1960Primary source · 2 sourcesWell documented

‘A Sensitive Mission’: The CIA Decides to Kill Castro

On the timeline · around 1960 ·

What happened

By 1960 the CIA had begun planning not just to overthrow Castro but to assassinate him. The agency's deputy director for plans, Richard Bissell, authorized what one memo called 'a sensitive mission requiring gangster-type action' — the 'liquidation of Fidel Castro.'

Why it matters

This marked the start of a years-long secret program of assassination plots that a US Senate committee would later expose as some of the darkest work of the Cold War CIA.

Sources

The National Security Archive, George Washington University. CIA Assassination Plots: The Church Committee Report 50 Years Later (2025) · Reputable source
U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations. Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (Church Committee Interim Report) (1975) · Primary source

Part of a timelineThe Plots to Kill Castro32 events · Exploding cigars, Mafia hitmen, a poisoned milkshake, a booby-trapped seashell, a lethal pen handed over the day JFK died — and decades of exile plots after. The CIA's documented campaign to assassinate Fidel Castro, and the man who outlived it all.View all →