‘US Tried to Kill Cuban Leader by Pilot’

The first known attempt to assassinate Cuban revolutionary leader Raul Castro was made by the CIA in 1960, according to classified documents released Friday after they became public in the United States.

The CIA offered $10,000 to the pilot flying Raul Castro from Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, to Havana, the capital of Cuba, to arrange for the plane to crash.

Documents released by the Washington-based National Security Archive Research Institute revealed that the CIA recruited a pilot named Jose Raul Martinez.

The pilot had requested the CIA to send his two sons to university if he died during the operation, which the CIA assured.

After Martinez left for Prague, CIA headquarters told his station in Havana to cancel the mission to kill Raul Castro.

“Don’t act on the mission,” the cable message said. We would prefer to drop the matter.’

At this point the pilots were already out of contact. When he arrived in Cuba, he told his contact at the CIA that he had failed to manage the accident they had discussed.

The name of the Cuban pilot who worked for the CIA came to light as Raul Castro, the brother of former Cuban president and revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, resigned as head of the country’s most powerful Communist Party, preparing to retire from politics. have been

Raul Castro’s exit from politics will end the family’s nearly six-decade rule that began in 1959.

The reins of government will now be handed over entirely to Miguel Diazcanel, who has been the president of Cuba since 2018.

“These documents remind us of the dark and sinister past of US operations against the Cuban revolution,” US Security Archive analyst Peter Kornblow told AFP.

“As the Castro era officially comes to an end, American policymakers have an opportunity to put historical material behind them and make connections with a post-Castro future Cuba.”

According to Guinness World Records, Fidel Castro faced 11 US presidents during his tenure and survived 638 assassination attempts.

In 1961, 14 Cubans who opposed him tried to assassinate him but failed.

These men were trained and funded by the CIA to land at the Bay of Pigs to overthrow the Communist regime.