634 Ways to Not Kill Fidel Castro

not back. So this thing, this thing was invented by Luigi di Ponti in Italy in the thirties, and then the patents were purchased by Alfonso Biletti, and Alfonso had a boy, Renato, and in the mid forties, Renato took over the company and he just marketed the heck out of these and that's why they become like this standard bearer for you can make an almost espresso like coffee.

six hundred and thirty four murder attempts. Yeah, that sounds like we're going to just smash through our like one percent murder. Well, spoiler alert, the CIA never successfully assassinated Fidel Castro. Amazing, but boy, how did did they try? This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heiss and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. Elizabeth Sarin, the former head

of the Cuban Intelligence. This dude was named Fabian Escalante. He stepped out of the shadows where spies exist and he publicly claimed that the Yankees tried to kill Fidell six hundred and thirty four times.

took forty two attempts. LDJ took seventy two attempts. They're ramping up by the time we get to Nixon. Nixon goes for a record one hundred and eighty four attempts. Jimmy Carter clocks in. It's sixty four attempts. Record is broken by Reagan with one hundred and ninety seven attempts. On Castro's life, Dan George H. W. Bush keeps it solid with a nice little conservative sixteen, and then Bill Clinton ends the era with twenty one of his own.

the nineteen seventies. It was famous for pulling back the veil on countless crimes committed by the CIA. Now, most of them were overseas, some of them were domestic. They worked both foreign antheistic, which is totally against the law. But anyway, we don't have to take the Cuban's word for it because we have the CIA and the FBI, and the US Senate and the House road representatives. They

all said the same thing. So you know, here, let me just read to you from this file that I have over here marked secretize only this is from the National archives. It is no longer secretized only, but it originally was. Now, this is a CIA document that records the agency's countless attempts to kill Castro, and I quote. This reconstruction of agency involvement in plans to assassinate Fidel Castro is at best an imperfect history because of the

extremes insitivity of the operations being discussed or attempted. As a matter of principle, no official records were kept of planning or approvals or of implementation. So they're like, yeah, we kept it. Hush hush, right, hush hush. Now, despite this apparent difficulty with the with you know, basically documenting their investigation, they still were able to produce one hundred and forty three page report documenting all the ways they tried to kill Castro.

ins and what Nixon was eventually going to be impeached for. Now, the American people, they learned through the Watergates that their nations leaders and our spies had been conducting these clan destined operations. Right to put it mildly, they were constitutionally corrupt.

seventy five, it gets nicknamed the Year of Intelligence. This is due to hold the investigations into the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, even the irs gets dragged in. Right now, this all comes under the Church Committee, led by Idaho Democratic Senator Frank Church. Now that's the name exactly. Now, his committee was the real deal, serious, like I'm gonna

get to the heart of the matter. He had one hundred and twenty six full committee meetings, that's not normal, forty subcommittee hearings, eight hundred witnesses, eleven sorry, one hundred and ten thousand documents were perused. And yes, finally in April seventy six, the committee publishes its report. Now, most of these times we've seen these reports, they're always big. It could be best to be used as a door stop, but this one was a door buster. It just went

up there and kicked the door in. Because the Church Committee hearings declared that dating back to FDR and continuing right on through the early seventies, there had been one endless program of spying and destabilization of democracies, both at home and abroad. Yeah, so they basically just determined that regardless of the party in power, they had been running just pretty much any anti democratic effort they could, and

it wasn't just tricky Dick Nixon. So the Church Committee then reveals like all sorts of stuff that people we know about them. Now, So there's a famous operations by the CIA like mk Ultra. Yep, this comes out in the Church Committee hearings. That's the CIA's mind control program where they basically took a bunch of involuntary you know, volunteers, and they use them for human experiments, right to determine how do we mind control people with like drugs and like,

you know, psychic abuse. Then they went on they did co Intel pro That was the FBI's program. That was Jaegar Hoover's little pet project to hold black people down and pretty much any other social justice campaign. So he had agents infiltrating the like the Panthers and all these other social justice and civil rights organizations, and then artists artists as well, and then he does the divide and conquer you ghet them with the breakup social movements, rumors

and drugs and bad cop busts or whatever. Right. Then there was the CIA's program, This is the one I wanted to tell you about, which is family Jewels.

bearded one, Fidel Castro. So if you'd like to read more, then you could check out CIA Covert Operations two, The Year of Intelligence in nineteen seventy five. Book. It's a book. It's a huge book printed by the CIA.

