THREE months: that was how long the Super Spy appointed by George W. Bush to monitor Cuba and Venezuela lasted. A patent relic of the Reagan regime, veteran CIA agent Norman Bailey has been tossed into the dust-bin, against all expectations, by the new National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.

News on Bailey’s sudden dismissal has been very discreet, contrary to what happened at the time of his appointment, when, in a gesture of genuine imperialist arrogance, the career of that sinister individual was celebrated.

For many observers, Bailey’s dismissal is an expression of the complete uncertainty reigning in U.S. intelligence apparatus in face of the big changes emerging in what Washington always considered to be its backyard.

Selected by John "El Embajador" Negroponte, McConnell’s predecessor in late November, the U.S. intelligence "chief of mission" for the two countries has a long record of service to the CIA and the Bush clan.

Notably, Bailey infiltrated the Noriega government in Panama while the disastrous U.S. invasion was being prepared, and was an advisor to Ronald Reagan, despite being an associate of controversial U.S. politician Lyndon LaRouche.

In one of his well-known goofs, Bailey said in a March 2001 interview that he hoped for a drop in oil prices, which, he said, would have "catastrophic consequences" for Venezuela.

However, in August 2000, in an interview published by the Argentine newspaper Clarín, he made an enigmatic statement regarding Cuba.

"I really don’t see any possibilities of a change in policy for the moment," he said, later adding that after the elections in the United Sates, things could change. "After all, it was a Republican, Richard Nixon, who reestablished relations with China," he said.

According to the Miami Herald, Bailey, after learning of his humiliating expulsion from the highest ranks of national intelligence, immediately sent an email to his friends to give his version of events. He said that his job had been eliminated for good, something later denied by an "anonymous" official, a common procedure in the U.S. capital.