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CIA Plots To Kill Fidel Castro by Charles Overbeck ParaScope Editor easterisle@aol.com The CIA's attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro in the 1960s were as numerous as they were demonically creative. But through it all, "the Beard" survived. Prepare to visit the sinister world of assassination politics, courtesy of the CIA Inspector General's Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro. © Copyright 2000 ParaScope, Inc. Fidel Castro: A Marked Man Many powerful people had it in for Fidel Castro, for a multitude of reasons. The Cuban revolutionary leader's successful 1959 revolt against the Batista regime had wreaked havoc on U.S. business interests and the enterprises of the Cuban economic elite. Also, the Mafia was enraged by interference with their Casino operations and the drug and prostitution rings that the Casinos provided cover for. (1) But far more significant, in the midst of Cold War hysteria, the United States now had a full-fledged communist nation just off her shores. The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 clearly expressed the extreme sensitivity of the situation. As soon as Castro and his followers tossed Batista out of power, schemes for Fidel's undoing were put into motion. Assassination plots and sabotage campaigns were approved during the Eisenhower administration and carried over into the Kennedy White House. The idea was, take out "the Beard" (as Castro's followers affectionately called him), and the communist regime would fall too, allowing Cuba to settle back into a dictatorship feeding at the American trough. (2) These schemes ranged from the possible to the downright bizarre, and none of them really came to fruition. If they had, then the CIA most certainly would not have released the "Inspector General's Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro." The report was so sensitive that only a single ribbon copy of the actual report was kept by the CIA; all additional copies and related material was tossed in the burn bag. If the hallucinogenic aerosol had been reliable or if the snipers at the University of Havana hadn't been grabbed by Castro's police, that last ribbon copy would have probably ended up in the incinerator. But Castro lived, and the CIA saw fit to release this report under the Historical Review Program. The report offers an interesting view of the assassination capers, although in places it is coated with saccharine naivete and dodges some very important questions. But first: the James Bond stuff. Making the Beard Fall Out Although some plots against Castro involved attempts on his life, several others were intended to make him discredit himself in public by influencing his behavior. One of the first methods the CIA considered for "getting rid" of Castro involved contaminating the air of the radio station where Castro broadcast his speeches with "an aerosol spray of a chemical that produces reactions similar to those of lysergic acid (LSD)." The idea was that Castro would flip and trip on the air, making a fool of himself via hallucinogen-inspired ranting. A member of the CIA's Technical Services Department (TSD) discouraged the scheme because they couldn't count on the chemical's effectiveness (IG's Report, p. 10). One can only wonder why they didn't just use some of the LSD which Eli Lilly Company offered to covertly manufacture for the CIA "in tonnage quantities" for use in their MKULTRA program. (3) Another member of the TSD cited in the Inspector General's report recalled experiments with "psychic energizers", although he could not link those experiments to plots against Castro (IG's Report, p. 11). One plan that came a bit closer to fruition was the Contaminated Cigar scheme, although it was aimed more at discrediting Castro than killing him. The CIA prepared a box of cigars that had been treated with "some sort of chemical." The cigars were probably "intended to produce temporary personality disorientation," according to the report. "The thought was to somehow contrive to have Castro smoke one before making a speech and then to make a public spectacle of himself." (IG's Report, p. 11) However, WH/4 Chief J. D. Esterline recalled that the contaminated cigars may have been associated with a scheme to make Castro's beard fall out. Esterline said the cigars were never used because "they could not figure out how to deliver them without danger of blowback on the Agency." Esterline destroyed the cigars in June 1961 (IG's Report, pp. 11-12). Another CIA plot to discredit Castro involved dusting "thallium powder into Castro's shoes when they were put out at night to be shined" during a trip he made outside Cuba. This diabolical plot co-incided with a Castro appearance on the David Susskind Show. (4) Thallium salts have depilatory effects; the CIA's plan was to "destroy Castro's image as 'The Beard' by causing the beard to fall out." The plan went as far as testing on animals, but it fell through when Castro didn't make the trip (IG's Report, page 13). The Plots to Kill Castro Get Nasty A more serious cigar scheme was recorded in a notation by Dr. Edward Gunn, Operations Division, Office of Medical Services, on 16 August 1960. He had "received a box of Cuban cigars to be treated with a lethal material. He understood them to be Fidel's favorite brand..." (IG Report, 21). A member of the Technical Services Department recalled contaminating "a full box of fifty cigars with botulinum toxin, a virulent poison that produces a fatal illness some hours after it is ingested." The TSD worker distinctly remembered "the flaps-and-seals job he had to do on the box and on each of the wrapped cigars, both to get at the cigars and to erase evidence of tampering." At the time of the Inspector General's report, one of the cigars was still in