For over four decades, Fidel Castro remained one of the most resilient and polarizing figures of the Cold War era. Having overthrown US-backed Fulgencio Batista and survived the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, Castro defied American influence. Beyond economic sanctions and political battles, assassination attempts marked the fears of the Cold War and the strong sense of desperation, as these plots became increasingly reckless.
Fidel Castro’s rise to power had been closely monitored by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since 1948; they suspected that he was a communist. Although unable to discover hard evidence, the CIA believed Castro’s close confidants, such as Che Guevara, had communist tendencies. Official reports in March 1960 states that the US government were already “call[ing] for the displacement of Fidel Castro”, though plans remained at the highest levels of secrecy due to the fear of repercussions from the United Nations.
In that same month, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a CIA paper titled A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime. The origins of Operation Mongoose were characterised by many petty actions, from broadcasting anti-Castro messages all over Latin America to attempting to sabotage Castro’s public speeches. The schemes set up under this project attempted to discredit Castro and lower his popularity by degrading his appearance and behaviour. One plan was to spray his broadcast studio with a chemical aerosol that “produces reactions similar to those of lysergic acid (LSD)”. This was cancelled because the chemical was not reliably effective. Instead, the agency turned to contaminating cigars which were treated with a chemical intended to induce “temporary personality disorientation”. Another plan was to line his shoes with thallium salts that would cause his beard to fall out during a trip outside Cuba. Plans were abandoned because Castro cancelled the trip.
After the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961 under the new John F. Kennedy administration, Kennedy authorized the extension of his predecessor’s plans and renamed the campaign Operation Mongoose. There were 32 tasks or plans considered under Operation Mongoose, since there were 33 living species of mongooses accepted at the time. Plans included war crimes, chemical warfare to destroy Cuban sugar crops, and the mining of harbours. The most prominent of those plans to undermine the regime were plots conceived to assassinate Fidel Castro; these were considered from 1961 to as late as 1975. These assassinations, floated by the CIA during Operation Mongoose, could be broadly grouped into three categories: poisoning, explosions, and psychological sabotage.
The first CIA-backed plot involved a partnership with “gambling syndicate contacts” in late 1960, to assassinate Castro using botulin pills that would dissolve in drinks. This failed because the associates were unable to access Castro, and the plan was soon cancelled after the Bay of Pigs as he no longer went to that restaurant where the pill was supposed to be administered. The poisoning schemes proposed in Operation Mongoose then became more explicit, which in 1961 targeted Castro’s obsession with dairy products, in particular, ice cream. During the American trade embargo, Castro sent his ambassador to Canada to purchase 28 containers of ice cream from Howard Johnson’s, the largest restaurant chain in the US at that time. Castro was reported to have ordered a chocolate milkshake from the Havana Libre Hotel every day. A pill containing botulinum toxin was given to a waiter, so that it would be put into Castro’s milkshake. However, the pill was stored improperly and broke as it froze in the hotel’s freezer, and so the plan was aborted.
Deeming poison unreliable, the CIA turned to explosives. Having failed to poison cigars with botulinum toxins earlier in 1960, a plan was allegedly drawn up to use Castro’s love of cigars by supplying him with a lethal “exploding cigar”. This was one of the best-known plots, though not mentioned in CIA official reports. The plot was however popularised by magazines in October 1963 and featured on the poster of the documentary 638 Ways to Kill Castro representing the CIA’s efforts to depose Castro. What was officially reported, however, was one that involved an explosive-filled seashell that would be placed in an area where Castro often went skin diving. CIA Task Force W explored this possibility in early 1963 to determine whether the exotic seashell plan was worthwhile but later discarded it due to “impracticalities”.
