The introduction of Marxist–Leninist social and political reform was bringing about major changes in Cuba just a year after Fidel Castro came to power. The new government was becoming well established and the changes were accepted by the mass of the population in the hope – as they had been promised – of better things to come.
Castro had not wanted to be reliant upon the Soviet Union but economic sanctions imposed by the United States forced his hand, particularly with regard to importing oil from, and exporting sugar to, America. The Soviet Union readily stepped in to supply oil and to accept a quota of sugar. When the established oil companies in Cuba, such as Esso, Shell and Texaco, refused to refine Soviet oil, they were nationalised. The banks, the telephone company and virtually all of the tobacco industry, including the prestigious cigar companies, also became corporate wards of the state. Militant opposition was dealt with severely, with many opponents of the regime executed and others hunted down and imprisoned.
Many individuals, however, were convinced that Communism would not bring peace and prosperity. Those in the professions, along with other middle-class and upper-class Cubans left the island in their tens of thousands to settle mainly in Florida, but with a diaspora spreading out across the United States.
In Florida there was soon a ground-swell of feeling among the exiles that they should take action to overthrow the Castro government. They did not want the return of Batista, but rather a new democratic capitalist government without the corruption that had been endemic to Batista’s regime.
In the early months of 1960, with the help of the CIA, Cuban expatriates flew missions over Cuba, dropping incendiary bombs onto sugar-cane fields and storage buildings and perpetuating other acts of sabotage. Several of the planes were shot down, or crashed due to mechanical failure. The dead pilot of one of the crashed planes was found to be an American.
It was in this climate, with the additional worry of the Soviet Union’s increasing influence over Cuba, that in March 1960 America’s President Eisenhower approved ‘a programme of covert action against the Castro regime’.
The first objective of the programme was to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted – in the eyes of America – to the true interests of the Cuban people and more acceptable to the United States. It was to be planned and executed in such a way that the United States government would be able to deny any participation in it. ‘Plausible deniability’ was the popular terminology in the CIA and other secret government circles. The programme confirmed the economic sanctions regarding sugar and oil exports, and authorised a budget for an extensive propaganda campaign. It included help for the Cuban exiles to organise a paramilitary force to launch an invasion, and provision to create a covert intelligence and subversive organisation within Cuba.
President Eisenhower passed political responsibility for the programme to his deputy, Richard Nixon. The CIA was responsible for implementation and its director, Allen Dulles, created a special unit for this purpose. Individual projects under the programme were executed by a group called Operation 40, which comprised forty experienced agents, soldiers of fortune and exiled Cuban soldiers. Operation 40 was also known as the Cuban Task Force, and was described by one of its more celebrated members, Frank Sturgis, as an assassination squad. Bill Harvey and Ted Shackley (both Berlin tunnel veterans) had senior administrative roles in Operation 40.
There is still conjecture about the status of Operation 40. Was it a properly established, government authorised and funded operation, or was it a right-wing anti-Castro organisation funded by businessmen who had lost out in Cuba and wanted to see it returned to capitalism? Richard Nixon represented the government in it, but many claim that it was mainly funded by oil businessmen George Bush (Sr) and Jack Crichton, and that Bush was the driving force behind it.†
Within two months Radio Swan had been created to broadcast anti-Castro propaganda to Cuba. This station was one of the more successful ventures under the plan, though some of the propaganda broadcast over it was of the naive scaremongering variety usually associated with Communist hyperbole. Those in Cuba who listened to Radio Swan were warned, for example, that their children would be taken away from them and educated in state-run educational institutions where they would be indoctrinated with Communist ideas. Many feared for their children’s future and sent them, unaccompanied, to Florida where individuals, churches and other charities found them foster families. This mass emigration – some might say evacuation – reached a total of nearly 15,000 children and has become known as Operation Pedro Pan (Peter Pan). Operation Pedro Pan was underpinned by the CIA.
The CIA agency also sought to bring some measure of coherence to the hundreds of anti-Castro Cuban exile groups, based mainly in Miami, aiming to coordinate their activities and, where feasible, to merge them in advance of organising a force to invade Cuba. By the end of June 1960, five of the main groups formed the Frente Revlucionario Democrático (Revolutionary Democratic Front), or FRD, which had direct links with the CIA.
With the help of the CIA, the FRD organised sporadic small incursions into Cuba, most of which ended in failure, sometimes with disastrous results. In late September, for example, four boatloads of exiles and anti-Castro Americans left from Miami with the intention of landing in Cuba and causing chaos through acts of sabotage. Only one of the boats managed to reach Cuba and the entire crew was captured. Three of them were executed.
