Since its inception in 1947, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has a vast arsenal of assets. But have they been applied in practice?
Fidel Castro liquidation plans
In the spring of 1960, CIA employee Tracy Barnes dined with Ian Fleming, a former double agent and author of the James Bond spy novel. The topic of their leisurely conversation was the technique of carrying out murders. At that time, Tracy had a special assignment from CIA Director Allen Dulles: to develop a plan to eliminate Fidel Castro, the communist dictator of Cuba.
The US leadership believed that the success of Castro's rule in Cuba could open the way for communism to America, so its elimination seemed absolutely necessary. Actually, it meant the removal of Fidel from power, but, of course, the most reliable solution would be his murder.
Castro holds a newspaper with a headline about an attempt on his life
However, Fleming suggested a more original way: to discredit Castro's image in the eyes of the people of Cuba and the whole world. In those years, Fidel attracted the sympathy of ordinary people not only with the promises of a paradise life under communism, but also with the courageous appearance of a sort of Latin American macho. According to Fleming, it was necessary to destroy this image, to find ways to turn the favorite leader into a pitiful laughing stock. And then his fall will become inevitable.
Tracy Barnes turned to the CIA's Technical Services Department (OTU) for help, and for several months this secret unit was developing the necessary methods and means.
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One of the projects involved filling the chief's shoes with a powder based on thallium salts, which was used by women as a depilator. This remedy would not only lead to loss of beard, eyebrows and pubic hair, but it could also - in certain proportions - cause general paralysis.
According to another suggestion, Fidel should have been slipped a hallucinogen like LSD. It was supposed to either impregnate a cigar with it, or spray the drug in the premises of the radio station, from where Castro read out his lengthy speeches. Speaking live, Fidel had to, under the influence of drugs, "carry nonsense." But in the end, both projects were rejected, recognizing as insufficiently effective and too risky.
Meanwhile, the OTU was developing new options. One of the “end products” was a box of Havana cigars soaked in deadly poison. Exploding cigars were offered as an alternative. According to some reports, cigars of one or the other "sort" (or maybe both) were supposed to be presented to the Cuban leader at the next UN session in New York. However, this idea was later abandoned.
According to the next plan, they decided to make Castro's friend, American lawyer James Donovan, the unwitting killer. He was supposed to give Fidel, a passionate scuba diving enthusiast, scuba gear infected with the fungus and bacilli of tuberculosis. Donovan, unaware of the role prepared for him, came to the "right" store, but, despite the seller's persistent recommendations, he bought not the scuba equipment prepared by the CIA, but the most ordinary, "clean" one, and the whole operation went down the drain. However, the CIA did not abandon attempts to use Castro's hobby, and the OTU made a powerful mine in the form of a sea shell, which was supposed to be installed in the favorite place of Fidel's underwater walks. This operation was not carried out, since by that time a plan arose that promised more chances of success.
For a long time, Castro's mistress was Marie Lorenz, a German by birth. The CIA managed to recruit her, and after appropriate processing, Marie agreed to poison her lover. She was given two capsules of poison to be thrown into the chief's soup. The woman hid them in a jar of sour cream. But when I flew to Havana, I could not find them there. “They seem to have dissolved,” Marie later explained. - It was some kind of sign from above … And I thought: "To hell with all this, let it be what will be …" ".
Despite all the attempts by the CIA to "eliminate" Castro, he is still alive.
"Slaughter" departments and programs of the CIA
The CIA achieved the greatest successes in preparing for the elimination of "unwanted persons" in the early 60s of the twentieth century. Back in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of the CIA, a special unit - "Section 19" - was created to develop and manufacture "alternative weapons." They produced a whole arsenal of chemical and biological poisons, such as, for example, a very strong modification of sausage poison. In the post-war years, in order to avoid international "troubles" associated with assassination attempts, the OSS made sure that the hired killers, the so-called mechanics, did not have direct ties with it.
In the late 1940s, a department specializing in the assassinations of double agents from behind the Iron Curtain appeared in the CIA's Bureau of Strategic Oversight (BSN). The department worked under the “Program Branch 7” (Program Branch 7 - PB / 7). The department was headed by Colonel Boris Pash. This colonel, who led the Alsos mission at the end of World War II, whose purpose was to steal the secrets of their nuclear program from the Germans, always claimed that no active implementation in PB / 7 had begun. However, Deputy Pasha said that the documents of the program contained a provision on "murders that, under certain circumstances, can be approved by the top leadership."
Who did they intend to kill
It is not known exactly whether PB / 7 actually carried out any assassination attempts, but it is known that Frank Wisner, the director of the BSN, talked about plans to eliminate a certain "Asian leader", Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin and Guatemala President Jacobo Arbenz. True, none of them was killed. In 1952, the implementation of the RV / 7 program was discontinued, and the BSN was transformed into the Office of Planning.
In general, in the entire history of the existence of the CIA and its predecessor, the “black list” of candidates for liquidation, in addition to the individuals already mentioned, included the following figures.
Adolf Hitler, who was supposed to be treated to a cocktail with poison, but the drug was lost on the way. It was also supposed to remove the Fuhrer with the hands of a hypnotized German prisoner of war, but this did not work out either.
Zhou Enlai, the state and party leader of China in the 1950s and 1960s, was supposed to eat poisoned rice. At the last moment, the rice portion was changed. Later, they prepared the explosion of his plane, but Enlai's flight was canceled.
Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam 1955-1963. The assassination attempt did not take place.
Raphael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930-1961. The CIA supplied his closest associates, who agreed to kill their ruler, a special weapon. But later, President Kennedy banned the CIA from the conspiracy and ordered the assassination to be prevented. However, the Dominican dissidents said that the elimination of the dictator is their internal affair, and they will not abandon him to please the United States. In May 1961, terrorists shot and killed Trujillo's car with weapons provided by the CIA.
The car in which the Dominican leader Rafael Trujillo was shot
Patrice Lumumba, first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (present-day Zaire). He was supposed to be infected with a deadly virus, but they did not have time: in September 1960, Lumumba was removed from power, and in 1961 his former closest associates were murdered in a villainous manner.
There is reason to believe that after the unsuccessful landing of the anti-Castro assault force in Cuba in the Bay of Pigs - on Playa Giron - in 1961, when many CIA agents died, the survivors decided to take revenge on President Kennedy for this failure and organized an attempt on him, as a result of which he was killed in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.
Their technical equipment
It is not officially known whether the CIA carried out assassinations in the 1950s, but there is much to be said for the fact that at that time such assignments were prepared with the indispensable participation of the OTU, led by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb. This department was engaged in wiretapping and electronic surveillance, the development of which led to the emergence of truly ingenious inventions, such as miniature cameras, tape recorders and transmitters. The latter were made in the form of tie pins, cufflinks, and even in the form of dog excrement. The department also produced shooting umbrellas, cigarettes, fountain pens and cameras. One of the masterpieces was flour, which not only exploded, but was also suitable for making dough and its subsequent baking. Gottlieb was also responsible for the highly secret project MK-ULTRA,which provided for the development of special potent poisons, the presence of which in the body cannot be determined not only by analysis, but also by autopsy. There have also been experiments with hallucinogens such as LSD.
In peacetime, there is no reason for the state policy of assassination. But if a country finds itself in a crisis situation, the position of its leadership may change. This is, in particular, the current situation in Israel. The elimination of the leaders of Islamist terrorist organizations there is legalized at the state level. As for the CIA, the statement of one of its employees of a rather high rank is quite typical: “For us, the elimination of the head of another state does not create a moral problem. The problem is different: one cannot be sure that the one who comes to power after him will not, from our point of view, be even worse."
Source: Secrets of the XX century
