SoHum Parlance

As the speculation continues to grow as to Cuba's future, one of the perennial topics of foreign policy discourse has been Castro's longevity in power despite an onslaught of overt and covert aggression against him, including the fame Operation Mongoose. If this history is any indication, part of the answer may be the braintrust that was in charge of the operations from the beginning.

I've summarized the history that can be found in the Disinformation Book of Lists by Russ Kick. It is actually only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

In 1967, the Inspector General of the CIA issued the "Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro," a detailed rundown of the officially recognized attempts to kill or otherwise neutralize Castro. It was finally declassified and released pursuant to what's left of the FOIA in 1993. Certain portions were redacted. Mind you, this is only what is contained in the report that they released. Anything in quotations is from the report verbatim.

1. Dosing

The report describes a "scheme to contaminate the air of the radio station where Castro broadcasts his speeches with an aerosol spray of a chemical that produces reactions similar to those of lysergic acid (LSD)." The idea was to get him to sound like a drug-addled flake on the air. Nothing came of it because "the chemical could not be relied on to be effective.

2. Tainted Cigars

A batch of cigars was cooked up with the idea of giving them to Castro. The effects they were supposed to have is ambiguous. Either they would contain a chemical that made him act strangely in public, or they were treated with a depilatory to make his beard fall out. The plot never got beyond the planning stages and the cigars were apparently disposed of.

3. Spiked shoes

There was also brewed a "scheme involving thallium salts, a chemical used by women as a depilatory - the thought being to destroy Castro's image as ‘The Beard' by causing the beard to fall out... The idea was to dust thallium powder into Castro's shoes when they were put out at night to be shined. The scheme progressed as far as procuring the chemical and testing it on animals." Castro's shoes were to be spiked during a certain trip outside Cuba, but the trip didn't happen and the plot fell through.

4. Poison Pills

A CIA agent offered Cuban mobsters $150,000 to whack Castro. The spook did reveal his true affiliation, instead claiming to represent businessmen who saw Castro as an impediment. As the actual mechanism of death, "four possible approaches were considered: (1) something highly toxic, such as shellfish poison to be administered with a pin (which Roosevelt said was what was supplied to Gary Powers); (2) bacterial material in liquid form; (3) bacterial treatment of a cigarette or cigar; and (4) a handkerchief treated with bacteria." The focus was on number 2 and the liquid was intended to be dumped into Castro's drink or soup. Meanwhile, the CIA's Technical Services Division laced a box of Cuban cigars with botulism. "The cigars were so heavily contaminated that merely putting on in the mouth would do the job; the intended victim would not actually have to smoke it." In the end however, the botulism was placed into tablets, which killed the monkeys on which they were tested.

In February-March 1961, the pills made their way from the CIA to some gangsters to a disaffected Cuban official close to Castro, Juan Orta, head of the Prime Minister's Office, but Orta lost the job around that time - apparently for skimming gambling profits - and couldn't deliver the poison. Orta suggested somebody else for the job who reportedly tried a few times but failed.

The CIA then approached a prominent Cuban exile who would do the job for 10 or 20 grand. For reasons that remain unclear, the CIA ditched the plan.

But by April, 1962, the plan was back in effect. More poison pills were delivered to the exile who requested and was given additional equipment he felt was needed to deliver the poison to Castro: "explosives, detonators, twenty .30 caliber rifles, twenty .45 caliber hand guns, two radios, and one boat radar." In June, a 3 man squad was sent to Cuba to recruit others who might be used in such a scheme if an opportunity to kill Castro presented itself. By February of 1963 it became obvious that the plan was going nowhere and it was shut down.

"The technique involved dusting the inside of the suit with a fungus that would produce a disabling chronic skin disease (Madura Foot) and contaminating the breathing apparatus with tubercle bacilli." The suit was never given to Castro although "this scheme progressed to the point of actually buying a diving suit and readying it for delivery."

6. Exploding Conch

The idea was to load up a conch sea shell pretty enough to attract El Presidente's attention when he was diving, and load it up with enough explosives to do him in. The problem was that no shell that could be reasonably found in the Carribean was spectacular enough to guarantee that his attention would be grabbed, nor large enough to contain enough explosives to guarantee success. Moreover, the mini submarine that would have been used to place the shell had too short of an operation range.

7. Poison Pen

In March of 1961, the CIA approached Rolando Cubela, Cuba's disaffected military attache to Spain about offing Castro. By November, 1963, Cubela was ready and they gave him "Black Leaf 40, a common, easily obtainable insecticide containing about 40% nicotine sulphate."

The CIA decided not to give Cubela the poison, but gave him the method of delivery, "a ball point pen rigged as a hyperdermic syringe" created by the CIA's Dr. Gunn overnight. "He said that the needle was so fine that the victime would hardly feel it when it was inserted - he compared it with a scratch from a shirt with too much starch." On the 21st, at the very moment JFK was being assassinated, Cubela was given the pen-needle. Cubela dicked around for a year and half. Finally, in 1965, because Cubela's association with the CIA had become so well known, the CIA leadership put out the word to end all association with him.

You have to wonder if the CIA people at the time were being trained by watching Hogan's Heroes.

"A lot of documents are classified for the wrong reason - because they are embarrassing or perhaps because of a coverup."

-Senator Richard Shelby (Republican, Alabama), former Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee

Photo from Wikipedia. Click on it to enlarge.