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The United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made numerous unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. There were also attempts by Cuban exiles, sometimes in cooperation with the CIA. The 1975 Church Committee claimed eight proven CIA assassination
- Senior Reporter
- The Exploding Cigar. Perhaps the most famous attempt to kill Castro came in 1960 when the CIA poisoned a box of his favorite cigars. Just a year after Castro seized power, the agency spiked the cigars with a botulinum toxin strong enough to kill anybody who put one in their mouth.
- The Reluctant Cuban. Months earlier, at the end of President Dwight Eisenhower's term, the CIA used a series of middlemen to enlist two gangsters to help with Castro's removal.
- The Painted Seashell. Undeterred, the CIA tried an even more elaborate plan in 1963. Intelligence officials thought they could use Castro's love of scuba-diving to topple him.
- The Contaminated Diving Suit. The same year, the CIA planned to contaminate one of Castro's diving suits with a fungus that would produce a chronic and debilitating skin disease.
- Exploding Cigar. Where: New York. When: 1966. Who: Police officer. How: A newspaper reported in 1967 that a year earlier the CIA had approached a New York City police officer with the idea of slipping Castro a cigar packed with enough explosives to take his head off.
- Mafia ice cream surprise. Where: Havana. When: 1961. Who: Waiter. How: Castro loved ice cream as he loved cigars, and the CIA hit upon a plan to poison his dessert.
- Exploding seashell. Where: Under the sea. When: 1963. Who: A Commie-hating mollusc. How: Castro loved diving as he loved cigars and ice cream, and the CIA looked into the idea of luring him to his doom with a large, brightly painted sea shell packed with explosives.
- Flesh-eating wetsuit. Where: Under the sea, slowly. When: 1961. Who: Lawyer. How: This plan got quite far. The gadgets arm of the CIA dusted the inside of a diving suit with fungus that caused a chronic skin disease, and put tuberculosis in the breathing apparatus.
Mar 29, 2023 · Although assassinating Castro was ruled out during initial discussions, several assassination attempts on Fidel Castro organized by the CIA ensued. A portion of Phase II in Operation Mongoose called Stepped Up Course B considered assassinating Castro along with other high-ranking members of the regime, but it was never made an official record.
May 4, 2021 · New details of the first CIA attempt to kill the Castros — a 1960 plot against Raúl — have recently emerged. AP. Exploding cigars. Poisoned pens. Booby-trapped seashells. These were just a...
Castro, who reenacted the assassina-tion and wrongly concluded Oswald’s rifle was incapable of firing that many shots in so brief a time, knew more than he told, and the question in the mind of author and former National Intelligence Officer for Latin America Brian Latell is how much more.
For almost 50 years, Fidel Castro has relished telling audiences large and small of the hundreds of assassination attempts he has survived. Most recently, in June 2005, he regaled a crowd in a Venezuelan port city, saying it may have been the only time he has traveled abroad when there was no plan afoot to kill him.
