Don't laugh at me. I really do not know anything about Cuba or Fidel Castro's reign. When Professor Stark assumed everyone had heard of Che Guevara before. I have never even heard that name ever in my life... All I associated with Fidel Castro was bad. I did not really know why but that is all I ever thought. During the lecture, I honestly had no clue that assassination attempts were made on Fidel, but these attempts really intrigued me while reading a chapter in Chomsky which went into a little bit of detail behind these attempts. So I am decided to do a little more research behind these theories.
The one thing I keep seeing while researching this topic is "638 ways to kill Castro", which I believe is a film about the assassination attempts. My first reaction is that there is no way that this can be true and he could have survived all of these attempts. Apparently, there actually were around 600 assassination attempts according to a man named Fabian Escalante who was the head of Cuban Secret Service, and he has survived all of them... Hard to believe. His survival is really because of the protection and caution that his protectors and security people take. There are some very complex ways that people have tried to kill Fidel. The CIA has made an explosive cigar, a poisonous cigar, a syringe that looks like a pen, along with some more creative attempts like putting spores and bacteria in a wetsuit and making an exploding conch shell. The CIA also tried to bribe a mistress of Castro, Morita Lorenz, to poison Castro with special pills, but Fidel knew something was wrong and even gave her a gun to kill him, but she said that she could not do it. Even in 2000, there apparently was a plan to kill Castro during his visit to Panama by placing 200 lbs of high explosives under the podium from which he was going to speak. Again, this was foiled by Castro's security team. All of these attempts have desperately affected the way Castro lives his life. He is no longer able to talk with the people and wander the streets and he has moved his home around 20 different times.
Obviously we do not know all of the specifics on all 638 of these apparent attempts on the life of Fidel, but these are a few of the known ways that I found kind of interesting. It still amazes me how a man can survive over 600 assassination attempts. Either the assassins are complete failures or Castro is invincible...
Wow. When I first read "638 ways to kill Castro" I thought it was a typo. That is crazy! It amazes me that the United States was that set on getting rid of Cuba. What I still can't fathom goes along with Lauren's post and the fact that I had basically no knowledge of the United State's interference in Cuba before this Honors course, let alone hundreds of assassination attempts. Is this stuff not taught because the U.S. is embarrassed? Also, was the United States the only country who was set on killing Castro or were other countries involved in plots of their own? Thanks for sharing!
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