Fabian Escalante, who was long tasked with protecting the life of Castro, has calculated the exact number of assassination schemes and/or attempts by the CIA to be 638. Some such attempts have included an exploding cigar, a fungal-infected scuba-diving suit, and a mafia-style shooting. Some of these plots are depicted in a documentary entitled
638 Ways to Kill Castro.One of these attempts was by his ex-lover
Marita Lorenz whom he met in 1959. She subsequently agreed to aid the CIA and attempted to smuggle a jar of
cold cream containing poison pills into his room. When Castro realized, he reportedly gave her a gun and told her to kill him but her nerve failed.Castro once said in regards to the numerous attempts on his life, "If surviving assassination attempts were an
Olympic event, I would win the gold medal."
According to the
Family Jewels documents declassified by the CIA in 2007, one such assassination attempt before the Bay of Pigs invasion involved
Johnny Roselli and
Al Capone's successor in the
Chicago Outfit,
Salvatore Giancana and his right-hand man
Santos Trafficante. It was personally authorized by then
US attorney general Robert Kennedy .
Giancana and Miami Syndicate leader Santos Trafficante were contacted in September 1960 about the possibility of an assassination attempt by a go-between from the CIA,
Robert Maheu, after Maheu had contacted Johnny Roselli, a member of the Las Vegas Syndicate and Giancana's number-two man. Maheu had presented himself as a representative of numerous international business firms in Cuba that were being expropriated by Castro. He offered $150,000 for the "removal" of Castro through this operation (the documents suggest that neither Roselli nor Giancana and Trafficante accepted any sort of payments for the job). According to the files, it was Giancana who suggested using a series of poison pills that could be used to doctor Castro's food and drink. These pills were given by the CIA to Giancana's nominee Juan Orta, whom Giancana presented as being an official in the Cuban government who was also in the pay of gambling interests, and who did have access to Castro. After a series of six attempts to introduce the poison into Castro's food, Orta abruptly demanded to be let out of the mission, handing over the job to another, unnamed participant. Later, a second attempt was mounted through Giancana and Trafficante using
Dr. Anthony Verona, the leader of the
Cuban Exile Junta, who had, according to Trafficante, become "disaffected with the apparent ineffectual progress of the Junta". Verona requested $10,000 in expenses and $1,000 worth of communications equipment. However, it is unknown how far the second attempt went, as the entire program was cancelled shortly thereafter due to the launching of the
Bay of Pigs invasion.
