10 Ways the CIA Tried to Kill Castro | Mental Floss 10 Ways the CIA Tried to Kill Castro Bettmann/CORBIS Like us on Facebook In February of 1959 Fidel Castro became the Prime Minister of Cuba. Since then, according to the man who was charged with protecting him for most of his regime, he's survived over 600 assassination attempts. Fabian Escalante, the former head of the Cuban Secret Service, claims that the assassination endeavors break down like this: the Eisenhower administration tried to kill Castro 38 times; Kennedy, 42; Johnson, 72; Nixon, 184; Carter, 64; Reagan, 197; Bush Sr., 16; Clinton, 21. (The accuracy of Escalante's statistics, especially attempts since the Nixon administration, is in dispute.) There are only so many different ways you can ambush someone with a sharpshooter, so some of the ways the CIA plotted to kill Castro were pretty wild. Here are just a few of the unorthodox methods considered to oust the Beard. 1. Femme fatale.

Marita Lorenz, just one of many women Castro counted as a mistress, allegedly accepted a deal from the CIA in which she would feed him capsules filled with poison. She managed to get as far as smuggling the pills into his bedroom in her jar of cold cream, but the pills dissolved in the cream and she doubted her ability to force-feed Castro face lotion, and she also just chickened out. According to Lorenz, Castro somehow figured out her plan and offered her his gun. “I can’t do it, Fidel,” she told him. 2. Poisoned wetsuit. While there’s nothing suspicious about receiving random diving gear from your enemy right in the middle of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the CIA gave it a shot. In 1975, the Senate Intelligence Committee claimed it had "concrete evidence" of a plan to offer Castro a wetsuit lined with spores and bacteria that would give him a skin disease (and maybe worse). The plan supposedly involved American lawyer James B. Donovan, who would present Castro with the suit when he went to negotiate the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners.

A 1975 AP report said the plan was abandoned "because Donovan gave Castro a different diving suit on his own initiative." 3. Ballpoint hypodermic syringe. An ordinary-looking pen would be rigged with a hypodermic needle so fine that Castro wouldn’t notice when someone bumped into him with the pen and injected him with an extremely potent poison. 4. Exploding cigar. But this was no parlor trick – this cigar would have been packed with enough real explosives to take Fidel’s head off. In 1967, the Saturday Evening Post reported that a New York City police officer had been propositioned with the idea and hoped to carry it out during Castro's United Nations visit in September 1960. 5. Contaminated cigar. They may have given up on the TNT stogie, but the idea of spiking his smokes was still being floated around. The CIA even went as far as to recruit a double agent who would slip Castro a cigar filled with botulin, a toxin that would kill the leader in short order. The double agent was allegedly given the cigars in February of 1961, but he apparently got cold feet. 6. Exploding conch shell.

Knowing that Castro liked to scuba dive, the CIA made plans to plant an explosive device in a conch shell at his favorite spot. They plotted to make the shell brightly colored and unusual looking so it would be sure to attract Castro’s attention, drawing him close enough to kill him when the bomb inside went off. 7. Nair. Well, maybe not that brand specifically, but according to that 1975 Senate Intelligence Committee report, the U.S. believed that messing with Castro’s beard was messing with the man’s power. The CIA figured that the loss of the beard would show Cubans that Castro was weak and fallible. A half-baked scheme was hatched to use thallium salt, the chemical in depilatory products such as Nair, in Castro’s shoes or in his cigar. The chemical would be absorbed or inhaled and cause the famous facial hair to fall out. (Wait, wasn’t this an episode of Get Smart?) 8. LSD. In what was mostly an effort to discredit Fidel, not kill him, a radio station where Castro was giving a live broadcast would be bombarded with an aerosol spray containing a substance similar to LSD.

When Fidel had the requisite freak out live on the air, Cubans would think he had lost his mind and stop trusting him. 9. Handkerchief teeming with deadly bacteria. The CIA was seemingly obsessed with covering Fidel in harmful bacteria and toxins, because they also considered giving him a germ-covered hankie that would make him very ill. 10. Poisoned milkshake. According to Escalante, the closest the CIA ever came to killing Castro was a deadly dessert drink in 1963. The attempt went awry when the pill stuck to the freezer where the waiter-assassin at the Havana Hilton was supposed to retrieve it. When he tried to unstick it, the capsule ripped open. More from mental_floss... use plot in a sentence, make example sentences of the word members were arrested for, English words and Examples of Usage Example Sentences for "plot" Key Opposition members were arrested for allegedly plotting to overthrow the governmentThe plot of Romeo and Juliet is basically that two teenagers from families that hate each other fall in love, and eventually kill themselves because their parents won't accept their love for each other. Key Opposition members were arrested for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government.

The CIA supposedly formed a plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar. The city has designated some unused land for public garden plots in the area. The military is having trouble plotting the course of the enemy submarine. He owns a small plot of land on the shores of Lake Ontario. The plot of this movie is too difficult to follow. Before she was murdered, Indira Gandhi left a note saying, If I die a violent death, as some fear, and a few are plotting, I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying. A revolving stage for the theater was first invented in Japan about 300 years ago, and made rapid changes of a scene possible without interrupting the flow of the plot. Mystery writer Agatha Christie claimed she did most of her plotting for her books while sitting in a bathtub munching on apples. The inexperienced reader reads chiefly for plot, whereas the more mature reader reads for insights into the human experience. There are various approaches one can follow in attempting to undertake an analysis of the plot of a novel. In the best fiction, plot is inseparable from character development and general meaning of a story.

