I have a question. What happens when a government agency decides the best way to remove a foreign dictator is to outsource the job to the Mafia?
No, that is not the opening scene of a very bad streaming series. It is, unfortunately, in the paperwork.
There are official records describing poison pills, poisoned cigars, a weaponized pen, and an assassination plot that was still moving on the same day President Kennedy was shot. The question is how much of that actually happened, who knew about it, and whether the truth is more organized than the paperwork suggests—or considerably stupider.
And before we begin, a warning from the man who once spent six months investigating a municipal budget discrepancy that turned out to be a bookkeeping error: a compelling pattern is not the same thing as proof.
Although, in my defense, this time the pattern contains poison.
In this episode:
• The CIA Goes Looking for Hitmen
• Poisoned Cigars and an Exploding Seashell
• The Poison Pen on November 22
• The Receipts: Real Plot, Inflated Myth
Sources & further reading:
• Memorandum for the Record, May 14, 1962: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d337
• CIA Inspector General Material on Castro Assassination Plots: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/157-10014-10136.pdf
• Editorial Note on AMLASH and Castro Assassination Plots: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v32/d315
• Intelligence Related Commissions: Church Committee Reports: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/resources/intelligence-related-commissions/
