1967Primary source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Drew Pearson's Column and the CIA's Secret Report

On the timeline · around 1967 ·

What happened

In March 1967 the columnist Drew Pearson publicly alleged that the CIA had plotted to kill Castro. A rattled President Johnson ordered the agency to investigate itself, producing Inspector General John Earman's secret 1967 report — the most detailed internal accounting of the plots ever written.

Why it matters

The Earman report, kept classified for decades, became the authoritative record when Congress and historians finally forced the plots into the open.

Sources

The National Security Archive, George Washington University. CIA Inspector General John S. Earman, 'Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro,' May 23, 1967 (1967) · Reputable source
U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Vol. XXXII — CIA Inspector General's Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro (1967) · 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 →