Guy Fawkes, chief plotter in the attempt to blow up the British Houses of Parliament, was executed in 1606. Orestes plotted with his sister Electra to punish their mother for infidelity to their father, Agamemnon. Two teenagers in California have been arrested for plotting to kill a number of students at their former high school. Discussion question: Describe the basic plot of a book or movie which you recently enjoyed. The Manila selfie museum encouraging visitors to take pictures with art Have you ever liked a piece of art so much you feel like youâre part of it? Well, a museum in the Philippines is helping people do just that. Art in Island, a museum in Manila, created by a group of Korean artists, features over a hundred unique three dimensional paintings that encourage people to pose in front of them. Each artwork is created in such a way that when... Nazi hideout in Argentina Was this a hideout for German Nazi officers? Deep in Argentinaâs northern jungle, archaeologists have discovered the ruins of what may have originally been a Nazi hiding place. âItâs a defendable site, a protected site, an inaccessible site, where you can live peacefully in hiding.

We believe weâve found a refuge for the Nazi hierarchy.âResearchers from the University of Buenos Aires... Family lives with lions When most people tell you they have a couple of cats at home, these probably aren't the type of cat youâd expect, but for one family in Gaza, these lion cubs are their household pets. Lioness Mona and Alex, whoâs a male, were born in the battle-torn Gaza Strip to parents that were smuggled through a ... Read More Window cleaners have an accident A terrifying ordeal for two window cleaners in China, as the platform they were working on began swinging violently and smashing into the building. The incident, which took place outside the 91st floor of the Shanghai World Financial Centre, lasted for 15 minutes with their cradle slamming into a wall at one point, sending glass flying into the building and down to the ground. stumbleupon Email Comment When Fidel Castro said ‘If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, then I would win the gold medal’, he was most certainly correct. Overall, nearly 650 attempts on the Cuban dictator’s life have been made, making him one of the most targeted men in the universe.

And one of the luckiest. But why? Born in Cuba in 1926, Castro began a campaign of guerrilla warfare to oust and overthrow the Cuban dictator and all round bad guy, Fulgencio Batista. With a number of rebel forces backing him, some of which included the revolutionary leader Che Guevara and Castro’s own blood, younger brother Raúl, Castro was finally appointed the country’s new leader in 1959. However, with change not always necessarily a good thing, Castro began fiddling with the country’s political approach. Becoming known for his communist policies and relationship with the Soviet Union, Castro was automatically a concern for the once supportive and influential USA. With the relationship excessively souring, and a number of stormy events, diplomacy between the two finally came to a halt during the explosive Cuban Missile Crisis in which Castro and the Soviet Union were dangerously treading on thin ice. Accused of provoking communist revolutions in other countries around the world, enough was enough for the CIA, with the USA conducting a number of failed assassination attempts on the Cuban dictator, who, incidentally, was much loved by his powerless nation.

From former lovers to the Mafia, you can’t say the Americans didn’t try, with nearly 700 attempts ranging from complete madness to intricate and detailed plots. In the end, though, the Americans never did quite get their man. But with the collapse of communism in 1991, things began to thaw, leaving a negative impact on Cuba’s economy, which in turn led Castro to relax his complete ban on Western policies and relations. Handing over power to his brother Raúl in 2008 due to failing health, Castro has of late, been out of the limelight. With the US citizens now allowed to enter Cuba and a much more relaxed atmosphere between the two, Castro’s fear of assassination appears to be over. Or so we are led to believe. 16. The Poisoned Milkshake via bigstockphoto.com In 2006 when a British documentary tactfully named 638 Ways to Kill Castro was released, the whole world was intrigued. Detailing the number of times the CIA had tried to kill the Cuban leader, each attempt seemed more and more absurd.

The film, which is mainly centered on Castro’s former protector Fabian Escalante, claimed that over 600 plots were foiled with the majority being attempted by Cuban exiles that had been trained by the CIA. But it was the poisoned milkshake that made the headlines, with Escalante himself claiming it was the closest they had ever gotten to getting the job done. On a visit to the then glamorous Havana Hilton, Castro was to be given a chocolate milkshake laced with poison. However, when the would be assassin attempted to spike the drink, the intended pill stuck to the freezer causing it to rip open along with the plan. Escalante later confirmed that ‘that moment was the closest the CIA got to assassinating Fidel.’ 15. The Temptress via sapo.pt Never short of a lady or two, Fidel was known to have many mistresses, with German born Marita Lorenz high on the list. Landing in Havana in 1959, the 19-year-old Marita quickly started an affair with the newly established leader.

