The events that immediately followed the scandal caused by the mid-air bombing of a Cuban airliner off the coast of Barbados in October 1976:

Although a top-priority intelligence information cable from the CIA Operations Directorate dated October 13, 1976, revealed that the Venezuelan government seriously considered the possibility of handing over Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch to US authorities—perhaps in a bid to protect them and get rid of two "hot potatoes"—, the then Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez was forced to arrest them and try them along with Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, the material authors of the bombing.

After nine long years of trials, rulings and appeals, Posada Carriles, whose nom-de-guerre was "Bambi," challenged the authorities: "Either you set me free or I will speak."

And the blackmail worked. On August 18, 1985, Luis Posada Carriles escaped from a Venezuelan prison thanks to a well-funded operation.

Who helped him escape?

Jorge Mas Canosa, the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and other "friends."

And this is not an unfounded accusation. Jorge Mas Canosa's brother, Ricardo, confessed to it during a legal process in which Ricardo sued his own brother. This was what some may call a modern version of the biblical story of Cain and Abel.

Cuban-American Felix Rodriguez and George Bush Sr. had links that stretch back to the days when the latter was the CIA director:

The New York Times had access to a sworn statement described as follows:

"Ricardo Mas was the comptroller of his brother's company, Church & Tower, from 1972 to 1985. He said that at his brother Jorge's instruction he deposited a check in one of the company's Panamanian accounts and returned with cash.

''He[ Jorge] said that he needed me to go down and bring back $50,000, that it would be used to get Luis Posada Carriles out of jail, that Carriles wanted out, that he might start talking,'' Ricardo Mas testified. ''The guy, I guess, was breaking down. They had to get him out of jail.''

According to The New York Times, "After 15 days in Caracas, Mr. Posada said, he was taken to Aruba aboard a shrimp boat. From there, a private plane flew him to Costa Rica and then on to El Salvador."

Who took him there?

A recently declassified document from the US Office of the Independent Counsel on the Iran-Contras scandal includes a report about a most unusual event:

On February 3, 1992, two FBI special agents named Michael Foster and George Kiszynski—the latter having a long record of complicity with Miami-based anti-Cuba groups—had a six-hour meeting with Luis Posada Carriles at room 426 in the US embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Seemingly, the FBI tracked down and met with someone who had evaded Venezuelan justice, a felon with an impending trial for a highly dangerous crime and an individual wanted by Interpol.

During their long conversation, they hardly spoke about the terrorist act in Barbados. The report only indicates that:

"Posada was not responsible for the downing of the Cuban airliner in 1976," they categorically assert and put it in a written record.

Before the meeting began, the special agents explained it to Posada that the meeting would only deal with the Iran-Contras case.

In their report to the Office of the Independent Counsel, the two FBI officers provided an account, based on Luis Posada Carriles' statement, which explained who had broken him out of his Venezuelan prison, "Rodriguez and other Cuban friends of Posada helped Posada get out of Venezuela and relocate in El Salvador."

Rodriguez is Felix Rodriguez Mendigutia, a nephew of one of Fulgencio Batista's government ministers. He had illegally entered Cuba prior to the Bay of Pigs Invasion with the task of blowing up the Bacunayagua bridge, located between the provinces of Matanzas and Havana. He was a classmate of Jorge Mas Canosa and Posada Carriles in Fort Bening.

Feliz Rodriguez Mendigutia was part of a group of CIA torturers in the Phoenix operation during the Vietnam War and a coordinator of the group that murdered Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia.

The CIA sent him to work as part of Operation Condor in several Latin American countries. Being a close friend of George Bush Sr., Rodriguez also had an active participation in the Iran-Contras operation.

Currently, Rodriguez is the head of a Miami-based terrorist group known as Brigada 2506.

The CANF and Mas Canosa had links with former US President Ronald Reagan and the Iran-Contras scandal.

In May 1987, Felix Rodriguez made a statement under oath before the Congress Committee that investigated the Iran-Contras scandal. During that session, he was asked, "Who is that Ramon Medina so often mentioned in several testimonies?"

Felix Rodriguez replied, "Medina is Luis Posada Carriles, a good friend of mine; I brought him into El Salvador because that honorable man deserved to be free."

