The US carried out several attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro

Former Cuban revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro who died on Friday November, 25 at the age of 90 was a victim of several failed assassination attempt by the US.

To some, Castro was a revolutionary hero, while to others, he was a ruthless dictator who suppressed human rights and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

US wanted rid of Castro because their southern neighbor at one point, served as a launching point for nuclear missiles that were designed to hit American cities.

According to investigation, by the US senate in 1975, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tried to kill Castro at least eight times.

But however, there are claims that the assassination attempts on his life were far more than that. Fabian Escalante, who headed up Cuba’s secret service, estimated that there had been a surprising 634 attempts on Castro’s life.

Mr Escalante in his book, ''Executive Action'' lists some of the plots carried out to assassinate Castro and even claimed that up until 2000 the US was still trying to assassinate him.

The investigation by the US senate concluded that,

“The proposed assassination attempts ran the gamut from high powered rifles to poison pills, poison pens, deadly bacterial powders and other devices which strain the imagination.”

Many of the assassination plots came close to success but for bizarre blunder that made the plans useless that even at one point Castro gave a would-be hit woman his gun. But she didn’t shoot him and instead they made love. Oh really? this sounds like Hollywood.

Here are some of the wildest attempts on Castro’s life.

1. The deadly scuba suit
Castro was a keen scuba diver who enjoyed exploring the Caribbean waters. The CIA hatched an elaborate plan whereby the Cuban president would be presented with a wet suit and scuba gear by his good friends in Washington.

Arousing no suspicion whatsoever, the suit was to be gifted to Castro following the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco when US backed forces attempted unsuccessfully to invade the island.
Upon donning said suit, a toxic powder would poison the president.

The CIA got as far as dusting a suit with mould spores and infecting a regulator with tuberculosis.
But the plan failed because the man who was to deliver the wet suit had reportedly already given Castro another uncontaminated scuba gear.

2. The shell fish shocker
A variation on the wacky wet suit plan was to plant high explosives in a mollusc that Castro might be tempted to swim down to on one of his dives.
Much thought went into the perfect shell. It needed to be large to fit all the TNT inside and brightly coloured so Castro couldn’t resist taking a peek.
It appears the plan sank without a trace.

3. The cigars of doom
In many an iconic image, Castro can be seen chomping on one of the cigars Cuba is so famous for. A variety of plans were concocted to either lace them with poison or even have them blow up in his face.
According to the Church Commission in 1960 a box of poisoned tobacco was produced.
“The cigars were contaminated with a botulinum toxin so potent that a person would die after putting one in his mouth.”
While the box got to Cuba, they never got as far as Castro.

4. The Femme Fatale
A former lover of Castro’s, Marita Lorenz, claimed she was recruited by the CIA and, in 1959, set the mission of slipping pills containing botulism into the President’s drink.
But the lover turned hit woman had made a schoolboy error. She had hidden the deadly capsules in a pot of skin cream where they dissolved.

In a Vanity Fair article Ms Lorenz opened up about her audience with Castro the night she was meant to kill him at a bedroom at the Hilton Havana hotel.

“He was chewing a cigar, and he lay down on the bed and he said, ‘did you come to kill me?’ Just like that. I said ‘Yes. I wanted to see you’,” she said.

Castro, she claimed, then leaned over and gave her his loaded gun. But she couldn’t do the deed.

“He said ‘You can’t kill me. Nobody can kill me’. I felt deflated. He was so sure of me, he just grabbed me. We made love.”

5. The poison pen
Again, the agent of death was to be a botulism toxin. But this time the method of execution was to be a ball-point pen. Inside the pen would be a hypodermic needle rigged with the toxin. So fine was the needle, Castro would not even notice as the assassin bumped into him and used it to pierce the skin.
But even the spies weren’t convinced by this plan wondering why the boffins couldn’t “come up with something more sophisticated”.

6. The murderous mafia milkshake
Despite the sheer oddity of this idea, Mr Escalante said it was the one that actually come closest to succeeding.
In the early 1960s, Mafia bosses, incensed at Castro’s crackdown, conspired with their erstwhile enemies at the CIA.

The plan was to slip a poison pill into either the ice cream or milkshake to be served to Castro at the Havana Hilton, where an earlier botched assassination attempt had happened.
But either the milkshake spilt on the floor or the pill got stuck to the side of the freezer. Either way, the plan came unstuck.

7. The Panamanian podium
This was reportedly one of the later attacks, with claims the CIA lent support to Cuban exiles that fled the country following the revolution.
In 2000, Castro visited Panama. Beneath a podium where he was due to deliver a speech 90kg of high explosives were hidden.
But Cuban security foiled the plot before Castro arrived.

8. The horror hankies
The CIA clearly loved botulism. Another proposed execution attempt would see spores spread all over Castro’s handkerchiefs.

9. The incredible disappearing beard
Less a plot to kill him physically, more a plan to savage Castro’s public image.
While his shoes were taken away to be shined, depilatory powder would be sprinkled on them causing his hair, eyebrows and trademark beard to fall out. Another variant would see LSD sprayed in a broadcasting studio Castro was about to visit causing him to have an episode live on air.
Despite so many efforts, Castro survived until a ripe old age.

Source: Benedict Brooknews.com.au