During the romance it was said that Marita had become pregnant but aborted the child in the 7th month of pregnancy, although it was also rumored that she had bore the child. Fed up with Castro’s regime, Marita was quickly and subsequently recruited by the notorious James Bond-inspired secret agent, Frank Sturgis. It was then arranged that Marita would attempt to poison Castro using capsules hidden in face cream. However, bottling it at the last minute, Castro uncovered the plot, shocked and appalled that his lover could ever do such a thing and pulled out a gun. Marita claimed that Castro handed her the gun and asked her to kill him, to which she refused and instead confessed her love. However, this wasn’t the last time Marita graced the history books with reports that she once drove to Dallas with Lee Harvey Oswald, and worked as a spy for the FBI in a low rent New York apartment. In fact, Marita is so interesting that Hollywood has decided to pay homage to her life with none other than Jennifer Lawrence taking on the role of the notorious femme fatale. 14. The Hypodermic Needle Pen via independent.com With President John F.

Kennedy renowned for being a great fan of the Ian Fleming novels about James Bond, it is no surprise to find out that many of the attempts on Castro’s life were loosely inspired on the actions of Fleming’s most famous character. In fact, Kennedy was such a fan that he once invited the famous author to the White House, reportedly asking what Bond would do in such a situation. Clearly paying attention, a number of Bond inspired assassination attempts were used on Castro throughout the years with the ballpoint hypodermic syringe being no exception. Although it is not known if the device was actually used, the plan was most definitely concocted, with an ordinary ball point pen rigged with lethal poison designed to silently inject Castro without his knowledge. Sound familiar? 13. The Poisoned Wetsuit via luben.tv Again another Bond-inspired effort, the poisoned wetsuit was devised to give Castro a lethal skin disease. According to recent documents, the idea was that the American lawyer and political negotiator James B. Donovan would present the suit as a gift in order to negotiate the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners in 1969. The suit would then be laced with poison and bacteria. What could go wrong?

While Donovan did indeed begin to form a strained relationship with the Cuban leader, the idea that killing Castro during his love for scuba diving was somewhat absurd and failed before the CIA could even get their hands on it. What a surprise. Surely that one was a winner, right? 12. The Exploding Cigar via wvgazettemail.com In the 2006 documentary 638 ways to kill Castro, Fabian Escalante asserted that over the years every president had notched up a number of times that they had each tried to kill Castro individually. He claimed that Eisenhower had tried to kill Castro 38 times, Kennedy a lengthy 42, Johnson took things further with 72, Nixon with a whopping 184, Carter relaxing things a little with 64, Reagan starting things up again with a massive 197, Bush Sr . a measly 16 and Clinton reining it in with 21. Obviously Escalante could be construed as being a little dramatic but there is no doubting that the CIA were serious in their threats.

But it was the exploding cigar that really became renowned for being one of their most famous, albeit hilarious plots, in which the American government were seemingly scraping at the bottom of the barrel. Designed to basically blow Castro’s brains out with the one thing he loved the most, the Cuban cigar, the tobacco was intended to be removed and replaced with as much gunpowder as feasibly possible. The plan, like the others, never quite fulfilled its destiny. 11. The Poisoned Cigar via rolexmagazine.com With Castro such a fan of Cuba’s most famous accessory, wherever Castro went the cigar wasn’t far behind. In fact, Castro himself often stated how important the cigars were to the Cuban economy, and still are, maintaining it to be one of the most important export items of the country. Putting two and two together, the CIA began to put together different methods in which the cigar could help them catch their man. From blowing him to smithereens to having him choke on his beloved smoke, it was the contaminated cigar that managed to get that little bit further. Filled with a toxin that would wipe Castro out in an instant, the CIA got as far as hiring an agent and actually supplying the deadly cigars.

However, just before the plan was about to take off, the agent got cold feet, with Cuba’s most famous cigar aficionado free to smoke another day, safely and at ease. 10. The Deadly Handkerchief via shutterstock.com During the height of the Cold War the American government was starting to get desperate, which coincidentally saw the CIA clinging at straws. With Castro publicly declaring himself a Marxist-Leninist in 1961, the Kennedy administration began to massively freak out. Cuba were now becoming extremely friendly with the Soviet Union and began depending on their support as well as their actions. However, things all kicked off when the USA discovered that Castro and Cuba had been ‘looking after’ nuclear missiles, causing the CIA to make it their number one priority to remove and eliminate the Cuban dictator. So what did they come up with? A plan was devised consisting of a handkerchief and an obscene amount of bacteria. The idea was for Castro to be handed the germ ridden hankie that would then spread deadly bacteria all over his face and hands- eventually covering him head to toe in harmful and damaging toxins. Sound a little adventurous?

Well it was, and obviously never made it past the thoughts of one forlorn and hopeless CIA agent. 9. The Mafia via bigstockphoto.com In the pre-Castro days of Fulgencio Batista’s glamorous and untouchable ‘La Habana,’ the Mafia were a huge and imposing presence, especially in the nation’s capital. With notorious mobsters such as Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano and Nicholas “the Fat Butcher” Di Costanzo running the show, the mob was enjoying a life of Caribbean luxury. However, things took a turn for the worse when Castro came into power and Batista fled, leaving the mob to collect their belongings and get out. Rumors flew that the CIA were working with the Mafia in a joint attempt to get rid of their mutual enemy. It was said that famous mobsters Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli, who still had contacts hidden away in the depths of a communist soaked Cuba, were hatching a plan to poison the dictator inside a restaurant often frequented by the man himself. With the plan called off at the last minute, the Mafia were hushed away, but not for very long………. 8.