He liked the ideals of America. He was against US imperialism, but he liked America. Right. And then he met Richard Nixon and he's like, so much for all that we have to know, I'm not you know about this. In nineteen fifty nine, Fidel wins his revolution, and what does he do to celebrate? He comes to New York, and he comes to New York. He's like, hey, in the way of YORKA and he's like partying, right, and he's like everyone's like he's he's walking around in the revolutionary dogs,

like right out of the jungle. Right. He has yet to declare himself a communist at this point. So America they love him. He goes to the Bronx Zoo. He's hand feeding tigers. He's chatting with anyone on the streets in New York in English. Bind you. He gets a whole tell room and Harlems. He can be by the people right until he's this huge hit. The New York Times writes about him. They're calling him quot quote, this

young man is larger than life. You know. Now for some contacts and contrast, the time goes and compares his revolution to our revolution. They say that Castro stepped onto the world stage. Quote not only out of another world, the world of fierce Latin passion, but also out of another century, the century of Sam Adams and Patrick Henry and Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. Perhaps because he stirred memories long dimmed of a revolutionary past, and recalled a new order once deeply felt.

his way of thinking because it'll inflame Latin America. And he's got big plans for PepsiCo, right, So he's like, we got to get this these you know, the factories an't gonna build themselves communists. So Fidel he does what Nixon fears most. He sides with the Soviets, all right, so he declares himself with communist So now the CIA comes up with the plan, we have to destabilize Castor's revolution. So what's their answer, Elizabeth, Let's give him acid. So

their first plan is to give Fidel LSD. How do you think the CIA acid party played out for Fidel?

before the Kennedy Nixon election in nineteen sixty. We're in August nineteen sixty, right, CIA they planned for quote, a scheme to contaminate the air of the radio station where Castro broadcast his speeches with an aerosol spray of a chemical that produces reactions similar to those of like surgic acid LSD. So they're going to try to get him while he's on the radio and have him freak out.

shoes when they were put out to be shined. The scheme progressed as far as procuring the chemicals and testing it on animals. So they're rubbing fallion on animals to see if that would work on Castro's feet to make his beard fall off. Right now, the idea was Castro was going to go to the UN to speak in New York in nineteen sixty the Sea. They planned to sneak into his hotel. They would find his room and then they would find his shoes left outside his room

to be shined. Then they would, like the spy would dump some thallium powder in his shoes outside of the hotel room.

does he do with them? Well, he decides, with the help from the CIA's chemist, what's the best poison to put into this?

into him. So the CIA moved on to a poison that would be a little simpler, just so they could transfer over the skin really easily. And that one was botox, well, not actually botox, it was the active ingredientlinus toxin. Yeah, so Teddy Gun his boys at the chem lab, quote, they did contaminate a full box of fifty cigars with botulinus toxin, a virulent poison that produces a fatal illness

some hours after ingestion. So now the kem lab has doused the cigars, so that quote, the cigars were so heavily contaminated that merely putting one in the mouth would do the job. The intended victim would not actually have to smoke it. So now they're like, no flame necessary, kill stick, right, so they're all excited. Teddy Gun he takes his poison cigars, hands them over to the director of the CIA, who then puts them in a safe and forgets all about them.

exploding seashell. Yeah. So the CIA so comical, exactly those ridiculous stuff. Ever, the CIA knew that Castro loved to go scuba diving, so they're like, we can kill him there. So they're like, what do we do? So some spies were like, what if we made a seashell that's secretly a bomb?

scheme was soon found to be impracticable. None of the shells that might conceivably be found in the Caribbean area was both spec tacular enough to be sure to attract Castro's attention and large enough to hold the needed volume of explosives.

