Washington, United States
The CIA’s first attempt to kill Raúl Castro dates back to 1960 when an agent offered the pilot who took him to Prague $ 10,000 to “ orchestrate an accident, ” according to documents released by the National Security Archive, based in Washington.
The plan consisted of offer the Cuban pilot José Raúl Martínez a payment to “take risks to orchestrate an accident” on the return flight from Prague.
Martínez became known through his contact with the C.I.A in Cuba William J. Murray on a ride to the airport.
In the conversation, they discussed the “limited possibilities of the accidental incident” and doubts about the agent’s technical ability to sustain an accident “without endangering the lives of all people on board”.
The pilot, who was already working for the CIA, “tried to ensure that in the event of his own death, his two sons were university educated,” to which Murray agreed, according to a cable quoted by the National Security Archive.
Another published document states that after starting the trip, the Washington office in Havana He was ordered to stop the mission, but they were unable to contact the pilot.
On his return, Martinez informed Murray “that he had not had an opportunity to resolve an accident as they had discussed.”
These documents have been published along with the resignation of Raúl Castro from political life in Cuba, who is retiring as first secretary of the Communist Party.
The “ accident plot ” was described in a report by a Senate committee that dealt with alleged conspiracies to assassinate foreign leaders in 1976, following an investigation into the CIA’s covert operations promoted by Senator Frank Church.
But National Security Archive He stressed that important details were subsequently omitted, such as whether the killer was a pilot or whether the “accident” involved a civil aviation.
This plot precedes several plans to assassinate Raúl’s brother, longtime leader Fidel Castro, and the failed CIA-funded anti-Castro Invasion of Bay of Pigs on April 16, 1961.
To National Security Archive historian Peter Kornbluh, “these documents are a reminder of a dark and sinister past of the United States’ operations against the Cuban Revolution.”
“At a time when the Castro era is officially coming to an end, US officials have the opportunity to move beyond this historic burden and commit to a future of a post-Castro Cuba,” he said.