The Mafia (Again) via knpr.org Originally born in Cuba, ex-prime minister, political activist and anti-Communist Manuel Antonio De Varona (Tony) became embroiled in a number of plots to kill and finally dispose of Castro once and for all. Again with Frank Sturgis and a number of other CIA agents, a planned counter-revolution was arranged. However the plan was foiled and never fully took off. Hurriedly, Varona departed to the United States where he then established the Movement for the Recovery of the Revolution (MRR Party) with a number of other Cuban exiles and anti-Castro revolutionaries. Along with members of the MRR Party, Varona also had known ties to the Mafia, in particular Johnny Roselli. Again like previous attempts, the pair devised a plan to poison the Cuban dictator, however yet again the plan was exposed, leaving Varona to keep on trying, in which he very much did throughout his life. 7. The Hair Loss Scam via shutterstock.com Up there with the most laughable, this hair brained scheme really saw the CIA getting desperate.

With the American government going for character assassination rather than killing him off, the idea was to discredit the leader in front of his millions of passionate followers. The scheme, which involved thallium (a powerful depilatory used to cause hair loss), was to have Castro’s beard fall out; therefore eventually damaging his image and reputation. Sound crazy? Apparently the aim was to leave him completely bald, unrecognizable and powerless, thus killing his image and his overall persona. Not as far fetched as it sounds, the plot actually had some backbone due to the nature of Castro’s beard and how powerful chin hair actually was. Known to be ‘anti-bourgeois’, the beard quickly became Castro’s signature look, as he later claimed, ‘If you save 15 minutes a day by not shaving your beard, you gain about 10 days a year that you can devote to work, to reading, to sport, to whatever you like. And you save on razors, soap and hot water, too’. 6. The Acid Trip via blogspot.com Again along the lines of character butchery, the idea of drugging the Cuban leader was brought up many of times throughout the years.

One in particular, however, seemed a lot more far-fetched than the average spiking or lacing one’s food. The plot, which was intended to embarrass the mighty leader, was devised to attack Castro during one of his many radio broadcasts. While on the air, Castro was to be given, albeit unwittingly, a high dose of LSD, causing him to trip out in all its glory live on air to his faithful followers. The plot, however, was not intended to kill him but to convince the general public that their most honored leader was in fact a raving lunatic. 5. The Exploding Seashell via shutterstock.com With Castro’s love for scuba diving already noted with the poisoned wetsuit, it was no surprise to see another attempt on the dictator’s life using the ways of water. The idea, which was formed by CIA agents, was to find an usual and attractive seashell that would stand out to an unsuspecting Castro. With the colors and shapes becoming so irresistible, Castro would then go and collect the said shell and blow himself up. Sounds great, right? Loaded with explosives, the seashell would then momentously explode as Castro gripped his inquisitive little hands around it.

The scheme unsurprisingly never happened, due to the absolute impracticality of it working and the fact that it was just undoubtedly ridiculous. 4. The Shoe Dusting Scheme via thecubaneconomy.com With plans already intact to cause Castro’s beard and hair to fall out, another plan was quickly composed to resolute the same intention. In one particular scheme, a plan was devised to try and eat away at Castro’s charismatic appeal by dusting his shoes with thallium, again causing chronic hair loss. Loved and supported by most of the population, Castro was extremely popular, mostly due to his charming attitude and excellent public speaking skills. With promises to restore Cuba to its former glory and his handling of previous dictator Fulgencia Batista, Castro was very much trusted. Therefore the CIA obviously concluded that without a beard, Castro would be immediately distrusted by his followers and look as charismatic as a piece of paper. Well I guess you never know? 3. The Bounty Hunter via shutterstock.com Although predominantly loved, Castro still had his non-believers with the amount of Cuban exiles, that fled during the revolution, nearing a million. Even to this day, a number of Cubans want out, fighting against what they believe to be a failing regime.

However, with restrictions on who may leave and the application process taking a lengthy amount of time, it can be extremely difficult to finally get that passage of freedom. Seizing the opportunity, the American government devised a plan to target the number of Cubans who wanted out or who were unhappy with Castro and his cronies. With leaflets stating a bounty on Castro’s head and a cushy reward, planes began dropping them over the island with the intention that someone would step up and do the job for them. They never did. 2. The Big 3 via tumblr.com When Fidel Castro finally seized power in 1959, the USA were beginning to worry. With Castro’s ever leaning toward the Soviet Union’s sway and Communist policies, the Americans had decided enough was most certainly enough. However, what came next resulted in the most spectacular failure in the history of American warfare, embarrassing then president JFK and the country itself. The invasion, now known as The Bay of Pigs, began when a CIA-financed group of Cuban refugees loaded with American weapons, landed on the Cuban coast on a mission to defeat and remove the Cuban dictator.