get right back to it. Yeah, so like we got to get back on our old energy. So they're like, okay, what are we gonna do. They go to this guy, James Donovan. He's a lawyer who that the US has in charge of negotiating with Cuba for the release of the prisoners from Bay of Pigs, from the whole fiasco. So the CIA is like they approached this guy and they're like, came in, you're the prisoner exchange Lary. He's like yeah, I'm going down and he's like, you're gonna

talk to Fidel and all that. He's like, yeah, yeah. They're like, care would you give him a poisoned wetsuit as a gift And he's like what now? From the Secret Eyes Only file, I quote, the technique involved dusting the inside of the suit with a fungus that would produce a disabling and chronic skin disease madua foot and contaminating the breathing apparatus with tuberculo basillai. So the poisoned wetsuit was brilliant. They're like, this is it. We finally

got it right, and it's really bad. Exactly. The skin's gonna get all itch. He's gonna be terrible. So they decide, okay, let's go to do this. But this plan also goes nowhere. Why Elizabeth, you're the one telling the story. The lawyer's too smart for him, Donovan, he refuses to do wet work for the CIA. He's like no. He finds out exactly they're whole planned to give for Fidel, and he's like, Okay,

I know I'm gonna do. He gives Fidel a non poisonous sweatsuit of his own, so that would be suspicious if he gives him a second websuita darn it. He out bought us prisoner exchange lawyer one CIA zero. So after all these early failed attempts to SEEIA moved on to its most effective assassination campaign. And do you know what that one was? They asked Fidel's mistress to kill Castro.

Oh right, finally they get their like their brains together, like somebody's actually gonna be close to him, right sometimes right next to him. So twenty sixteen, Vanity Fair, they sat down with this woman. Her name is Marita Lorenz, and she was with Elslilmer, Lover and Homegirl. Laid out just whopper of a story, right, I'm telling you, Like most of it seems to be true. Some of it is, like are you surreal? But it doesn't matter. You know,

who cares whether it's fact or fiction. We know most of this is true because it shows up in a CIA file. So for the rest of it, who knows who cares. But according to Marita Lorenz, she was just minding her own business, being young and German and fabulous. It's just this self possessed woman of wealth and family connections, right, She's out in the big wild world all by herself. She's there in Miami and she meets this man named Eduardo.

Right now, she says, this man, he's an a memorable man, right. So, he always wore white suits. He had the air of money. He was very quiet and elegant. From her guests, he was the money man for this clandestine operation that was going on that she only knew the veguest outlines of right, But much later on she would recognize this man and and his white suits when he was constantly on television.

About a decade later during the Watergate hearings, this man was e. Howard Hunt of the Watergate break infat Oh, so how did the inside man for Nick Sin's bungle get chummy with Fidel's Castro's lover? Right? Well, it's a small world, Elizabeth, and when you're rich and powerful, it's even smaller. So Howard Hunt was chummy with the head of the CIA, Alan Dallies. And the common link between Dallas,

Hunt and Marita was a man named Frank Sturgis. Now he would also become later known and famous as one of Nixon's plumbers, one of the break in men for Watergates. So, this early pre Watergate team is getting the band together before they make it big. And prior to all this, prior to meeting Marita, Sturgis had worked for the mafia. He was their man in Cuba. He was the He worked for the Mayor Lansky outfit. So he was big in the casino business under Battista. And he's like, you

know this, he's basically like hanging with Cuba's tourist population. Yeah, fleecing them. Nobody cares, right, not nobody in Cuba because they're all like, oh, we're all exploiting everybody. It's a party. Water's great. So Sturgis, he can smell this change in the winds, right, So what does he do In nineteen fifty seven, He gets close with Comandante Fedel and he starts running guns to the island through his organized crime contexts,

and then that puts him in go with Fidel. So this is just in time for the Cuban Revolution to occur, and now he's on the right side of history.

