October 1961General sourceWell documented
Veciana's Bazooka Plot
On the timeline · around October 1961 ·
What happened
In October 1961 the Cuban exile Antonio Veciana — working under a mysterious CIA handler he knew as 'Maurice Bishop' — plotted to kill Castro with a bazooka fired from an apartment overlooking the Presidential Palace in Havana. The gunmen lost their nerve as Castro's security flooded the area.
Why it matters
The bazooka plot launched a parallel campaign: exile militants, armed and trained by the CIA, who would hunt Castro for decades after the agency's own plots wound down.