Source – theguardian.com
– The CIA’s outlandish plots to bump off the Cuban dictator would put 007 to shame … poison pills, toxic cigars and exploding molluscs. Once he even offered to shoot himself, reports Duncan Campbell:
For nearly half a century, the CIA and Cuban exiles have been trying to devise ways to assassinate Fidel Castro, who is currently laid low in Cuba following an operation for intestinal bleeding. None of the plots, of course, succeeded, but, then, many of them would probably be rejected as too fanciful for a James Bond novel.
Fabian Escalante, who, for a time, had the job of keeping El Commandante alive, has calculated that there have been a total of 638 attempts on Castro’s life. That may sound like a staggeringly high figure, but then the CIA were pretty keen on killing him. As Wayne Smith, former head of the US interests section in Havana, pointed out recently, Cuba had the effect on the US that a full moon has on a werewolf. It seems highly likely that if the CIA had had access to a werewolf, it would have tried smuggling it into the Sierra Maestra at some point over the past 40-odd years.
The most spectacular of the plots against Castro will be examined in a Channel 4 documentary entitled 638 Ways to Kill Castro, as well as in a companion book of the same name written by the now-retired Escalante – a man who, while in his post as head of the Cuban secret service, played a personal part in heading off a number of the plots. While the exploding cigar that was intended to blow up in Castro’s face is perhaps the best-known of the attempts on his life, others have been equally bizarre.
Knowing his fascination for scuba-diving off the coast of Cuba, the CIA at one time invested in a large volume of Caribbean molluscs. The idea was to find a shell big enough to contain a lethal quantity of explosives, which would then be painted in colours lurid and bright enough to attract Castro’s attention when he was underwater. Documents released under the Clinton administration confirm that this plan was considered but, like many others, did not make it far from the drawing-board. Another aborted plot related to Castro’s underwater activities was for a diving-suit to be prepared for him that would be infected with a fungus that would cause a chronic and debilitating skin disease.
One of the reasons there have been so many attempts on his life is that he has been in power for so long. Attempts to kill Castro began almost immediately after the 1959 revolution, which brought him to power. In 1961, when Cuban exiles with the backing of the US government tried to overthrow him in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the aim was to assassinate Fidel and Raul Castro and Che Guevara. Two years later, on the day that President Kennedy was assassinated, an agent who had been given a pen-syringe in Paris was sent to kill Castro, but failed.
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On one occasion, a former lover was recruited to kill him, according to Peter Moore, producer of the new film. The woman was given poison pills by the CIA, and she hid them in her cold cream jar. But the pills melted and she decided that, all things considered, putting cold cream in Castro’s mouth while he slept was a bad idea. According to this woman, Castro had already guessed that she was aiming to kill him and he duly offered her his own pistol. “I can’t do it, Fidel,” she told him.
No one apparently could. This former lover is far from the only person to have failed to poison Castro: at one point the CIA prepared bacterial poisons to be placed in Castro’s hand-kerchief or in his tea and coffee, but nothing came of it. A CIA poison pill had to be abandoned when it failed to disintegrate in water during tests.
The most recent serious assassination attempt that we know of came in 2000 when Castro was due to visit Panama. A plot was hatched to put 200lb (90kg) of high explosives under the podium where he was due to speak. That time, Castro’s personal security team carried out their own checks on the scene, and helped to abort the plot. Four men, including Luis Posada, a veteran Cuban exile and former CIA operative, were jailed as a result, but they were later given a pardon and released from jail.
As it happens, Posada is the most dedicated of those who have tried and failed to get rid of the Cuban president. He is currently in jail in El Paso, Texas, in connection with extradition attempts by Venezuela and Cuba to get him to stand trial for allegedly blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976. His case is due to come back before the courts later this month but few imagine that he will be sent to stand trial, and he appears confident that he will be allowed to resume his retirement in Florida, a place where many of the unsuccessful would-be assassins have made their homes.
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Not all the attempts on Castro’s life have been fancifully complicated: many have been far simpler and owe more to the methods of the mafia who used to hang out in the casinos and hotels of Havana in the 40s and 50s, than they do to James Bond. At one time the CIA even approached underworld figures to try to carry out the killing. One of Castro’s old classmates planned to shoot him dead in the street in broad daylight much in the manner of a mafia hit. One would-be sniper at the University of Havana was caught by security men. But the shooters were no more successful than the poisoners and bombers.
Officially, the US has abandoned its attempt to kill its arch-enemy, but Cuban security are not taking any chances. Any gifts sent to the ailing leader as he lies ill this week will be carefully scrutinised, just as they were when those famous exploding cigars were being constructed by the CIA’s technical services department in the early 60s. (They never got to him, by the way, those cigars contaminated with botulinum toxin, but they are understood to have been made using his favourite brand. Castro gave up smoking in 1985.)
All these plots inevitably changed the way Castro lived his life. While in his early years in office, he often walked alone in the street, but that practice had to change. Since then doubles have been used, and over the decades Castro has moved between around 20 different addresses in Cuba to make it harder for any potential hitmen to reach him.