So this is like early on. So then he eventually sturg just gets made the head of the Air Force intelligence for Cuba. Really, yeah, Fidel's going whole hog on this. He's like, yeah, mafia run everything. I don't care. It turns out though Sturgis was secretly a CIA spy.

till June thirtieth of that same year. But in that time he meets Marita, whose family had interests in Cuba, so he gets charmed by her. She's this, you know, bon Vivan, successful, wealthy, beautiful young woman. Surgis does the next logical thing. He introduces her to his buddy, this notorious ladies man, Fidel Castro. The two hit it off. They start this tempestuous love affair. Later a CIA assassination attempt. So on November eighteenth, nineteen sixty three, Marita gets a

call from Sturgis. He wants her to come meet him at a hotel in Miami. She assumes this is more of his gun running business, which she's familiar with, so she agrees to come along. This is where she meets future JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

I was told. Star just brings in the bag with disguises and another bag with automatic weapons and starts clipping them together. It seemed different this time because of the instructions Frank give. Nobody can make phone calls, no brods, no booze, no contacts with the outside. So while they are in this crummy little hotel room putting together of their guns, Marita she sees Oswald for the first time. Now before this, this is obviously before he's going to

get famous. She has no idea who he is, so she just happens to stick in her memory because of how memorable he is. She said, quote, this guy comes into the room. He's like a little mob punk. Hey, a short, balding guy with a cocky hat, heavy set, with a cleft on his chin. Elizabeth, you'd later know this guy is Jack Ruby. Let me tell you. Apparently he Jack Ruby was a charmer because he took two steps inside, saw me lounging and said, who's that broad? I said, you'll punk. So they don't hit it off

right now, she wants to leave the shabby motel. I was furious. Hell he spoke to me. I had been sitting in crowded car. I have PMS. I said this, Frank, I'm going home. Give me some plane fare. So he's busy. Frank sturge is busy trying to keep Jack Ruby happy. And because they're not too far from where Marita is standing in the motel parking lot waiting to go to the airport or wherever, sturgees is leaning on the trunk of a car, talking in low tones to Jack Ruby.

At this point, Jack Ruby leaves in a huff. Right, who shows up? E Howard Hunt. She claims he gives Surgis money and then he went and he spoke with another guy at the motel, Lee Harvey Oswald. Oh my god, the door was opened between the two rooms. Oswald was sitting in the other room with the other guys on the bed, just casually sitting there waiting for instructions. That was the last time I saw him, that is until a few days later when his face was all over

the news. Right anyway, That's how Rita explains how she met E. Howard Hunt and he connected her with the CIA and set her up to kill Castro. Oh my god, So do you want to take a little break and then I'll tell you to kill Castro? Yes? All right, Elizabeth, we're back. Yes, how was that role call of nineteen sixties?

poison pills that they had developed to kill Castro. Right, so she says, the agency also gave her these confidence pills, which she called gut pills.

couldn't do it. She was hoping that she could. That was really how I guess the best way to put it. So she says, and I quote, I knew the men that I saw the outline of Havannah. I couldn't do it. I hopped in the jeep and went to the Hilton, just simply walked in, said hi to the personnel at the desk, and went upstairs to the suite room too far to zero eight. I went in and waited. So now she's waiting to kill Castro in the Aana Hilton nineteen sixty three.

I returned to her quotes. I tried to play it cool. The most nervous I have ever been was in that room because I had agents on standby and had to watch my timing. I had enough hours to stay with him. Ordre Emil killed him and prevent him from making a speech that night, which was already pre announced. That's her plan, so Neil kill him, ditch speech exactly. There's one problem she she can't do it. She can't kill him. She just loves them. She loves Fidel. Right. He was very

tired and wanted to sleep. He was chewing a cigar and he laid down on his bed and did you come here to kill me? Just like that? He says, Oh, God, Fidel knows she's the assassin, so he knows why she came back to Q. But it wasn't to love him up. It was to lug him down right right into the ground. So he knows the CIA center. So what is Marie to do? Well, what is the best? She says. I was standing at the edge of the bed. I said I wanted to see you, and he said that's good.

That's good. Then he leaned over, pulled out his forty five and handed it to me. Fidel hands her. Is gone, right, Fidel's like the Steve McQueen of world leaders. Right. It's just too cool for school. But so is Marina because she cocks the handgun Fidel handed her. I flipped the chamber out and hit it back. He didn't even flinch, and he said, you can't kill me. Nobody can kill me, and he kind of smiled and chewed on his cigar.

So there it is. This is the closest the CIA has gotten to actually killing Fidel, and Fidel's mocking the assassin to their face. But the assassin, she loves the target, So even with gun in her hand, she still can't do it. She's like, I felt deflated. He was so sure of me. He just grabbed me. We made love. I contemplated staying to start talking to him later after his speech, but it would be too late because he rambles on for like eight ten twelve hours. That was

the hardest part. I wanted him to beg me to stay, but he got dressed and left and I just sat there by myself a while. I left him, not I told him I would be back. She doesn't actually go back, but anyway, she doesn't kill him the next time she sees him. Right at this point, Elizabeth, we're somewhere now the high four to five hundred range of attempts on his life, and none of them have worked. Right, And

this is as closest we've gotten. Gun in hand. Assassin in a room with him still fails because Fidel like loves up the assassin.

So According to the CIA files quote under five nine sixty two, Kennedy discussed with the director a number of matters, including admissioned by CIA that Robert Mayhew had been hired by the agency to approach sam g and Conna to have Castro assassinated at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So the mob boss, the CIA approached sam Gy and Conna. He was the head of the Chicago family huge, right. He was also Sinatra's guy. Sam Giacana was the guy that daddy Joseph Kennedy, the old

school Irish bootleg mobster. He reached out to sam g and Connie. He's like, look, I need you to help me secure my son's a nineteen sixty presidential election. Right, because he was at the time, John Kennedy was not the presumptive favorite. He was a young senator. He was the dark horse, if you will, right, But his daddy was a mobster. So he's like, look, so he approaches sam g and Conny. He's like, look, I need to win the West Virginia primary. So Samji and conn is like, okay,

we can make that happen. And according to everybody in the know, Frank Sina true was the go between between San Giancanna and Joe Kennedy who made this happen. He puts together the Democratic nomination by having to get a victory in the West Virginia primary. Sinatra gets the favor from Sam Giancana. So what did the Kennedy brothers do now that they get the White House? They returned the favor by initiating reco investigations on the mob out of

boom So. Anyway, but Ciangi and Coana wasn't the only mob boss the Ceia worked with. They also had Santo Trafficante from the family which was big yes in Atlantic City, Philadelphia. And also he was the head of the Miami Cuba family, so he helpfully spoke Spanish. That was good. He also wanted to control of the Cuban casinos back, so that was his move, and he wanted to get rid of the communists. He was a virulent anti communist. Third man on this job was la mob fixer who was busy

working the Hollywood unions against the studio bosses. A dude named handsome Johnny Rosselli.

and in September nineteen sixty the plan becomes real. This is before Kennedy is elected, so it's definitely pre dates Kennedy. But the agency had used a CIA cutout to contact the mob. This guy was the Robert Mayhew, who was also a fixer for Howard Hughes. So when he wasn't doing errands for the CIA, that's what he worked for. So this cat Mayhew, he reaches out to Sam G and Kanna and Handsome Johnny. Like I said, small world, right, once you were so powerful, it's like still a very

small roll. The decks epently, So Howard hues this fixer. He reaches out to Sam G and Kana handsome Johnny. He goes, hey, I'll give you guys one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to kill Castro. By the way, that's CIA money, so that's guaranteed. And they're like, okay, okay. The gangsters consider their offer. They're like you know what, No, and they're like, what do you mean No. He's like, no, no, we'll do but we'll do it for free. I'm like yeah,

because the mob would. They want to consider it a favor, because it's like, you know, someday, and that day may never come. I may come to you, the US government and ask you for a favor. So of course the worst thing that can happen happens. What's the worst thing can happen? J Edgar Hoover finds out about the CIA's deal with the mob. All right, No, because the CIA is plotting with the mob, and the FBI just happens to stumble upon it. They aren't aware, nobody tips them off.

