Unfinished Business: Kennedy and Cuba

In 1960, high-ranking CIA officers began secretly exploring ways to assassinate Castro. For advice, the CIA contacted the experts—the Mafia. The Mafia seemed a natural for this sensitive assignment since they already had a network established in the Cuban underworld. Involving the mob also provided the CIA with a credible cover. If the assassins were discovered, the public—and the press—might assume that the "hit" came as a result of Castro's interference in the Mafia's criminal enterprises in Cuba.

Meanwhile, after Kennedy's election, the president's close advisers set up their own covert structure to eliminate Castro. Launched in November 1961, it was code-named Operation Mongoose. It continued until the end of the Cuban missile crisis, at which time Operation Mongoose nominally ended.

Plots to Kill Castro

Subsequent assassination plots were devised but never carried out successfully.

• Inject an untraceable poison, botulinum toxin, into selections of Castro's favorite brand of cigars and present the poisoned cigars to him
• Compress the poison into pill form and dissolve it into a drink for Castro
• Create a booby-trapped seashell that would explode if removed from the ocean floor by Castro, who was an avid diver
• Devise a wet suit with a breathing apparatus infected with deadly germs and present it to Castro as a gift
• Equip a fountain pen with a hidden needle capable of injecting a lethal toxin and persuade Castro to write with it
• Assassinate him with a high-powered rifle with telescopic sights