The world, 1959 - The Cold War with the Soviet Union is on. Revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro take over a small island nation 90 miles from our shores. The CIA-hatched Bay of Pigs fiasco of 1961 was designed to topple the Castro regime. Poorly designed, based on false assumptions - that Cuban masses would rally to aid the counter-revolutionaries - incompetently executed, hampered by bad weather and Castro's advance knowledge of the "secret" plan, the hare-brained operation collapsed in three days.
American responsibility for the plan drove Castro further into the arms of the Soviet Union. A communist nation 90 miles from our shore was seen as a base from which communism could be exported to the western hemisphere. Castro, the bearded one, must go. Leave it to the spooks and gumshoes of the CIA.
Assassination of foreign political figures is against the United Nations Charter. The "solution" to that minor glitch is a time-honored tactic - deny it.
Nobody knows for sure the number of attempts on the life of the bearded one by the CIA and Cuban exiles. The man responsible for protecting Castro, Fabian Escalante, claims there were more than 600 plots and conspiracies designed to end Castro's life.
Everybody knows that powerful men - business tycoons, athletes, high-level politicians - manage to surround themselves with hot, sexy women. So let's get one of his gorgeous mistresses to do the job.
Marita Lorenz allegedly accepted a deal from the CIA. She would feed Castro poisoned capsules smuggled into his bedroom via her jar of cold cream. The pills dissolved in the cream. She doubted that she could convince Castro to eat face cream. According to Lorenz, Castro figured out her plan, offered her his gun with which to shoot him. She declined. Subsequent acts between the two are undocumented.
Castro enjoyed scuba diving. The CIA concocted a plan to offer Castro a wetsuit lined with spores and bacteria that would give him a skin disease. An American lawyer would present Castro with the wetsuit when he went to negotiate the release of Bay of Pigs prisoners. A 1975 AP report said the plan was abandoned "because Donovan gave Castro a different wetsuit on his own initiative."
How about an explosive conch shell? The CIA planned to plant an explosive shell, brightly colored to attract Castro's attention, drawing him close enough to kill him when the bomb went off. Why that scheme failed is unclear.
How about an ordinary-looking pen, rigged with a hypodermic needle so fine that Castro wouldn't notice when someone bumped into him with the pen injected with potent poison? That plan obviously never came to fruition.
The CIA figured that that the loss of his beard would show Cubans that Castro was weak and fallible. How about placing thallium salt, a product causing loss of hair, in Castro's shoes, or in his cigar? The plan never materialized.
The CIA allegedly considered giving Castro a handkerchief laced with harmful bacteria and toxins.
According to Sr. Escalante, the closest the CIA came to kill Castro was a poisoned milkshake in 1963. The plot failed when the poisoned pill stuck to the freezer. When the waiter-assassin at the Havana Hilton tried to unstick it, the pill ripped open.
Hey, if you can't kill him, maybe you can discredit him. If a radio station where Castro was broadcasting were sprayed with an aerosol containing a substance similar to LSD, Castro would freak out live on the air. The episode would cause Cubans to mistrust him.
Then there was the exploding cigar ruse. The Saturday Evening Post reported that a New York City police officer had been propositioned with the idea of a cigar packed with explosives. It was to be carried out during Castro's United Nations visit in September 1960. Apparently, the officer declined the proposition.
But maybe spiking his smokes might yet work. The CIA allegedly recruited a double agent who would slip Castro a cigar filled with a poison that would take care of him in short order. Like Ms. Lorenz, the double agent, allegedly given the cigars, got cold feet and failed to execute the plan.
If these Keystone Cops and Three Stooges ploys were tried, it must be because the CIA and Cuban exiles were desperate. Attempts using real pros, mobsters Johnny Roselli, Salvatore Giancana, and Santo Trafficante, had failed prior to the Bay of Pigs.
In September 1960, Giancana and Trafficante, both on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, were indirectly contacted by the CIA regarding interest in the job. Roselli was used to get access to Mafia bosses. One story is that Roselli was offered $150,000 for the job.
Declassified CIA documents don't reveal whether Roselli, Giancana, or Trafficante accepted down payments on the job. But files reveal it was Giancana who suggested poison pills for Castro's food and drink. These pills were given to Giancana's nominee, Juan Orta, who had access to Castro. After several unsuccessful attempts, Orta wanted out of the mission.
A successor, Dr. Anthony Verona, leader of the Cuban Exile Junta, according to Trafficante, became "disaffected with the apparent ineffectual progress of the Junta." Verona requested $10,000 in expenses plus communications equipment to do the job. Progress on this assassination attempt is unknown as it was dropped due to launching of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs Invasion.
In 1975, Idaho's Senator Frank Church convened the "Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities." The Committee substantiated eight attempts to assassinate Castro, and the tactic of "plausible deniability," CIA subordinates deliberately shielding higher ranking officials from responsibility by withholding full information about planned assassinations.
