# Felix Rodriguez

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Felix Rodriguez," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/felix-rodriguez/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*Cuban-American CIA officer and Bay of Pigs veteran; involved in the Vietnam War and reportedly present at the killing of Che Guevara; distinct from [Jose Rodriguez](/wiki/jose-rodriguez), the post-9/11 CIA official.*

- **Role:** CIA officer; Bay of Pigs veteran; Vietnam War
- **Known for:** Reported presence at the 1967 killing of Che Guevara
- **Interviewed by:** Danny Jones and Steven, on Danny Jones's podcast
- **Also alleged (per Danny Sheehan, not Kiriakou):** Involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy

**Felix Rodriguez** is a Cuban-American former [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) officer involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Vietnam War, reported to have been present at the 1967 killing of Che Guevara in Bolivia. He is a distinct figure from [Jose Rodriguez](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jose-rodriguez), the post-9/11 CIA official who ordered the destruction of the agency's waterboarding tapes.

[John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) recounts that podcast host Danny Jones and his co-host Steven interviewed Rodriguez in Miami; Kiriakou notes that the trip followed an appearance by Danny Sheehan, who told Jones he had deposed Rodriguez and alleged Rodriguez had been "on the team that killed the president" — an allegation Kiriakou attributes to Sheehan rather than endorsing himself.[1][2]

In a separate account of the same trip, Kiriakou recalls that the Bay of Pigs chief he initially had in mind when discussing his post-9/11 CIA branch — staffed largely by retired senior officers who volunteered to return as contractors — was not Rodriguez, but a different, older officer; Rodriguez, he clarifies, was a distinct figure who had "worked for him."[3] He and his co-host Steven traveled to a museum in South Florida in Miami — one of the only interviews they ever conducted requiring travel — to interview Rodriguez in person.[4]

## Che Guevara and denial of souvenir-taking

Asked directly whether he had kept Che Guevara's Rolex as a souvenir, Rodriguez denied it: *"No, no, no, no. I never kept his ro[lex]."*[5] Kiriakou notes that, separately from the Rolex denial, rumors persist that Rodriguez kept Che's fingers as a souvenir.[6]

## The Havana CIA museum

[Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) says he visited the CIA museum in Havana, which displays items confiscated from Rodriguez and other Bay of Pigs fighters; the museum is housed in a mansion across the street from the Tunisian embassy and holds CIA identification, weapons, and related material from the era.[7]

## Billy Waugh

Kiriakou compares Rodriguez to [[billy-waugh]], the legendary Special Forces and CIA paramilitary officer, saying the two men were "very similar" and that the wars they fought shaped them in the same way.[8] Kiriakou says he met Waugh on a joint operation in the Middle East lasting several months, returning to the U.S. on September 9, 2001 — two days before the 9/11 attacks.[9][10] Waugh, he recalls, drove with a vanity license plate reading "17 hits" beside a Purple Heart symbol, insisting to Kiriakou it was genuine and joking that "some sorry ass son of a bitch in North Carolina has 18."[11] Weeks after 9/11, Waugh told Kiriakou he had been in Afghanistan "killing people," while Kiriakou — one of only two fluent Arabic speakers then in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center — was kept behind because the mission, focused on killing rather than interrogating, did not need a translator.[12]

Kiriakou recounts several of Waugh's war stories, some corroborated in Annie Jacobsen's book *Surprise Kill Vanish*: that his first kill, in Vietnam, was cutting a woman's throat with a serrated dagger; that he was shot down behind enemy lines in Vietnam, his pilot killed, and walked roughly 25 miles south on a bullet-shredded leg to reach friendly lines, earning a Silver Star and his first Purple Heart; and an embellished account of cutting a cow's artery in a rice paddy to drink its blood for nourishment during the trek, which Kiriakou likened to a scene from *Apocalypse Now*.[13][14][15] Kiriakou says Waugh, who never had children, treated the military as his entire life — after being declared disabled following his first combat injury, he hitchhiked across the country trying to convince the CIA to send him back into the field.[4]

## See also

- [Jose Rodriguez](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jose-rodriguez)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. Trump's Worst Nightmare Just Came True — CIA Spy on Iran War (2026-04-06), at 2:05:27. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA2slD8xEpc&t=7527s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-06-danny-jones-iran-war-trumps-nightmare/
2. Trump's Worst Nightmare Just Came True — CIA Spy on Iran War (2026-04-06), at 2:06:29. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA2slD8xEpc&t=7589s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-06-danny-jones-iran-war-trumps-nightmare/
3. CIA Spy Breaks Silence On Elon Musk's Twitter Files — John (2023-04-12), at 23:02. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmPpOps1yeI&t=1382s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-04-12-danny-jones/
4. Does the Charlie Kirk Case Have Evidence Gaps? (2026-05-18), at 42:45. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy79qrNm-k&t=2565s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-18-covert-operations-insight/
5. Trump's Worst Nightmare Just Came True — CIA Spy on Iran War (2026-04-06), at 2:07:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA2slD8xEpc&t=7620s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-06-danny-jones-iran-war-trumps-nightmare/
6. Does the Charlie Kirk Case Have Evidence Gaps? (2026-05-18), at 44:49. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy79qrNm-k&t=2689s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-18-covert-operations-insight/
7. Trump's Worst Nightmare Just Came True — CIA Spy on Iran War (2026-04-06), at 2:09:04. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA2slD8xEpc&t=7744s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-04-06-danny-jones-iran-war-trumps-nightmare/
8. Does the Charlie Kirk Case Have Evidence Gaps? (2026-05-18), at 37:04. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy79qrNm-k&t=2224s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-18-covert-operations-insight/
9. Does the Charlie Kirk Case Have Evidence Gaps? (2026-05-18), at 37:35. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy79qrNm-k&t=2255s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-18-covert-operations-insight/
10. Does the Charlie Kirk Case Have Evidence Gaps? (2026-05-18), at 38:38. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy79qrNm-k&t=2318s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-18-covert-operations-insight/
11. Does the Charlie Kirk Case Have Evidence Gaps? (2026-05-18), at 38:07. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy79qrNm-k&t=2287s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-18-covert-operations-insight/
12. Does the Charlie Kirk Case Have Evidence Gaps? (2026-05-18), at 39:09. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy79qrNm-k&t=2349s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-18-covert-operations-insight/
13. Does the Charlie Kirk Case Have Evidence Gaps? (2026-05-18), at 40:12. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy79qrNm-k&t=2412s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-18-covert-operations-insight/
14. Does the Charlie Kirk Case Have Evidence Gaps? (2026-05-18), at 41:14. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy79qrNm-k&t=2474s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-18-covert-operations-insight/
15. Does the Charlie Kirk Case Have Evidence Gaps? (2026-05-18), at 41:44. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zy79qrNm-k&t=2504s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-18-covert-operations-insight/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/felix-rodriguez/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt