Operation Neptune Spear: The CIA's Deadly Mission To Bin Laden And Take Down The Taliban

A fortress in Afghanistan 1 month after 9/11 two operatives from the cia's elite special activities division are hot on the trail of assama Bin Laden those first teams were going into the wildest wild west this is the Declassified story of how the CIA with elite special forces put down a Taliban up Uprising outnumbered 100 to1 it's like a Scene from Armageddon we hear from the people on the ground as it happened and reveal their footage from the heat of the battle What's happen there's a prison uising caught in the crossfire the CIA makes a discovery

for which one operative pays the ultimate price [Music] America is under attack acting on orders from Osama Bin Laden teams of hijackers fly aircraft into New York's World Trade [Music] Center two more planes are hijacked one hits the Pentagon the other crashes before it reaches its Washington Target in under an hour nearly 3,000 people are dead it's the worst terrorist atrocity in US [Music] History the nation is in shock the United States had been caught so off guard by the September 11 attacks it just seemed inconceivable that two gigantic Towers in the nation's capital could

come under attack by this rag tag group of of terrorists from across the world it was not hard to conceive that there were other attacks underway President Bush speaks to the nation and to the world today our fellow citizens our way of life our very Freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts the search is underway for those those who are Behind These evil acts I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to [Music] justice the full operational force

of the CIA now focuses on one man and his network of Terrorists finding Bin Laden was a was a priority from the outset the head of the counterterrorism center for the CIA talked about bringing home Bin Laden's head on a pike the world turned upside down on you know on 9/11 I mean the next day it was anything you want from Congress from everywhere anything you want request whatever you want we took whole branches from other parts of the agency and expanded rapidly by a factor of like Seven well Bin Laden from the beginning was

going to be a difficult Target to go after he was a practiced clandestine office operator the CIA knows Bin Laden is hiding in Afghanistan he's found Refuge with a Taliban the ruling extremist Islamic regime but they don't know his precise location even so very quickly they develop a plan intelligence driven Warfare for the very first time in American history history President Bush approves a plan using the CIA as a lead element in a war operation enduring freedom is the invasion of [Music] Afghanistan the aim to overthrow the Taliban regime and flush out Usama bin Laden

in a matter of just weeks the Taliban are in a fullscale [Music] retreat thousands are captured by America's allies the Afghan Northern [Music] Alliance on the ground from the very beginning a highly trained covert CIA operatives they've been sent in to interrogate captives and gain information on exactly where Bin Laden is hiding just 10 weeks into the war CIA analysts learn of an Opportunity a chance for their men to interrogate individuals who could potentially lead them to their number one target 85 mil outside the northern Afghan town of kundus Taliban fighters have assembled on the

road to Maza Sharif their leaders want to negotiate a truce now these guys were fully armed they had with them AK-47s PKM light machine guns rocket propelled grenades They had all the normal armaments that Taliban and Al-Qaeda had these men are not just Afghans there are also hundreds of foreign Fighters now what kind of Fighters are drawn to a an international Jihad from from from overseas they are by the very nature the most the most extreme because to do that you have to have some kind of extreme commitment to come and fight in a foreign

[Music] land at the CIA headquarters analysts receive intelligence that many of these Hardline foreign ERS are in fact members of al-Qaeda some may be high ranking commanders some may even know where Bin Laden is hiding the CIA decides to send in specialist interrogators so they turn to an exceptional unit the cia's experts in Operating in hostile zones the special activities division outside the city of MAA Sharif a Twan special activities division team prepares for their [Music] mission Dave Tyson is a Central Asian specialist he is a fluent speaker of Dari the language of America's Ally

the Northern Alliance with him Johnny Michael span Mike a 32-year-old former Marine from Alabama he's been with the CIA for 3 years this is his first field assignment so those first teams that were going in were going into the wildest wild west that you can imagine if they got into a firefight with the Taliban there was no C R going to come in they were on their own at the Tippi tip of the Spear of American power the team's mission to persuade the surrendering fighters to reveal precisely where Bin Laden is [Music] hiding at the

same time just a few miles away the foreign Fighters are taken to kalaj jangi a sprawling mud walled 19th century fort in the desert a few hours West of the city of maah a Sharif the fort is 600 M across with massive walls 20 M thick and 30 m High inside are two enclosed compounds separated by a dividing wall to the north is the Northern Alliance Headquarters building to the South the so-called pink house and nearby lies the [Music] Armory despite its size there is still nowhere truly suitable to house such a huge influx of

men you need a large building large enough to hold and process and house and feed 600 men and you need somewhere which you can secure them in they didn't Have any prisons obviously uh what alternatives were there Northern Alliance guards have little choice but to herd the Taliban into the basement of The Pink House the building in the middle of the compound this will be their makeshift [Music] prison but the foreign Taliban become Restless after the truce they had expected Ed to be able to walk free to these Hardline jihadis Imprisonment comes as a shock

their frustrations wouldn't matter but for one thing their Northern Alliance guards have failed to confiscate all the prisoners weapons and grenades in Afghan tradition and in in Muslim culture as well if somebody says they are surrendering you are supposed to take that at face value this is supposed to be an honorable thing so in the on tradition they weren't searched they Were processed into the fort very quickly and a lot of these guys had weapons hidden under their clothing they're still armed and dangerous as one Taliban fighter quickly shows I don't know the mentality of

those Taliban fighters but I guess it's an attitude of okay I Surrender I make myself defenseless but maybe not utterly defenseless shall I keep something just in case and that's probably when one of Them or some of them decided to use the grenades that they had hidden the explosion is the last action of one time Taliban fighters life a warning of what the Taliban are [Music] capable as a result inside that underground prison the fighters develop a plan they outnumber their Northern Alliance guards by 5 to one they know that just across the Compound there

is an Armory it is packed with rockets RPGs machine guns and mortars they decide if they are not released the following morning they will take matters into their own hands they'll execute a fullscale breakout if they do the cia's two covert agents will be caught in the middle the two undercover agents Mike span and Dave Tyson arrive at the kalaj jangi Fort to begin the interrogations for them the fighters were a source of intelligence let's get as much as possible intelligence from them and information this was about two and a half months after 911 and

I think this put of course put the military and especially the CIA under an enormous stress and pressure to deliver the Information the intelligence span and Tyson need information to lead them to Bin Laden or Intelligence on the next planned Al-Qaeda attack it was you know the jobs of these interrogators to a large extent to figure out well what were these plans what was that coming next and there was intense pressure on them to get answers to these questions because there was not going to be another way to get those Answers but the fort is

far from an ideal setup for questioning the CIA interrogation manual sets clear guidelines on how to cross-examine a detainee interrogators should have time to memorize a detainee's history to present files dossier and photographs they should have time to repeat their questioning or to lure the prisoner into making the first Move most of all they should be able to keep the prisoners separate from other captives in the open air compound of the Afghan Fort playing it by the book just isn't possible the fort is filled with hundreds of Taliban guarded only by a handful of America's

Northern Alliance allies if anything goes wrong they are on their own the question is do they go ahead With the interrogations or do they abandon their mission and pull out it's a huge risk but one they feel they must take they adapt to the situation and improvise a plan first thing you need to do when you're trying to gather intelligence and you've got 600 prisoners is work out which ones know nothing which ones might know something and which guys are the Real gems in terms of intelligence so that first morning they were processing the prisoners

through this filter if you [Music] like Mike spam was leading the questioning so he was the guy to the face to face with the prisoners Dave Tyson was stood back with an AK-47 kind of watching over things and then you had a few Northern Alliance soldiers on the battlements or or at the entrance to the Prison bringing the prisoners out but there was very few Northern Alliance guys around so the security was very [Music] light after 2 hours they noticed one particular captive he is unusually pale skinned and is wearing items of western clothing they

suspect he speaks English they realize this could be the one man they can communicate with directly the one man they can Break but the prisoner refuses to talk [Music] span and Tyson have to move on but not before the prisoner's image is sent back to the cia's Langley headquarters and cross referenced with known Al-Qaeda operatives on the CIA datab base but identifying him will take time he may be what they term a Clean Skin an extremist not yet known to the CIA So for now span and Tyson are in the dark in the basement prison

the Hardline Taliban fighters realize what's going on they will not succumb to interrogation I'm convinced the Taliban they were not prepared to be questioned by Americans and not by the CIA bear in mind you've now got 600 of the hardest most extreme prisoners in Afghanistan at that time face to face with as they see it The enemy and not just any old American enemy these guys who are questioning them they know they are special forces or CIA these are the cream of America's Warriors these are the people of anyone that they most want to kill

and so you can imagine how explosive this this confrontation is the Taliban decide the next group to be brought out to the compound will trigger a [Music] Breakout on the other side of the fort a German journalist and his cameraman are in the northern compound headquarters building waiting for permission to interview the prisoners smoking a cigarette waiting Bur singing wonderful Blue Sky cool fresh air a very peaceful setting and then all of a sudden there were one or two explosions grenades a Taliban prisoner detonates his grenade in a suicide attack almost Immediately after that heavy

Small Arms fire started it was obvious this is not just um a couple of shots being exchanged this is a real heavy gunfight and then I grabbed my set phone and ran um for cover in the main building which was like 20 yards away from where I had been at the time CIA operatives span and Tyson now realize they are facing a fullscale breakout span then had a decision to Make Marines do not take a back step they go forward they go forward in the face of the enemy within seconds Mike span is faced with

a wave of attacking [Music] Taliban ambushed and outnumbered he could have run he could have run and saved himself but he didn't he stepped forward and he decided to make a stand just yards away span's colleague Dave Tyson is powerless to help his friend he has no choice but to make a break for it towards the headquarters building Tyson's arrival is captured on camera by the German TV crew and relayed around the world this is actual footage of the event his undercover status is immediately blown instinct ly Stout suspects Tyson is Cia I mean to

have an armed civilian American dressed like an Afghan on the ground meant something in the field of Secret Service where you he is very controlled but you see he's very upset and nervous at the same time and from you know his appearance I had the very clear impression that something that he had witnessed something horrible I asked him what is going on this was my very simple question and he Said there's an uprising of the prisoners what happen there's a prison Uprising uising yeah they had weapons stolen from Tyson's mission is clearly compromised he has

to think of a way of keeping the operation alive but he is on his own and his weapons are empty by now the Taliban prisoners in the basement of The Pink House have killed their Northern Alliance guards they ransack the armory [Music] [Music] at that stage you had 600 guys armed with AK-47s mortars RPGs PKM light machine guns Northern Alliance allies take up defensive positions and mount a Counterattack trying to keep the Taliban at Bay it's a vicious firefight from the shelter of the headquarters building CIA agent Dave Tyson can hear The battle escalate unless

he can control the situation the mission to extract Vital Information from the prisoners will fail and an opportunity to track down assama Bin Laden will be lost agent Tyson uses journalist Stout's phone to call for backup but he has a problem he has no contact number for the US Special Forces quick reaction force stationed Locally he has to improvise at the time I didn't know but later I checked the the numbers from our SAT phone it was the number of the um American embassy at Tashkent usbekistan that's where he called from the fort just outside

maah Sharif Tyson calls a number he believes is his only option the embassy in Tashkent patches Tyson through to the US Army Central Command at mcdill Air Force Base in Tampa Florida mcdill root him to the special Force's local command basee at MAA a Sharif by the time his emergency call reaches a fellow CIA paramilitary officer at base it has traveled 20,000 mil Tyson gives a full situation report this is the actual recording of what he said we control the North End of the fort the south end of the fort is in Their hands there's

hundreds of dead here at least and I'm not I don't know how many Americans are just need help to free this place up Tyson warns that any intervention must be precise there is hand to hand fighting enemy and allies in close proximity and he made it very clear he repeated it like three times saying you can't come and bomb the Place can't hit it the a because friends and foes were so close to each other that they might killed might have killed as by bombing on the other side of the fort the heavily armed Taliban

