laden that we had before. Wow. All the liaison services that were reporting all the overhead of the camps, what he was doing, all the intel that was being gathered from assets and you know, and everything else. A lot of work. The painting was, you know, it was, painting was on the wall. It was there. He is what he is. And the administration at that time, no, well, we don't have Enough proof that he is bad. Well, imagine. Imagine if they would have allowed us in 1997 to take out bin Laden. It'd be like taking Hitler out in 1937. 38.

[Brent Tucker]

Exactly. I mean, I don't think most people, unless they read books or there's, you know, ardent followers of special operations, know that. I really don't.

[Rick Prado]

He.

[Brent Tucker]

He showed himself to be dangerous with the near simultaneous Embassy bombings killed 24 people. 12Americans at the. Where were the two places that happened?

[Rick Prado]

At Dar Salaam and Nairobi, Kenya. Yeah, and.

[Brent Tucker]

And in those 90s, you know, you guys building those target packets. Were, were. Did you know just generally what, what he was doing? You just knew generally he was planning things. What is it that you knew he

[Rick Prado]

had or wanted to do? You got to understand that Khartoum at that time was a hotel for terrorists. If you had money or you were bill. He built the road to Port Sudan. He built a bunch of camps there for training. He gave the government a lot of money. He was in the white, what we call in the white. Sometimes he drove his Mercedes by himself. Sometimes he had some goons behind him that were moosh, but they weren't bodyguards or anything like that. One of your teams could have taken those guys out on your worst day. And that was the backbone of every plan that we had out there, was how viable it was because we knew we had him under surveillance. We had him, you know, come in and go, and he was making it easy because he did not feel threatened there. Right after the embassy bombings, he went to Afghanistan. That was the end of that game.

[Brent Tucker]

Why do you. I mean, you said they just didn't see him as a threat. Was it just that simple? Why, why do you think they didn't have the political willpower to do something about it?

[Rick Prado]

You know, again, I, I stay away from politics because I think that it is, you know, the most, you know, counterintuitive profession you could get into as far as I'm concerned. But I think it was the political equities. You know, if we do this, it's Khartoum. Who gives a crap about Khartoum? You know, he was bad. We knew that he was bad. The administration had no interest in letting us pull the trigger. And as you may recall, later on, they bombed what ended up being like a milk factory or a cookie factory or something, because they said that that's what they were incurred, which was totally bogus. So here you have a legitimate target that you get all source intelligence telling you he's bad, he's Coming after us. He's training terrorists. And you have an opportunity to negate that capability and you don't.

[Brent Tucker]

That's something I don't think may ever change. And that's because politics weaves itself in with, with war and combat. And I think one of the biggest lies I was told in my career and the, the further I went down it, the, the less I believed it. And then at some point I just didn't believe it. Which is. It's complicated. It's complicated. And they always. The amount of big missions we should have went on and didn't go on because people are scared and they start thinking, they start worrying about secondary and tertiary effects and what could happen and this and that and this and that. When it is. Most of the time I say every time. Almost every time, though, it's black and white. Should we remove a bad guy off. Off the chessboard? Yes. And we'll deal with the, you know, the, the aftermath that, that it is because you can't guess it. But should we remove them? Yes. And allowing them to stay in. Out of, out of fear of what ifs almost always has bad ramifications.

[Rick Prado]

Absolutely. No, that, that's, that is spot on. And we pay the price. Civilians pay the price, families pay the price. Countries pay the price of that indecision. Yeah, the bin Laden problem. Don't get me wrong, terrorism would have still existed. You know, other Hezbollah had killed more Americans than anybody else before 9 11. So we have enemies out there that are very, very dedicated, but having those opportunities. And Fast forward to 9 11. I had taken over as chief of operations at the counterterroris center. May of 2001.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, wow.

[Rick Prado]

Imagine the guilt for me, knowing what I tried to do in the early 1990s. 96, 97, 98. And now I'm facing with the fact that we just got our asses blown up and we could have stopped this back there. That became my driving force for the rest of my career.

[Brent Tucker]

When you put it like that, I could only imagine the people that were on that task force in the 90s begging for something to be done. Doesn't make you feel any better knowing that it wasn't your fault. But still you tell yourself you could have done something. You can never justify it to yourself.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, it wasn't our decision, but it was our inability to convince him. You know, Mike Scheuer, who was the actual task force chief, was an analyst, and he would have been director of analytical intelligence in the agency. He was that smart of a guy. We loved him. Because work ethic and smart and very, very. He was a good boss. And when the bombings of the embassies took place, the twin bombings, he told Tenet, you tell the President, and to you, the blood of those Americans are in your hands.

[Brent Tucker]

Bill Clinton.

[Rick Prado]

Yep. That ruined his career. He ended up spending the last year at the library writing his first book kind of stuff.

[Brent Tucker]

Good for him. Good for him. Because my follow up question was about to be, do you think Bill Clinton knows? Do you think he lives with that as well? But you have. Someone told him.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, you got.

[Brent Tucker]

Someone told him.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, yeah. But, but does it make a difference again, to, to politicians? That's, that's not the net zero outcome of stuff, you know, it's, you know, they'll just wash it off. I guarantee you he does not lose sleep at night. I sometimes do. There's times when I sit there in bed, I'm going like, can you imagine if we would have been allowed to do what we do? You know, we're the third option. Yeah, we are the third option. And this is right down the alley of what a third option operation would have been.

[Brent Tucker]

Absolutely, man. How much longer did you spend in the agency? Post nine, 11.

[Rick Prado]

I retired in 2004.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Rick Prado]

And what happened was when. And luckily they let me talk about it in the book. They don't let me talk about our successes, but the fact that I put together a special team at the end because I was chief of ops, I knew we were going to get hit, but I realized that we had no capability to disrupt or much less preempt an attack like this. We knew something was coming. Everybody thinks that. It's like in the movies where CIA knows everything and, you know, spying the. It's more like a puzzle and you have certain pieces that are missing and you make, you know, you make a collage out of, out of the, out of the decision. So shortly thereafter, we were, we were already, you know, first boots in Afghanistan, as, you know, were my guys.