They were not expecting a counterattack, and the Cuban military and air force overthrew the refugees, killing over 100 exiles and capturing the rest. Highlighting Che Guevara as the man with the plan, the CIA devised a plot to poison Castro, his brother Raul and Guevara with pills containing botulinum toxin. With the plan in progress for over two years it was ultimately a failure along with all of the others. 1. The Faked Terrorist Attacks via wiki.com With the disastrous Bay of Pigs behind him, JFK seemingly continued with his fight for Castro’s head. In 1961, ‘Operation Mongoose’ was designed, which saw not only the CIA but the defense department, the state department, and Kennedy’s own family all dipping their fingers in the pie. The operation itself included a range of ideas- all of which had the main objective to topple Fidel Castro and the Communist regime. With rumors of faked terrorists attacks that could be blamed on Castro, and in-depth assassination operations, the contents of Operation Mongoose are still extremely murky.

However, with the Cuban missile crisis reaching a deadly high in 1962, the operation was suspended, and only a year later the famous American president was dead. 16 Insane Ways The CIA Tried To Assassinate Fidel Castro - Swenster 16 Insane Ways The CIA Tried To Assassinate Fidel Castro Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest The Poisoned Milkshake In 2006 when a British documentary tactfully named 638 Ways to Kill Castro was released, the whole world was intrigued. Detailing the number of times the CIA had tried to kill the Cuban leader, each attempt seemed more and more absurd. The film, which is mainly centered on Castro’s former protector Fabian Escalante, claimed that over 600 plots were foiled with the majority being attempted by Cuban exiles that had been trained by the CIA. But it was the poisoned milkshake that made the headlines, with Escalante himself claiming it was the closest they had ever gotten to getting the job done. On a visit to the then glamorous Havana Hilton, Castro was to be given a chocolate milkshake laced with poison.

However, when the would be assassin attempted to spike the drink, the intended pill stuck to the freezer causing it to rip open along with the plan. Escalante later confirmed that ‘that moment was the closest the CIA got to assassinating Fidel.’ The Temptress Never short of a lady or two, Fidel was known to have many mistresses, with German born Marita Lorenz high on the list. Landing in Havana in 1959, the 19-year-old Marita quickly started an affair with the newly established leader. During the romance it was said that Marita had become pregnant but aborted the child in the 7th month of pregnancy, although it was also rumored that she had bore the child. Fed up with Castro’s regime, Marita was quickly and subsequently recruited by the notorious James Bond-inspired secret agent, Frank Sturgis. It was then arranged that Marita would attempt to poison Castro using capsules hidden in face cream. However, bottling it at the last minute, Castro uncovered the plot, shocked and appalled that his lover could ever do such a thing and pulled out a gun.

Marita claimed that Castro handed her the gun and asked her to kill him, to which she refused and instead confessed her love. However, this wasn’t the last time Marita graced the history books with reports that she once drove to Dallas with Lee Harvey Oswald, and worked as a spy for the FBI in a low rent New York apartment. In fact, Marita is so interesting that Hollywood has decided to pay homage to her life with none other than Jennifer Lawrence taking on the role of the notorious femme fatale. The Hypodermic Needle Pen With President John F. Kennedy renowned for being a great fan of the Ian Fleming novels about James Bond, it is no surprise to find out that many of the attempts on Castro’s life were loosely inspired on the actions of Fleming’s most famous character. In fact, Kennedy was such a fan that he once invited the famous author to the White House, reportedly asking what Bond would do in such a situation. Clearly paying attention, a number of Bond inspired assassination attempts were used on Castro throughout the years with the ballpoint hypodermic syringe being no exception.

Although it is not known if the device was actually used, the plan was most definitely concocted, with an ordinary ball point pen rigged with lethal poison designed to silently inject Castro without his knowledge. Sound familiar? The Poisoned Wetsuit Again another Bond-inspired effort, the poisoned wetsuit was devised to give Castro a lethal skin disease. According to recent documents, the idea was that the American lawyer and political negotiator James B. Donovan would present the suit as a gift in order to negotiate the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners in 1969. The suit would then be laced with poison and bacteria. What could go wrong? While Donovan did indeed begin to form a strained relationship with the Cuban leader, the idea that killing Castro during his love for scuba diving was somewhat absurd and failed before the CIA could even get their hands on it. What a surprise. Surely that one was a winner, right? The Exploding Cigar In the 2006 documentary 638 ways to kill Castro, Fabian Escalante asserted that over the years every president had notched up a number of times that they had each tried to kill Castro individually.

He claimed that Eisenhower had tried to kill Castro 38 times, Kennedy a lengthy 42, Johnson took things further with 72, Nixon with a whopping 184, Carter relaxing things a little with 64, Reagan starting things up again with a massive 197, Bush Sr. a measly 16 and Clinton reining it in with 21. Obviously Escalante could be construed as being a little dramatic but there is no doubting that the CIA were serious in their threats. But it was the exploding cigar that really became renowned for being one of their most famous, albeit hilarious plots, in which the American government were seemingly scraping at the bottom of the barrel. Designed to basically blow Castro’s brains out with the one thing he loved the most, the Cuban cigar, the tobacco was intended to be removed and replaced with as much gunpowder as feasibly possible. The plan, like the others, never quite fulfilled its destiny. The Poisoned Cigar With Castro such a fan of Cuba’s most famous accessory, wherever Castro went the cigar wasn’t far behind.

