Black Ops: A Life in the CIA
Warfare
History Hit
4.5 • 943 Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2022
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Enrique ‘Ric’ Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled Cuba and their home for the hope of a better life in America.
Ric joins James for today's episode - retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two star general - to talk about his legendary career in the shadowy world of assassins, terrorists, spies and revolutionaries. Operating in the shadows during the Cold War and the War on Terror, Ric and his fellow CIA officers fought a little-seen and virtually unknown war to keep USA safe. Ric's memories offer a unique glimpse into the shadow wars that America fought since the Vietnam Era, and the long battle with Al Qaeda.
You can buy Ric’s book ‘Black ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior’ here: shorturl.at/qvNYZ
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And the Rick Prado found himself in his first firefight at the age of seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hopes of a better life in America. |
| 0:34.0 | 50 years later, the Cuban Refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency |
| 0:39.1 | as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. I'm your host James Rogers and on today's |
| 0:44.4 | episode of Warfare Rick joins us as the highest-ranking covert warrior to lift the |
| 0:50.1 | veil of secrecy on US secret Operations post Vietnam and during his extraordinary time |
| 0:57.6 | as the co-founding member of the bin Laden task force both before and after 9-11. |
| 1:06.2 | Hi Rick, welcome to the Warfare Podcast. |
| 1:08.0 | How you doing today? |
| 1:09.0 | Doing great, James. |
| 1:09.7 | Thank you for having me. |
| 1:10.7 | Not a problem at all. |
| 1:11.7 | Thanks for coming on. I was in Barnes and Noble the other day. I'm not going to |
| 1:16.7 | lie your book was on the shelf it stood out to me so much I picked it up I |
| 1:21.2 | flicked through it I got a copy and I was like, we've got to get this guy on the |
| 1:26.1 | podcast because how could we not take the opportunity to delve into the life of a CIA Shadow Warrior. |
| 1:34.1 | And I'm just wondering, Rick, this is your life. |
| 1:36.2 | So where do we start? |
| 1:38.6 | Well, I guess the best thing is to start at the beginning, |
| 1:40.7 | because the beginning is what started forging my metal towards what I ended up doing. |
| 1:46.0 | I was born in Cuba, 1951, so I saw the whole Castro revolution evolved. My town was in the center of the country near the |
| 1:55.6 | Eskam brai mountains where Che Guevara was at his rebels. So my town got hit several times while I was there and so I literally heard gunfire and anger at the |
| 2:06.7 | age of seven or eight. One particular incident is described in the book is I'm standing by the |
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