have identified the building in which Tyson and stout are Sheltering they pound it with mortar shells it must have been I think a mortar grenade exploding just above the ceiling which made an enormous impact in Terms of Acoustics it was so loud and my ear went in response America's allies the Northern Alliance drive an old Russian tank onto the northern ramparts and bombard the enemy caught in the middle of the the battle all Tyson and stout can do is hunker down and wait for [Music] help just 2 hours after the first shot is fired that

help Arrives the quick reaction force of us and British Special Forces that Tyson had requested I think it's the Brits who turn up first in a Land Rover with wearing Barber jackets and jeans and they're all called things like Scruff and Ginge it's hilarious and they're moaning the driver is moaning he's saying um oh there's nowhere to park you know meanwhile there's you know I'm was taking all this Out it's just fantastic sort of you know the elite of of of Britain's Army you know moaning while they sort of casually go about sort of organizing

this battle and then the Americans turn up as well and there's more of them there's about eight of them and they're much more aggressive let's do this let's do that the first thing they do when they arrive as they send someone up to put eyes on as in have a peak over and work Out what the hell's going on what are we facing it how many people how are they armed the team's Commander assesses the situation he has just 15 men his Northern Alliance allies number around 50 the enemy has [Music] 600 despite this the

quick reaction force goes in and takes on their enemy it's like a scene from Armageddon you've got Tracer rounds going to the sky you've got RPGs firing Off this has kicked off into a major major firefight and at the moment you've just got a few Northern liance soldiers there trying to put down the uprising it is a hopeless situation very quickly the Special Forces realize they're not going to be able to crush the uprising on their own they will need to adapt the special skill that the special forces have is that they are able to

handle it and that they are able to go In with the plan and when that becomes impossible they're able to make another one quite quickly and that's the edge that they have let's go let's [Music] go despite the fact that friend and foe are fighting in extremely close quarters the Special Forces team makes the decision to bomb the Taliban from the air the one advantage apart from their training and their superlative abilities The one advantage they can very often rely on his air power because air power evens up the odds somewhat you can have a

few guys Behind Enemy Lines but if they can call in air strikes they can have the effect of hundreds get the air strikes in get the enemy's head down it's the shock Factor as much as anything else that puts the enemy's heads Heads down for a few seconds there's always a danger when you call an air strikes that you know the Pilot will get it wrong and drop the ordinance on you uh and in any case in this situation they were dropping danger close they were dropping within a fraction of what the safe distances are

but there was nothing I mean what else could you do so the risk of getting hit by their own Munitions the risk of Friendly Fire was significant yeah but I mean they had no option they had no choice a special forces spotter team provides precise GPS coordinates for a Bomber pilot circling over head 46 46 this is 1 we're in position over they Shine A Rang finding laser or soflam on the pink house where the Taliban are taking shelter above them an F-18 Hornet is armed with guided 500lb jdams weapons designed to be accurate to

within just 12 yards copy that here they come one bomb after another rips through the southern end of the [Music] fort you hear this sound like a car that's in high gear sort of decelerate going woo like that and you can see this thing it just pops out of the clouds like a javelin coming looks like it's coming straight at you and then sort of it's obviously off to the side boom and everything jumps the building that we're on jumps and you black out for sort of I Don't know half a second or so and

you sort of come to you know it's like you're rebooting or something the Taliban Retreat past the bodies of at least a hundred of their fellow [Music] Fighters the rest fite is only temporary but it gives the special forces the opportunity they need to send in a search team to find missing in Action CIA agent Mike span it's a US Navy SEAL Maxim you never leave a man behind and it's a British military Maxim that you never leave your buddies behind there is no other decision to be made we will go in after hours of

looking and under heavy fire the Twan Rescue Team reaches the southern compound there the spotter's search comes to an End he scans the southern end of the fort I guess he wants to see him but he doesn't want to see him it's a horrendous situation to be in and eventually he sees a guy lying on the ground and you can see he's wearing blue jeans and a and a kind of shirt which is exactly what you know CIA sad operatives would wear the search team confirms they found the body of agent Mike [Music] Span he

is the first American Casualty in the war on [Music] terror Under Fire it's simply too dangerous to retrieve his body they can go no further and so in what must have been the worst moment of the man's life I would imagine well for both of them they have to make the decision to turn around and and leave a fellow soldier in the Hands of the enemy they vow to return for him [Music] on the other side of the fort CIA agent Tyson doesn't yet know the fate of his colleague he and reporter anim Stout are

trapped on the roof of the headquarters building Tyson knows before nightfall he must find a safer place from which to plan a strateg for somehow resuming interrogations crossing the roof risks them being picked off by a Taliban Sniper even then there seems to be no way down but a Northern Alliance fighter reveals a possible route to safety there was one wounded Afghan he had two or three gun wounds not very serious ones but on his crutches you know he he crossed the roof um someone helped him and he slid down the wall and he disappeared

using his CIA training Tyson calculates the Risks they must time their run between incoming bullets hey guys time to go huh it's time to go I remember at one point Tyson just saying it's time to go and the Very decisive way and that was the signal for everybody and then one after the other we we crossed that that roof we slid down the wall we ran towards that Clay Road and there was a van there you know Like out of nothing there was a van as if we had ordered a c you know Stout is

driven through the desert to safety Tyson can regroup at the cia's local base the fate of his mission to locate AMA Bin Laden Now lies in the hands of the special forces and the success of their air [Music] strikes in the basement of The Pink House the Taliban face their second Night in the the fought some 300 of their original 600 Fighters lie dead everyone is convinced that with America's overwhelming Firepower the battle will be over by mourning but no one has foreseen the determination of the Taliban prisoners to fight to the [Music] death uh

are setting up CS right now over on the third day further teams of US Special Forces arrive to assist the cia's operation together with reinforcements from the Afghan Northern Alliance inside the pink house there is no sign of surrender so the air bombardments continue despite the cia's concerns that friend and foe are simply too close but this time the bombs used won't be a standard 500b jdam this time they're four times as Big you on the [Music] over the coordinates are dictated and confirmed East and a countdown is given elevation 1 2 ner hey M

be they're about ready to drop pull back pull back at this time journalist Alex Perry joins the Special Forces teams calling in the strikes you know you hear it that I mean it shoots you know 300 yards into this guy down sh down biggest thing We've ever seen this is suddenly a 2,000 pounder it puts a swimming pool size hole in the wall the dust tow is 1,000 ft high but the bomb hasn't hit the intended [Music] target and we're thinking that's where we were that's where all those guys are that's where the Americans are

they've just hit their own people a 2,000 American bomb has wiped Out a Northern Alliance tank position up to 30 Alliance men have been killed five us and two UK Special Forces men are badly injured it's just as the CIA had warned friend and foe are too close together for air strikes and you just see all these guys coming out just you know they're they're gray with dust pink eyes and half of them are completely deaf um and uh and and and we're just thinking how many how many people Died day after day the battle

rages on several days went by when you had like massive bombardments or big gun battles or you know maybe 200 guys on a parit firing ing down to this thing nothing could possibly survive and you go back the next day and it's the same situation and you're back to square one and it starts again Taliban deaths are in the hundreds still many fight on others regroup in the basement of the Pink house will any be left for the CIA to interrogate and if you look down on this quadrant there there were hundreds of bodies and

you're like well how you know looks to me like everybody's dead and and you could tell that there was almost no one firing back maybe one maybe two so our assumption was everybody's dead but we were we were wrong in their Pink House Refuge the remaining Taliban are armed defiant and Still refusing to surrender I think at some point it was obvious to them they would all die there the Afghan Northern Alliance are now in charge of the fort but how can they flush out the remaining Taliban they try firing into the building with guns

and RPGs they pour oil through the tiny windows and set it on fire this may sound brutal Okay this may sound medieval and horrific but bear In mind they weren't trying to force them out to kill them they were trying to force for the out to accept their surrender but the Taliban don't want to surrender eventually the Northern Alliance has just one remaining option to flood the Taliban from their Refuge they divert a nearby stream directly into the pink house [Music] basement after 20 hours in freezing water yet more of the hardliners Perish somehow 86

Taliban fighters survive in the bitter cold of morning they surrender they were starving they had been firebombed they had been shot at they had been frozen with water they were half drowning but they came out of that basement largely to a man full of hatred and full of defiance to the men of the Special Forces it his mission accomplished but to the CIA it's only The beginning at last they can return to interrogate the Taliban prisoners for Vital Information on Usama Bin Laden's Hideout the CIA have to find out if the pale skinned Taliban span

and Tyson had picked out 6 days earlier survives of the original 600 Taliban only 86 remain and among the survivors is the man the CIA agents have identified as of particular interest they confirm what they had Originally suspected he speaks English at first he claims his name is sulan alfares but then he reveals he is John Walker Lind a 20-year-old student from California was a sort of miracle that this guy was alive but he garnered attention you know not least because he was an American and a Taliban and that was just such a shock after

911 they couldn't believe it they couldn't believe It overnight the world learns that jihadis can be of any race any color any nationality Terror can be homegrown under interrogation Walker Lind confirms he met Asama Bin Laden once at a training camp but can reveal no Intelligence on Bin Laden's current Hideout Walker Lind is charged with consorting with the Enemy and is serving a 20-year sentence with no Prospect of Parole the cia's hunt for a Bin Laden must continue in the fort the US Special Forces retrieved the body of CIA agent Mike span it had been

booby trapped by the Taliban a CIA officer for 3 years and father of three he is the first American Casualty in the war on terror buried with full honors as an American Hero as for his colleague agent Tyson despite His cover being blown by the TV crew he remains working at the CIA in operations reports he has been referred to variously as Dave dwon and Olsen his current identity and whereabouts is known only to a few yeah we went to the compound the next day just to say hello did you get home safely um are

you okay um I gave him my business card I mean obviously he didn't give give me any only now has the depth of the cia's Involvement in operation enduring Freedom the invasion of Afghanistan been revealed a tiny handful of Special Forces soldiers from the CIA mainly basically managed to roll back the Taliban with air power across the whole of the North the country within a matter of weeks the work of the cia's interrogators like Mike span and Dave Tyson in those early days provides crucial information in the pursuit of Al-Qaeda and the hunt for assama

bin Laden this was the main source of Intelligence on this organization for a period of years was being able to sit across the table in an interrogation Booth from somebody who'd been recently captured and then persuade that person to give up as much information as possible possible information that after over a decade of dedication in May 2011 leads the CIA to a private compound In abbotabad in Pakistan and to the death of America's Most [Music] Wanted assama Bin [Music] Laden j kavara a ruthless revolutionary is intent on destroying the United States chavara was a coldblooded

assassin he had a unbelievable desire of of killing people in the 60s he's causing Mayhem in Bolivia to spark off revolutions throughout South America that will destabilize the area and threaten American interests he has to be stopped so the CIA turns to top agent Felix Rodriguez I think it was very personal for Felix he saw a lot of his friends die his mission cap to CH cavara and bring him back alive now based on recently Declassified documents we can reveal the truth story Of this secret CIA assignment to hunt down one of the world's most

famous revolutionaries [Music] [Music] in a remote area of the southern part of Bolivia a unit of government soldiers are out on a routine Patrol suddenly out of the blue seven are killed 12 soldiers are taken prisoner the Bolivian soldiers are Losing an Ever widening war against one of the world's most notorious revolutionaries jakara who is determined to spread chaos Chay knows the current Vietnam war is tearing the us apart his aim is to create similar confrontations throughout South America to drag them into it this he believes will allow communism to finally Triumph he wanted to

create hundred vietnams for the United States so that the United States would be putting out fires he knew that the American public had no appetite to send troops all over the world so that was his ultimate goal bringing down America which he believed was this Imperial threat he hated America in 1961 Chay wrote the US is the great enemy of mankind against those hyenas there is no option but extermination we will bring the war to the imperialist Enemy's very home to his places of work and Recreation the imperialist enemy must feel like a hunted animal