‡
Although the gathering and transmission of intelligence was kept secret, the exiles’ plans to retake Cuba soon became public knowledge, with reports of preparations for an invasion appearing in the press.
Perhaps surprisingly, diplomatic relations still existed between Cuba and the United States. In December 1960 the American Ambassador in Havana reported that popular support for Castro had started to drop rapidly, but this only served to increase the determination of the Cuban government to suppress opposition and build up the strength of its forces. Conventional armaments were arriving from the Soviet Union and other East European Bloc countries. ‘Hispano-Soviets’ (Spanish veteran officers of WWII and the Spanish Civil War who had lived in the Soviet Union since the end of those wars) had arrived to give military training. In these circumstances it was likely, advised the American Ambassador, that any invasion would lead to considerable bloodshed.
Contrary to the opinion of the American Ambassador, British intelligence indicated that Cubans were predominantly behind Castro and that there was no likelihood of mass defections or insurrections following an invasion. This intelligence was passed to the CIA.
‡
Another important project of Operation 40 was to devise a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. Richard Bissell, the CIA’s Deputy Director of Plans, obtained clearance from Director Allen Dulles to approach the Mafia for their assistance in organising a gangland-style hit. Castro, after all, had closed down the Mafia’s lucrative gambling businesses in Cuba, making denial of the Eisenhower administration’s participation perfectly plausible.
On advice from another section of the CIA, Bissell asked Robert A. Maheu to arrange a meeting with someone from the Mafia concerning ‘getting rid of Castro’.‡ Maheu arranged the meeting with Johnny Roselli, one of the top Chicago mobsters who also helped to control Hollywood and the rapidly expanding Las Vegas.
During the meeting, Maheu claimed he represented a number of clients who used to have business interests in Cuba. These clients believed that if Castro could be removed, his whole government would fall and normal commercial ventures would be resumed. He put it to Roselli that many of his own friends would understand and sympathise with his position.
The suave and expensively dressed Roselli wanted this in plain English, and insisted on knowing exactly who the clients were. Maheu said he needed to take instructions from his clients, so another meeting was arranged.
At the next meeting, Roselli was accompanied by two others, who were introduced as ‘Sam Gold’, and ‘Joe’. Maheu had been authorised to admit that his client was the CIA, but only if it were absolutely essential in order to get the Mafia’s agreement, and then only with confirmation that this information would be held on a strict need-to-know basis. The offer was US$150,000 for the removal of Fidel Castro with the stipulation that, whether successful or unsuccessful, there must be not the slightest whiff of US government or CIA involvement.
The three men agreed, laying down some of their own ground rules: they were good patriots and did not want the $150,000; the CIA would supply any goods they might need, and, the tax authorities and police would stop harassing the Mafia.
When Maheu reported back to the CIA he was shown photographs from which he identified Sam Gold as Sam Giancana, the boss of the Chicago outfit, and Joe as Santo Trafficante.
The Mafia leaders’ favoured method of assassination was to poison Castro, so they asked the CIA for six poison pills which would be introduced into Castro’s food by Juan Orta, Castro’s personal secretary. Manuel Antonio de Varona, an associate of Santo Trafficante and now one of the leaders of the Cuban exiles in Miami, knew Orta and arranged to deliver the pills to him. However, Orta lost his nerve and fled. Another attempt to poison Castro was orchestrated by Frank Sturgis but this, too, failed.
Roselli, Giancana and Trafficante met regularly to discuss and organise various plans to kill Castro. The pills had been Giancana’s idea, but most of the future ideas came from Trafficante, who was able to pass detailed warnings back to Castro.
‡
The United States Presidential election took place on 8 November 1960. Thanks to an amazing number of votes delivered suspiciously late by Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago, the young Democrat candidate, Senator John F. Kennedy, scraped through by the narrowest of margins over the Republican Richard Nixon. It has been widely alleged that the election was stolen by ballot-stuffing in the state of Illinois – undertaken by Mafia operatives at Daley’s behest.
† George H. W. Bush later became President of the USA (1989–93).
‡ Maheu and William Harvey had been together in the FBI before both joined the CIA. Maheu soon left the CIA as a career employee to set up his own business and later worked in a senior position for the recluse industrialist Howard Hughes. Throughout this time he continued to do undercover work for the CIA. He was a friend and confidant of both John F. and Robert F. Kennedy.