[Also in hiding is the CIA's Top Spy, the Deputy Director for Operations, aka the Director of the National Clandestine Service: Jose A. Rodriguez. He has been in hiding almost since his appointment a year ago! What is Jose hiding from??? Today he emerged from his hole -- a week after Groundhog Phil -- and fired his successor, Robert Grenier.

As for Jose A. Rodriguez Jr, he apparently was a military attache -- a MILGP, or USMILGP (US Military Group), officer (a colonel) -- at the US Embassy in Argentina in the mid 1990s. Officially a MILGP officer advises the US ambassador on military matters and is a liason between the US Government and the host country's security and military forces (often a funnel for money, arms, and intelligence). US diplomats, even military officers such as the recently ousted (for espionage against Venezuela) US naval attache in Venezuela, Lt. Commander John Correa, often are CIA operatives. They aid US puppet governments, no matter how repressive, and seek to overthrow host governments that are not submissive (Hugo Chavez's), no matter how democratic.

Jose A. Rodriguez, in "civilian" life, became the chief of the Latin America Division of the Operations Directorate of the CIA. That division is considered obscure by CIA-watchers, but CIA meddling in the internal affairs of other nations was perfected there (notably in Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Savador in the Iran-contra era www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/ ) and subversion certainly is especially useful to the CIA in the Middle East right now.

Rodriguez has been criticized for helping out, in 1997, a friend arrested for drug offenses in Latin America (Argentina?). This help could have been supporting one of his employees caught in the line of duty ("CIA" is sometimes taken to mean "Cocaine Import Agency"), or merely a "professional courtesy" for a peer.

Jose Rodriguez later assumed the post of Director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center (CTC), near the top of the CIA totem pole, and was at this job in the seminal period of Presidential putsch-making after 9/11. In 2004, as director of the CTC, he visited Athens, Greece, to advise the Athens Olympics organizers, including the chief organizer (Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki) on security matters. In a March 23, 2004, meeting with organizers he was accompanied by the US Ambassador to Greece, Thomas Miller.

Jose A. Rodriguez was promoted to the CIA's Deputy Director for Operations in November 2004, succeeding Stephen Kappes. This is perhaps the CIA's No. 2 position in terms of power and put him in charge of the CIA's clandedestine (spying and dirty tricks) operations. Rodriguez dropped out of sight soon after his appointment was announced in the media, but the CIA never reported any reassignment for him. Presumably, after the 2005 reorganization of the Intelligence Community under Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, Jose Rodriguez continues as the head of CIA clandestine operations. This is basically his old job (DDO) with a new title, Director of the National Clandestine Service, and new responsibilities to oversee day-to-day operations of all intelligence gathering by America's human (more or less) agents. This would include agencies besides the CIA, but not electronic data mining and other methods besides HUMINT.

Rodriguez today (February 7) fired his successor as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Robert Grenier -- not "aggressive" enough.