wherever he moves thus will'll destroy him born in Argentina Chay is a professional revolutionary communist he was this mysterious figure I wouldn't say to the extent of Osama bin Laden because there were there were differences but really the the goals Were the same to bring down the United States he fights against the US sponsored coup in Guatemala he leads the Cuban Revolution with Fidel Castro and overthrows the us-backed government if you were going to be a revolutionary you had to be a hard person you had to be dedicated you had to believe in what you

were doing and he truly did to students and revolutionary youths The world over he is a hero a freedom fighter he was young he was handsome he was articulate he had this reputation Chay believes the United States backs right-wing dictatorships and those dictators exploit their own people only armed resistance he argues will address this imbalance and that's what made him really popular among the masses or amongst college kids in the United States that kind of idea ISM that indeed we are an egalitarian society and we're going to level the playing field so to speak he's

writing howto books on Revolution that are being used by revolutionaries all over the world and being read on college campuses in the United States he was the picture of [Music] Revolution but to others Chay is a coldblooded killer when we think of Chay we think of Him in the B with the limpid eyes but the real CH gavara was uh gangster murderer killer and now in 1967 Chase brought his armed Revolution to Bolivia the Bolivian government was afraid they were getting reports from the countryside that there were men speaking a different kind of Spanish and

they had large sums of money and they were Doling it out and were trying to buy a huge amount of Supplies they have soldiers out on a routine Patrol and all of a sudden they're ambushed and it didn't happen once it happened several [Music] times his successes early on terrified the bolivians because they didn't have the military to combat it the Bolivian soldiers are reeling under the attacks from Chase men all their equipment was Old World War II Surplus stuff uh they were in desperate need of some some Modern equipment but mostly they were in

desperate need of some Modern [Music] training desperate for assistance the Bolivian president reached out to the US the CIA monitoring developments closely is concerned that if Chae revolution in Bolivia is successful communism could sweep through huge countries like Brazil and Argentina Bolivia borders five other South American nations and from Bolivia that could be the epicenter of a revolution that would spread from Bolivia all throughout South America and Central America if this happens it will bring communism right into America's backyard at first the American response is cautious clearly they need help but we didn't want American

soldiers going into the field and dying because we're already Engaging in Vietnam and we did not want that to escalate into South America into our hemisphere just 17 Green Beret have flown in their mission is simply to train the Bolivian [Music] [Applause] [Music] soldiers they are forbidden to fight against Chase gorillas directly through fear of inflaming the situation Jay was right America really Didn't want to be sucked into another big conflict it was a classic Green Beret Mission which is send you know Special Forces into an area train the locals get them really up to

speed militarily train them in the intricacies of war and and counterinsurgency and let them do the fighting for the next four months once the US instructors many veterans of Korea and Vietnam train the Bolivian Soldiers the men that come to Camp or Bolivian conscripts and most of them were had maybe a fourth or fifth grade education so now you're trying to teach basic concepts to people who don't even have basic math skills the military is a term uh for training it's crawl walk and run and when the green BRS got to Bolivia the Bolivian Army

was crawling they did a lot of physical training because a lot of the campinos didn't have the physical Strength that they needed so they they would climb ropes uh obstacle courses uh and then as as they as they got out of the crawl phase where they were able to use their weapons correctly and and and Patrol correctly then they got into some walking they really had to build this Bolivian military from the bottom up in order to to be at the level they needed to to take on these gorillas they teach them how to March

shoot move it night detect booby traps Fight hand to hand and avoid ambushes building aggression and building them into soldiers was a key part of the training so we instilled a very aggressive Spirit into them you got to be tough you got to once the shooting starts you know don't don't sit down I'm in Bolivia you were forced to serve so I think you had to start the training by buing that aggression and That fervor to fight fight the enemy the problem facing Washington is not only are the Bolivian Army poorly trained but Intelligence on

the ground is virtually non-existent our intelligence Network at that time wasn't great we were so focused on the Soviet Union we had very little Intelligence on them there was so much conflicting information and that built into the whole myth of Chay this this this this this boogey man and did He have hundreds of men thousands of men so the CIA calls in one of their top agents Felix Rodriguez to lead the hunt for Chay 26-year-old Felix is the perfect man for the job born in 1941 Rodriguez was a victim of Castro and Chase revolution in

Cuba he and his family were forced to flee when the Communist seiz power in 1959 my uncle who was a senator in Cuba so he had to leave the same day to the United State in his boat and of course they Ram sack his house and then when I start looking at what was happening in my country that's really what decided me to do something About It Felix left school to fight against Castro uh he he felt a motivation to go and do this it was very important to him and he's been he's been fighting

communism ever since I think it was very personal for Felix he saw a lot of his friends die he saw a lot of their businesses Confiscated he saw a lot of good people hurt the young Rodriguez develops a deep loathing for chavara really he was a coldblooded assassin he had a like a unbelievable desire of of killing people he always hated the United States tremendously in 1967 Chay wrote an address from his Bolivian jungle Camp expressing that hatred hate as a factor in the struggle Intransigent hatred for the enemy that takes one beyond the natural

limitations of a human being and converts one into an effective violent selective cold killing machine our soldiers must be like that a people without hate cannot triumph over a brutal enemy our every action is a battlecry against imperialism and a Battle Hymn for the people's un against the great enemy of mankind the United States of [Music] America Rodriguez is summoned to a meeting with a CIA in his hometown Miami he's told that his mission is to gather intelligence on the rebel force and help the bolivians track Chay down one thing is made very clear to

him his job is to bring Jacob Vara back alive Felix was recruited cuz he had a long history working with the CIA at that point he had been part of the Advanced teams that went into the Bay of Pigs and then he had also worked on some other operations to try to overthrow castra so he was well known in the Cuban Exile community and was well known by the CIA and had worked for them in the past and he was a prime candidate mostly because of of how eager he was to to take part in

a mission like this for Felix the thought of going down there and possibly capturing Chay it was the opportunity of a lifetime it was his Chance to give back to the United States and to write what he felt was wrong to to his [Music] country Rodriguez Goes to Washington and moves into a safe house to prepare for the top secret mission standard operating procedure for the CIA to use safe houses in Washington and the reason for that obviously was they didn't want people knowing about his Mission Rodriguez is then given what little intelligence the CIA

has on Chay some personal documents and photographs found in ch's abandoned Bolivian camp and statements from captured guillas and deserters of the Rebel Force it is very important to to be able to familiarize yourself with as much as you can with the gorilla you want to know exactly how they feel the way they operate and that's important when Something happen in the field as the days go by Rodriguez slowly builds a picture of the Rebel Force he learns that there are approximately 40 to 60 gorillas operating in a 75m wide Corridor stretching for over 200

m in a remote Wilderness Area in Southeastern Bolivia they are well-trained confident Rebel soldiers despite the Green Beret training the Bolivian soldiers are no match for the Gorillas the captured documents they found were key because they were the first thread that Felix was able to then pull on to try to track the trail in the course of his preparation Rodriguez starts to focus on one particular Rebel a man named Paco Paco was a Bolivian who thought he was going to Cuba to study instead his uncle takes him to chase camp and says you're not going

to Cuba you're fighting for the Bolivian Revolution and he said what Bolivian Revolution Felix identified him as one of his key targets because it was easy to figure out his motivation and I think a lot of times Intelligence Officers are looking for the people who have a reason to talk and I think Paco's reason to talk was pretty simple he was an unhappy gorilla Rodriguez now develops a plan if he can find Paco he can potentially turn him and gain information that would lead them to Chay [Music] special intelligence agent Felix Rodriguez secretly enters Bolivia

his cover a businessman named Felix Ramos the hunt for J kavara is finally beginning but the clock is ticking from March through to July 1967 Chay and his gorillas strike the Bolivian soldiers at will with devastating effect they were overmatched by these Cubans who had really hone their craft Not only on the Cuban Revolution but also later in in in the Congo and some other places then Rodriguez hears news that Bolivian soldiers are searching land thought to be inhabited by Chase gorillas at first when the bolivians made a sweep of the property they found some

of the material they left behind including you know pots on the oven that were still had food in them but one of the people there tells them look if you Go back there there are these hidden caves 2 weeks after Rodriguez arrives in Bolivia government soldiers make a spectac spacular Discovery Chase storage caves they contain a treasure Trove of information on the rebel Force fix was able to convince the bolivians that it was a good thing to take evidence not to burn it back in his local CIA station in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz

Rodriguez is Presented with the gorilla's documentation of their contacts in the country deciphered radio messages from Cuba and travel information with false names and photographs of the [Music] rebels one of the things that Felix understood about counterinsurgency is that revolutionaries like to keep journals and make notes and what he was able to do was Exploit these papers because the exploitation of intelligence when you pick it up from a from a gorilla camp or a cave or off the body of a dead gorilla it can prove hugely valuable one of the documents taken from the gorilla's

cave is chay's passport it reveals how he entered bivia disguised as a middle-aged Uruguayan Economist in November 1966 Rodriguez spends hours combing through every wallet photograph notebook and Scrap of paper recovered from the abandoned gorilla cave Chay was a prolific writer so he loved to write and he was very disciplined he kept all of his details of the operation and all the contacts and all the notebooks in caves every day Chay carefully records the events of his Guerilla campaign in his Personal Diary his captured writings provide Rodriguez with a valuable Insight on how and where

Cha's gorillas operate who his Colleagues and collaborators are and what Chay is thinking from a military point of view we had three new battles with losses for the Army but none for us the morale of the Guerilla movement is growing stronger and if handled well will certainly guarantee success Chase chose Bolivia because it was a central part of South America and what his Hope was was to start the revolution there and then be able to Spread it out into the rest of South America they believed that if you have a small group of men who

are really dedicated and they start the revolution in a rural area they can recruit The Peasants and that would spread throughout the countryside and eventually make it way to the cities and then they would take over Chase writings reveal plans to create a major Uprising using the Bolivian peasants but as he reads on Rodriguez discovers Chase's strategy isn't working the locals are not joining them The Peasant base has not yet been developed although through planned Terror we can neutralize some of them not one enlistment has been obtained Rodriguez realizes that Chay has wildly miscalculated he

has focused his operation in the wrong part of the country Chay should have chosen the area around Bolivia's Capital City Laaz there are really two Bolivia there's the Bolivia that's really active around the PWS and you have tin and copper mines and you have unions that are there and you have the university system and students that would have been right for revolution but CH for some reason he picked this area of Bolivia that was remote that was scrub land he picked an area where the peasants the poor Farmers spoke a Different language they really didn't

speak Spanish and so when he came into the area they were were very suspicious of Outsiders people were just looking to eek out a living they were just looking to survive they had no idea what Revolution [Music] was this is critical news for Rodriguez he now realizes there is weakness Chase Rebel force is not as Large as originally suspected then Rodriguez's detective work uncovers another clue to chase operational plans the gorillas account books they show that all the funds for Chase Revolution pass through one person's hands in Bolivia's Capital City lapaz the problem is they

have a photograph but no name Rodriguez realizes if he can track her down he can cut Chay off from all his funds and Communication but who is she then a critical piece of intelligence comes through to Rodriguez's CIA station in Santa Cruz in a remote area of the country a local farmer reports that he's spoken to some gorillas they had turned up and asked him where they could safely wait across a swollen River to get some supplies the gorillas had no support from the people because they attempted to contract with a farmer who was going