The committee recommended that Congress develop a statute to eradicate such practices. It was never introduced. President Gerald Ford in 1977 signed Executive Order 11,905 stating that "No employee of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire in, political assassination."
Really.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
American responsibility for the plan drove Castro further into the arms of the Soviet Union. A communist nation 90 miles from our shore was seen as a base from which communism could be exported to the western hemisphere. Castro, the bearded one, must go. Leave it to the spooks and gumshoes of the CIA.
Assassination of foreign political figures is against the United Nations Charter. The "solution" to that minor glitch is a time-honored tactic - deny it.
Nobody knows for sure the number of attempts on the life of the bearded one by the CIA and Cuban exiles. The man responsible for protecting Castro, Fabian Escalante, claims there were more than 600 plots and conspiracies designed to end Castro's life.
Everybody knows that powerful men - business tycoons, athletes, high-level politicians - manage to surround themselves with hot, sexy women. So let's get one of his gorgeous mistresses to do the job.
Marita Lorenz allegedly accepted a deal from the CIA. She would feed Castro poisoned capsules smuggled into his bedroom via her jar of cold cream. The pills dissolved in the cream. She doubted that she could convince Castro to eat face cream. According to Lorenz, Castro figured out her plan, offered her his gun with which to shoot him. She declined. Subsequent acts between the two are undocumented.
Castro enjoyed scuba diving. The CIA concocted a plan to offer Castro a wetsuit lined with spores and bacteria that would give him a skin disease. An American lawyer would present Castro with the wetsuit when he went to negotiate the release of Bay of Pigs prisoners. A 1975 AP report said the plan was abandoned "because Donovan gave Castro a different wetsuit on his own initiative."
How about an explosive conch shell? The CIA planned to plant an explosive shell, brightly colored to attract Castro's attention, drawing him close enough to kill him when the bomb went off. Why that scheme failed is unclear.
How about an ordinary-looking pen, rigged with a hypodermic needle so fine that Castro wouldn't notice when someone bumped into him with the pen injected with potent poison? That plan obviously never came to fruition.
The CIA figured that that the loss of his beard would show Cubans that Castro was weak and fallible. How about placing thallium salt, a product causing loss of hair, in Castro's shoes, or in his cigar? The plan never materialized.
The CIA allegedly considered giving Castro a handkerchief laced with harmful bacteria and toxins.
According to Sr. Escalante, the closest the CIA came to kill Castro was a poisoned milkshake in 1963. The plot failed when the poisoned pill stuck to the freezer. When the waiter-assassin at the Havana Hilton tried to unstick it, the pill ripped open.
Hey, if you can't kill him, maybe you can discredit him. If a radio station where Castro was broadcasting were sprayed with an aerosol containing a substance similar to LSD, Castro would freak out live on the air. The episode would cause Cubans to mistrust him.
Then there was the exploding cigar ruse. The Saturday Evening Post reported that a New York City police officer had been propositioned with the idea of a cigar packed with explosives. It was to be carried out during Castro's United Nations visit in September 1960. Apparently, the officer declined the proposition.
But maybe spiking his smokes might yet work. The CIA allegedly recruited a double agent who would slip Castro a cigar filled with a poison that would take care of him in short order. Like Ms. Lorenz, the double agent, allegedly given the cigars, got cold feet and failed to execute the plan.
If these Keystone Cops and Three Stooges ploys were tried, it must be because the CIA and Cuban exiles were desperate. Attempts using real pros, mobsters Johnny Roselli, Salvatore Giancana, and Santo Trafficante, had failed prior to the Bay of Pigs.
In September 1960, Giancana and Trafficante, both on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, were indirectly contacted by the CIA regarding interest in the job. Roselli was used to get access to Mafia bosses. One story is that Roselli was offered $150,000 for the job.
Declassified CIA documents don't reveal whether Roselli, Giancana, or Trafficante accepted down payments on the job. But files reveal it was Giancana who suggested poison pills for Castro's food and drink. These pills were given to Giancana's nominee, Juan Orta, who had access to Castro. After several unsuccessful attempts, Orta wanted out of the mission.
A successor, Dr. Anthony Verona, leader of the Cuban Exile Junta, according to Trafficante, became "disaffected with the apparent ineffectual progress of the Junta." Verona requested $10,000 in expenses plus communications equipment to do the job. Progress on this assassination attempt is unknown as it was dropped due to launching of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs Invasion.
In 1975, Idaho's Senator Frank Church convened the "Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities." The Committee substantiated eight attempts to assassinate Castro, and the tactic of "plausible deniability," CIA subordinates deliberately shielding higher ranking officials from responsibility by withholding full information about planned assassinations.
The committee recommended that Congress develop a statute to eradicate such practices. It was never introduced. President Gerald Ford in 1977 signed Executive Order 11,905 stating that "No employee of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire in, political assassination."
Really.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