Meanwhile, jokes about Castro’s apparent indestructibility have become commonplace in Cuba. One, recounted in the New Yorker this week, tells of him being given a present of a Galapagos turtle. Castro declines it after he learns that it is likely to live only 100 years. “That’s the problem with pets,” he says. “You get attached to them and then they die on you”.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/aug/03/cuba.duncancampbell2
Related…
Viva Fidel! Cuba celebrates Castro’s 88th birthday – but with so many assassination attempts, how did he last this long?
Former Cuban president Fidel Castro’s 88th birthday is being celebrated all over Cuba – but with there having been a rumoured 600-plus attempts of his life it is a miracle he has made it this far.
His birthday is today, and it is being recognised with tributes in official media, a concert and a photo exhibit in the capital Havana and a newly inaugurated restoration of the home where he was born.
Communist leader Castro is loathed by many exiles in Florida who say he ruled with an iron fist and stamped out civil liberties. He was celebrated on Wednesday Island as a fighter for equality and social justice who defied the U.S. for five decades.
A girl attends an exhibition of photographs of Fidel Castro by photographer Roberto Chile at the Jose Marti Memorial in Havana, Cuba. Castro celebrates his 88th birthday today
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A girl attends an exhibition of photographs of Fidel Castro by photographer Roberto Chile at the Jose Marti Memorial in Havana, Cuba. Castro celebrates his 88th birthday today
A concert of Cuban duet Buena Fe marks part of the celebration of Youth Day on the eve of the birthday of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro who has had a rumoured 638 attempts on his life
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A concert of Cuban duet Buena Fe marks part of the celebration of Youth Day on the eve of the birthday of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro who has had a rumoured 638 attempts on his life
He ruled in Cuba from 1959 to 2008, when he retired following a near-fatal illness, ceding power to his younger brother Raul.
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Fabian Escalante, who protected Castro during his 49 years in power, claims that there were 638 CIA plots to assassinate him, ranging from an exploding cigar to a poisonous fountain pen, mostly during the first half of the 1960s.
Some of these attempts were part of Operation Mongoose – a plan which aimed to take down the Cuban government.
Some of the assassination plots were aired on Channel 4 in 2006, in a documentary called ‘638 Ways to Kill Castro’.
One of the most famous came when the CIA hired his ex-mistress Marita Lorenz to feed him poisoned capsules. However, Castro found out about the attempt, and allegedly handed her a gun and told her to shoot him, which she said she could not.
The concert to celebrate Castro’s remarkable 88 years took place last night, and featured Cuban duet Buena Fe.
The photographs at the exhibition were taken by Roberto Chile and were displayed at the Jose Marti Memorial.
Meanwhile, an article in Communist Party newspaper Granma said ‘paying homage to Fidel is a great party’.
Earlier this year, a new book on the hidden life of the Cuban leader claimed he lived in luxury on his own private island, which included a turtle farm.
It was thought that Castro lived a simple, austere life similar to his fellow Cubans in the communist country.
However, in the book La Vie Cachée de Fidel Castro (Fidel Castro’s Hidden Life), a former bodyguard says Castro never renounced ‘capitalist comforts’.
Juan Reinaldo Sánchez, who worked for the leader for 17 years and now lives in America, says that the vast majority of his countrymen weren’t aware of their leader’s lavish lifestyle, which is in stark comparison to normal Cubans.
He claims that Castro had a private island, Cayo Piedra, south of the Bay of Pigs, describing it as a ‘Garden of Eden’, complete with a turtles and dolphin farm.
Castro rarely appears in public these days, and in recent years has not taken part in official celebrations of his birthday.
638 WAYS TO KILL CASTRO: SOME OF THE MOST BIZARRE ATTEMPTS
Exploding cigar: This idea was thought up by a New York police officer and would have contained enough explosives to blow Castro’s head clean off.
Hair removal: Yes, really. The plan was that Castro might seem weak if all his facial hair were to fall out, so the Americans thought about trying to slip chemicals into his cigar or shoes.
Poisoned milkshake: This was apparently the closest to taking Castro’s life, but the poisoned poll destined for the drink stuck to the freezer and ripped open when the waiter-cum-assassin tried to rip it off
Femme fatale: Marita Lorenz, one of Castro’s many mistresses, is alleged to have made a deal with the CIA to feed him capsules of poison. She hid them in her face cream, but they dissolved.
Poisoned wetsuit: There was a plan to offer Castro a wetsuit filled with deadly spores and bacteria during the Bay of Pigs invasion, but the CIA’s plot was again foiled.
Exploding shell: This attempt tried to take advantage of Castro’s love of scuba diving by putting an explosive device in a conch shell in the sea. They made it especially attractive in the hope the Cuban leader would be drawn to it.
Another deathly cigar: The CIA tried to slip Castro a cigar filled with a poisonous toxin called Botulin. They hired a double agent who chickened out of the attempt.
Deadly pen: The plan was to rig a pen with a hypodermic needle so fine that someone could prick him with it and he would never notice until he died.
LSD: This was more an effort to bring him down in from of his people, but the plan was to spray an LSD-like substance into a studio during a radio interview, which would make him act strangely and worry the Cuban people.
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