In honor of Cuban President Fidel Castro's retirement, we dug through the history files to reveal a series of failed CIA attempts to assassinate him. Some of the 'spook' attempts on Castro's life may be called serious blunders; others are simply absurd. Regardless how much they resemble a James Bond (or Austin Powers) movie plot, the events below did take place and were made public in CIA files declassified last year.
The CIA idea box included:
Poisoning him
- In August 1960, the first assassination attempt on record involved the CIA's Office of Medical
Services, which dosed some of Castro's cigars with a botulism toxin. The cigars were
then slipped into his private stash but were never smoked. This was the closest the CIA ever came to succeeding.
- Marita Lorenz, one of Castro's many mistresses, was persuaded by the
CIA to try to smuggle a jar of cold cream containing poison pills into
his room.
- A poison pen containing a tiny, spring-loaded hypodermic syringe filled with poison was devised to prick and kill Castro when he wrote.
Giving him an infection- After learning that Castro enjoyed scuba diving, the Technical Services
Division purchased a diving suit and contaminated the regulator with
tuberculosis bacilli and a fungus that
causes a rare skin disease called madura foot. Castro never received the contaminated suit.
Blowing him up!- CIA once planned to place an exploding conch shell at one of
Castro's favorite diving spots. The plan was deemed too impractical and obvious and put back in the weird idea folder.
- In 1960, the New York Police Department
learned the CIA aborted a similar plan to implant Castro's cigars with explosives.
Public humiliation - Also on the record is the CIA's Technical Services Division plan to lace Castro's cigars
with a super-hallucinogen to embarrass him publicly by
causing a wild acid trip during a public appearance.
- Convince Cuban Catholics that he's the anti-Christ and encourage them to overthrow him
Enlisting the mob
- The CIA attempted to persuade Johnny Roselli, a mobster, to help plot the assassination of Castro.
Skeptics can view the 700 pages of declassified CIA documents
here and read these planned assassination attempts for themselves.