Castro quote: “If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal.”
The United States’ Central Intelligence Agency made many attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro during his time as the President of Cuba. All the attempts on Fidel Castro’s life failed.
Following World War II, the United States became secretly engaged in a practice of international political assassinations and attempts on foreign leaders. For a considerable period of time, the U.S. Government officials vehemently denied any knowledge of this program since it would be against the United Nations Charter. On March 5, 1972, Richard Helms, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director, declared that, “no such activity or operations be undertaken, assisted, or suggested by any of our personnel.” In 1975, the U.S. Senate convened the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. It was chaired by the Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho). The Church Committee uncovered that CIA and other governmental agencies employed a so-called tactic of “plausible deniability” during decision-making related to assassinations. CIA subordinates were deliberately shielding the higher-ranking officials from any responsibility by withholding full amount of information about planned assassinations. Government employees were obtaining tacit approval of their acts by using euphemisms and sly wording in communications.
Early attempts
According to CIA Director Richard Helms, Kennedy Administration officials exerted a heavy pressure on the CIA to “get rid of Castro.” It explains a staggering number of assassination plots, aiming at creating a favorable impression on President John F. Kennedy. There were five phases in the assassination attempts, with planning involving the CIA, the Department of Defense, and the State Department:
Prior to August 1960
August 1960 to April 1961
April 1961 to late 1961
Late 1961 to late 1962
Late 1962 to late 1963
Mafia engagement
According to the CIA documents, the so-called Family Jewels that were declassified in 2007, one assassination attempt on Fidel Castro prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion involved noted American mobsters Johnny Roselli, Salvatore Giancana and Santo Trafficante.
In September 1960, Momo Salvatore Giancana, a successor of Al Capone’s in the Chicago Outfit, and Miami Syndicate leader Santo Trafficante, who were both on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list at that time, were indirectly contacted by the CIA about the possibility of Fidel Castro assassination. Johnny Roselli, a member of the Las Vegas Syndicate, was used to get access to Mafia bosses. The go-between from the CIA was Robert Maheu, who introduced himself as a representative of several international businesses in Cuba that were expropriated by Castro. On September 14, 1960, Maheu met with Roselli in a New York City hotel and offered him US$150,000 for the “removal” of Castro. James O’Connell, who identified himself as Maheu’s associate but who actually was the chief of the CIA’s operational support division, was present during the meeting. The declassified documents did not reveal if Roselli, Giancana or Trafficante accepted a down payment for the job. According to the CIA files, it was Giancana who suggested poison pills as a means to doctor Castro’s food or drinks. Such pills, manufactured by the CIA’s Technical Services Division, were given to Giancana’s nominee named Juan Orta. Giancana recommended Orta as being an official in the Cuban government, who had access to Castro.
Allegedly, after several unsuccessful attempts to introduce the poison into Castro’s food, Orta abruptly demanded to be let out of the mission, handing over the job to another unnamed participant. Later, a second attempt was mounted through Giancana and Trafficante using Dr. Anthony Verona, the leader of the Cuban Exile Junta, who had, according to Trafficante, become “disaffected with the apparent ineffectual progress of the Junta”. Verona requested US$10,000 in expenses and US$1,000 worth of communications equipment. However, it is unknown how far the second attempt went, as the assassination attempt was canceled due to the launching of the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Later attempts
The Church Committee stated that it substantiated eight attempts by the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1960–1965. Fabián Escalante, a retired chief of Cuba’s counterintelligence, who had been tasked with protecting Castro, estimated the number of assassination schemes or actual attempts by the Central Intelligence Agency to be 638, and split them among U.S. administrations as follows:
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1959–1961): 38
John F. Kennedy (1961–1963): 42
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969): 72
Richard Nixon (1969–1974): 184
Jimmy Carter (1977–1981): 64
Ronald Reagan (1981–1989): 197
George H. W. Bush (1989–1993): 16
Bill Clinton (1993–2000): 21
Some of them were a part of the covert CIA program dubbed Operation Mongoose aimed at toppling the Cuban government. The assassination attempts reportedly included cigars poisoned with botulinum toxin, a tubercle bacilli-infected scuba-diving suit along with a booby-trapped conch placed on the sea bottom, an exploding cigar (Castro loved cigars and scuba diving, but he quit smoking in 1985), a ballpoint pen containing a hypodermic syringe preloaded with the lethal concoction “Blackleaf 40”, and plain, mafia-style execution endeavors, among others. There were plans to blow up Castro during his visit to Ernest Hemingway’s museum in Cuba.
