Summary
Well, listeners, it's taken us a while but here it is: the first episode of our fourth season.
We begin with Ric Prado, a former CIA officer who trained the Contras in Central America in the 1980s.
For those of you who don't remember, the Contras were trying to overthrow the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. America's support for the group eventually led to the Iran-Contra affair, a government scandal that nearly brought down the Reagan administration.
For more on the Contras, go back and listen to season one's The Jumper. Eugene Hasenfus, who helped deliver arms to the Contras, describes parachuting from a burning plane and getting captured by Nicaraguan forces. We spent several years tracking down Hasenfus and getting him to tell his story.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is I spy. Show from foreign policy. Where spies tell their story. |
| 0:07.0 | 35 feet is a long way to drop from a helicopter to the water. So I stood there in the door. |
| 0:18.0 | I had my gear on. I had the C4 strapped under my shirt on my waist wrapped around with |
| 0:22.7 | a spandage. I had my back up weapon in my ankle and I jumped out, hit the water. I bobbed |
| 0:30.7 | immediately to the surface. I only went down maybe three or four feet below the surface |
| 0:34.0 | from the momentum. Swim over to the gear that I needed to retrieve and brought it to the boat. |
| 0:42.7 | From foreign policy, welcome to a new season of I spy. As usual, on each episode we get one |
| 0:49.4 | former intelligence operative to tell the story of one operation. I'm Margot Martin Dale. |
| 0:56.4 | We're starting this season with CIA officer Rick Prado who fled Castro's Cuba and eventually |
| 1:03.6 | settled in Florida. Prado would go on to serve in the US Air Force and do some contract |
| 1:10.0 | work for the CIA. One day in 1980, the agency called and offered him a long term assignment. |
| 1:18.4 | Two weeks later, he was in Central America. Prado would spend the next four years training |
| 1:24.0 | the Contras, that controversial group that was trying to overthrow the Sandinista government |
| 1:29.9 | in neighboring Nicaragua. The Reagan administration at the time considered the Sandinistas agents |
| 1:36.7 | of the Soviet Union. History focuses on one particular attack the Contras carried out |
| 1:43.7 | against a Nicaraguan port in the city of Porta Cabasis. Here's Prado. |
| 1:53.3 | When I arrived in Honduras and I met my boss for the first time, of course, I'm a blank |
| 1:57.5 | slate. All I know is that I'm here to support the Contras and that they would tell me what |
| 2:02.7 | I needed to do when I got to Tego. So my first briefing with Colonel Ray, I said, so boss, |
| 2:07.5 | what is it that you want from me? And he says, first, I want you to go down there and |
| 2:12.5 | win them over. Second, I want you to make them depend on you. And that means you're going |
| 2:19.1 | to have to train them. You're going to have to be bringing in the supplies that they need |
... |
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