Of all the bizarre, ridiculous, outrageous and scurrilous attempts by the CIA and others to kill Fidel Castro, there's one that strikes a chord for absurdity and ingenuity more than others.
Whether it's propaganda rubbish or legitimately true is up for debate, but it's something that would work excellently in a Roger Moore Bond movie.
Exploding seashells? Ridiculous, but not the most absurd for us. Fungal diving suit to cause a skin disease that will kill you. Almost a practical idea, that one. Getting a former mistress to slip him poisoned pills from her face cream. Didn't work. Furthermore, he then reportedly gave her the gun to kill him but she wouldn't go through with it. Poisonous pens, a radio station filled with LSD, yeah - all good ideas, but not the best.
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Here's a video explaining one of (many) attempts on his life.
Credit: Channel 4
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All of these concepts were either drawn up and binned, or actually carried out but didn't come to fruition. Fidel Castro was a modern-day Rasputin who, no matter how much the CIA or Cuban exiles tried, could not be brought down.
But the most ridiculous, creative and indeed inventive attempt to kill Fidel Castro, for me, was the time the CIA reportedly tried to slip him an exploding cigar.
Not this one. Credit: PA
The CIA was desperate to get rid of Castro and his communist mandate in Cuba with them on the doorstep of the USA while they were enduing a bitter Cold War with Russia. Such was their frenzied efforts to expedite Castro's demise that their ingenuity knew no bounds.
Under Eisenhower in the late 1950s and in the early stages of the Kennedy administration, it is claimed that a plan to hand Castro an exploding cigar was concocted.
Under operation Mongoose, lead by the United States Air Force after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the premise was to remove Castro at any cost. 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 and an exploding cigar was perhaps the most ridiculous of all of them.
This was supposed to happen in the early 1960s, and then again later in the 60s. As reported by Saturday Evening Post in 1967, it was claimed that a year earlier a CIA operative at the United Nations was working out a plan to slip the cigar into his supply.
In 1963 the ongoing 'plot' inspired the cover of Mad Magazine, and whether it is an urban myth or an actual attempt remains a debate to this day.
Credit: Mad Magazine
There's speculation that this was all bullshit, and that the CIA even encouraged the rumour because it was so ridiculous that it overshadowed all their underhand dealings during the period, but this is the same organisation that is widely believed to have had a hand in the assassination of JFK and, let's be honest, anything is possible. The seashell idea mentioned earlier was unveiled as a concept that the CIA never carried out during the Clinton administration, so an exploding cigar seems all the more plausible.
Although Fidel Castro has gone, he will never be forgotten, and his legacy, positive and/or negative, remains.
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Main credit: PA
Featured Image Credit:Topics: CIA, Conspiracy