[YouTube] Robert Young Pelton sits down with Enrique "Ric" Prado, a decorated CIA officer whose covert work shaped decades of U.S. paramilitary operations. Known for his leadership in the Contra War, counterterrorism missions, and the development of modern "find, fix, finish" kill teams, Prado’s life reads like a spy thriller. Pelton and Prado share a mutual friend, CIA legend Billy Waugh ‪@straackhq‬ , who goes beyond what was allowed in his best-selling book and takes the audience into uncharted, dangerous, and never-before-discussed territory.
A Childhood in the Crossfire
• Early Life in Cuba: Ric’s idyllic small-town upbringing was disrupted by armed raids from the mountains.
• First Taste of Combat: Watching firefights through the window as a boy, learning early lessons in survival.
• Operation Peter Pan: At age 10, separated from his parents and sent alone to the U.S., enduring life in a Catholic orphanage in Colorado.
Miami Streets and Martial Arts Discipline
• Growing up small and tough in Miami during a turbulent era of Cuban immigration.
• Learning English, navigating racial tensions, and surviving street fights.
• Introduction to martial arts and early exposure to tough crowds, including friends tied to organized crime.
The Shadow of Felipe Vidal
• For the first time, we learn of a famous Iran-Contra shadow figure. A rebel, assassin, and childhood friend of Prado: Felipe Vidal.
• Vidal’s family history with anti-Castro operations and exile politics.
• Vidal’s role linking CIA operations to Miami’s covert smuggling world, and his mysterious disappearance in the early ’90s. Vidal is interviewed by numerous journalists in Costa Rica, is wrongly blamed for a failed assassination attempt, and vanishes.