[Brent Tucker]

You know, I don't want you to gloss over that for a second. I hate to interrupt you.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Please remember where you're, where you're at.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Because that's important to talk about. And I love the. Undeservedly so to some degree. I love the accolades Special operations gets about, you know, fifth group and Green Berets being first into Afghanistan, putting boots, the bad guys. And they, and they get that, you know, those accolades, but that's not necessarily true because there are already Americans there that they shook hands with when they got off Those helicopters.

[Rick Prado]

And that's a platform that I've used. And thank you for providing it again, because it's true, you know, that that move. 12 strong movie. 12 strong. Great movie. Don't get me wrong. Legit movie, except that the CIA participation is relegated to a guy on a horse with bags of money and the team leader saying, I don't know who that guy is, but he's got some stones. All right, so the real story was we. The two things that the agency had maintained in spite of how badly we were being funded was our relationship with the Northern alliance and the fact that we are the ones that developed the Predator. A lot of people don't know that either. Everybody thinks that drones just came out of. No CIA was involved in that. CO for Black, my boss then was a very integral part of that. So it was all there. It was all there. The decisions weren't exactly timely, I guess.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, there's something else to say about that, is you can't create relationships after the fact. And that's what makes, I really think the CIA's role globally very difficult because we can't really predict necessarily where the next war is going to be. And you can't be everywhere at once. You really can't. So you do your best guess to say, hey, we're going to maintain. We're going to either create relationships here, maintain relationships there. But that was a win for the CIA. You guys had relationships where we needed them to be, when we needed them to be there.

[Rick Prado]

You know, the. Put together that team. We're talking weeks after 9 11. And my favorite part of that story is Gary Schrone was the. Literally had. He was. He was in retirement. He was on the. You know, he had two months left. He was going to retire. When 911 happened, he came back in because he had been the chief in Afghanistan and he had. He knew Massoud. He spoke the language and all that other stuff. And we put together this team and they were the first boots on the ground. And the triple nickel. Yeah, they came in. They were the first military uniform folks. But when those two helicopters came in, it was my guys on the ground doing this, bringing the choppers in, and the fact that that's glossed over. Mike Spann, first American killed in Afghanistan, was a former Marine, CIA, sad ground branch guy. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

That was during a prison takeover rebellion, right?

[Rick Prado]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

And you know, there's a collateral story that a lot of people don't know. There was a guy that was with him. First name is Dave Vanilla, case officer. This Guy had never been in anything, including Boy Scouts, and he ends up pulling the Browning out of his pocket and shooting bad guys and taking their A case. I think he killed like nine people getting him himself and a French reporter that was caught in the melee there. And Mike Spann didn't stand a chance. I mean, they jumped him, they killed him almost on the spot. But I tell that story because we were talking about the paramilitary background helping. This here's a guy that went through the Farm, had a conventional tour or so, and now he's gone into this thing, and he ends up the pointy end of the stick

[Brent Tucker]

and tell the audience what they were doing there, like why we had case officers at. At that prison.

[Rick Prado]

Well, I mean, you. Look, every paramilitary officer that we have is a case officer. And when I first started, a lot of the PM guys, they used to call us, you know, snake eaters and knuckle draggers, and they were proud of that, you know, and. But I came in at the timely at the right time when they were professionalizing. And I remember the quote by one of my bosses, Chuck Leibauer, saying, look, you know, we are not the central airborne agency. We're the Central Intelligence Agency. And our case, our ops officers, our paramilitary PMOs need to be fully. And that's when the whole shebang went and we went. There is no such thing as a paramilitary officer in the agency that hasn't been through the Farm fully certified and done intelligence tours. That's just part of the grooming.

[Brent Tucker]

I love that one. One of the first times I went to the agency to coordinate with ground branch and then. And the more I worked with them, there's still this some degree of. Of separation. I'm gonna be a little dramatic about it. It's not this bad, but it. It is. At times it was very foreign to me because in the military,

[Rick Prado]

the.

[Brent Tucker]

The ground guys are. Are the rock stars, right? And the intel people support.

[Rick Prado]

Support that.

[Brent Tucker]

The ground guys. But in the CIA, it's a little bit reversed because they're the Central Intelligence Agency, and the intel and the case officers are kind of the rock stars. And they're almost looked at to the ground guys as, you know, some sort. Some sort of a support element to them. And it was. It's just. It's just a different culture. And I understand why. I'm not saying the ground guys are treated bad, but.

[Rick Prado]

No, there was a time. There was a class difference before.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

But you know what changed that was terrorism. When terrorism came in and now you needed people.

[Brent Tucker]

Now you need those guys.

[Rick Prado]

Exactly. Not only do you have somebody who, yeah, he went through the farm, but he's a meat eater. And we could put him in Kabul or we could put him in Khartoum or we could put him wherever. And they're going to know how to lead under fire. They're going to understand that group. And I'll go as far as telling you that the guy that used to be chief sog, Special Activities Group in the SAD eventually became the ddo, the Deputy Director of Intelligence. There were political questions there, but nonetheless, all of a sudden the paramilitary guys became that. Go to tool. We got a real problem in a real bad place. Let's not do like we did with Bill Buckley and send a PM or guy that. No, let's send case officers that are training tradecraft that can lead a station and can protect the station and can, you know, buttress that fear that it's natural for, especially first tour officers that don't know what's going on.

[Brent Tucker]

You know, before we leave the Afghanistan story, I just, I just, I just want to paint a picture of what the real first guys on the ground went through.

[Rick Prado]

It.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, it, it's different when you go in as, as an oda with the might of the military behind you, the might of the world's greatest military behind you, air superiority, a battalion on call when you need them. It's, it's. I'm not saying they didn't get put in hairy situations, because they did, but you have resources and tons of them. Those first agency guys on the ground are really hanging it out there. And they're hanging it out there in a big way. And they, they, they don't have Cass on station. They're, they're qrf.

[Rick Prado]

No qrf.

[Brent Tucker]

They're the ones really figuring it out on the ground because the ODA guys get to come in and say, hey, this, we've, we've, we've, we've fleshed out most of it. They'll still have to flesh out some things, but they're going there, meeting people for the first time, finding out who the real alliance, not just Northern alliance, but your real allies are on the ground. And if you're wrong, your life was on the line. Your life is on the line.

[Rick Prado]

That first group that went in there is. First of all, I know several of them, junior for one former Green Beret guy, he was, because most of them were former paramilitary officers, if not all that were first on the ground. Imagine going into a country where the leader of the Northern alliance had been assassinated two days before 9 11. FBI calls that a clue. I mean, you're talking, you know, this is. We have a problem here. And now you have a guy like Gary Sherlock who's literally an SIS 2 or 3 senior officer, you know, in the agency, who's in retirement. He goes out there to lead it. He was already in his league. I mean, it wasn't like he was a 34 year old buck or something, you know.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

And go in there and meet these commanders and try to figure them out and try to, you know, gain their confidence and their, their commitment while being hunted by the bad guys because you know, they were, they were already, you know, spreading there. And you know, there's a scene in the movie where the, the triple nickel guys, they, they ride horses into, you know, they get in an ambush kind of thing and they run through the tanks or whatever it was. And that's true. And it's really hairy stuff and really cool shit to listen, but when they don't mention that there were CIA, our CIA officers were one of, one of our guys literally shot a guy from horseback. Who gets to do that?

[Brent Tucker]

Who gets to do that?

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, really On. From horseback.

[Brent Tucker]

So, yeah, I think it gets glossed over. Another reason I think it gets glossed over is because it worked out. And so what I mean by that is when you look at it in hindsight, it's easy to go, oh, it was easy. Right. But if you were asked, you know, the, the general you who were asked to go do that and go into this random country, Afghan, everyone knows Afghanistan now, no one knew Afghanistan.

[Rick Prado]

Nobody knew anything about Afghanistan.

[Brent Tucker]

If you got tasked to do that, you'd be feeling very different every day that you woke up, glad to wake up, pulling security non stop. And this just very, very.

[Rick Prado]

Sitting on $3 million worth of money,

[Brent Tucker]

knowing that there's leaks, knowing that the enemy does know there's Americans on the ground. Anyone could turn on you for any moment for that, for that brief chase,

[Rick Prado]

especially in that culture, because as you know, that's more of a clan property. So the other, the chief clan wants your money, he can sign a deal with you and then he comes in and kills you and takes it. Yeah, yeah, no, no, those, those guys went into a situation that is unprecedented. This is like the OSS paratrooping inside of, you know, Germany during the war kind of stuff. You know, it really is that kind of, that level.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, it's a good comparison. It really is.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm glad we got to talk about that. Like, I really am. Because those guys, the agency and those guys and everyone involved with deserve those kudos that I don't think they. They get. And speaking of. Of those guys, we mentioned them before, but the type of guys who raised their hand, volunteered, forced their way onto it. Guys like Billy Waugh, who I think was in his 60s or 70s, 72 years old. 72 years old, walking up and down the mountains of Afghanistan by himself, or in a very small team with a briefcase full of cash. That guy's career to span from Vietnam all the way to walking the mountains of Afghanistan. Just crazy.

[Rick Prado]

Well, as we had the conversation earlier, he was one of my dear mentors and friends, and I was chief of ops when he walked into Cofer's office about Afghanistan. Now, Kofer Black was the chief of station in Khartoum when Billy got Carlos the Jackal, okay? So Billy walks into Cofer's office and says, I need to go to the war. And Cofer says, are you crazy? You're 72 years. You're not going. He goes, you've already been to war. Here's what he told Kofer. Kofer was nobody you mess around with. We called him the Hulkster. It was, you owe me because you got your senior grade because I captured Carlos the Jackal. And he literally told him to get the F out of his office and threw him out. Billy sat in the corner and wouldn't leave. He was on the outside of the corner. So I get called in. Me and Hank Crumpton get called in by Cofer and tells us what Billy has said. And he says, you know what? This guy wants to go out there and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is insane. I said, hey, Chief, what changes if Billy Wall goes to Afghanistan and he survives? The legend lives on. If Billy goes to Afghanistan and he dies, the legend lives on, right? That's who he is. And Kofer told us. He said, oh, you guys sign off. I'm not having anything to do with that. And I love that story because that was Billy, you know, all the way. 72 years old in Afghanistan, freezing his ass off.

[Brent Tucker]

It reminds me of I got to meet Kurt Muse, who was rescued by the squadron that I was in. And he tells a story about when the President is getting briefed at his ranch in Texas about the rescue. And. And that even. Even when he was safe on a helicopter, guys were body bunkering him to

[Rick Prado]

ensure that they didn't take a round.

[Brent Tucker]

They wouldn't take around.

[Rick Prado]

And.

[Brent Tucker]

And Bush just sits back and goes, man, where. Where do they make men like that.

[Rick Prado]

And when in America. America.

[Brent Tucker]

And when you tell me that story about Billy Wall, just, that story just echoes in my head. And, you know, you tell me that story about 72, demanding he goes back to war, and I just think, where, where do we, where do we get men like that? America.