But, where in El Salvador was he taken to?

To the Ilopango Airbase

What was he doing there? What was his mission?

According to what Posada Carriles himself told the two FBI special agents —information that they later repeated in a secret document about the meeting they had with Posada Carriles in the US embassy in Tegucigalpa in February 1992—, the FBI had been told that "Posada was the field manager of the operation at Ilopango."

"The operation" was aimed at illegally providing the Nicaraguan Contras with all kinds of weaponry and supplies, despite the fact that US legislation banned these types of activities.

First, they illegally went and got hold of the money. Then, they brought the weapons and supplies from the US to the Ilopango Airbase and from that point they later proceeded to distribute them clandestinely among the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries, who were being paid by the US government to fight against the Sandinista government.

In another declassified secret document entitled "Organizational Diagram of the "Benefactor Company" (BC) Contra Resupply Operation in San Salvador" one section reads, "Ramon is the assistant director." At the time, Posada was working in El Salvador under the false identity of Ramon Medina.

It was Robert Dutton, general manager of the operation, who gave the name of Benefactor Company to the body created to illegally supply arms to the Contras. This operation had assets valued at $4.089 billion according to the final report by the Office of the Independent Counsel.

But in Ilopango, the hub of the Iran-Contras operation, Posada Carriles took on all kinds of jobs, according to the FBI special agents' report:

The report by these two FBI agents to the Office of the Independent Counsel that was investigating the scandal states that Posada Carriles earned nearly $7,000 a month and "also received housing, a car, maid service, food, and other expenses."

The same document reads that "Posada [Carriles] flew on some of the re-supply flights and he earned $750 for each one of those flights, "and goes on to state that Posada Carriles made a mistake and paid himself twice his monthly wage.

On the other hand, he was well aware of who his employers were. The two FBI officers reported that "one thing that stands in Posada's mind is that money never seemed to be a problem. There was never a problem about having money back in Washington […] Posada was working under the assumption that it was a Washington project."

An so as to leave no doubt, Posada said that he "thought that he was working for Ronald Reagan and that it was a USG [US government] approved project."

That is why he was very cautious, even with his buddies, because he was working for Washington, not for the Miami-based anti-Cuba organizations. And as proof, the two FBI officials said that he admitted that "Jorge Mas Canosa was a friend and that Mas [Canosa] knew about the re-supply operation, but he was not involved." Posada did not want the Miami Cubans to know that he was in El Salvador, because if they had found out, his cover would have been blown.

He even distrusted his benefactor and head of the operation. Speaking about Felix Rodriguez, he told the FBI interviewers that Rodriguez talked too much, was "immature, and has ego problems […] talking to others about himself is part of Rodriguez' nature."

Nonetheless, Posada knew about everything that was going on there, including secret communications between Felix Rodriguez and the office of US Vice President George Bush Sr. The same report states:

"Rodriguez said to Posada that he wanted to talk to then-Vice President George Bush and that he arranged a meeting through his friend Donald Gregg […] Posada knows that Rodriguez talked to Gregg a lot on the telephone because Posada paid the phone bills."

Donald Gregg had been in Vietnam working for the CIA along with Rodriguez and at the time was the US vice president's (George Bush Sr.) National Security advisor.

So, was the vice president's office aware of the role that Posada Carriles was playing in that secret operation?

The facts speak for themselves.

There were not only telephone calls. There were at least three documented meetings held with Felix Rodriguez at the former vice-president’s office; in addition, an uninterrupted exchange of notes, cards and photographs between Felix and George Bush Sr. have been reported.

Moreover, during hearings of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations looking into the Iran-Contras affair, the following conversation took place between Donald Gregg, George Bush’s National Security advisor, and Senator John Kerry:

Sen. Kerry: "Do you recall the downing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 in which 72 people lost their lives as a result; do you remember that?"

Gregg: "Yes."

Sen. Kerry: "A terrorist bomb. And a Cuban-American named Luis Posada was arrested In Venezuela in connection with that. He then escaped in 1985 with assistance from Felix [Rodriguez]…"

Gregg: "It is."

Sen. Kerry: "Okay and he brought him to Central America to help the Contras under pseudonym of Ramon Medina, Correct."

Gregg: "Now, I know that; yes."

