CIA hired gangsters to kill Castro
Updated on 27 June 2007
The CIA recruited a former FBI agent to approach two of America's most-wanted mobsters and gave them poison pills meant for Fidel Castro during his first year in power, according to newly-declassified papers.
Contained amid hundreds of pages of CIA internal reports collectively known as "the family jewels", the official confirmation of the 1960 plot against the Cuban leader was certain to be welcomed by Communist authorities as more proof of their long-standing claims that the US wants Castro dead.
Communist officials say there have been more than 600 documented attempts to kill Castro over the decades. Now 80, Castro has not been seen in public since handing power to his younger brother Raul while recovering from intestinal surgery last July.
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