In fact, Castro himself often stated how important the cigars were to the Cuban economy, and still are, maintaining it to be one of the most important export items of the country. Putting two and two together, the CIA began to put together different methods in which the cigar could help them catch their man. From blowing him to smithereens to having him choke on his beloved smoke, it was the contaminated cigar that managed to get that little bit further. Filled with a toxin that would wipe Castro out in an instant, the CIA got as far as hiring an agent and actually supplying the deadly cigars. However, just before the plan was about to take off, the agent got cold feet, with Cuba’s most famous cigar aficionado free to smoke another day, safely and at ease. The Deadly Handkerchief During the height of the Cold War the American government was starting to get desperate, which coincidentally saw the CIA clinging at straws. With Castro publicly declaring himself a Marxist-Leninist in 1961, the Kennedy administration began to massively freak out. Cuba were now becoming extremely friendly with the Soviet Union and began depending on their support as well as their actions.

However, things all kicked off when the USA discovered that Castro and Cuba had been ‘looking after’ nuclear missiles, causing the CIA to make it their number one priority to remove and eliminate the Cuban dictator. So what did they come up with? A plan was devised consisting of a handkerchief and an obscene amount of bacteria. The idea was for Castro to be handed the germ ridden hankie that would then spread deadly bacteria all over his face and hands- eventually covering him head to toe in harmful and damaging toxins. Sound a little adventurous? Well it was, and obviously never made it past the thoughts of one forlorn and hopeless CIA agent. The Mafia In the pre-Castro days of Fulgencio Batista’s glamorous and untouchable ‘La Habana,’ the Mafia were a huge and imposing presence, especially in the nation’s capital. With notorious mobsters such as Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano and Nicholas “the Fat Butcher” Di Costanzo running the show, the mob was enjoying a life of Caribbean luxury. However, things took a turn for the worse when Castro came into power and Batista fled, leaving the mob to collect their belongings and get out.

Rumors flew that the CIA were working with the Mafia in a joint attempt to get rid of their mutual enemy. It was said that famous mobsters Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli, who still had contacts hidden away in the depths of a communist soaked Cuba, were hatching a plan to poison the dictator inside a restaurant often frequented by the man himself. With the plan called off at the last minute, the Mafia were hushed away, but not for very long. The Mafia (Again) Originally born in Cuba, ex-prime minister, political activist and anti-Communist Manuel Antonio De Varona (Tony) became embroiled in a number of plots to kill and finally dispose of Castro once and for all. Again with Frank Sturgis and a number of other CIA agents, a planned counter-revolution was arranged. However the plan was foiled and never fully took off. Hurriedly, Varona departed to the United States where he then established the Movement for the Recovery of the Revolution (MRR Party) with a number of other Cuban exiles and anti-Castro revolutionaries. Along with members of the MRR Party, Varona also had known ties to the Mafia, in particular Johnny Roselli.

Again like previous attempts, the pair devised a plan to poison the Cuban dictator, however yet again the plan was exposed, leaving Varona to keep on trying, in which he very much did throughout his life. The Hair Loss Scam Up there with the most laughable, this hair brained scheme really saw the CIA getting desperate. With the American government going for character assassination rather than killing him off, the idea was to discredit the leader in front of his millions of passionate followers. The scheme, which involved thallium (a powerful depilatory used to cause hair loss), was to have Castro’s beard fall out; therefore eventually damaging his image and reputation. Sound crazy? Apparently the aim was to leave him completely bald, unrecognizable and powerless, thus killing his image and his overall persona. Not as far fetched as it sounds, the plot actually had some backbone due to the nature of Castro’s beard and how powerful chin hair actually was.

Known to be ‘anti-bourgeois’, the beard quickly became Castro’s signature look, as he later claimed, ‘If you save 15 minutes a day by not shaving your beard, you gain about 10 days a year that you can devote to work, to reading, to sport, to whatever you like. And you save on razors, soap and hot water, too’. The Acid Trip Again along the lines of character butchery, the idea of drugging the Cuban leader was brought up many of times throughout the years. One in particular, however, seemed a lot more far-fetched than the average spiking or lacing one’s food. The plot, which was intended to embarrass the mighty leader, was devised to attack Castro during one of his many radio broadcasts. While on the air, Castro was to be given, albeit unwittingly, a high dose of LSD, causing him to trip out in all its glory live on air to his faithful followers. The plot, however, was not intended to kill him but to convince the general public that their most honored leader was in fact a raving lunatic.

The Exploding Seashell With Castro’s love for scuba diving already noted with the poisoned wetsuit, it was no surprise to see another attempt on the dictator’s life using the ways of water. The idea, which was formed by CIA agents, was to find an usual and attractive seashell that would stand out to an unsuspecting Castro. With the colors and shapes becoming so irresistible, Castro would then go and collect the said shell and blow himself up. Sounds great, right? Loaded with explosives, the seashell would then momentously explode as Castro gripped his inquisitive little hands around it. The scheme unsurprisingly never happened, due to the absolute impracticality of it working and the fact that it was just undoubtedly ridiculous. The Shoe Dusting Scheme With plans already intact to cause Castro’s beard and hair to fall out, another plan was quickly composed to resolute the same intention. In one particular scheme, a plan was devised to try and eat away at Castro’s charismatic appeal by dusting his shoes with thallium, again causing chronic hair loss. Loved and supported by most of the population, Castro was extremely popular, mostly due to his charming attitude and excellent public speaking skills.