To give them a safe way to cross the river so they were using the locals to help while the locals sold them out to the bolivians the Bolivian Army Now set a trap they tell the farmer to put a white curtain on a tree to let the gorillas know where it is safe to cross during the early hours of the morning Bolivian soldiers stake out the area from his base in Santa Cruz Rodriguez urgently calls the Bolivian Commander and tells him that it's vitally important that any prisoners taken are kept alive so he can interrogate

them Felix understood that you don't get intelligence by killing people you get intelligence by making them your friends and uh eliciting information from them and he was very good at that the Bolivian soldiers wait all day for Chase gorillas to show up then as evening approaches the gorillas Guided By the farmer begin to wait across the river at the agreed [Music] spot as they reach Midstream the Bolivian soldiers open fire seven of chay's gorillas are killed at the end of the battle they were able to pull two survivors two men who were wounded one is

executed the other is identified as Paco the man Rodriguez believes could be the Key to getting to CH Rodriguez receives the news of Paco's cap his worry is that the Bolivian soldiers will shoot him before he can interrogate him that's when I interceded and told him this prisoner was very important to us if you believe that the information we got from him is not worthwhile I will never ask you for another prisoner please give this guy to us and he did Felix went to get him and flew him Out and made this youngster realize that

he is not going to be killed and the relief must have been overwhelming because the other girls were dead he was wounded in two places not lethal but he was wounded in here and in this place here in these two places here so I did pay for a nurse from a hospital to come over and to treat him and we were able to save his Life back in his base in Santa Cruz Rodriguez can now begin the most important part of his mission he can interrogate the person who he thinks could lead him to CH

at first Rodriguez plays the nice guy he gives him clothes he lets him uh buys some magazines he allows them to write letters home and on the flip side he starts building rapport with them just by talking to him little by little Rodriguez gets Paco To open up uh I could tell that the guy had a tremendous memory he will site the location where he was month before and he could give you the address and the name of 15 people and that's very unusual after two weeks of interrogation Rodriguez realizes the great revolutionary Chay is

in even more trouble than he thought from Paco he was able to find out that this was a very fractured unit There was a lot of infighting there was no Harmony this was a dysfunctional revolutionary band they didn't have enough food they weren't able to scr from the people because the people weren't supporting them um and what it did is it degraded his Force to to the point where they were really combat ineffective a lot of the bolivians wanted to Desert and go back to their families the Cubans were hardcore and They said no you're

not going to Desert and the Cubans basically took over thanks to Paco's information Rodriguez now realizes that chase gorillas are on the point of collapse and he realized there weren't hundreds of soldiers out there there was this small unit they were a rag tag unit and really it wasn't whether we're going to beat them it's we need to get checked [Music] Rodriguez then decides to show Paco the photograph of the mysterious person who controls Chase funding and communication Network so I brought these pictures to Paco and Paco was the one who identified loola Gman and

told us this is La coola Gman who is from the University Loy Gman 25 a graduate of the elite Communist Party activists training school in Moscow a member of the Bolivian communist Youth she is chay's key contact and financial organizer working out of a secret cell in Bolivia's capital city laaz this is a huge breakthrough for Rodriguez he calls in the Bolivian soldiers to arrest her but she refuses to talk saying she would rather kill herself than betray her comrades despite her silence CIA agent Rodriguez has won a Victory by capturing Guzman he has cut

Chay off from his funds and communication Rodriguez has them exactly where he wants them the rebel force is now completely isolated and on their own all the CIA need to do is initiate an operation to finally bring Chay to his knees but Rodriguez still doesn't know where CH is then there's another breakthrough ban soldiers F on a small band of guerillas three are Killed the three men are brought in on the back of mules if Rodriguez can identify any of the dead men from his long study of this Rebel Force he might have a clue

to Cha whereabouts Rodriguez finds a driving license and documents the names he knows are bound to be false but they do contain photographs back at his CIA office in Santa Cruz Rodriguez Compares these documents to The information he's collected in his files he is able to identify the three gorillas one called Miguel is captain of chay's front column one thing that Felix was was a good detective he was a good investigator so at this point in the campaign he knew every member of Chase group he knew how they moved Chay divided his column into three

sections with groups of men traveling in the front middle and rear Guard Shay split his Force into three that would March in certain intervals so that you you would never caught all of them together Rodriguez knows that Chay always moves in the protected middle column just 1,000 M behind his front men using the location of where Miguel is killed Rodriguez is able to determine chay's position this is the Breakthrough he's been waiting for it is the critical Moment he now knows where Chay is he's got to strike immediately Rodriguez urgently calls the US Green Beret

command to release the Bolivian second Rangers Battalion from training and send them in to combat ch I said we are convinced that chavar is in the area at first there was push back they said they're still training they they haven't even had their graduation ceremonies yet how are we going to send Them out there Felix argues that this is the last bit of training this is the parade and the and the handholding of the medals and it's not as important as what they know already I said we have to move the Battalion right now we

want to get him Rodriguez eventually gets his way the Bolivian Battalion are dispatched immediately to hunt Chay down Rodriguez receives information from The Bolivian command that there is a band of 17 gorillas Hol Up in a ravine somewhere deep in the Bolivian Countryside the area that they were working in was a very rough mountainous area it was not like dense jungle that surgeon can hide very well in the Bolivian Army starts to move in Chay was really trapped in this Valley and by now the ranger battalion was in the area hunting him down using the

techniques the training they Received from the Green Berets Chay and his gorillas discover they are now completely encircled by the Bolivian troops it is the key moment in the campaign tactically it's perfect it's exactly what they were trained to do which is they set up a blocking position on The High Ground and then they sweep through the canyon uh trying to flush Shay out the continued Pursuit and that's What they did they ran these guys into the ground literally as the gorillas try to escape the soldiers all recent graduates of the US Army special forces

training camp pick them [Music] off Chase Rebel force is now locked in a heated battle and the tide is turning in the favor of the Bolivian Army one gorilla is putting up a fierce fight [Music] a bullet strikes him in the leg and he collapses on the Rocks as the soldiers ask him to identify himself he shouts don't shoot me I am Jak Kara and worth more to you alive than [Music] dead the wounded Chay is brought back to a small Hamlet he is kept under guard in a Schoolhouse until the bolivians decide what to

do With him the news reaches CIA agent fix Rodriguez in his station in Santa Cruz when Shay was captured we heard the news you know it was it was it was a tremendous feeling Rodriguez now flies in to where Chay is being held the first thing he does is photograph all of Chase captured documents and that's important because when Chase surrenders he has this this napsack and it has his Diaries because Chay is a prolific writer and every day he would sit down and write another diary entry telling all about the campaign and Felix Rodriguez

recognizes immediately just how important this is he's going to start taking pictures of the diary for the CIA so they can process it these Pages document in detail ch's 11-month military operation in Bolivia and his revolutionary thoughts it will Help to inform the CIA on how communist-backed guerillas plan and cement their armed revolutions but then Rodriguez learned something alarming the Bolivian officers holding Chay are threatening to execute him this is directly against Rodriguez's orders to keep him alive so the CIA can interrogate him Felix's Mission there though is really to try to save chay's life

Because the CIA at that point had told him before he left is we want this guy alive if you can get Chay alive get him alive Rodriguez now appeals to the Bolivian military's top brass to Halt the execution the answer comes in a coded call ceiling Chase fate we had a very simple code 500 Shada 600 dead 700 alive Rodriguez has given the code 500 for Chay 600 for dead CH is to be executed Felix was conflicted because on one hand He had his orders from the CIA to keep Chay alive and now he was

receiving orders straight from the bolivians saying Chay was going to be executed and so at first he thought well how can I get you know how can we plan his Escape how can I get him out of here and smuggle him back I reflected on it and uh uh I thought could have tried to save his life at the same time and I felt there was a responsibility I wasn't about to take I believe that Letting history wrong itself was the best thing that could have happened so at that point in time I thought there's

not much I can do anymore Rodriguez enters the schoolhouse to give Chay the news these two men have been playing a lethal game of cat and mouse and now now the final confrontation Chay would talk to no one he would not be talk too but he talked to Felix and the question has always Been why and to me the answer is that Felix treated him like a man I look at him and said Commander I'm sorry I try my best he perfectly understood what I was saying he turned white like a piece of paper but

he said it's better this way as you have never been captured alive and then he changed the expression and said if you can tell my wife to remarry and try to be happy that was the last Word what is interesting about his face-to-face confrontation with chavara is exactly how against type it was um this is a man who he considered scum of the earth who he considered a murderer a sociopath and yet he treated him with great compassion he treated him as an equal we look at each other he approached me we shook hands and

we Embrace Rodriguez asks if he can take a picture of the two of them side by Side Chay agrees I gave my camera to the pilot and I stood next to him and some soldiers next to us put my hand around him and said Commander look at the little bird and he laugh it's a Cuban saying M you tell that to kid you know look at the little bird actually when I gave the film to the CIA I told him there's a picture of sh with me laughing of course when he saw the picture was

going to be taken he Changed his this is the last picture taken of Chay alive now the moment has come to carry out the orders from the Bolivian High command Rodriguez briefs Chase executioner a Bolivian soldier who has volunteered to shoot gavara executing Chay without a trial is illegal so Rodriguez orders the soldier to make it look like he has died in battle don't shoot from here up shoot from here down because this man supposed To die from combat W 39-year-old chavara then says his last words I know you've come to kill me shoot coward

you are only going to kill a man [Music] so ends the life of one of the most famous revolutionaries of all time the man who set out to overthrow us-backed governments and Destroy America lies dead chavar was uh a carage itic Provocateur revolutionary gangster murderer who's hugely unsuccessful in Bolivia and uh I think he met the Fate he deserved chay's body is flown to a local town where he is laid out for public display it's a message to everyone revolutionary terrorism will not Triumph [Music] back in Washington the CIA views this as the perfect Operation

they've been stalking Chay for over 10 years and have now finally ended his reign of terror for the Americans I think it was some relief uh he had been a ghost for so long they tracked him for so long and they knew they were such the heart of this this exporting of the Cuban style Revolution to be able to have him gone and not be able to start a revolution on there was was I think greeted with greeted well high on the list of CIA successes is the way Rodriguez broke new ground in Bolivia with

his pioneering investigative techniques I think that his insistence on keeping Paco alive I think the way he exploited intelligence I think the way he elicited information the way he he dealt with the bolivians on a one-to-one basis made it made it possible for them to do the capture that they did Felix's mission in Bolivia was to Help track down chavara the way he went about it was revolutionary and I think it set the course for counterinsurgency in the ensuing decades it was a blueprint for everything that's done right and continues to be done right to

this day a lot of the technique are still being used especially in Afghanistan 6 weeks after Chase's capture Rodriguez was back in South America training an elite Ecuadorian Intelligence unit in the anti-terrorism techniques he had perfected in Bolivia [Music] Argentina El Salvador and Lebanon [Music] followed in 1969 the man who caught chavara became an American citizen and enlisted in the United States Army during the Vietnam war he flew over 300 helicopter missions and was shot down five times times he received nine crosses for gallantry by the South Vietnamese government and during his career with the

CIA Rodriguez was awarded the intelligence star for actions of extraordinary heroism but despite all this Rodriguez will always be remembered for his CIA mission to hunt down Chay you know I was 26 years at the time 26 year old uh I have know a lot of other things that I consider probably more important but for one reason another this is the One who have become more uh famous POS of the figure of seara March 2011 Libyan rebels Rise Against morar Gaddafi what at first appears to be a spontaneous Uprising is in reality the culmination of

a carefully managed top secret 30-year-old CIA operation the goal here is to get rid of Gaddafi to overthrow him for decades America has been plotting to remove the man it branded the Mad Dog of the Middle East GFI was a chief sponsor of terrorism they wanted him out they wanted to make an example of him because there's evil in this world and Evil's got to be dealt with what few people know as the Rebellion against Gaddafi unfolds is that the man leading the uprising is in fact a longtime CIA contact alifa haa and his left

tenants were trained by the CIA to remove Gaddafi there's a bunch of libyans you know give them arms say all right go get Rid of Gaddafi his relationship with the CIA dates back to the 1980s he returned to Libya 20 years later to finish a job that was left undone recent investigations reveal that the Libyan rebels are directed and coordinated by CIA experts on the ground this is the top secret account of the true extent to which the CIA was instrumental in the Libyan Revolution which took down Gaddafi [Music] CIA headquarters Langley Virginia the North