[Rick Prado]

Like I, I said, I think that it's a, that's a unique trait that we have. I, I've. Another big banter for me was Wayne Fisk. Wayne was the, the number two in training when I got my beret. And for some reason, he took a liking. Maybe. I was 21 years old. To this day, we're best of friends. I mean, we're very, very, very close. And here's a guy that is. As a matter of fact, I was able to get him. Jose Rodriguez, who was our ddo, he was retired. Billy Waugh and myself, in my house, they wanted to meet because they both had heard about each other. You know, Wayne Fisk was on the Sante raid. He was in the Mayaguez, and he's credited for the last shot fired in Vietnam. And the joke was, don't go anywhere with Wayne because he's the only guy that doesn't get shot. It was like Wyatt Earp, you know, holes in the coat kind of stuff. He never, he never got nicked, but he had four tours, two silver stars and the same things. How do you forge that kind of person? And I think that we have the right oven here. We do in the house of history.

[Brent Tucker]

It's, it's easy to pick on, on, on this new generation. And, and, and they, and they give us reasons to. But at the same time, I think that pool has gotten smaller. But I, I assure you, and I think you'll agree there, America will always produce men like that. They're still there. They'll be there.

[Rick Prado]

There's. There's no doubt, there's no doubt in my mind. And, and, and, and when things go

[Brent Tucker]

wrong, everyone will look to those guys.

[Rick Prado]

Absolutely.

[Brent Tucker]

And they'll pull through.

[Rick Prado]

Absolutely.

[Brent Tucker]

They just did it in the Maduro raid.

[Rick Prado]

Yep. I mean, textbook. And the fact that they killed 38 Cubans, man, you know, how sweet that is? To me, you know, that's, that's the icing on the cake. Yeah, but no, absolutely. I think that we have a warrior breed that is based on, on high moral ground and appreciation for this country. And this is why I stayed doing what I did for a long time, because after I did Blackwater, I worked with the soft community for seven years, and that was the impetus for me being around individuals, I'm going like man, it just reactivates my belief in humanity that we do have the capability still, but we always will be a minority. Let's face it, only 2% at any given time serves in the military. Much less in higher, you know, lower and lower tiers or higher, higher tiers. And so it's a minority. You know, then you have the law enforcement first responder, that's another. You got 90% of the population has got very little skin in the game.

[Brent Tucker]

And I think the pendulum swinging, I do, I think it swung too far the, in one direction and I think it's coming back. I really do.

[Rick Prado]

Well recruiting, Recruiting shows that you know, everybody was you know, bitching that wow, you know, we can't get recruits Army, Navy, Air Force or Coast Guard or Marines or nobody. And all of a sudden they changed the military. The woke wokeness aspect of which is our demise. And all of a sudden people are surprised. All of a sudden we're all topped out. We don't, you know, we got all the recruit recruits we need. Why? Because the people that volunteer, we're a volunteer military, right. The people that volunteer, they're different to begin with. They're going in there for a different purpose.

[Brent Tucker]

You have to cater to those people. You do and those are the people you want to cater to anyway. You ended your career at an equivalent of a two star level. I think it's the easiest way to kind of translate it. Would you agree with that statement?

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, I mean it's a protocol thing. The, the, the SIS Senior Intelligence Service grades. It's like you know, like for example in the GS grade I was a GS17. I was an SIS too in the agency. And protocol wise that transmits to, you know, and it doesn't mean that you can go and take the 82nd Airborne and be out there as you know it does. The people get insulted by that but it is a way of saying what the ranks are. And that was the point that we jumped up from before, when, when after 911 happened. Here I am, I'm an SIS 2. I had been offered another deputy division chief job but I turned it down because I wanted to stay cops and 911 happens and I come up with an idea of how we could prevent and disrupt in the future. So I came up with a concept that it was pretty basic. It was a stalker team. We would make book as we could call it patterns of life, do the find and fix aspect of X number of bad guys from each terrorist organization and have Those on the books and have three operational plans per. We know what mosques they go to, we know what girlfriends they have or boyfriends or whatever it is. And when the time comes, when now you have Hezbollah or whoever, all of a sudden three of their senior guys at the same time go bye bye. We penetrated, hit the brakes. So I came up with that idea. It was blessed not only by the dci, but I literally briefed the Vice President Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice on the programs and they green lighted it. That's also the reason I retired. Because after three years of successful snooping and pooping, every time we come up with a really good plan to make a difference. Well, part of it is in the book, the briefing on the one guy we were really after. And it was a hard nut to crack, but we cracked it. The director of the agency was there, the DDO at the time time was there. And after I finished my briefing and I had gone through scrubs before, I mean other, you know, the security guys, the CI guys and everything else were the plans. The, the DDO said to the DCI says there's, there's no doubt in our minds that Prado and his team can make it happen, you know, can make do this. We're confident that they could get away with it. And I went like, yeah, next phrase. However, we have to consider the political ramifications of doing that at this time. Just what I talked about earlier, the division chief that was my sponsor for that particular mission got up, closed his Brioni suit, walked out, went to his office and retired.

[Brent Tucker]

I've said it before with the military, but it, it, it translates to this perfectly. When certain headquarters and, and the war went on and just, it got harder and harder and harder to get outside the wire.

[Rick Prado]

Yep,

[Brent Tucker]

most guys and generally on the white side, but filtered everywhere to some degree is that I can't fight two wars. I can't, I can't fight the bad guys and fight headquarters. I can't fight you both. You know, and that, that took the wind out of so many guys sails. There were so many Green Berets, great Green Berets that ended up leaving early in their, in their career instead of fishing out because they, they refused to do it night. And I understand why. And it's just demoralizing.

