PAPER:HIGHLY SENSITIVE ACTIVITIES
Agency: CIA
Originator: CIA
Document date: 01/01/0000
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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HIGHLY SENSITIVE ACIIVITLES

Project TRIFLE

Early in the Kennedy administration, "the Waite House"

urged Richard Bissell to create an Executive Action capability;

1.e., a general stand-by capability to carry out assassinations.

The Executive Action program came to be known as ZRRIFLE. Its

principal asset was an agent, @WIN, who had been recruited earlier

by Arnola Stlver for use in a special oparation in the Congo

(the assassination of Patrice Lumba) to be run by Justin O'Donnell.

O'Donnell rade a suley of the scene, decided he wanteà no fart

in an assassination attempt, and asked to be released, wbich

Bissell granted.

The project came, ZRRIFIE, first appears in the files in

May 1961, although the first recorded approval is dated 19 February

1962. The new DD/P (Helns) or that date authorized William

Harvey, by venorandun, to handle the project on a special basis.

Accounting for experditures was to be by general category aná on

Farvey's certification.

ZRRITLE was not exercised in the Congo, because Lumumba was

removed froy the scene by other parties. It did, however, find

epplication against Fidel Castro in a conspiracy to assassinate

or to incapacitate him that as already under way under other

auspices.

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After Bill Harvey left Task Force W and was winding up his

headquarters responsibilities in insen preparation for

assignment to Rose, he wrote a nemorandun to the Chief, FI Staff,

dated ?? Jure 1963, stating that the original

justification for

employing @WIll no longer existed and raising the question of

QWIN's termination. The records show that @WIN was terminated

by the Luxenbourg Station on 21 April 1964. There is no indication

in the file that the Executive Action Myansi Capability of

ZRRIFLE/QWIN was ever used.

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Fidel Castro

Durirg the period beginning about liarch 1960 and extending

throust June 1955, the Agency engaged in a series of schemes to

bring about the death or incapacitation of Fidel Castro. These

are those of which this office is aware.

Miscellaneous Schemes Prior to August 1950

A schere was discussed involving contamination of the air

of the radio studio where Castro broadcast his speeches with an

aerosol spray of a chemical that produces reactions similar to

those of ISD. Nothing came of the idea, because the ckemical

could not be relied upon to be effective.

A full box of Castro's fevorite brand of cigars was impregnated

with botuline.

The scheme was abandoned, because there was no way

of assuring that. coly Castro would smoke them.

A third scheme was related to a trip Castro planned to

make out. of Cuba. Thalliun salts, a chemical used by women as

a depilatory, were to be dusted into his shoes, thus causing his

symbolic beard to fall out. Castro did not nake the planned trip.

Gambling Syndicate - Phase 1

The Director of Security gives a reasonably full account of

this episode in his contribution. In brief, the Agency infietzrud

used US criminal elenents that coctrolled the gambling casinos

In Cuba in an attempt to assassinate Castro. He was to be

puisoned by tablets of botulinun placed in his food or drink.

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The Agency contacted the criminal elements through Robert Maheu,

then a cleared contact of the Office of Security and later (for

a tire) a prominent figure in the entourage of Howard Hugkes.

The lafia members known to have been involved in the operation

were Jobn Roselli (involved with Willie Bioff in an attenpted

shakedom of the movie industry.), Sam Giancana (reportedly Capone's

successor. in Chicago), and Santos Trafficante (the kingpin of.

Cuban ganbling) • Those inside Cuba who were to administer the

poison reportedly got cold feet. This phase ended with the failure

of the Bay of Pigs operation. Drew Pearson knew rary of the details.

Gambling Syndicate - Phase 2

The gambling syndicate operation remained dormant until

November 1961 when Sissell Instructed William Harvey to take

charge of it. Harvey was busy on other things at the time and

was unable to give it any attention until February 1962. After

Harvey took over the Castro operation, he ran it as one aspect of

IRRIFLE; however, be personally handled the Castro operation

and did not use any of the assets being developed in ZRRIFLE.

Harvey and James C'Connell, the Office of Security case

officer for Phase 1, net Roselli in few York City in April 1962.

O'Cornell rerained in the operation for a brief period waile the

transfer to Harvey was being accomplished.

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Fhase 2 again involved the administration of botulinum, but

the Cuban garoling element was eliminated because the casinos had

been closed by then. Roselli worked instead through Tony Varona,

a Cuban exile leader who had become disenchanted by his prior

dealings with the Agency. In return for his cooperation, Varona

reguested about

$5,000 worth of arms, ammunition, and related

equirent, which were given to bim. He claimed that he had

dispatched a tear to Cuba with the pills in June 1962. Nothing

ENEMYSE Varona reported in September 1962 that.

he was ready to send in another team of three men to penetrate

Castro's bodyguard. They never actually left.. Harvey gave Roselli

$2,700.12 December 1962 for passing to varona for the expenses of

the three militia men. Harvey and Roselli agreed in January 1963

that the operation was hopeless i and called it off.

Schemes 1a Early 1963

At about the time of the Donovan-Castro negotiations for the

release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners a plan was devised to have

Donovan present a conteminated skin diving suit to Castro as a

This schere progressed to the point of actually buying

a diving suit and readying it for delivery. Toe technique involved

dusting the inside of the suit with a fungus thai would produce a

disabling and caronic skin diseas (ladura foot, and contaminating

the breathing apparatus with tubercle bacilli. Tre plan was

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abandoned because it was overtaken by events: Donovan had

already given Castro a skin diving suit on his own initiative.

Desmond FitzGerald origirated a scheme. for doing lãl away

with Castro by means of an explosives-rigged sea sbell. The

Idea was to take an unusually spectacular sea shell that would

with

be certain to catch Castro's eye, load it was an explosive

triggered to blow when the shell was lifted, and submberge it an an

area where Castro often went skin diving. The scheme was

abandoned, primarily because the midget subnarine that would

have had to be used in emplacerent of the shell had too, short an

operating range for such an operation.

Project AMASE - Rolando Cubela

Rolando Cubela was a major in the Cuoan army, the highest

Cuban military rank. He vas once close to Castro but bad becoue

disaffected. He was first net in lexico City in Marca 1961.

He attended the Helsinki Youth Festival In August 1962 and was

wet there and subsequently in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Paris.-

He was recruited and was given secret writing and demolitions

training. Os a trip to Paris in October 1953 he asked for

kigh-lavel assurance of US support. Des Fitzferald net with him

there, ostensibly acting as a personal emissary of Robert Kennedy.

At the request of SAS, Dr. Gurn rigged a ball point pen to serve

es a bypodernic syringe. Cubela was to load it with Black Leaf 40.

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restor Sanchel save the pan to Cubeja in Paris on 22 November

1963. Irozically, at the very moment President Kennedy was shot

in Dallas a CIA officer was meeting rith a Cuban agent in Paris

and giving him as assassination device for use against Castro.

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Cubela did not think much of the pen device and asked instead

to be supplied with a powered rifle with telescopic sight. He

later amended this request to include a silencer. The Agency

contrived to put Cubela in touch with Manuel Artime, and Artime

fave Cubela a silerced pistol and a silenced rifle... The lgency

also put down two caches in Cuba for Cubela, one with rifles and

one without.

The Agency decided to terminate all contacts with Cubela end

the members of his group in June 1965, primarily because they

were loose-mouthed, and it had by then become apparent that Cubele

had no notion of carrying out any of his grandiose schemes for

getting Castro. Cubela was arrested in Cuba in March 1966, was

tried, convicted, and sertenced to 25 years imprisorment. It is

likely that Cubela told Castro the full story.

SECRET & EVES DY

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