With promises to restore Cuba to its former glory and his handling of previous dictator Fulgencia Batista, Castro was very much trusted. Therefore the CIA obviously concluded that without a beard, Castro would be immediately distrusted by his followers and look as charismatic as a piece of paper. Well I guess you never know? The Bounty Hunter Although predominantly loved, Castro still had his non-believers with the amount of Cuban exiles, that fled during the revolution, nearing a million. Even to this day, a number of Cubans want out, fighting against what they believe to be a failing regime. However, with restrictions on who may leave and the application process taking a lengthy amount of time, it can be extremely difficult to finally get that passage of freedom. Seizing the opportunity, the American government devised a plan to target the number of Cubans who wanted out or who were unhappy with Castro and his cronies. With leaflets stating a bounty on Castro’s head and a cushy reward, planes began dropping them over the island with the intention that someone would step up and do the job for them. They never did. The Big 3 When Fidel Castro finally seized power in 1959, the USA were beginning to worry.

With Castro’s ever leaning toward the Soviet Union’s sway and Communist policies, the Americans had decided enough was most certainly enough. However, what came next resulted in the most spectacular failure in the history of American warfare, embarrassing then president JFK and the country itself. The invasion, now known as The Bay of Pigs, began when a CIA-financed group of Cuban refugees loaded with American weapons, landed on the Cuban coast on a mission to defeat and remove the Cuban dictator. They were not expecting a counterattack, and the Cuban military and air force overthrew the refugees, killing over 100 exiles and capturing the rest. Highlighting Che Guevara as the man with the plan, the CIA devised a plot to poison Castro, his brother Raul and Guevara with pills containing botulinum toxin. With the plan in progress for over two years it was ultimately a failure along with all of the others. The Faked Terrorist Attacks With the disastrous Bay of Pigs behind him, JFK seemingly continued with his fight for Castro’s head.

In 1961, ‘Operation Mongoose’ was designed, which saw not only the CIA but the defense department, the state department, and Kennedy’s own family all dipping their fingers in the pie. The operation itself included a range of ideas- all of which had the main objective to topple Fidel Castro and the Communist regime. With rumors of faked terrorists attacks that could be blamed on Castro, and in-depth assassination operations, the contents of Operation Mongoose are still extremely murky. However, with the Cuban missile crisis reaching a deadly high in 1962, the operation was suspended, and only a year later the famous American president was dead. 638 ways to kill Castro | World news | The Guardian Cuba 638 ways to kill Castro 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 Wednesday 2 August 2006 19.09 EDT First published on Wednesday 2 August 2006 19.09 EDT Share on Messenger Close 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. 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. 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".

Central Intelligence Agency rotten > Library > Conspiracy > Central Intelligence Agency Central Intelligence Agency Never have so many done so much that was so bad to so many others for so little discernible benefit to so few. Spies have been with us always, but the Central Intelligence Agency is purely a 20th century phenomenon. While intelligence agencies like the KGB and Israel's Mossad have often employed appalling tactics to further their goals, the CIA has earned itself a special distinction for using most of the same appalling tactics much less effectively. Prior to World War II, U.S. intelligence operations were informally conducted under the auspices of various military and law enforcement agencies. In 1941, the Japanese "surprise" attack on Pearl Harbor highlighted an apparent flaw in this system � namely that U.S. intelligence sucked. There is a perennially recurring story that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had advance warning of the attack but allowed it to proceed in order to galvanize the American people into a war frenzy. Regardless of the veracity of this allegation, the perceived failure at Pearl Harbor provided the pretext for a new consolidation of intelligence power in Washington. In 1942, FDR ordered the formation of the Office of Strategic Services.

The OSS served as a clearinghouse for intelligence reporting, but it wasn't empowered (officially) to take charge of the various spy shops scattered across the U.S. executive branch. Toward the end of the war, General William Donovan began floating a proposal to create a super-powerful centralized agency answerable only to the president, which would coordinate intelligence gathering, determine national security objectives and execute "subversive operations" to accomplish said objectives. In 1947, the CIA was officially born (about a year after it had already effectively started operations), under the auspices of President Harry Truman and the National Security Act. In 1948, its charter was expanded to include "covert actions" in addition to intelligence-gathering. In 1949, the Central Intelligence Act broadened the scope of the CIA's powers and eliminated most oversight and accountability. Under its charter, the CIA was expressly forbidden from conducting domestic operations � within the context of the aforementioned absence of oversight and accountability. In the absence of a major international conflict, the CIA floundered aimlessly for its first few years of existence. The onset of the Korean War in the 1950s helped bring the organization into sharper focus.

In 1953, Allen Dulles took over as director, and the agency began to morph into the feared-yet-seemingly-ineffectual behemoth it is today. The looming threat of Communism fueled huge increases in CIA staff and budget through out the next two decades. The mission and ambition of the CIA also grew during this period. Intelligence-gathering is all well and good, but it lacks the joie de vivre of a needlessly elaborate covert action to accomplish a morally ambiguous goal. Under Dulles, and continuing through the present day, the CIA took on the jobs nobody else could... or would... or should... The Columbia Encyclopedia entry for the agency unintentionally points out the major problem with the CIA's execution of its mission: "While covert operations receive the most attention, the CIA�s major responsibility is intelligence." Covert operations receive the most attention? Hmmm...