[Rick Prado]

It is because you know that you have a moral responsibility because of the skills that God gave you and that you developed and for all the wrong reasons, you're being negated that opportunity to go do what you were put on this earth. To do. And the consequences of that is innocent people dying. Yeah, that's a hell of a burden.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. And I wish, I wish saving American blood was at the top of their list over political ramifications. That should be the number one on our list every time. And it, it angers me, it does. When it's clear that it's not our priorities get, get skewed at a political level. And that's, it's gotta change. It's, it's getting better. But we're far, we're far from there.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, we got a lot of catching up, a lot of catching up to. But you know, it's like everything else, you know, we have, the enemies that we have are predators. China has been an imperial power 3,000 years before Christ. Persians were an imperial power. And of course the same thing with the Russians when we have weak leadership. And like I said, I don't talk politics, but I do talk history. Jimmy Carter was immoral individual, God loving American, served in the military. He was an admiral in the nuclear subs or something, I believe. But he was indecisive and came across as food. And when you have an individual like that and look what happened with the Iran hostage. 444 days, right? You know, he gave away the Panama Canal. The Russians invaded Afghanistan as soon as he took over because they knew that they had no opposition, right? Reagan comes in and the day that he did this and swore in before he could do this, they had released the hostages, right. Because they knew, oh, the guy is over. And the point of the story, my point is we cannot come across as food. We have to be proud of the fact of our might, develop our might, brag about our bite and be able and willing to put our guys down and to do the deeds because that's the only thing that keeps people from messing with you.

[Brent Tucker]

It's pretty clear that there are individuals or a certain party that is almost ashamed of our power.

[Rick Prado]

Oh, absolutely.

[Brent Tucker]

Which is crazy because you're absolutely right. We, we should be proud of it. And we, and we should in a respectful way flaunt it because not just for our own sake, but for the good of the rest of the world. There's, and if, if we don't, there will be innocent people by the hundreds of thousands at some suffer from our inaction.

[Rick Prado]

I have always said that the day that God forsakes America, he's forsaken the world because we are that bastion that is willing to lead. And the rest of you're seeing it right now with the Iran Thing. What is it the French now are saying? Oh, yes, we'll help you control the problem. We already got it under control. I remember one comment that was made early on when this all started that, well, it's obvious that we cannot rely on the Americans to help us fight the enemy. I was so insulted. And what I said right off the bat, I said the only terrain that the United States gained after World War II was the cemeteries where our warriors are buried. Don't come and tell me, Europe, that you cannot rely on us. No, what you're being told is you have to rely on yourself. You got to be part of the solution and we will back you up. And if that's not proof, look at all the countries in Europe right now. They're all. Even Japan has done away with their non militaristic stuff and they're building the capabilities.

[Brent Tucker]

What you just said is, is so true about the Ukraine Russian war right now that I just said America has to be strong and you know, other people will suffer if we're not. Of course we have to be judicious of, of, of when and where. And I don't think the Ukraine war. It's just my personal opinion, Iris. I know it's. I respect other people's opinion on this. This is just, just mine. But that was a Europe problem. And because we stepped in, the other countries didn't have to. Poland, especially Germany, all of Europe had had an incentive to keep Russia out of their backyard. And if we wouldn't have stepped in, they would have. They would out of necessity. But they didn't because there goes, you know, Uncle Sam, solving everyone's problem. So I don't think we should solve everyone's problem. We should be, we should be prepared to.

[Rick Prado]

As an ally. As an ally. You know, it's one of the beauties of the Ukraine situation is that it totally demystified the Russian superior military superiority.

[Brent Tucker]

Boy, did it.

[Rick Prado]

You know, they thought that they were going to go in there like we did in Iraq. Don't get me wrong, that was the wrong war to be in. But two weeks, it's all it took. And we took down a country that had a lot more military might and experience than the Ukrainians.

[Brent Tucker]

Absolutely.

[Rick Prado]

Russians have been at it for four years. Technically, they're getting their asses kicked. They've lost hundreds of thousands of men. They're recruiting North Koreans and Cubans and all kinds of stupid stuff bringing them in there. That myth of the overwhelming and what we just did in Iran, if that doesn't tell everybody in the world. Go like, guys, you're in a different class. You got to understand that. You don't. There is no country in the world that can fight the United States in a conventional war and win.

[Brent Tucker]

I completely agree. But again, whether you agree or disagree with us being in Iran, I agree with it. And I can. And you can even more so explain why Iran and Hezbollah has been a problem for a long time. And this is. This is just long overdue. But that's. I've talked about that before. Then go back and see what I've said about that before. But what I really want to talk to you about is Cuba. Actually, it's Trump's last term. He's shown a propensity to take care of problems that other people just don't

[Rick Prado]

want swept under the rug. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

For a long time. Do you think, do you think we'll do something about Cuba?

[Rick Prado]

I certainly hope so, to say the least, and I believe that we will. I think all the writings on the wall, I think once this Iran thing is over with, the pressures are going to be against Cuba. You know, a lot of people, I look at Cuba to have a Venezuela like experience, you know, where we go in there and we capture Maduro, obviously, imagine the amount of intelligence that we had that we knew exactly where he was going to be at. And your guys went in and just cleaned up and grabbed them and took them out, you know, so it's a matter of focusing on the threat is a historical threat. Before 9, 11, Hezbollah had killed more Americans than any other terrorist group. And their only loyalty is to Iran. The reason I mentioned that I thought Iraq was not the war that we should have gotten into is because we ended up killing the mongoose. Because the only natural enemy that Iran had in this hemisphere were the Iraqis. So just that the fact that when you have somebody telling you every single time, death to Americans, we want to kill you, that's a clue, you know, Come on. You know, so if you have an opportunity to negate this kind of atrocities, but the same thing spills over to Cuba. I think one of the things that I love about America is that we have a moral compass of the, you know, the ethos of the American is the cowboy with a white hat. You know, we got to come in, we got to help, you know, the oppressor, liberty, you know, that concept of mentality. And I think that that permeates the American character.

[Brent Tucker]

Let me ask, let me ask you this. And I've heard you say on other interviews that you're not, you're not a hyphenated American. You're an American. And so I not only bring that up because I don't want anyone to look at your answer like well, he's from Cuba, he has a screen skewed sense. But before I ever ask you that question, you in other interviews, as if your whole life's work towards this country, that doesn't say it. You've also said yourself, I'm not a hype American. I'm, I'm an American.