existence and when tested, the toxin was found to have retained 94% of its original effectiveness. "The cigars were so heavily contaminated that merely putting one in the mouth would do the job; the intended victim would not actually have to smoke it." (IG Report, pp. 21-22) In addition to the lethal cigars, other poisons and delivery methods were considered. Cornelius Roosevelt, Chief of TSD, recalled four possible approaches being considered: "(1) something highly toxic, such as shellfish poison to be administered with a pin...; (2) bacterial material in liquid form; (3) bacterial treatment of a cigarette or cigar; and (4) a handkerchief treated with bacteria. The decision, to the best of his recollection, was that bacteria in liquid form was the best means." A bacterial mickey was particularly well suited for slipping into Castro's tea, coffee or bouillon (IG Report, page 23-24). Ironically enough, slipping Castro a dose of botulin wasn't what the Agency originally had in mind when they started plotting with the Mafia to "whack" Castro. The CIA at first had envisioned "a typical, gangland-style killing in which Castro would be gunned down." But Sam Giancana "flatly opposed" a drive-by because it would be too hard to recruit assassins when their chances of survival and escape would be dim at best (IG Report, pp. 24-25). Instead, Giancana recommended a lethal pill which one of Joe Trafficante's Cuban contacts could slip into Castro's drink. The poison was to be "stable, soluble, safe to handle, undetectable, not immediately acting, and with a firmly predictable end result." (IG Report, p. 24) Again, the ever-useful botulin met all the requirements. But, gosh darn it, when Edward Gunn tested the pills in a glass of water, they "did not even disintegrate, let alone dissolve." Director of Security Sheffield Edwards instructed Gunn to make sure the pills were truly lethal and gave him money to run down to the pet store and buy some guinea pigs (IG Report, p. 25). The pigs survived the tests, but a member of TSD stated that the tests on guinea pigs were not valid because they had a high resistance to the toxin. He personally tested the toxin on monkeys and found it to be quite effective. The botulin pills were concealed inside a pencil and delivered to Mafioso Johnny Roselli, who in turn passed the pills to Mafia don Joe Trafficante, who delivered them to Juan Orta in Cuba, who was supposed to use them to poison Castro. However, Orta was fired from his position in the Prime Minister's office and ended up fleeing to Florida (IG Report, p. 28). The CIA and the gangsters found a replacement for Orta who made several more failed attempts to finish the job (IG Report, p. 29). After the Bay of Pigs invasion, the CIA had its hands full and put Castro assassination plots on the back burner for a year or so. Some plans were discussed, but according to the Inspector General's report, nothing was seriously put into motion until early 1963 (or possibly late in 1962). That was when the contaminated skin diving suit plan went into action. Death by Scuba Gear The skin diving suit was especially interesting, because it involved rather brazen interference with secret negotiations between Kennedy and Castro via New York attorney James Donovan. In 1962, Donovan and John Nolan, from Attorney General Robert Kennedy's office, had negotiated the return of the Bay of Pigs prisoners. In April 1963, Donovan and Nolan returned to Cuba for more negotiations, cracking open the door to normalization of relations between the U.S. and Castro's Cuba. (5) Needless to say, the CIA wasn't thrilled by the idea of normalizing relations, especially after being burned over the Bay of Pigs thing. Former CIA Chief James Angleton, for example, blamed Kennedy for the utter failure of the invasion. "The Bay of Pigs fiasco, which he tried to hang on the CIA and which led to the resignation of CIA Director Allen Dulles, was his own doing," according to Angleton. "I think the decision to withdraw air support of the invasion colored Kennedy's entire career and impacted on everything that followed." (6) In light of this resentment, it is very interesting to note the lengths to which the CIA was willing to go with their skin diving suit caper. The CIA knew Castro was a skin diving enthusiast, so they prepared a very special suit for him, dusting the inside with "a fungus that would produce a disabling and chronic skin disease (Madura foot)" and "contaminating the breathing apparatus with tubercle bacilli." The plan was to have Donovan present the skin diving suit as a gift to Castro. The CIA bought and prepared Castro's deadly present, but the plan was abandoned when it was "overtaken by events: Donovan had already given Castro a skin diving suit on his own initiative." (IG Report, p. 75) Now, think about this one for a minute. Any time the CIA engages in criminal activity, its charter dictates that it must do so under the condition of plausible deniability. (7) In other words, it's okay to kill people, just make sure the CIA's complicity cannot be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in a court of law. So by its very nature, the skin diving suit caper violated one of the CIA's prime directives, since it would take the Cubans about thirty seconds to figure out what happened to the Beard. If the suit was a gift from Donovan, Kennedy's middleman in discussions of normalization of relations between Cuba and America, then it stands to reason that negotiations would have broken down pretty quickly after that. Sparring Between the CIA and JFK Covert sparring between the CIA and the Kennedy administration didn't end there with the skin diving suit scheme. On September 5, 1963, thanks in part to the Donovan-Nolan negotiations, Cuban United Nations Ambassador Carlos Lechuga agreed to meet William Atwood, Special