The
US spent decades, trying to kill Fidel Castro, and many assume that
we still don't have access to the entire story.
The US spent
years pushing for regime change in Cuba, most notably in the
disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion.
And the US focused on Castro specifically. According to Fabian
Escalante, the former head of the Cuban Secret Service, there were
over 600 attempts to assassinate Castro. These weren't the usual
bullet or plane crash scenarios, and the CIA had some unusual help.
The first
documented plans to assassinate Fidel Castro, date back to 1960.
Escalante claims that every US president, from Eisenhower to Clinton,
has at some point attempted to kill Castro. While it's impossible to
verify the specifics of Escalante's claims, it is clear that numerous
plots existed. It's also clear that many of the plans never moved
past the drawing board.
These plans
range from the plausible, such as having Castro's mistress poison
him, to the outrageous, such as exploding cigars. Many of these
assassination attempts involved poison, whether it was to be injected
via a hypodermic needle, mixed into a milkshake, or spread inside a
wet suit.
But not all
of the CIA's alleged plot centered on killing Castro. Plans to dose
him with LSD, or remove facial hair, were meant to discredit the
leader rather than kill him. While these operations might sound
ridiculous today, they were treated with the out most seriousness and
secrecy during the Cold War, and, unfortunately, plots to assassinate
world leaders are not unusual in the dirty game of international
politics.
According to
documents released in 2007, the CIA knowingly worked with members of
the mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro in the 1960s. Before the
Revolution, the mafia had immense power in Havana. When Castro took
over, he kicked out the crime families along with foreign
corporations. With these enormous financial losses, the criminals
certainly had the motivation to see Castro dead.
Through
meetings with the mafia member named Johnny Roselli, the CIA
eventually partnered with Momo Salvatore Giancana and Santos
Trafficante, the head of the Cosa Nostra in Cuba. The group picked a
Cuban official named Juan Orta, to carry out the assassination with
poison pills. Orta eventually wanted out of the plot, and despite
partnering with the organized crime, the CIA was yet again
unsuccessful.
The Channel
4 documentary 638 Ways To Kill Castro,
covers the mafia's attempts, as well as several more alleged schemes.
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