[Rick Prado]

No, that, that was never allowed in my household. My kids were not Cuban Americans. You know, we are Americans. Very proud of my Cuban roots. And when the topic has come up before, before the interviews kind of took life, people would ask me why in the agency that I did not work against the Cubans. And I said, well, first of all, I have a reputation for being an aggressive guy in operations, but if I'm doing it against the Cubans, they're going to say exactly what you just said. Well, of course he's based off of the Cubans, he's Cuban. So I wanted to stay away from that. But I always also told him, I said, if we go to war with Cuba tomorrow, I'll go kill Cubans. Right.

[Brent Tucker]

So I, I preface that with to, to attempt to take the, the bias perception out of it.

[Rick Prado]

I appreciate it. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

So the question is why, why should we, why should we do something about Cuba?

[Rick Prado]

Now there's, oh, there's a plethora of reasons and let's, let's start with pragmatism. You have a dangerous dagger 90 miles from our belly. The Chinese have an incredible signals intelligence capability that runs out of Cuba. Obviously now the Russians can't do much about it anymore, but they had a very heavy presence there. And you have a country that, this is the pragmatic side, not the moral side. You have a country that has been undermining democracies for 67 years. From Africa to Latin America to Union. They were Viet in Vietnam. There were Cubans interrogators in there. So people don't understand that. That's the pragmatic thing. Bad, bad. They need to be stumped up like a scorpion in your baby's bedroom or something. Right. There's the moral aspect of it too. You have a people that in 1968 had the third highest standard of living in the hemisphere. The Cuban peso was the equal to the US dollar. The first air conditioned hotel was built in Havana by Americans. But nonetheless that level. And for 67 years they cannot even Feed themselves. There's hundreds and thousands of men and women that are in jail because they politically opposed. There was a joke back when in Cuba for the Cubans where somebody says, well, the United States is great because, you know, anybody could get on a street corner and say that Reagan is a jerk and he should die or whatever. And the Cuban says, well, you know, we have the same thing. You know, anybody in Cuba can stand up and say that Reagan is an ass and that. Yeah. But you can't say that Castro did it because you'd be gone, you know. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

You can say the exact same thing. Yeah, yeah, just like the equivalent of it.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm really glad I asked you that question, because I, I love the way you explain things and, and you have the knowledge and experience in the background to, to be, to be credible. You know, when, when you say, hey, this, this is the reason why. These are the players. And so I'm. I'm really, really glad you said what you said, because I, I agree with you. We take care of things all over the world, but we won't take care of our own backyard. Let's. Let's start there first.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah, I mean, you know, this strategically is stupid. And, you know, from the Monroe Doctrine on down and, you know, some of the new stuff, this is our turf. And we are allowing two major foreign powers who are our primary enemies.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Rick Prado]

Because what, A lot of people don't know how immersed Iranians were in Venezuela. I tracked that from the agency. I mean, they had billions of dollars in there. I mean, it's, you know, that's who our enemies are. And these people that suffer under that. We have a pragmatic responsibility for our country to preempt us being hurt, but we also have that moral responsibility to free those individuals that are being oppressed against in very cruel ways. So I think we have the moral high ground. We have the pragmatic high ground. We definitely have the capability. There was a. Communists are great at propaganda. Right. So Canal, this is the president, quote, unquote, talking about, we're ready for the gringos, you know, if they come, we will fight them to the last man. And then they show a video of a Dushka on a cart being towed by two ox and three or four guys with AK47s like this, playing real ninja. And all of a sudden, when they start fighting the Dushka, what do you think happens with the bulls? They go apeshit. So I'm going like, okay, so here's an example of probably one of the best Days in my current life was in Iran when we had the rescue of our pilots.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

First of all, because PJs were the guys finally got their hands on them. Don't get me wrong, you guys were there, you know, we had the air support, but the guys on the ground that went and grabbed him. But then the dci, the director of the agency came out and said that we have a capability called Ghost Whisper. I think it was ghost whisper and is the ability to detect the human heart at great distances. And what people don't understand is we got the first pilot out. The second one was that way somewhere. And you know that it's not that way somewhere could be anywhere. You know, you just don't. Right. And they. That was what GEO located our pilot was that synergy of intelligence and guys on the ground. And I'm very proud of that. That was a very happy day for me. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

What, what that did to me with two things. Exactly. You said just. There's been a lot of reasons to be proud to be an American lately. And that's, that's been a nice change. But to hear of technologies like that is really cool. But it's cool for another reason. If you think that's cool, imagine what they haven't told you. Imagine what else we can do that we haven't had to pull off the shelf yet.

[Rick Prado]

I was surprised when the DCI said that.

[Brent Tucker]

I, I was too.

[Rick Prado]

And it's never been mentioned again. I think it was probably a Freudian slip or something came out. But in reality when I heard that, I was like, wow. Ghost Murmur, I think is what it was called.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

So. And, and in contrast, I believe Russia showed themselves and showed how bad they were and we showed our hand between Iran and Venezuela and we haven't even showed our complete hand. Think about that.

[Rick Prado]

In contrast, you've seen the conventional stuff for the most part.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Well, what made you write the book and how did you get any pushback as, as a CIA operative writing a book?

