Felix Rodriguez

Felix Rodriguez was a Cuban-born Central Intelligence Agency paramilitary specialist and Bay of Pigs veteran who participated in the capture and execution of Che Guevara. In early 1985, Rodriguez appeared in El Salvador as an adviser to the Salvadoran Air Force, working on a helicopter-based counterinsurgency operation against the FMLN guerrillas. Though Rodriguez claimed to be retired from the CIA and merely a volunteer, former CIA official Alan Fiers testified that Rodriguez was sent to El Salvador as part of a CIA reorganization after Fiers took over the Central American Task Force, to fill "a void" in certain operations.¹

Ilopango Operations

Operating under the alias "Max Gomez," Rodriguez oversaw Oliver North's Contra resupply operation at Ilopango Air Force Base. In September 1985, North wrote to Rodriguez asking him to use his influence with Salvadoran Air Force commander Juan Rafael Bustillo to secure hangar space. Rodriguez "greased the skids" with Bustillo and became the day-to-day manager of the operation. CIA records show Hangar No. 4 was used for covert Contra operations until it was turned over to North's "Enterprise" in 1985; the adjoining Hangar No. 5 remained CIA-run.¹

Connection to Ramon Milian Rodriguez

Before departing for El Salvador, Rodriguez received a call from a private investigator in Miami who wanted him to meet "a client who could compromise the Nicaraguan Sandinista government for drug-money laundering." The client was Ramon Milian Rodriguez, the Medellín cartel's former money-laundering expert, who had set up Frigorificos de Puntarenas. Rodriguez said he passed Milian's information to the CIA and Federal Bureau of Investigation and heard nothing back. Milian told a different story: he met with Rodriguez to offer $10 million to the Contras in exchange for dropped charges, and money was delivered on five separate occasions. Milian later failed a polygraph on payments to Rodriguez. Noriega's former political adviser described Rodriguez as "a very close friend of Milian."¹

Deputy: Luis Posada Carriles

Rodriguez recruited veteran CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles as his right-hand man at Ilopango, where Posada operated under the alias "Ramon Medina." Posada had escaped from Venezuelan prison in 1985 after nearly ten years of incarceration following his arrest for the midair bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed seventy-eight people. Rodriguez helped Posada relocate to El Salvador and find housing.¹

Ilopango Drug Trafficking

The Contra air operations at Ilopango were deeply intertwined with drug trafficking. Enrique Miranda testified that Norwin Meneses's associate, CIA pilot Marcos Aguado, moved permanently to Ilopango after North set up the resupply operation, working as an aide to a high-ranking Salvadoran air force commander and directing drug flights as far as Colombia. Among the busiest pilots was Francisco Guirola Beeche, a Salvadoran elite with connections to Roberto D'Aubuisson, who had been caught with $5.9 million in cash at a Texas airport yet received only probation.¹