Advisor to the U.S. Delegation to the UN. Atwood was ordered to report directly to McGeorge Bundy at the White House; the CIA was not invited to participate. (8) Therefore it might be more than a coincidence that the CIA resumed contact with Rolando Cubela on September 7 to put another Castro assassination plot into motion. Cubela was a member of Castro's staff who the CIA had been in contact with since 1961. The plot that Cubela ended up participating in was a team of three snipers at the University of Havana. The scheme was foiled when Castro's security detail caught them red-handed. (9) Attorney General Robert Kennedy and almost certainly President Kennedy himself were aware of earlier assassination plots and hadn't done anything to stop the CIA from "sanctioning" Castro. But by October 1963, any assassination capers the CIA was planning were being conducted without the knowledge, and certainly without the approval, of the Kennedy administration. (10) This made the actions of Desmond FitzGerald, CIA special affairs staff chief, especially inappropriate. On October 11, headquarters got word that Cubela "was insistent upon meeting with a senior U.S. official, preferably Robert F. Kennedy" for assurance that the U.S. would support Cubela's activities against Castro. (IG Report, p. 87) Knowing there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell of that happening, FitzGerald himself met with Cubela on October 29, 1963, claiming to be a U.S. Senator representing Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He later provided Cubela with assassination equipment. (11) Five days earlier, President Kennedy had sent a personal message to Fidel Castro, and brother Robert had approved the Attwood initiative. (12) So at the same time that Kennedy was quietly conducting negotiations to normalize relations with Cuba which the CIA had been deliberately left out of, the CIA was continuing its own plans for Castro's death. On November 18, Attwood reported to Bundy that Lechuga would soon receive the agenda for a meeting with Attwood in Havana. (13) Four days later, Kennedy caught one in the head on Elm Street in Dallas. At that very moment, a CIA representative was meeting with Cubela in Paris. Upon hearing the news of the president's death, Cubela asked, "Why do such things happen to good people?" (IG Report, p. 94) Needless to say, the "normalization project" went downhill from there. Other Assassination Plots Against Castro At some time in 1963, Desmond FitzGerald came up with the idea of killing Castro with an explosives-rigged sea shell. "The idea was to take an unusually spectacular sea shell that would be certain to catch Castro's eye, load it with an explosive triggered to blow when the shell was lifted, and submerge it in an area where Castro often went skin diving." (IG Report, p. 77) Desmond ran down to the book store and bought two books on Caribbean Mollusca, and was disheartened to find that none of the shells indigenous to the Caribbean were spectacular enough to snare Castro's attention, nor were any of them large enough to hold a sufficient amount of explosive material. Furthermore, the midget submarine that would be needed to place the shell had too short an operating range for the operation (IG Report, p. 77). Had FitzGerald been reading too many Ian Fleming novels? It's been rumored that Fleming was actually consulted by the CIA to help develop a "final solution" to the "Castro problem." At any rate, the exploding cigar trick ended up on the drawing board, although it didn't leave the drawing board. The CIA also considered hiding a machine gun in a phony TV camera and riddling Castro with bullets. (14) Your tax dollars at work. To Be Continued... The Inspector General's Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro is a fascinating read. But the spy versus spy wackiness is just part of the fun. We also learn a great deal about the CIA's cooperation with the Mafia, which had been first documented by a Washington Post column written by Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson in 1967. Although parts were censored by the Post, this column still struck a nerve at the CIA. In fact, it was the Pearson/Anderson column that caused the Inspector General to call for a full report on plots to kill Castro. (14) These numerous, slimy CIA-Mafia connections have bred many conspiracy theories regarding the Kennedy assassination. The edges of the Inspector General's report are frayed, the events it documents pasted in from the fabric of reality, sans historical perspective. These frayed threads can be pieced back together with many plausible, but hitherto unproven, possibilities regarding JFK's death. The loose threads dangling from ZRRIFLE and other CIA assassination plots will continue to give conspiracy theorists much to discuss. But will we ever know for certain that there is a Castro/Kennedy assassination connection? As long as the covert side of the equation is able to preserve its chokehold on secret information, we simply won't know for sure. Sources (1) Scott, Peter Dale, The Inspector General's Report: An Introduction. Draft, University of California at Berkeley, 1994. (2) Ibid. (3) Lee, Martin A. and Shlain, Bruce, Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD, and the Sixties Rebellion. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1985, p. 27 (4) Moench, Doug, The Big Book of Conspiracies. New York: Paradox Press, 1995, p. 106 (5) Scott. (6) Heymann, C. David, "A Woman Named Jackie". New York: Signet, 1990, p. 386 (7) Scott. (8) Ibid. (9) Ibid. (10) Ibid. (11) Benson, Michael, Who's Who in the JFK Assassination: An A-to-Z Encyclopedia. New York: Citadel Press, 1993, p. 95. (12) Scott. (13) Scott. (14) Moench, p. 104-106. (15) Scott. © Copyright 2000 ParaScope, Inc.
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