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The CIA And Others Reportedly Tried To Kill Fidel Castro 638 Times

The CIA And Others Reportedly Tried To Kill Fidel Castro 638 Times

El Commandante wasn’t having any of it.

Mark McGowan

Mark McGowan

Iconic freedom fighter. A terrorist murderer. Perhaps both? No matter what your opinion is, there's no doubting that Fidel Castro, the former leader of the Communist Party in Cuba, is a divisive character globally and his death is a symbolic end of an era. He passed away this morning, aged 90, which we found out when his brother Raul addressed the nation.

Castro and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev hug at the United Nations. Credit: PA

There are conspiracy theories, and there are legitimate concepts and actual reported facts. There is no doubt that the CIA, in the height of the Cold War and throughout its standoff with the Russians and with the Cubans as a valuable ally, would have wanted Fidel Castro dead. But of course they weren't the only ones, including numerous factions within Cuba, too.

There were so many attempts that Channel 4 did a documentary film on it called 638 Ways To Kill Castro. Here's a clip of one attempt on his life when, on a plane on the way to visiting President Jimmy Carter, he was asked if he always wore a bullet proof vest, to which he replied: "I have a moral vest" and showed his bare chest. After getting off the plane, however, there was indeed an assassination attempt against him. Before this he also mentions the Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 plane going down, which he blamed on the CIA.

Credit: Channel 4

Luis Posada, a former CIA operative, who will be mentioned later in this article, was in jail in Texas in 2010 for the act after facing extradition to Cuba and Venezuela for it (obviously over 30 years later). He was found not guilty on all charges.

So, back to 638 times.

There seems to be a bit of truth to that number. Fabian Escalante, whose sole job was to keep Castro alive, calculated the figure. There's probably some hyperbole attached to this, but it adds to the mystery and intrigue of the longest running dictator in history.

Credit: PA

Among them, an exploding cigar seem the most implausible and ridiculous, like something out of a Bond movie, but it was indeed one way that the CIA reportedly tried to kill him. Another way they thought to do away with him was with an exploding sea shell because they knew he loved to dive off the Cuban coast. They thought they could paint a shell colourful enough to catch his attention and he would swim to it. This concept never left CIA Headquarters, however, and the information was released under the Clinton administration. All this kind of lateral thinking must have given Ian Fleming so much inspiration.

The CIA also supposedly got his former mistress Marita Lorenz to try and poison him. She put the pills in her cream and ultimately decided shoving these in his mouth as he slept was a bad idea.

For God's sake, there was even an operation in the 1960s called Operation Mongoose, with the main aim of the US to overthrow Castro by any means and developed under the first year of the Kennedy administration. Lead by the United States Air Force after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, it was all about removing communism from Cuba. Remember McCarthyism was still in its halcyon days and the very mention of the 'C' word invoked fear in the States right up to the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. The desperation to rid communism from its doorsteps verged on desperation during this period.

Credit: PA

Fast forward, and in 2000, one of the more recent attempts, Castro visited Panama and explosives were put under the stage where he would be talking. His security did a sweep and foiled the plot. Luis Posada, mentioned earlier, was jailed along with three other men, but later pardoned and released. There appears to be a lot of diplomacy involved when it comes to him.

Luis Posada.

Cuban born Posada is now 88 and enjoying his freedom.

It's quite hard to distinguish the truth from the fanciful, to the sublime and the ridiculous, but yeah, let's keep the myth going and say it was 638 times.

He has survived so much that even Rasputin would be proud. Although Fidel Castro has gone, he will never be forgotten, and his legacy, positive and/or negative, remains.

Featured Image Credit:

Topics: CIA, united states