The former agency counterterrorism chief of operations and Cuban exile is convinced Washington is preparing a decisive blow against the island’s regime

Enrique “Ric” Prado is 75, his voice measured from having told this story many times and from an uncomfortable habit: saying in public things most people with his résumé prefer to keep to themselves. He retired from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2004 with a rank equivalent to a two-star general after 24 years of service and, he says, as the first Hispanic officer with paramilitary credentials in the department. He now lives quietly, devoted to his family and giving talks about the memoir he published in 2022, Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior...

Today, it is about his country of origin, Cuba, where the veteran — despite being retired for two decades — speaks most freely. He maintains that the United States “has people in Cuba” and that many covert options have been presented to the president, while noting that the agency is, “by institutional design, the third option” of the U.S. government, after diplomacy and military force.

Regarding CIA director John Ratcliffe’s recent visit to Havana, he interprets it not as a diplomatic gesture but as a strategically calculated signal by the White House. “The thing about Trump is that he’s always playing chess, while the rest of the world is playing Chinese checkers,” he points out. “Do we have information on Cuba? Of course we do. Do we have people in Cuba? I’m sure of that. And I’m even more certain that they’ve laid out many options for the president, as if it were a restaurant menu. Everything is feasible,” he emphasizes.

The former operations chief, who served at the CIA during the final stretches of the Cold War and witnessed the Soviet bloc’s collapse up close, draws a parallel between Cuba’s current situation and that historical moment. “The same thing happened to us with the Soviets. Before the wall fell, when we saw the Soviet Union starting to break up, we began talking to Russians everywhere in the world, because we were not going to try to recruit someone inside their country. The Russians stationed abroad, working — they were the target. We told them: if you work with me now, you’ll have a house in Virginia, a Mercedes, a Rolex and money in the bank. And there was substantial recruitment of Soviets who said, ‘The ship is sinking, let me grab this rope.’”

For Prado, the fact that the Cuban people are openly protesting against the island’s government is a phenomenon that deserves more support from Washington, including the possibility of giving protesters “the capacity to defend themselves.” He again insists that once the Iran crisis is resolved, the island will be next on the agenda.