Sen. Kerry: "Is it appropriate for a Felix Rodriguez to help a man indicted in a terrorist bombing to escape from prison, and then appropriate for him to take him to become involved in supply operation, which we are supporting?"

Gregg: "I cannot justify that sir. And I am not sure about what role Felix played in breaking him out of jail…I think that Orlando Bosch or someone like him was responsible for that."

The report by the two FBI agents to the Office of the Independent Counsel on Posada Carriles’ role in the Iran-Contras affair, also reveals that Posada was not a mere participant in the secret operation to illegally supply arms to the Contras.

Posada Carriles was appointed to close down the operation following the shooting down of a plane piloted by mercenary Eugene Hasenfus and the resulting scandal.

In their description of Posada Carriles’ participation in the Iran-Contras affair, the FBI agents said: "[He was] left all alone to clean up the mess during the post-Hasenfus period. Posada had to move all the equipment out of the houses and close them down. Posada had to get all the personnel out of the country, dispose of their personal weapons, their communication gear, terminate the leases and utilities, pay off all the outstanding bills and all other loose ends."

But the sly fox admitted something else to the FBI agents: "During the course of cleaning up these houses, Posada collected papers, maps, house and fuel receipts, flight logs, photographs, and other kinds of miscellaneous items and put them in two boxes."

Further on, the 31-page secret report reads: "When Posada was shot in Guatemala, two of his Cuban friends from Miami came to visit him [ their names are obliterated] Posada gave them a box of papers which they took to Miami."

What did the box contain? Who were the Cuban friends who visited him in Guatemala? Why were their names crossed out when declassifying the document? Was the long-time agent trying to guarantee his retirement by withholding sensitive information?

Going back to the first question, Was Luis Posada Carriles a CIA agent or not?

If, as the official version has it, the CIA severed ties with him in 1976, how is it possible that two individuals—such as Jorge Mas Canosa and Felix Rodriguez, whom are known to have worked for the US government—brook him out of jail?

Were they working on their own initiative or fulfilling a mission?

Why, as it was later admitted, did they take him to the secret location where the operation to supply the Contras with weapons was being carried out? An operation under the direct supervision of the office of Vice President George Bush, the director of the CIA that had allegedly severed ties with Posada?

How would two espionage experts like Vice President Bush and his adviser Donald Gregg contract someone— whom they did not completely trust—to undertake such a delicate mission?

Would the vice president, who wanted to succeed the president, run the risk of working with someone he did not completely trust?

The fact is that they did not only have occasional contact after allegedly having severed ties. The CIA also entrusted Posada with a delicate mission and Posada himself admitted that he had had close ties with then-CIA director William Casey.

Why were no legal actions taken against Posada, considering he was a key figure in a scandal that ended in the sanctioning of high-ranking officials from the US administration?

The special agents’ report clearly documents that Posada admitted to having received protection. The report deatails a conversation that Posada Carriles had with Robert Dutton, head of the operation to supply the Contras with arms: "The FBI never called Posada. Later, Dutton told Posada that it was okay, that the FBI wouldn't investigate. Dutton said that Washington had ‘stopped the investigation.’"

Why was it that they did not call him in until 1992, and then for just a simple interview?

Why were they never interested in talking to Posada Carriles about the bombing of the plane off of Barbados?

Why didn’t they ever arrest him, knowing he was a fugitive wanted by the Venezuelan justice system, where he is to this day considered a fugitive of justice?

The last paragraph of the report on the 1992 interview with Posada at the US embassy in Tegucigalpa states that after having talked with special agent Foster about the details of the interview, Posada went to the local Venezuelan Embassy and identified himself to them. He was told that the Venezuelan government did not have any political problem with Posada going to the United States.

There is no doubt of the active role that Carlos Andres Perez’s government played in the whole affair. Officials knew the whereabouts of Posada as early as the beginning of 1992 and that he wanted to travel to the United States. They decided not to arrest him or take any action against an individual who was a fugitive accused of a brutal act of terrorism.

Why?

The question remains unanswered to date.

But it is merely one more of a long list of questions that has not been answered by neither the CIA nor the US government.

After this long list of details, I can only recommend that the reader return to the initial question and draws their own conclusion.