Africa desk is buzzing they are monitoring secret Communications coming in from Libya the satellites and electronic surveillance would be collecting huge amounts of communications between any sort of threat to the United State the first 387 messages are innocuous but when they reach the 388th Everything [Music] Changes it appears to be a direct threat I got intercepts that were clearcut there was no it wasn't a question no one could argue with them the intercepted message reads Stand By and be ready to attack American targets and execute the plan the CIA immediately considers it to be an

imminent and credible danger the message emanates from the intelligence headquarters of one of America's most dangerous enemies moamar Gaddafi since leading a coup to overthrow King Idris in 1969 mamar Gaddafi has been the tyrannical dictator of Libya he had taken over in 1969 as a very young Colonel and he managed maned to Institute a system if you like a divide and Rule he made sure that the Army High command never grew too strong he never really had a Ral originally the West had thought they might be able to deal with Gaddafi I think there was

hope that the US could work with him and you know that rather quickly went away having quelled descent in Libya Gaddafi soon embarked on a campaign of murdering Libyan opponents abroad he had spies everywhere both at her and abroad he very much kept a watch on the Exile movement such as it was he Wants to get rid of these opponents who have left Libya and he sends assassination squads to Europe and hires people in the United States to kill members of the opposition he had his hit teams out knocking off Libyan I think he call

them stray dogs he allows dozens of terrorist groups to run training camps in Libya well it's often said that he was you know the key controller of terrorism or terrorist Groups certainly in the Middle East and maybe some extent Africa momar Gaddafi gives money and weapons and passports and Safe Haven to a number of terrorist groups the CIA have long suspected he is actively targeting America Gaddafi was seen as the bogey man because of his sponsorship of terrorism they didn't like Qaddafi you know they looked at him almost as sort of a you know ideological

Menace the CIA know that Gaddafi is behind terrorist Acts around the world including the slaughter of American and Israeli civilians by Palestinian Gman at Vienna and Rome airports in 1985 he was a significant enemy to the United States from most of my time in CIA he was a problem one way or the other [Music] but what makes Gaddafi truly terrifying is his unpredictability this Mad Dog of the Middle East has a goal of a world Muslim fundamentalist Revolution President Reagan of course famously called him that mad dog because Gaddafi's Behavior was so irrational at times

he was sort of he was a lunatic the man at times seemed to be unstable but on the other hand he was obviously clever and he played things very well now it seems that the Mad Dog is ordering a direct attack on American Targets the question is who are the targets and where are they later that day Libyan Intelligence Officers contact their agents abroad the message is intercepted by a CIA listening post the Americans had managed to basically tap into pretty much all Libyan Communications with their diplomatic premises abroad the libyans were not nearly as

careful about covering their traces as say the syrians or the Iraqis so the Americans knew that Something was a foot the CIA discovered the location for the attack Germany the communication had been with East Berlin and the people's Bureau in East Berlin had tipped Triple E off the message from the Libyan Embassy in Berlin reads tripy will be happy when you see the headlines tomorrow the CIA now have a date and a rough location but little time to try to stop the attack the CIA station in Berlin is put On full alert all they know

is that someone somewhere in the city is preparing an attack on an American Target agents are ordered to contact all informants to gather any intelligence about the impending attack but as the hours pass their investigations yield little actionable intelligence in the early hours at the label nightclub a spot popular with American GIS revelers are enjoying their Night [Music] out nobody notices a woman entering the club carrying a bag then in Langley another message is intercepted again it originates from the Libyan Embassy in East Berlin sent at 1:30 a.m. the libyans did did that just minutes

before this bomb attack took place the message simply says happening [Music] now there's been yet another major Terrorist incident this time in Berlin a bomb ripped a nightclub frequented by Americans 230 people are injured in the blast three will die a young Turkish woman and two US soldiers the bombing of the Disco in Berlin was Philly seminal event in that Americans died for the first time the CIA have cast iron evidence that Gaddafi is behind an atrocity against their citizens this particular bombing which Killed a lot of innocent civilians was kind of a touchstone for

the US government they now had some evidence that they could use openly there was certainly good information that Gaddafi was behind the Palestinians that blew up the label disco there was enough intelligence to indicate that that bombing was not an isolated event it really was a pattern of operations that Libya was engaging in and was absolutely going to continue into the future and They would get worse this is not a case of picking on some guy to make an example of him the man wasn't innocent at all Gaddafi was indeed doing what the Reagan Administration

was saying that he was doing there is such a thing as evil today it is not popular to talk about evil I mean there aren't any evil people in some people's minds but anybody who supports terrorism is evil and Evil's Got to be dealt with [Music] in Washington a decision is made they have to punish the Libyan leader it was enough for the Reagan Administration to go after Qaddafi that was the fuse that Lit the whole thing dealing with Gaddafi was at the top of foreign policy from the president down to the executive agencies like

the CIA the big sea change was becoming more aggressive for the first time on terrorism the Reagan Administration say we're going to draw a line in the sand they saw it as an opportunity to have a regime change there one way or the other the United States felt that it needed to send a signal to these State sponsors of international terrorism when our citizens are abused or attacked anywhere in the world on the direct orders of a hostile regime we will respond so long as I'm in this overal office there is no question now That

America will retaliate the only issue is how to lead the fight Reagan turns to his Hardline head of the CIA William Casey Reagan was really looking to establish a much more muscular foreign policy and he had in his team people like William Casey at the CIA well Casey obviously was a very intelligent guy he was a risk taker and that's different from being a gambler he was a very intimidating person if you Were afraid of him he was uh had a very short temper he didn't suffer fools lightly in many respects he was a wild

man he had really no time for the moderates you know the make nice people Casey was determined to do something about Gaddafi he was very hawkish and he wanted to restore American Prestige around the world Casey suggests a top secret black operation in which Gaddafi will be [Music] [Music] eliminated but getting to Gaddafi will be extremely difficult he was a Maverick but he was a Maverick with a level of desert cunning if you like that made him very very difficult to remove Libya is a military State Gaddafi is protected by thousands of dedicated troops including

a personal retinue of female Amazonian bodyguards on top of this the CIA has barely any agents or Assets in the Country I told them we didn't have the capability of the kind of message they wanted Casey also has another problem political assassinations have been outlawed in the United States since 1974 during Watergate Gerald Ford the President issued an executive order Banning assassinations by any agency including the CIA early in his presidency Reagan had reaffirmed this commitment yeah Reagan himself had Signed the Presidential Directive that forbade assassination so Casey's hands were tied they wanted to remove

Gaddafi with without contravening that directive a covert assassination attempt on an individual may be against the law but overt military action against the Libyan state is regarded as a legitimate and Justified response the US response was really a military operation the president initiates Operation Eldorado Canyon instead of sending in a CIA hit squad the US will launch air strikes on a series of military targets inside Libya the decision was taken to go after quote the command center unquote both the president and Casey know that the command center is actually Gaddafi's home it was a substantial

bombing raate against Libya and specifically against Gaddafi targeting his huge compound in Tripoli this is an assassination attempt in all but name now sitting around that table there wasn't any winking or you know eyes rolling or anything like that about what are we really up to here everybody knew damn well that there was a good likelihood that we could take out Gaddafi without quote targeting him to attack the residence or home of the leader is clearly a targeted assination just like if somebody were to try to attack the White House what's the hell Is the

difference if you're going to kill somebody whether you do it with a single Bullet to the Head or you do it with a 2,000lb bomb I mean you know let's not have an argument about [Music] it for operation Eldorado can us planes will launch raids on a series of targets in Libya's main cities Tripoli and Benghazi it is up to the CIA to provide the Intelligence on the exact locations of the targets for the strikes the National Photo interpretation Center which belonged to the agency provided the photography that was used during the planning for which

places to attack the targets include military compounds government buildings and anti-aircraft batteries but the key Target is Gaddafi's Command Center a sprawling compound in the heart of Tripoli which includes Gaddafi's home and a beduan tent where he is reported to spend most of his time the Problem was hitting Gaddafi's command headquarters which we all knew was connected to his home if you will which was an attent the difficulty the SE CIA face is timing the bombers need to strike when they can be certain Gaddafi is in his tent without agents on the ground this will

be almost impossible to know the intelligence available as to G Gaddafi's whereabouts wasn't particularly very good so Casey turns to Israel Israel is a very very close Ally both politically and in intelligence areas and so we work with them really as our intelligence and political brothers and sisters really Agents from the Israeli Secret Service Mossad set up a surveillance post overlooking Gaddafi's compound they locate the tent and confirm that Gaddafi is in [Applause] there the main contingent of us F-111 Bombers take off from American air bases in Britain as the bombers cross the Mediterranean Sea

fighter planes on US aircraft carriers are scrambled to escort them into Libyan airspace as the American bombers approach Libya the Israeli surveillance team confirmed that Gaddafi is working late into the night in his tent having reported this back the mosad agents withdraw 40 minutes later the first f111 Jets [Music] strike Casey and other key CIA Chiefs are assembled in their offices having a drink as they wait for news Casey I was there maybe two or three others and listened to the information coming in on the particular attack eventually they received confirmation that the bombers have

hit the Libyan military targets it seems that the mission is a Success although there is no official confirmation of Gaddafi's fate meanwhile at the White House the president has assembled his military advisers an hour into the raid two men arrive at the White House with a video tape in a locked briefcase they play the tape to the president and the assembled military Chiefs it is the footage from the f-111s conducting the air Strikes later that evening President Reagan takes to the [Music] airwaves at 7:00 this evening Eastern Time air and Naval forces of the United

States launched a series of strikes against the headquarters terrorist facilities and Military assets that support muad Gaddafi's subversive [Music] activity the following day a reconnaissance aircraft is sent to Survey the damage they put up an SR71 when they had some daylight and it ran a mission to actually look at what had happened on the ground it confirms that the bombers have hit the cia's most important Target Gaddafi's compound it has been devastated and Gaddafi's tent leveled but there is still no news on the fate of the Libyan dictator [Music] himself the following evening news channels

break the story that Reagan and Casey had dreaded good evening this is the CBS Evening News Dan Rather reporting muar Qaddafi apparently is alive but questions still far outnumber answers and mystery still rules 48 hours after us combat Jets blasted mumar kfi's Libya now in the aftermath of the US attacks Gaddafi's regime exploits the collateral damage caused by the Bombings although later proven to be a lie Libyan news agencies even claim that Gaddafi's adopted daughter is among the 60 dead the Grim Truth for the CIA is that the mission has failed the results were probably

not what anybody expected they expected better results the goal of elera Canyon was to get rid of Gaddafi and that didn't happen Gaddafi was not even injured [Music] with the door closed on further military operations CIA Chief Casey must now turn to other means to eliminate Gaddafi I don't believe the niceties of how he would be removed from Power bothered the rean administration they wanted him out Casey now focuses on a classic clandestine CIA method the agency will forment an uprising of libyans to overthrow Gaddafi in terms of getting Rid of foreign leaders who pose

a threat there's always third parties uh that can can be used to do this it is a strategy the CIA have employed successfully for decades well I think having regime change using covert action as the principal instrument has been tried a few times okay from Guatemala to Chile the CIA has covertly supported Rebel groups to oust anti-American leaders providing them with training weapons and high-tech Support when you think about it from an operational perspective is uh you know the best case scenario the US government doesn't have to get his hands dirty per se and the

third party does it if something goes wrong well they take the blame for it critical to this sort of action is having the right person to lead the rebel Casey believes that if he can find the Right leader a Libyan Rebellion is the Best way to be rid of Gaddafi already there have been efforts about putting together a paramilitary force of libyans to try and have a little regime change in Libya for seven years Casey had been secretly supporting Libyan opposition groups in neighboring countries providing weapons and training [Music] the problem for the CIA is

that the Libyan opposition to Gaddafi is divided Libya is not a country it's a bunch of Tribes within Colonial borders you know and what do you do with tribes I mean how do you raise the Libyan tribes I mean this this isn't lawence of Arabia Casey realizes that he needs someone from Libya who can unite the different factions Cas was sorting out who should lead it which Libyan should lead it or could lead it the man Casey is looking for needs to be someone who knows Gaddafi well the idea was to get as close to