But here the best way for me to tell you this, Elizabeth, picture it. Yeah, please close your.

your feet rhythmically plod along the wheels. They also have their own rhythm. You plan to start at the end of the hallway. You reach the corner room. You're well practiced. Hand opens the hotel room door without even a jingle from your pass key. You push open the door with your backside and you back into the hotel room. But you hear voices, oh, you freeze. You spin around. The room is not empty. You see three guys in flashy shark skin suits. One is seated, Two other guys are

standing behind him like sentries, kind of flanking him. The guy in the sharkskin suit is talking with two other men in gray flannel suits, which is odd choice for Vegas since of the weather but whatever. The guys in the gray flannel suits they look like complete squares. The others look like mobsters. The guy in the sharkskin suit, he doesn't see you at first, so he keeps talking. Look simple, it's real simple. You bug Dan Rowan's room. You see, I just want to know if he's getting

handsy with that dame from the Maguia sists phyllis. It's a little small favor from mister Ginkhana. So the guy in the sharkskin suit stops talking. He turns to see you. And what the others are all looking at? Which is you? So now everyone is staring at you and no one is speaking. You're all just staring at each other. Clearly you were not supposed to be in this room, Elizabe I would say, you quickly apologize to everybody in the room. You spin around and you screw it out of the room.

You push your maker through the doorway and quickly follow it. The hotel door closes behind you. You're out. You're free. Oops eazy, you say to yourself, and then you decide to go start in the other room across the hall again. You open the door, you push it open. You know this room is empty because you saw the vacancy on the room charts. So you push open the door and boom. Two guys in short sleeve button down shirts are sitting there. Both guys wearing ties like idiots, you know, like that

desert business casual. So they freeze in place like the last room. I'm telling you, they're wearing headphones. They're shocked. They stare back at you from their little eavesdropping field station. You don't say a word, neither do they. You slowly back out of the room as if you were never there, and the door shuts behind you. This time, you decide

you'll start at the other end of the hallway. Elizabeth, you've just been witnessed to the FBI listening in on the mobsters as they convinced the CIA to do a favor for Chicago mob boss to see if his side piece was, in turn having an affair with her own the guy from Martin and Rowans laugh in what so Sam Jean kind of thought that Phyllis McGuire from the McGuire sisters having an affair with Dan Rowan from laughing, and so he asked the CIA, hey, bug that guy's room

in Vegas, say and they did it, and you, yes, exactly, this is a favor. They may have to come to you one day for So when the FB guys find out that they've been surveilling CIA guys working with the Mob, they are giddy as a schoolgirl and they go running DEAFBI director Jaygar Hoover now he's super geek to get the CIA operatives on charges of collaborating with the Mob. This will embarrass everybody. He loves it. CIA is like, wait, wait, wait, look,

we're guilty with an explanation. So, in the CIA's own words from an internal memo, we know, quote, can we plausibly deny that we plotted with gangster elements to assassinate Castro? No, we cannot. So they're just like, we have no possible deniability and we're gonna have to go with our old school why so, the CIA was also like, look, chill, Jay Hagger, can we talk just agency to agency? We need Sam g and Conn and Handsome Johnny. They're the ones who are helping us to kill Castro and Jaeger

Hoover's like, oh, killing commies. Why didn't you say you're speaking my lad? Carry on? So Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, though, finds out from a memo from a Giddy, I have a secret Jaegger Hoover, right, so he goes. When Bobby finds us out, he's pissed because now he's gonna make the Kennedy brothers look bad. And they barely got in the White House. They had to work with the Mob to get there, so they're worried that this is going to make them look bad. So what does he do.

He's furious, right, but at the same time he's like, but still a good idea. You guys keep doing that, So he gives his blessing to the idea he's super mad about. Right. In fact, some like Richard Helms, who was later the ambassador to Iran, but prior to that was the director of the CIA. He said and testified to the Church Committee that quote, the principal driving force was the Attorney General Robert Kennedy. There isn't any question about this. Oh wow, So it was Bobby Kennedy's mission.