The directive empowering the CIA's activist role defines covert actions as activities "conducted or sponsored by this Government against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned and executed that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons and that if uncovered the US Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them." Among a few of the more colorful highlights of this "plausibly disclaimed" activity: Cuba : Two words: Exploding cigar. The history of the CIA and Cuba is storied and well-known, involving repeated attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs fiasco, in which the agency guided John F. Kennedy to a spectacularly failed attempt to overthrow the Castro regime. In the latter case, the CIA's post-mortem on the incident identified such strategic failures as neglecting "to advise the president, at an appropriate time, that success had become dubious and to recommend that the operation be therefore canceled" and failing to recognize that covert operation "had become overt." In the 1950s, the CIA began experimenting with mind-control as part of an infamous program known as MK Ultra .

The agency shredded all its documentation on the program in the 1970s, but several details have been leaked and subsequently proven. In the 1950s, the agency discovered LSD. Its chief scientist, Sidney Gottlieb, experimented with the drug extensively � on himself and others. According to the New York Times, "the agency conducted 149 separate mind-control experiments, and as many as 25 involved unwitting subjects. First-hand testimony, fragmentary Government documents and court records show that at least one participant died, others went mad, and still others suffered psychological damage after participating in the project, known as MK Ultra. The experiments were useless, Gottlieb concluded in 1972, shortly before he retired." One of the most notorious MK Ultra projects involved using San Francisco hookers to dose unsuspecting clients and filming the results. In the late 1950s, the agency trained assassins to kill a CIA-drafted list of political officials to advance a coup in Guatemala. The successful coup overthrew the democratically elected president in favor of a procession of fascist dictators who ruled the country through military force and brutal suppression for the next four decades.

The CIA spent 20 years or so sponsoring violent coups to eradicate popular leftist movements in Laos, only to meet with continual failure. Finally, after it became clear things just weren't working out, the military flew into Laos and bombed the country back into the stone age during the Vietnam War . Laos pretty much remains in the Stone Age today. In the early 1970s, Richard M. Nixon recruited "former" CIA officials (including E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy ) to work as part of the Plumbers, a group of vigilante operatives charged with stopping leaks and spying on behalf of the president's re-election efforts. Nixon would eventually fire Richard Helms , then CIA director, when Helms refused to concoct lies about national security in order to stop the FBI's investigation of Watergate . In 1953, despite a series of gaffes, the CIA succeeded in installing the Shah of Iran , a more or less fascist dictator whose oppressive looting of the nation benefited the U.S.

for a couple decades, but ultimately bred the Islamic revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power in the 1970s (a revolution which caught the CIA completely by surprise). Iran was representative of the CIA's seeming inability to comprehend the Islamic and Middle Eastern mindsets, resulting in countless examples of "blowback," the agency's term for covert operations in which U.S.-supported operatives subsequently turn against their sponsors. Other boners regarding Iran included the infamous Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, which made Oliver North a household name. Talk about your blowback... The CIA's role in the scandal was never proven, and only a single CIA official was ever indicted in the probe. Then-CIA director William Casey , renowned as one of the spookiest of all spooks, was strongly suspected of having a role in the affair, but he took his secrets to his deathbed (except for a controversial last-minute confession of evilness to which Bob Woodward claims to have been the sole witness).

The CIA's extreme inability to comprehend the consequences of personalities and religion in the Middle East was put on dismal display by two historically disastrous alliances, both formed in the name of fighting communism, which would very publicly highlight two of the CIA's most lavishly funded employees � Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein . Bin Laden was a member of a small army of Islamic Jihadists fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s. The strategic minds of the CIA decided that this whole jihad thing looked like a great idea, and provided funding and weaponry to the mujahideen fighters, hoping to enflame the global Muslim community into jihad against the Soviets. The success of that strategy speaks for itself. Around the same time, Iraq launched a war against neighboring Iran, which was itself a CIA-created disaster. At the time, Iran was stridently anti-American and loosely aligned with the Soviets. The U.S. government operated through both overt and covert channels to provide massive assistance to Hussein's war, including money and conventional weapons. The CIA also facilitated the transfer of supplies and technology for the construction of Biological Weapons , Nerve Agents and other Weapons of Mass Destruction for Iraqi use. Some of these weapons may have been employed against U.S.

troops during the first Gulf War (which was conducted by George Bush Sr. , himself a onetime director of the CIA), and they provided George Bush Jr. with a pretext for the second Gulf War (which ran along the lines of "How dare they stockpile these awful weapons we gave them?"). Not content with merely creating foreign policy disasters, the CIA also failed to anticipate the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, working in close concert with the FBI to aggressively ignore vital intelligence already in its possession. Of course, all of the above are merely the indisputably proven gaffes of the CIA. In addition to these known disasters, which are all true despite how ludicrous they might sound, there's a whole slew of suspected disasters which the Agency has not (yet) admitted to. These include:

Question: Who did the CIA allegedly attempt to assassinate using an exploding cigar?
Answer: Fidel Castro