Gaddafi as we possibly could especially his generals and others would certainly be the target of the CIA eventually Casey believes he has found the man he wants to lead the Libyan Rebellion colonel Khalifa [Music] hafta at first glance haftar seems an unlikely choice of leader for an anti-gaddafi Force he's one of Libya's leading military commanders Khalifa haa was a Professional Soldier his relationship with Gaddafi went right back to the day of the Revolution when they overthrew King Idris he is a skilled tactician who commands loyalty from his troops for much of his career he has

been involved in fighting with Libya's Southern neighbor Chad he was very much involved in Gaddafi's occupation of a big chunk of Chad which Gaddafi always had designs on despite leading a fearsome campaign In 1986 just at the point when Casey was looking for someone to lead the Rebellion the chadian Army regroup and overwhelm haftar's forces several hundred Libyan troops including haftar were captured and imprisoned back in Libya Gaddafi is furious his army has been decimated and tens of millions of dollars in equipment lost he blames hafta for the failure and leaves his former friend to

rot in a chadian prison cell and at that point Gaddafi washed his hands with the whole operation as if there weren't any Libyan PS anywhere and he didn't know anything about the Libyan troops who have been in Chad and have [Music] disappeared for the CIA haftar's imprisonment is a major recruitment opportunity if they can convince the colonel to turn against Gaddafi he will be the perfect man to lead the rebel forces So the CIA activate one of their major assets the president of Chad himself hen [Music] habre the CIA have provided substantial support to habre

in his Wars against Gaddafi now Casey decides to call in the favor after 7 months months languishing in a chadian prison haftar is visited by President Hab and it was reported that habre at one point went to see him it is believed that the chadian president makes haftar an offer on behalf of the CIA Hab offer him the option of turning against Gaddafi of joining a rebellion of forming an Army in Exile and then marching on Libya having been abandoned by Gaddafi haftar agrees to side with the [Music] CIA after many like him decided that

they would turn against Gaddafi and they formed the Libyan National Army in a classic CIA maneuver a small force is put together at its core the 300 men Captured with haftar the CIA will arm and train the force with the aim of using them to instigate an uprising in Libya the force was certainly trained by CIA people and the weapons of course came from us and the money and the vehicles and so on and so forth the idea was a force would be formed that would be big enough and strong enough to go back and

at least begin to sew the seeds of a rebellion inside Libya and the United States Begins to train Libyan resistance fighters to go back into Libya and overthrow kadak 2 years on from the US military attacks on Libya Gaddafi remains strangely quiet the US believes that operation Eldorado Canyon while failing to kill him has at the very least deterred him from further terrorist activity but Gaddafi is secretly planning another devastating Act of Terrorism which occurs in late [Music] 1988 PanAm flight 103 prepares to depart for New York from London Heath row among the baggage is

the suitcase of a Libyan agent who never boards the flight clearly Gaddafi didn't give up the most dramatic piece of evidence that Gaddafi didn't learn the lesson of Eldorado Canyon is the fate of PanAm 103 hundreds of passengers bored most of Them Americans heading home for Christmas as they take off the passengers are unaware that they are in imminent danger 38 minutes after takeoff as the aircraft passes over the Scottish town of a Time device in the suitcase goes [Music] off all 243 passengers are killed as are 11 people on the ground Gaddafi has struck

again we charged that two Libyan Officials acting as operatives of the Libyan intelligence service along with other co-conspirators planted and detonated the bomb that destroyed PanAm flight 103 at the time it is the worst terrorist attack ever inflicted on American civilians after lockaby the whole world responds not with bombs but sanctions Gaddafi is frozen out he becomes an international Pariah the CIA however remained determined to go even further Gaddafi has managed through his own actions to put himself at the top of the hit list for the United States in Washington they are pinning their hopes

on a revolution to overthrow the man they call the Mad Dog Led by Khalifa hafta and his CIA trained force of rebels then events in Africa ruin the cia's Plans in 1990 the pro-american government of Libya's neighbor Chad is forced out and replaced by a new president who is hostile to the us-backed Libyan rebels so suddenly you have these several hundred Libyan soldiers sitting in Chad getting ready to take action against Gaddafi but the new president of Chad doesn't want them [Music] there worse still the coup had been Supported by Gaddafi and now the Libyan

leader wants his payback Gaddafi knows all about haftar's Army and he demands that they be handed over to him Gaddafi wants haftar [Music] dead the CIA is forced to come to haftar's rescue the Americans come in with transport planes into Ina and remove them and then this Odyssey starts that goes on for the best part of the year America Funds the evacuation of haftar's force from Chad and what becomes known as operation Magic Carpet the 300 strong group are transported first to Nigeria then onto Zia and then finally to Kenya but the CIA backed Rebels

discover that they are unwelcome in country after country ultimately the Americans are left with no choice but to bring them back to the US [Music] The man the CIA want to lead to Libyan Rebellion settles in Suburban Virginia only a short drive from ciaq in Langley his men are settled across the country in 25 different states after himself after this long Odyssey across Africa settles in false Church Virginia he lived in a very nice house he had a lot of kids but he still always harbored this idea of returning to Libya for the CIA it

is a huge Disappointment but they retain the hope that at some point haftar's force will be able to regroup and return to Libya as the years pass Gaddafi is contained by Relentless sanctions and continued International political pressure then in September 2001 the kind of threat that Gaddafi poses to the world is placed in a very different [Music] context on September the 11th 2001 19 Islamic terrorists hijack four commercial airliners and crash them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon it is the dawn of a new age of Terror a much more frightening Force than

Gaddafi emerges from the Shadows [Music] Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda is not state sponsored it marks a revolutionary shift in terrorism so America moves to allout war every nation in every region now has a Decision to make either you are with us or you are with with the terrorists with the stakes dramatically raised Gaddafi switches sides well Gaddafi's change or supposed change didn't surprise me Frank because he is a total opportunist Gaddafi did a remarkable turnaround publicly he came out against terrorism and acts of terrorism went out of his way to build a relationship with The US government

few believe Gaddafi is really a changed man he is simply desperate to save his own skin Gaddafi is afraid of the George W Bush Administration the administration is talking about weapons of mass destruction it's focused on Saddam Hussein but Gaddafi didn't want to take a chance that he would be Enemy Number One again he realized that his plans against the West were going nowhere and and essentially he could Lose his government and even his own life [Music] the one-time Mad Dog of the Middle East quickly reinvents himself as a valuable Ally in President Bush's war

on terror he makes a strategic calculation and does a deal with the United States the effect of that is that he becomes a poster child for unilateral disarmament today in Tripoli the leader of Libya Colonel muore Al Gaddafi Publicly confirmed his commitment to disclose and dismantle all weapons of mass destruction programs in his country it is an almost inconceivable change in relations between Gaddafi and the [Music] West Gaddafi the former International Pariah is visited by a stream of Western leaders sanctions are dropped oil flows out and money Flows In With the war against Al-Qaeda America's

primary objective and by appearing to have transformed himself into an ally Gaddafi has succeeded in removing himself from The cia's Hit List Gaddafi was never worthy of an American Embrace as a human being Gaddafi's record is horrendous and that's not a record that you could ever expunge but American interests in the region changed over time in 2009 Gaddafi is even invited to speak Of the United Nations in New York it seems his Rehabilitation into the International Community is complete however in a 90-minute rant to the United Nations Gaddafi calls the security Council terrorists says George

Bush should be charged with war crimes and demands $7 trillion in compensation for colonialism to the CIA it is clear that Gaddafi remains as unstable and dangerous as he ever [Music] was 2 years later a new opportunity for the CIA to deal with Gaddafi arises the Arab Spring inspired by revolts in Tunisia and Egypt popular protest break out across Libya in February 2011 as the Arab Spring takes off it finally perolat through if you like to Libya and a protest in Benghazi gets out of hand and quickly becomes an Uprising Gaddafi sends his troops against

the protesters believing no one will interfere Gaddafi probably in 2011 it concluded that he was going to be okay that the Americans would not move Mo against [Music] him but he was wrong as the Libyan protests grow into an armed opposition the US joins its NATO allies in providing air cover to protect Libyan Civilians from Gaddafi's troops today I authorize the Armed Forces of the United States to begin a limited Military action in Libya that action has now begun NATO's Mission uh in March 2011 was essentially to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Benghazi it was

clear that there was going to be an absolute blood birth as Gaddafi's forces moved East and the Benghazi Uprising was essentially no more than that it was Just a chaotic popular Rebellion that could have easily been suppressed by Gaddafi's forces but NATO's Mission then began to creep it began to involve hitting anything that Gaddafi had that moved not just his Air Force but anything on the ground that [Music] moved under the protection of NATO air support the Libyan Rebel forces are growing in strength and now control much of Eastern Libya but for the CIA the

rebels pose a problem some of them are potentially a threat to American interests at that point the transitional National Council which is trying to get its act together trying to form a United united front against Gaddafi is all over the place there are factions there are rivalries within the military apparatus the worry is that Islamic militants like Al-Qaeda will hijack the revolution the CIA want to see a Military commander they can trust Colonel Khalifa haftar in charge of the Rebels the Americans want haa to go back to Libya to join the fight to professionalize the

Rebellion for haa once a senior leader in the Libyan Army taking on Gaddafi is personal haa in any case would have gone he had never forgiven Gaddafi for the way he deserted him in Chad some 20 years previously and he wanted to get his own back he was determined to be Part of that Rebellion one month into the Rebellion haftar arrives in Benghazi with a handful of his officers to cheering crowds within weeks he is installed as the commander of the Rebel forces the CIA needed trainers to help this rag tag Army that was forming

that's what Khalifa haa was there to do to help organize and otherwise a completely disorganized Rebellion with their preferred Man In Charge the the CIA is Better place to steer the Libyan [Music] Rebellion haftar is in command of troops on the ground now America helps lead the fight from the skies NATO becomes in effect the rebel Air Force there were about 17,000 NATO Mission over that summer period and of course that needed a great deal of coordination from the ground CIA agents from its elite special Activities division operate covertly in Libya they identify targets and

call in air strikes to support the rebels in their war against Gaddafi there were CIA operatives there to help the rebels communicate with each other to plan better to be able to uh sustain their advances thanks to the CIA support within a few short months the rebel forces take control of key Libyan cities after 6 months of heavy fighting The Libyan Capital falls to the rebels and Gaddafi goes into hiding Gaddafi disappeared as did his sons nobody knew where the Gaddafi had gone the CIA now begins hunting for the Libyan dictator drawing on every available

Source the agency eventually discovers that Gaddafi has retreated to the northern city of C Gaddafi had gone to C with an Ever diminishing band of supporters but gradually the rebels Noose around C from east and west was tightening Gaddafi is surrounded [Music] in the early hours a convoy of vehicles attempts to break out of SL in the skies above NATO assets had been patrolling for a long time and they were able instantly to see this unusual [Applause] activity the CIA scrambles a reconnaissance drone and scan the a waves for communications desperate to Find out if