So my favorite part about this super team up between Mob and g men is how both groups wanted to be like the other. So the they fantasized about the Mob guys. They are talking about how they would kill Castro. They wanted the Mafia to have a bunch of hitman roll up with like Tommy guns and gun down Castro in the street. Yeah, they wanted like the Saint Valentine's past for Castro. Meanwhile, the Mafia, they're like, hey, we

want some of them James Bond super spy gadget. So we wanted to give them to our assassins, so like, come in there to see I was like, Oh, we don't really do that, that's just the movies, guys. So finally their plan comes together. They actually have a legit idea. The Mob found the perfect man to do their wet work. Who is it? Inside man high level Cuban bureaucrat re enter Teddy gunn Cia s Q. He's like, what do you guys need? So the Mob told them we want

a super spy assassination pen. So he's like, okay, superspy assassination pen coming up. So he starts working on a James Bond number four of them. Right, he rushes the order because the assassin's gonna leave soon, so he has to make this poison pen overnight. Oh wow, So he stays up all night. Luca Brayton his butt buns off trying to make this pen. He secrets a hypodermic needle into a pen and just like the mobsters, it suggested that maybe like a needle in, there was poison in

it was hid in the neck. He's like, perfect, I got it. So they sent He sends over James Bond kill pen over the CIA. They rushed to the airport. They meet the diplomat at the airport, he gets the assassination kit just before he boards his flight to Paris. Hours later, he lands in Charles de Gaull Airport. Maybe it was orally, doesn't really matter. Anyway, He's on his way to Cuba. He meets someone at the airport, his

point man. Together they make fun of the poison pen that the CIA gave him, and I quote from the CIA. Hector Sanchez arrived in Paris on the morning of November twenty second and met with the flipped Cuban bureaucrat Cubela late that afternoon. Sanchez states that he showed the pen syringe to Kubela and explained how it worked. Sanchez distinctly recalls the Kubela didn't think much of the device. Also, the CIA didn't include any poison in their poison pen.

He would be assassin was expected to source his own poison. They did give him a recommendation, though quick Kubela was expected to supply his own and we merely suggested black leaf forty as an effective poison for use in the syringe. So it's just like, go find some black leave forty. So anyway, fate plays a hand because quote as they were coming out of the meeting, Sanchez and Coubela were informed that President Kennedy had been assassinated. Kubela was visibly

moved over the news. Why do such things happen to good people? He asked, So there is our one percent in this story, President Kennedy. He gets assassinated. And perhaps the greatest irony of this is that many of the men who conspired to kill Castro met violent ends. JFK, Bobby Kennedy, sam Gy and Kanna and Johnny Rosselli all caught about it.

and he sent them back to kill Kennedy. There's a whole thing there, but we need to have more documents come out for confirmation on that, but it seems to be that there was people who flipped the other way. Anyway, Surprisingly, after the Church Committee's explosive report, there were new laws that prohibited the assassination of foreign leader. Reagan even signed

one right. US presidents, though, still continue to try kill with Castro, even President Carter, which I surprised me because you know, he's kind of like the piece nick peanut farmer guy. But still he was out there. He's like, well, I'm not banging hammers into homes for humanity. I'm got there trying to kill Castro. Anyway, according to the former head of the Cuban intelligence called Jimmy, Carter clocked in

his sixty four attempts, so that was big. Next Reagan, he broke the record one hundred and ninety seven attempts. We went over that, George Bush and Bill Clinton sixteen to twenty one respectively. And then Clinton. You know, he had the CAA go back to some of their greatest hits. He's like, can I get on that Kennedy energy. So he had them try to put pull an exploding podium move yeah, He's like yeah, So of course it failed, right.

The British paper The Guardian reported quote as recentably as two thousand, when Castro was due to visit Panama, a plot was hatched to put two hundred pounds of high explosives under the podium where he was due to speak. Castro's personal security team carried out their own checks before he arrived and foiled the plot.

Elizabeth hum because Castro died. So what's our ridiculous takeaway?

Librarian Brown and Andrea the Professor. Song Sharpened Tear, our theme song is by Thomas the Norseman Lee and Handsome Travis Dutton Executive produces our Ben Dwight Eisenhower tried to warn us Bowlin and Noel Scheckers Brown.