Relating to Castro’s hobby of scuba diving, a second plan was drawn up involving a contaminated diving suit. The diving suit, as well as breathing apparatus, was meant to be given to Castro by James Donovan, who was negotiating with Castro for the release of prisoners taken during the Bay of Pigs operation. Donovan was never aware of the plan, and the original design was for him to unwittingly hand over the diving suit laced with tuberculosis bacteria. In April 1963, Donovan went diving with Castro, but the suit Castro was wearing was not contaminated with anything. Later reports claim that the Technical Services Division bought a diving suit and indeed contaminated the breathing apparatus with TB, and even dusted the inside of the suit with a “fungus that would produce chronic skin disease”. The plan was reported to have been aborted because Donovan gave Castro a different suit on “his own initiative”, while the laced suit never left the CIA labs; Richard Helms, the director of the CIA from 1966, said the plan was “cockeyed”.
Out of the alleged 638 assassination plots on Castro, none succeeded their mission. It is difficult to picture that the laced diving suit attempt was perhaps one of the closer plots to success, but factors such as Castro’s intelligence, the CIA’s own mistakes and political backlash do explain the failure of many of these attempts. The Cuban Intelligence (Dirección de Inteligencia, DI) was founded in late 1961 and was soon integrated into the Ministry of the Interior. This created a streamlined command chain from the highest levels of government and aligned the strategic priorities of both Castro and the DI. Many anti-Castro exile groups in the US were infiltrated by double agents trained by the DI, who leaked CIA plans back to Havana known as ‘la red avispa’, or the wasp network. Notable examples of espionage emerged later such as that of Ana Belén Montes, who acted as a senior analyst at the Defence Intelligence Agency in the US. For 17 years, she presented the DI with details on US military activities and threats to the regime. Cuban counterintelligence was therefore a key factor to the failure of most plans which were put to action but intercepted early by DI agents.
Most of the plots of the CIA were aborted without any action, simply because of overcomplication and impracticalities. Plans that involved Cuban operatives were often unreliable because of Cuban counterintelligence and caused last-minute failures. However, other failures were arguably just due to bad luck, such as the poison pills breaking in the freezer, or Donovan’s aesthetic preferences. But what some of the seemingly absurd plans point to is the complex political reality of the Cold War. Direct sabotage and detectable assassination risked provoking the Soviet Union, while the Task Force itself was trying to keep the plots from being known within and outside the CIA. In November 1975, the Church Committee’s report on government operations, especially attempts to depose leaders such as Castro led to bans on assassinations of world leaders. Under such political realities, further assassination attempts were much less successful in general.
Despite the repeated failures, the CIA’s attempts and obsession with killing Castro only added to his myth, strengthening his public image both in Cuba and around the world as a symbol against US interventionism. Castro mocked CIA’s plots in speeches, most famously saying:
“If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal.”
The assassination attempts contributed to a deep mistrust between the US and Cuba, which prevented reconciliation for decades. Used by Castro as material for propaganda, the Cuban government strengthened ties with the Soviet Union and increased Cold War tensions. Meanwhile, the Church Committee investigations led to stricter oversight and significant damage to the CIA’s reputation by pushing for banning US involvement in assassinations. The CIA’s fixation on deposing Castro seemed more than eliminating a political rival, but rather to maintain American dominance during the Cold War. Each failed attempt, however, strengthened Castro’s grip on power, making him a symbol of defiance. In the end, the CIA could not do what time did, and Castro passed away peacefully in 2016. For him, survival was the best form of resistance to the numerous attempts on his life and career.
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Bibliography:
Central Intelligence Agency. (1999). Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro. CIA Historical Review Program. Available at: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=9983#
Exec. Order No. 11,905, 41 F.R. p.7733 (1976). https://www.federalregister.gov/executive-order/11905
Kirkpatrick, L. Central Intelligence Agency. (1997). Inspector General’s Survey of the Cuban Operation and Associated Documents. CIA Historical Review Program. Available at: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB341/IGrpt1.pdf
Pfeiffer, J. Central Intelligence Agency. (1998). The Bay of Pigs Operation: Evolution of CIA’s Anti-Castro Policies, 1950-January 1961. Villanova, PA; Villanova University. Available at: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/bop-vol3.pdf
Schlesinger Jr, A. (1961). Memorandum for Richard Goodwin, “Cuban Covert Plan”. Washington, D.C. The National Security Archive. Available at: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/19614-national-security-archive-doc-03-white-house
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