Gaddafi is in the [Music] Convoy agents then receive vital intelligence a call from a satellite phone is intercepted from the Convoy the CIA confirms it is Gaddafi Gaddafi makes a break for it in a convoy of dozens of vehicles trying to get out of surch the CIA now alerts United States Air Force drone commanders in Las Vegas who launch a deadly predator drone from A base in Sicily to intercept the Convoy in no time at all hell Farm missiles are raining down the drones missiles slam into the Convoy while NATO fighter jets bomb from overhead

as Rebel forces Advance on the ground Gaddafi is forced to make a break for it on foot Gaddafi has discovered dragged out beaten and thrown across the hood of a car the rebels turn into a baing mob they unleash a murderous Revenge upon Gaddafi for four Decades of Oppression his body beaten and blooded is paraded as a trophy that was the very demeaning end to a man who had ruled Libya for 40 years who had regarded himself as a prophet really for the Arab [Music] people for the CIA Gaddafi's death is a Triumph they had

always had had him as a Target and although it had taken 30 years eventually their plan has Worked ha and his liut tenants were trained by the CIA to remove Gaddafi the fact is that instead of helping to remove Gaddafi in the late 1980s they came back 20 years later and finished the job the CIA has been instrumental in removing Gaddafi in what until now the world believed was an entirely Libyan uprising [Music] Guatemala 1954 the Central Intelligence Agency launches an operation codenamed PB success to overthrow the government that is threatening American interests in the

region it is the first ever mission of its kind operation PB success was risky it was dangerous 500 Rebels will face off against a president's Army of 6,000 there's a lot dependent on this op and they can't let it go wrong the CIA has handpicked the next leader of Guatamala And he is the head of the Rebel Force the soldiers will be trained by rip Robertson a legendary paramilitary agent come on come on and their weapon of choice psychological warfare used by the CIA for the very first time black psychological warfare revolves around deception lies

based on recently Declassified files we reveal the cia's first ever attempt to overthrow a left-wing Government in Latin America [Applause] [Music] Washington DC a top secret meeting is convened at the White House its task to deal with a brand new security threat a small country in Central America Guatemala present are America's most power ful Men the president Dwight Eisenhower his secretary of state and Alan Dulles head of the Central Intelligence Agency isow ran the government in a very clandestine way and the three of them concocted a lot of strategies around the world now they have

a new problem a country less than 800 mil from America's Southern border Guatemala has recently elected a leader with no known communist links hobo Aben Guzman already abens has begun to threaten American interests his government confiscates thousands of acres of land from the multinational company United fruits this added up to being a national security threat to the United States of America with a cold war well underway the concern in Washington is preventing the spread of Communism throughout the world and in particular the Western Hemisphere the CIA started to see Communists under every Rock and they

were willing to commit forces to tear them out of power the decision is made our B must be removed the CIA had been itching for an operation to overthrow the Guatemalan government the president has shown a highly classified do which contains an extraordinary plan it's called operation PB success they gave him the outlines of how you can overthrow a established Regime without committing any American forces at all the plan is to secretly back an armed Uprising against Guatemala's freely elected leader arens and topple him in a coupet but Eisenhower is nervous the CIA plot must

not be traced back to the American president why was the US so afraid of of being involved one because it would be seen as overthrowing a democratically elected government it would be violating The tenants of the treaty it had signed at the United Nations it would have been a gigantic black eye for American ideals it had to be covert it couldn't be traceable to the president the operation combines three key strategies first to invade with a small specially trained Force next to apply external political pressure and finally to use a whole host of covert agency

tricks PB success had a new strategy Things that had not been seen before modes of action that had never been practiced before the methods are so novel that the CIA don't even know if it's going to work it was dangerous because no nobody knew exactly what would happen they give the operation only a 40% chance of success the CIA had to turn this on a dime into an actionable workable Co for operation Eisenhower said I'm all go I'm all for it let's go with it I think it's Going to work and I think it's important

to do the cia's first move is to establish a command center at OPA Locker Airbase in Miami Florida the command center is so top secret but only a few men working directly under the president himself know where it is why Miami because first of all it was outside of Washington DC if they' placed it in Washington DC the whole operation Would have been exposed with the command center in place the CIA now need a figurehead who can lead a rebel Force against the Guatemalan president the leader had to be somebody who is malleable who would

obey CIA edicts and would be loyal to the US government the CIA plac its bets on a man called Carlos Castillo armas armas is a charismatic and Ambitious Guatemalan Colonel 3 years earlier he was involved in a failed military coup he'd been locked up by the Guatemalans and according to rumor had made a brave escape the CIA find him living in Exile in Honduras the CIA had decided he was the perfect candidate to lead the charge uh and reestablish through him Us control of Guatemala armas has flown to the command center at opal Locka and

a deal is struck the next challenge is to build a Guerilla Rebel Force who will lead the upper Rising the CIA set up a top secret training base in the jungles of Central America the man assigned to train the secret army is Rip Robertson an ex paramilitary Black Ops specialist he loved being out there in the jungle some People thrive on it but you can't take a real Warrior out of the war and that's how Robinson was rip Robinson loved this kind of stuff this is what he was born to do and for him to

be paid to operate under the opes of the US government must have been Nera for him come on come on come on in January 1954 training begins Robertson is told to turn these men into a trained fighting force in Just 6 months the troops are Guatemalan exiles recruited from neighboring countries in Central America among them professional mercenaries keeping the rebel Force to no more than 400 men allows them to train in total [Music] secrecy rip Robertson he had to train his team in Guerilla tactics like to say in Special Operations you can come in cause

your damage and get out undetected Robertson trains them in sabotage Demolition and weaponry and puts them through a grueling routine that will get them across Guatemala's tough terrain but this is the easy part amas and his handful of mercenaries must now face a formidable opponent the Guatemalan Army the Guatemala had the largest army and the largest police force in Central America they had 6,000 in their army and 3,000 in the police force no other country in Central America could match that at the moment the Army is loyal to its recently elected leader Aben who enjoys

the support of the Guatemalan people abens is also a skilled General arbin himself was a respected military man considered brilliant and cultured by the CIA itself pitted against a popular and Powerful opponent and his loyal Army the CIA face what now seems overwhelming Odds so here's the question how do you take a rebel force of about two or maybe 400 men and put it up against an army of 5 6,000 men the CIA think they have the answer a secret weapon developed covertly within the agency that has never before been tried out this close to

American soil until now psychological warfare or scops revolves around deception lies doing things dirty tricks that you couldn't Get away with if you revealed your identity scops has been around since the second World War but until now had never been tried on this scale this was the first time the CIA had ever tried this kind of maneuver to overthrow a government the CIA recruits radio and public relations expert David Atley Phillips to run the psychological warfare part of the operation they call it operation Sherwood this is aimed directly at at undermining the president's popularity by

turning hearts and Minds so what do they do they create a clandes radio station they call it radio liion or voice of Liberation the idea of the radio station would be to present it as the secret voice of the army of Liberation that was about to come and free the people of [Music] Guatemala the first phase of operation Sherwood will take place at opal Locker to help him Phillips flies in two Guatemalan radio announcers who Declassified files refer to as Mario and pepe as part of the psychological offensive they must put together hundreds of hours

of radio recordings which will later be broadcast in Guatemala itself so one of the first questions facing the CIA operatives is who do we Target Phillips has a choice do they target the ordinary Guatemalans the intellectual Elite or even religious leaders yes we target all those people but our main target is the Army targeting the Army and the generals is critical Phillips knows that it's the generals and Senior officers who are their single biggest obstacle so all of this feeds into the the central goal of the black scops Which is to drive a wedge between

ARB in the military Phillips devises a series of radio shows designed to split the Army away from its leader one of them was called we accuse of high treason and it specifically charged that our bans had abandoned the Army had betrayed the Army were traitors and needed to be dealt with swiftly and urgently the aim of the treason shows is to plant the idea that officers siding with the government would receive severe Treatment after the couet are more names to include on The Blacklist of traitors to the country next Phillips targets the officers where they

are most vulnerable their pockets one of their campaigns suggested that the currency was about to collapse and that our BS would no longer have the money to pay the officers nothing inspires more fear in a in the ranks of Hired Guns than the lack of a paycheck day after day night after night For six entire weeks Phillips and his team make hundreds of recordings once the recordings are ready the CIA transport the tapes from opal Locka in Florida to a secret radio station close to the border of Guatemala to this day we still don't know

where operation Sherwood was broadcasting from some reports have it in the jungle in Honduras others have it on a barn on the farm belonging to the dictator of Nicaragua less than three months after Phillips is recruited radio Liber goes live Liber broadcasting from a secret place within the Republic will be on a twice a day the propaganda radio shows made in Opa Locka are now heard all across Guatemala by tens of thousands of local listeners unaware that this is a CIA [Music] plot meanwhile with Robertson's trained Rebel Force ready to strike the CIA now Execute

the final piece of the master plan to isolate president arens politically setting up the isolation game begins in late October 1953 when the CIA fly American Diplomat John puroy to Guatemala Ambassador peroy was carefully picked for his arrogant personality for his Hard Rock anti-communism his job is to ramp up pressure on president to end peroy was very Flamboyant he wore Bolino type hats with feathers in them he always seem to carry a shoulder holster with a pistol in it his first attack on our Benz comes only a few weeks later when he's invited to meet

the country president you have this extraordinary scene all perroy does is hanging him about Communists in his government and that really sort of laid down the marker of how peror was going to behave from then on Out one of paro's first jobs is to set up a secret CIA office inside Guatemala City but where would an ambassador set up an operations center without being spotted by the government it is of course the US Embassy where he himself is based they took over an entire floor of the embassy to do all the internal planning that had

to be done in order in order to achieve the ultimate objective which was to get rid of chabo our B you would have seen a secretive area of the embassy totally committed to the operational work to get rid of the arbz regime which would have meant you know Maps lines of authority individuals to be contacted planning different tactics that were going to be used you know the whole schmear basically would be devoted to figuring out in a very deliberate way to get rid of this government with the CIA base inside the embassy established puroy sets

about finding who Among the Guatemalan Elite could possibly be turned against their own government part of the effort at the US Embassy was to pay money to get army officers to defect this was a crucial operation because the CIA planners felt that if if the Army could be undermined then that would be the end of our B that was the one defense that our bz had that was impregnable at that point and it was difficult to figure out how to get around it so much of the time was spent On trying to encourage officers defect

through monetary payments in fact at one point the money was offered to arbz himself to give up power and of course he threw that person out of the office for having even suggested it so this was an attempt to pull out the underpinnings of the army and and make it so weak that it would be virtually worthless as a protective operation for our bands while puroy works the Enemy Inside Guatemala itself the CIA turned their attention to The World At Large in their search to undermine our bz the CIA needs something big a political incident

so damaging that it will allow America to unleash a political barrage against our Benz they were in fact looking for a raise on Detra to give them justification for what they were about to do and it fell into their laps the cia's lucky break comes not in Guatemala but 6,000 miles away in Communist Eastern Europe in April 1954 a CIA spy based in Poland spot suspect cargo being loaded onto a ship called the afelm they were able to figure out that this ship had unusual characteristics that it was probably carrying weapons the Spy reports the

aelm to the CIA alerting it to the fact it could be heading towards the Americas the CIA tracks the progress of the afelm As it heads towards the Caribbean they trace the voids of the Alam through its shipping Lane to dear and Africa and then on to the Dutch West Indies but after 3 weeks it suddenly makes a sharp turn and heads South ending up totally to their surprise but pleasure Porter borus in Guatemala 4 Weeks Later the afelm docks when it does the CIA see all the evidence they need crate after crate of it

in total 2,000 tons of small arms Including rifles machine guns and mortars that gave them proof that the Communists were truly infiltrating this country and it gave them justification for invading it Eisenhower now has all the Diplomatic ammunition he needs to unleash a political Firestorm against our Benz in response to the arms shipment he sends warships planes and submarines to patrol the Coastline of Guatemala everything in the Arsenal was configured to to bring down the Guatemalan government eisar was fully behind it abens can now only watch in horror as his country is strangled by a

naval blockade abens and his generals begin to wonder if America itself will even invade arbin understood that there was a significant campaign mounted against him by that point alarmed at Washington show Of force abens tries to build political Bridges with America he sent out his foreign minister Tori Elio to meet with peroy the American ambassador to see if they could work out a [Music] truce the last thing the CIA want now is a truce operation PB success has only one Mission regime change in mid June the 500 strong Rebel Army is transported to forward attack

bases Close to the Guatemalan border they're deployed to five strike points along Guatemala's Eastern front by splitting into five the CIA aimed to create the illusion of a much bigger Army than it really is they created the dramatic sense that this was a all-encompassing assault from the Pacific side of the Atlantic side from the neighboring countries that would destroy every defense Guatemala had and Allow Cas armas to take over the [Music] country in support of the ground invasion the CIA also deploy a dozen unmarked aircraft to the front line they were flown down by serving