[Rick Prado]

It was actually the other way around, you know. Yeah. Like I said, I, I've always read a lot. So for me, the OSS and being special military and being James Bond and all that, that, that was what I needed next to my name. That was my goal as a kid growing up. Never in my 75 years that I think thought I would be best selling author of anything. Right. But the guy that started the program, the, the process was Colfer Black. I brought Cover Black to Blackwater after he retired. I was the first CIA Guy in Blackwater.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Rick Prado]

And so I brought Colfer in. He was one of our top leaders and everything else. And Cofer would come into my office almost every week and go, you got to write a book. I'm not writing a book. That's just not me. I'm not, you know, I have no interest in that. I've been undercover all my career. I want to keep. I mean, I was overt, but I wasn't advertising at CIA license plate.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

And. But what. What got me was. And again, my. My friend Billy. Why, unwittingly was. Was part of the issue. There's a lady named Annie Jacobson who wrote a book, Surprise Kill, Vanish, which is excellent book, excellent book. And. But, you know, Billy's the protagonist for like 70 or 80% of. I think I got two pages on it for giggle's sake. But she's the one that came over my house. I had never talked to a reporter, investigative reporter before, but Billy said, I vouch for her. She went with me to Cuba and we're gonna go to Vietnam and all this kind of said, okay. So she spent two days with us at home. And at the end of the conversation, she says, you have to write a book. I said, have you been talking to Cofer or something? And he goes, no. He says, look, here's why. She's smarter than I am by far. She said, here's why you have a story. You bitching and moaning about how the agency is represented, how badly your colleagues are portrayed in the media, in novels, in Hollywood especially, you know, we're all double dealing, doing things that Congress doesn't know about, humanizing, selling secrets, stealing. And just for that alone. So she planted that seed. And one of these times of introspection, I said to myself, I said, you know, we now have. A lot of people don't know this. We have about 144 stars on our wall. The agency is this big. The directorate of operations is this big. And we have 144 stars on that wall. A third of Those are post 9 11. That means that I, as chief of ops, Mike Spann, Jennifer Matthews. Jennifer Matthews was in the Bin Laden task force when we started in 1996. It's a very emotional thing for me, very emotional thing for me that you see, we have the capabilities. We pass up on opportunities, and we end up sacrificing people without appreciation of the rest of the country, which is criminal. So that was why, when Annie finished with me, she gave me the business card of her agent. She says, I've never done this. I've never given my agent up to anybody because I don't want competition. But you've got to write your book. And like I say, the rest is history. But the reason for writing the book was painting a realistic picture of what my agency is all about. The moral high ground, the, the, the, the, the oversight that we enjoy, you know, because it's painful, but we enjoy the fact that when we come out of that, we know we're doing the legit thing. And of course, you know, for me the tipping point was thinking that this book could now a widow could present that to their kid and say this is what mommy or daddy really did during the war. Yeah. And that was the impetus for that.

[Brent Tucker]

I love it. You know, when I read the book, I don't read as many books as I'd like to, but when, when it's a book especially you're coming from the community, you can just tell when someone writes a book and it's. I call it a look at me book. And you can. Oh, you can tell just through the writing what the intent of, of, of the book. And it's a great lessons learned historical. This is, this is what, this is what really happened style of, of writing the book and, and I really enjoyed it.

[Rick Prado]

Thank you.

[Brent Tucker]

I really did. We're back. I told you earlier we're starting a, a book club on our, on our Patreon and, and that that will be on it. Where, where can they find the book?

[Rick Prado]

Amazon. Anybody? You know, Barnes and Noble. It's all over. The book is sold well over 100,000 copies. Was New York Times bestseller like six or seven weeks after he came out.

[Brent Tucker]

Deservingly so loved it.

[Rick Prado]

And all surprising to me, you know I did, you know. But I'm very proud of the book. I'm very proud of the fact that I think that it has made a difference in educating a substantial number of people. And right now we're trying to do work something where we put there there's a series, TV series or something based on. And that's not my cup of tea either, but if it could propel my message.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

You know, if he's done over a hundred thousand on print, can you imagine if you get it up on screen?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

And now people are going like wow, there's the message.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, I watched it on, on Jack Carr. So you, you know, some people who can, who can do it. I'm, I'm sure and I hope it gets done.

[Rick Prado]

Thank you.

[Brent Tucker]

And there's another reason why I Hope it gets done that, that you, you, you read the book and we touched on it earlier a little about, a little bit about giving the CIA credit on the invasion of Afghanistan that they don't get. And that's, I love all those books up there about special operations that give young men something to look up to. But we need good young men going to the agency as well.

[Rick Prado]

Absolutely.

[Brent Tucker]

And they, they need to know why they, they should go to the agency. And that's a great book for, for the future of, of the Agency and I, I thoroughly believe that.

[Rick Prado]

Thank you. Coming from you, that's a hell of a good. Appreciate that. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, I got one more question before I let you go. It's a standard question. Should be fairly. The only hard part about this question with a career like yours is maybe picking the story. Tell me a funny story.

[Rick Prado]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail] well, I don't know that it's funny, but it was like the Puerto Cabezas thing was a huge scuba success. We headquarters, against my recommendations, decided that they wanted to do the same thing in Puerto Corinto, which was on the west side, which was, that was the commercial belly for Nicaragua. So they said, look, we want to use your divers. Can they do it? I said, of course my divers can do it. They said, well, but we want to have the guys who drive the boats to be the regular FDN guys. Because I said they don't get along, they don't like each other, they don't trust each other. So this mission went on and it was a total goat rope. The boats that we'd given them broke down. They were fighting each other and long story short, those eight men were stuck in Nicaraguan territory. Grounded. Yeah. So I was, I was in Amapala, I think it was in the Gulf of Fonseca and I had a helicopter. So I went in and we knew that one of the boats was in Nicaraguan waters, but it was just bobbing there had broken down and I did a helocast into, into the, into the water with fuel tools, spark plugs and two sticks of C4. And I stable rigs that I made out of rope because I said, if we cannot start the boat, I got to get my guys out. But I'm blowing that thing up. I'm not, you know, so that, that was the first. You know, it's funny now, but at the time was, was pretty hairy. Got the guy out, got those first, first guys out. Then that night we went back out again and found the second boat who was literally in the mangroves in Nicaragua, in Nicaragua territory. And of course, because we had gone in there with a helicopter 12 hours before, the Sandinistas were all over us. So here we are on a 30 foot Boston Whaler with twin Corvette engines thing, and I have an AR15 and a Browning that's going to do me a lot of good. And these guys are popping flares everywhere. They're doing recon by fire, trying to see where we were at. And we were able to geolocate our guys. And then the next morning with the piranhas, which you're probably aware of piranha capability, we went in there, we got our second guys out. And that's my favorite story because here you have a failed mission. But it meant so much to me because I remember going to Leon Williamson, who was the base chief at the time, great friend of mine, Vietnam, bad Green Beret guy. And I said, I'm not leaving my guys behind. And he goes, well, I knew that was coming. What are you gonna do about it? And then when I told him, he goes, you're crazy, but let's do it. And to have a boss that allowed you to do that, you know, there wasn't any going to headquarters saying, mother may I kind of stuff. We was very proud of that. That was my first medal in the agency, which came as a total surprise because I was just doing my job. But it is not a funny moment. But it's the probably the most fun to tell story because the outcome of Puerto Cabezas was a military success. This was a moral success. The fact that we did not leave

