In The CIA's 1st Plot Against The Castros, Fidel Wasn't The Target

Exploding cigars. Poisoned pens. Booby-trapped seashells. These were just a few of the outlandish CIA plots to kill former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who died of natural causes in 2016 at age 90.

Yet new details have emerged of the first such plan, which was actually directed against Castro's brother Raúl Castro, in July 1960, just a year and a half after the Castros had come to power in a revolution.

The key figure was a pilot for the national airline, Cubana: José Raúl Martínez.

Martínez was secretly working for the CIA — and his airline chose him to pilot a chartered flight to pick up Raúl Castro, who was on a visit to Prague, the capital of the communist nation of Czechoslovakia at the time.

Martínez immediately shared this information with the CIA's man in Havana, American William Murray, who relayed this to CIA headquarters outside Washington.

According to CIA documents, the "possible removal" of the top three leaders in Cuba — Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro and Che Guevara — was "receiving serious consideration at [headquarters]."