US Air Force officers who to date have not been identified from the point of view of military psychology the aircraft were a Tremendously important asset the planes will not only back up the troops but play a key part of the psychological operation by enhancing the illusion of a huge inv with the Air Force on standby and the Army poised and ready for action the CIA contact the leader of the Guatemalan Rebels Caso amas and green light The Invasion there's a lot dependent on this op and they can't let it go wrong the kudeta now Begins

in late evening coup leader Castillo amas is on a remote Road close to the Guatemalan border he leads 120 of the total force of 500 soldiers they are the easn prong of the invasion if all goes to plan in just a few days time he will be Guatemala's next president as they approached the Border they saw that there was uh two guards one of the guards is a customs Official he's quickly [Music] overpowered the the first shot is fired in this uh cool attempt right there chaos the second guard lies dead as the Convoy crosses

the border into Guatemala the plan is to continue the Advance on foot the CIA favors a Guerilla approach to hide the true size of the force the longer they can have the Army to believe that there are thousands of People in there the greater Advantage they had armas's men head through the tough terrain for three entire days the jungle's thick it's hard to navigate you also have torrential downpours on day three of the invasion they reached the small town of escapas after a short battle with local policemen Castillo Aras wins his first victory people of

Esopus would have been a bit Shocked by these gorillas showing up in their main Square some of the troops did was they handed guns out to various puzzled residents of this Village to give them the sense that these people were joining forces with cillos to finally OU our bands meanwhile 100 miles north of amas the second prong of the invasion crossed the border they run into an army Garrison at Guan the battle is the fiercest in The Invasion so far it rages for 36 hours it's the first big test for rip Robertson's CIA trained mercen

mories you're going to take their lives or they're going to try to take your life and it's life or death at that point but then it starts to go wrong one by one the rebels begin to flee when the remaining soldiers realize what is happening none of them wants to be captured and charged as traitors People going to see these people flee in two three five six people fleeing they're going to start thinking that might be the best thing to do and that's one of the problems you have with a ragtag Army in the end

almost the entire second column flees back to the Border this is the first major setback for the rebels many of their troops are wounded or killed In Washington the situation is about to get worse the plan was to ramp up pressure on the Guatemalan president in the Diplomatic Arena but world leaders are now suspicious of America's stance the arbend government decided to go to several International bodies to seek protection the first was the United Nations the second was the organiz ation American states the OAS in Caracus the 10th interamerican Conference hears foreign minister toriello of

Guatemala whose country is the target of a United States resolution against communism in the hemisphere while accepting the resolution the United Nations even agree to assemble an investigation team to analyze the invasion this risks exposure of the CIA plot facing International humiliation and a failed Cuda costing millions of dollars time is running out for operation PB Success back in Guatemala the rest of the invasion is going from bad to worse the third prong of the invasion in El Salvador doesn't even make it into Guatemala 60 Rebels are arrested as they try to cross the border

the fourth prom attacking PTO baros in the north is defeated by armed Dock Workers the reality of the situation was beginning to look Bleak there are still more bad news for the CIA even the air Attacks fail to hit targets almost all the strike aircraft are paralyzed by mechanical failure that basically reduced their air assault by 5050 or 60% as a result of that The Invasion force was basically styed in terms of their air support uh and they were concerned that they were not going to be able to follow through without the the show of

force with the all-important Air Force grounded and alas is Uprising only 6 Miles into Guatemala the whole CIA operation now hangs in the balance only the top CIA managers knew how close this whole thing came to [Music] failure a few days into the assault the CIA receives a top secret intelligence estimate now Declassified that says we don't know where this thing is going to go if the Army sides with our BS our whole campaign is lost but if it turns against our BS this could be a victory As the operation reaches crisis Point Alan deles

head of the CIA holds a top secret emergency meeting with President Eisenhower the president is shocked when he hears about the military failures Eisenhower was puzzled because he thought everything had been going correctly according to the plans of the CIA I think we deles tells it to him straight the only chance of reversing the catastrophic invasion is if the president himself provides a small Contingent of America's best fighter planes so he asked Dallas Point Blank can you really win this if I give you two more planes and D said well I think there's a 20%

chance we can win this and Eisenhower at that point paused and said all right I'll give you the [Music] planes Declassified files now reveal that the president provides doas with two brand new f47 bombers at a cost of $150,000 well the f47 N Thunderbolts Were certainly the most powerful aircraft in Central America at that time concerned that someone would discover us involvement the CIA have the American badges removed from the planes as they're smuggled to Central America they have a sense that you know this thing might not actually work out but we've got a try

anyway whether the f47 will be enough to turn the tide of the invasion is a gamble but the CIA still have one last trump card Yet to play psychological [Music] warfare operation PB success was all based on Illusions it was based on the idea that you could create in the mind of the Guatemalan people that this huge force of rebels was about to take over the country so the CIA up the tempo on the radio libero transmissions and begin round thee clock news bulletins the talk Of a devastating Invasion if you tuned into the radio

you would hear one story after another of a rebel Victory you would hear railroad tracks being bombed you would hear a fuel Depot uh being sabotaged the reality was entirely different armas's Army was hundreds of miles away barely 6 miles into the country next the CIA targets the Guatemalan military a major victory for the CIA in Operation Sherwood came when a colonel the former head of the Guatemalan Air Force defects flies his own private aircraft across the border and turns himself into the CIA David Atley Phillips in charge of the radio campaign wants the colonel

to announce his defection live on air but he refuses Philip says okay have a scotch have another Scotch next thing you know the guy is Sort of in a semi- drunken stuper with the colonel becoming increasingly drunk Phillips secretly records his words on a realtoreal machine as he recounts his defection as soon as Phillips could he spliced the tape and put it on air not only are other Air Force officers listening to the radio broadcast but so is president arens the president immediately grounds the Guatemalan Air Force afraid that its Officers might defect too it

was a major Triumph for operation Sherwood but the tricks do not stop here they get more and more deceptive one of the clever tricks the radio station did to try to enhance its credibility was it faked an attack on the radio station so if you were tuned in you would hear their typical broadcast and all of a sudden you would hear shouts and screams actually were children in the background shuffling Around and then the radio went dead no sound but it is all a hoax to fool the listeners into thinking the underground radio station has

resurfaced the next day the radio comes back on the air triumphant we're back the next Act of Deception comes when the two brand new f-47 arrive in Guatemala 6 days into the Invasion the air assault [Music] Begins they' never seen anything like an f47 and Thunderbolt making a low and very aggressive attack over their [Music] City when we first heard the planes my mom got very scared and she hid us all under the bed it was a difficult time because we'd never lived through a war before the aerial campaign is so shocking that the local

Guatemalans invent a memorable nickname for the Falling bombs sulfatos sufo of course is a a Spanish term meeting laxative something that would make you go to the facility that's the gross effect that it had upon the Guatemalan populace after the bombing strafing [Music] strafing from the air is probably one of the most terrifying things that a person on the ground can Endure you have a an aircraft that's making an enormous amount of noise you don't seem to be able to get away from it it's coming directly at you it seems with guns blazing out of

the Wings we were very afraid it was painful it was utterly horrific so imagine the scene in Guatemala a country that had not experienced terrifying bombing raids right and all of a sudden a low-flying Aircraft engines blazing dropping an explosive a loud colossal sound erupts over the vicinity [Music] for all the terror Declassified CIA files reveal something surprising I don't think they' wanted to do a lot of damage had the f- 47s really wanted to unleash a devastating aerial attack they would have used the 500lb bombs for Which they were designed but they didn't if

they'd gone in there with 500 Pounders f47 n can carry at least three 500 Pounders they could have done a lot of damage in fact the damage was more show than it was real records suggest that not a single death occurred or even one heavy duty bomb is dropped during the campaign in some cases actually they dropped Coke Bottles from the aircraft because the popping of the glass sounded like a loud explosion this is all part of the psychological operation the aim of the aerial campaign is not to kill but to create chaos and panic

among the Guatemalan population one time they drop a big bomb that isn't actually an explosive device but it releases a huge black cloud over the city creating the sense that something horrific had Happened the smoke bomb leads many local Guatemalans to believe that they are under direct attack those that was when we saw it that black smoke was coming out from some place in the capital the cia's psychological tactics go even further another piece of Black Ops tradecraft was to replicate the sounds of a bombing run so they actually outfitted the embassy in Guatemala City

with huge Loudspeakers that played the sounds of a bombing run of jetcraft going overhead to inspire fear among the [Music] population what the people were saying was that Lots were going to be killed and that it was better for them not to get involved in the defense of their government [Music] although the psychological offensive is beginning to work the rebel Army is down To a last desperate handful of troops only 6 miles into the country itself and our Benz is still in power the CIA is about to make an incredible gamble to Bluff its way

from defeat to stunning victory right at this critical stage Phillips introduced what he called his most important big lie the important big lie is the final stage of the fake radio broadcasts presenting an entirely madeup version of The Invasion so in some ways there were two invasions there was the real Invasion that showed a poultry Invasion Force its numbers reduced by half and then there was the map created by radio liberum it suggested the force was having unimpeded progress the CIA radio broadcasts tell of one Victory after another an invasion which in reality doesn't exist

at All Rebel forces were moving they were moving towards the capital the invasion was successful the uprising was coming it was one tale after another of the inevitable victory of the Rebel forces the biggest lie of all is when the radio reports that thousands and thousands of fictitious soldiers are closing in on Guatemala City itself and the lie was that two military columns were advancing on the capital ready to take it [Music] over the big Li gamble now pays off thousands fled the city car traffic stopped the city itself was slowly becoming paralyzed people ran

to the outskirts of the city they were fleeing to safety the critical moment of the big lie is when the senior officers turn against the Guatemalan president the big payoff for black scops comes when several Army Colonels make clear to our B that they're not going to stand with him they basically tell him you and your communist friends have got us in trouble with the Americans and now you've got to step down one by one the officers around our bendz distance themselves from the isolated president so you're a colonel in the Guatemalan Army you're hearing

news of military action and you're starting to ask yourself where am I going to be where am I going to stand When the dust settles politically isolated the pressure on our bz surges to dizzying Heights not only does he fear defeat at the hands of his bitter enemy Aras but also the terrifying prospect that America is behind him it's not the issue of us fighting uh Castillo armas and his guys it's that the United States is threatening to invade and we'd have to fight them he was sitting in his presidential office bewildered and Unsure what

to do he had collapsed internally the CIA had brilliantly undermined [Music] him and that was really the end of his [Music] brain with the officers turning against him on June the 27th aren's resigns couldn't he just couldn't handle it the psychologic prices were too [Music] enormous 10 days later Castillo Aras is sworn in as Guatemala's new president the exiled Colonel who just over a week earlier was a relatively unknown figure is now the most powerful man in the country in Washington operation PB success goes down as a huge Victory by all accounts this is an

operation that should not have succeeded this was made possible by gutsy Determination and in some ways crazy abandon operation PB success was a brilliant deception one of the great artistic achievements of of Illusion that that the CIA ever produced operation PB success proved that psychological warfare could be used as a deadly and effective weapon it fooled an entire country and ultimately brought down a president within the CIA PB success becomes the model for future regime Change across the world he [Music] he [Music] he