(Newswire.net — November 27, 2016) — Despite numerous assassination plots, which biographers claim that there have been more than 600, Fidel Castro died of old age at 90. He survived the CIA, the Mafia, LSD, exploding cigars and a femme fatale.
CIA documents, released in 2007, confirmed there had been numerous assassination plots against Castro since he seized power over Cuba by leading a revolution and pushing the Americans off of this small Caribbean island.
Nicknamed “El Comandante” by loving supporters, Fidel Castro established communism and developed a relationship with the Soviet Union. Being close to Florida, it was pain in the neck to JFK’s administration, especially during the “Cuban missile crisis” when the Soviets delivered ballistic missiles to the island.
This nearly led to a U.S. invasion of Cuba and the eminent threat of a nuclear war between the USSR and the United States. The Soviets finally removed the missiles and the crisis dissolved, leaving Cuba in isolation that has lasted more than half a century. This also made Fidel Castro the ultimate enemy of the United States who has tried to end his life numerous times.
“If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal,” was one of Castro’s most famous quotes. According to the article published by Russia Today News, Cuba’s ex-intelligence chief Fabian Escalante – the person tasked with guarding Fidel’s life – claimed the father of the Cuban revolution survived an unbelievable 638 assassination attempts.
These are some of the most dramatic assassination plots confirmed after the CIA lifted the veil of secrecy off of the 50 year old documents.
Among the declassified CIA documents released in 2007 was a secret operation called ‘Family Jewels’. It was a plot to use the Mafia to assassinate Castro.
The documents say that in the summer of 1960, the CIA recruited former FBI agent Robert Maheu to establish a ‘bridge’ between the CIA and the Mafia. He connected with two prominent Italian mobsters on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List – Santo Trafficante of the Miami Syndicate, and Salvatore Giancana – Al Capone’s successor in Chicago.
They each received $150,000 for the ‘job’ and poisoned pills were the assassination method. However, getting close to Castro was unsuccessful. The documents say that the CIA agents managed to retrieve all six poison pills and all was later scrapped in the run-up to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.
According to documents, the closest the Americans got to killing Castro was with a poisoned chocolate milkshake, Escalante told Reuters. The poison was smuggled in an aspirin pack and the idea was to use an agent disguised as waiter to put the poison in Castro’s Milkshake and chocolate. The assassination failed as the poison pill got stuck in the freezer – where it was hidden – and broke apart when the assassin attempted to use it.
Among the most interesting ways the CIA came up with to discredit Castro was contaminating a whole broadcast studio with LSD prior to El Comandante’s arrival. The idea was to have Castro burst into laughter during a televised interview, and present him as a drug abuser not fit for presidency. The idea was never executed.
Additional reports of some of the CIA’s more ingenious plans to eliminate Castro get very creative and include Tuberculosis-laced scuba gear that followed an exploding sea shell, to Agent 007 types of plots such as exploding cigars, but in this instant, the double agent changed his mind last minute.
According to some, the CIA realized that poison was the best option and they only needed to figure out how to approach Castro. The task was given to one of Castro’s many lovers – CIA informant Marita Lorenz.
According to the documents, she was angry at Castro for his negligence towards her that she willingly agreed to assassinate him. She met with CIA double agent Frank Sturgis in 1960, who had handed her the poison pills.
When it came time to deliver the poison in Castro’s beverage, Lorenz changed her mind. According to Ann Louise Bardach’s ‘Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana’, Lorenz later told her that Castro figured out of the plot, and handed Lorenz the gun in his hand.
“Did you come to kill me?” Lorenz tells Bardach Castro said to her. Then he allegedly handed her the gun and puffed on his cigar with his eyes closed, she said.
“He made himself vulnerable because he knew I couldn’t do it. He still loved me and I still loved him,” Lorenz said.
Lorenz never again met with Castro.
Fidel Castro died of old age some 8 years after he passed the presidency of Cuba to his brother, Raul. While most of the world saw him as a freedom fighter, however, some celebrated the death of a dictator. As Mr Obama said after Castro’s death, “history will judge” who El Comandante really was.