Some of the plots were depicted in a documentary film entitled 638 Ways to Kill Castro (2006) aired on Channel 4 of the British public-service television. One of these attempts was by his ex-lover Marita Lorenz, whom he met in 1959. She agreed to aid the CIA and attempted to smuggle a jar of cold cream containing poison pills into his room. When Castro learned about her intentions, he reportedly gave her a gun and told her to kill him but her nerves failed. Some plots aimed not at murder but at character assassination; they, for example, involved using thallium salts to destroy Castro’s famous beard, or lacing his radio studio with LSD to cause him disorientation during the broadcast and damage his public image. The last documented attempt on Castro life was in 2000, and involved placing 90 kg of explosives under a podium in Panama where he would give a talk. The plot was organized by CIA and foiled by Castro’s security team.
Castro once said, in regards to the numerous attempts on his life he believed had been made, “If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal.”
Repercussions
Besides attempts on Fidel Castro, the CIA has been accused of involvements in the assassination of such foreign leaders as Rafael Trujillo, Patrice Lumumba and Ngo Dinh Diem. The Church Committee rejected political assassination as a foreign policy tool and declared that it was “incompatible with American principle, international order, and morality.” It recommended Congress to consider developing a statute to eradicate such or similar practices, which was never introduced. Instead, President Gerald Ford signed in 1976 an Executive Order 11905, which stated that, “No employee of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire in, political assassination.”
Stubbs (April 12, 1997 – July 21, 2017) was a cat who was the honorary mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska, from July 18, 1997, until his death.
Stubbs was described as a tourist attraction, having been flooded with cards and letters, and drawing 30 to 40 tourists each day (most of whom were en route to other Alaska destinations, such as Denali) who hoped to meet “the mayor”. His position was honorary, as the town is only a historic district.
Every afternoon, Stubbs went to a nearby restaurant and drank water laced with catnip out of a wineglass or a margarita glass.
Stubbs died in 2017 at the age of 20.
In 1997, Lauri Stec, manager of Nagley’s General Store, found Stubbs in a box full of kittens in her parking lot. The owners were giving the kittens away; Stec chose “Stubbs” because he did not have a tail.
Stubbs was widely described as having been elected after a write-in campaign by voters who opposed the human candidates, but NPR pointed out that this could not have happened because “the tiny town has no real mayor, so there was no election.” Nagley’s General Store was used as Stubbs’s “mayoral office” during his tenure.
Stubbs was featured in an effort to protest the 2014 United States Senate election in Alaska when people urged voters to write Stubbs in on the ballot. Stubbs was featured in a video criticizing both the Democratic and Republican candidates for Senate.
One opinion writer for the Alaska Dispatch News insisted that the whole story was false, and that Talkeetna did not have a cat mayor.
In 2015, Stubbs was growing older and thus slowed down his public presence. He died on July 21, 2017. His owners said that “He was a trouper until the end of his life.” Stubbs lived to the age of 20 years and three months.
Stubbs’s owners have suggested that another family cat, Denali, may assume Talkeetna’s “mayoralty”.
Injuries On August 31, 2013, Stubbs was attacked by a dog. He was placed under heavy sedation at a veterinary hospital 70 miles (110 km) away in Wasilla, having suffered a punctured lung, a fractured sternum, and a deep cut in his side. A crowd-funding page was set up to help pay his veterinary bills. Stubbs remained in the veterinary hospital for nine days before returning to the upstairs room of the general store. As a result, he was discouraged from roaming. Donations toward his care were received from around the world; the surplus was given to an animal shelter and to the local veterinary clinic.
Other incidents included Stubbs being shot by teenagers with BB guns, falling into a restaurant’s deep fryer (which was switched off and cool at the time), and hitching a ride to the outskirts of Talkeetna on a garbage truck.
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