[Brent Tucker]

our guys behind was the, the first bridge operation. There's so many things that can go wrong when, when you're doing underwater stuff now, partnered underwater stuff, generally speaking, that operation go smooth.

[Rick Prado]

It actually did accept at the very beginning. I still have the scar to show it. So we're going out. We were in Puerto lmpira, There's a big lagoon. We had A PT boat that was waiting for us on the other side of the lagoon. So we're going out on a small boat. We have all our gear, we have our divers. We're pulling the Panga, which is the wood canoe that we're going to use because it's local and it's low profile and all this. And when we get to the edge, the waves were so bad that the outboard motor started falling out of the boat. I grabbed it. That was pretty beefy back then, pulled it back in, the thing fell backwards. And you know, the. The oar hooks where the. One of them was broken and it dug into my arm, just tore my arm apart. And of course, you know, I bandaged it up. He goes, you got to go to the doctors 48 hours from now. So it did not start well, but the rest were like clockwork. We were able to get. We had timed it. One of the things that was really cool about that operation is that we did it around midnight. It was set to blow up like 2 o' clock in the morning kind of thing. Because we didn't want to have the collateral damage. We didn't want the Sandinistas to be able to say, oh, they killed 15 innocent people, anything. But, you know, we got the. I got in the water with my guys, we swam half. We went in our pangas to a particular point. The divers went in the water, we blew the thing up, got out and made it back home. And next thing we know, it did go boom. And it was a success other than the incident with the boat. And like my best friend Steve Bailey always says, pride is forever. Pain is temporary. Pride is forever. And chicks love scars. So I'm going like, okay, I got a story.

[Brent Tucker]

So I'm glad you told that story because I don't think people realize something. Something stupid almost happens every operation. And usually the bigger the operation, just the. Just some. It's always something, always.

[Rick Prado]

And you could have been allowed in. Raid. First thing we lost was a helicopter before we even started.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, you know, the. The motor almost fell off the boat.

[Rick Prado]

And I'm this little wooden boat going bang bang. And here goes the little loud boy motor just flying out the back.

[Brent Tucker]

And then you get a scar from a broken or hook. It hasn't even started. You're already bleeding and everything's falling apart. And you just have to, at some point just stop and just almost laugh about it.

[Rick Prado]

And it was, yeah, why not? Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

When. When you told about the. The story about the second one about helo casting in I Also realized there's not a badge for this. Maybe there should be. Not only do you have a combat dive operation under your belt, you have a combat helo cast.

[Rick Prado]

Yep.

[Brent Tucker]

And that's pretty.

[Rick Prado]

Well, again, you know, I have a lot of pair of rescue friends who just go like, you've got to be kidding me. We've dreamed of that. Well, you know, dreams come true.

[Brent Tucker]

Absolutely. Right place, right time.

[Rick Prado]

Yeah. You know, one of those. You've done helo cast and you know how they. That they're supposed to be. We used to call them low and slows.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

And. Well, the pilot. The pilot of my chopper was a Honduran pilot. He was not a water pilot. So when I told him, I said, you got to get down to 15, 20ft. It was more like 30 yards, so. And doing a helocast, you know that. That was your world. That was. That could rock your world a bit.

[Brent Tucker]

Going high and slow at least. Yeah. Had spent speed onto that.

[Rick Prado]

Oh, yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Rick Prado]

He wasn't. He wasn't hovering. He wasn't hovering. And as soon as we hit the water, he kind of actually went away and was staging because, you know, I was. Would be able to communicate in case we'd had to get our guys, and I don't think he would have been able to do it. Get. Get the. The aircraft close enough to the water to hook up my guys on homemade stable rig. Yeah, I don't think that he would have had the. The nerve to. To pull that off. So I'm glad we were able to start the boat.

[Brent Tucker]

Awesome. Rick, I cannot thank you enough for coming down here and spending time with us and telling your stories. You have. You have no idea how grateful I am, guys, if. If you enjoyed this interview, I assure you there's so much more the. The book tells. And not only is it worth your time and a read, it is, it is. It's. It's worth it. Supporting a great American.

[Rick Prado]

Well, thank you. That's a huge compliment and I will give it back to you. This has been one of the most refreshing ones for me. I think Jack Carr's was another one. That was great. But why? Because the interviewer gets it. Jack Carr gets it. You guys served been in harm's way. Both had affiliation with the agency at one time or another. So it was a lot of fun. I appreciate it and I even enjoy the smoke of your cigar.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, we'll. We'll get one for. For yourself after this. Get back to your Cuban roots.

[Rick Prado]

There you go.

[Brent Tucker]

And I'm need you to sign that book for me. And that book's going right back on the shelf of of my favorite books that's up there in the locker. Rick, thank you so much, brother.

[Rick Prado]

Thank you for having me, buddy.