634 Ways to Kill Fidel

by Fabian Escalante

A sprawling account of the various, creative, often bizarre, yet incredibly disturbing attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. Soon to be a TV series from Jed Mercurio, show runner for "The Bodyguard," and Richard Brown, producer of "True Detective" and "Catch-22."

Fabián Escalante, the founder of the Cuban intelligence services, and head of the Cuban State Security Department, provides a clear-eyed first-person account of his experiences defending Fidel Castro from the extraordinary attempts to take his life. From lethal poisons to plastic explosives to bazookas, Escalante introduces and describes an array of assassination plots and historical figures and depicts the ensuing cat-and-mouse game in the midst of the Cold War.
Written in the style of a political thriller yet based on real events, 634 Ways to Kill Fidel is a well-researched and documented series of vignettes put together by multiple investigations in Cuba and the experiences of the author, who participated in several of them; dozens of interviews with participants; extensive documentary evidence; and the collaboration of officials, and undercover agents who dismantled these plots. Filled with harrowing stories of deceitful FBI tactics such as moles who infiltrated the revolutionary Cuban government and gained a reputation with them with the ultimate goal of bombing their military bases. As well as undercover attempts to give Fidel poison laced cigars, Escalante takes the reader from DC to New York, Miami to Havana and uncovers the intricate conspiracy to silence dissent and kill Fidel Castro.
634 Ways to Kill Fidel is filled to the brim with historical details on the CIA, Cuba, the communist movement, US government officials, and Fidel himself. Escalante’s first-hand account provides evidence of the lengths to which the CIA went through to assassinate Fidel Castro and the determined efforts to protect him and what he stood for.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

Published February 2, 2022

Reviews

[Zen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a lot drier than I expected. I had a lot of trouble getting into this, but that may have been me , so Im giving 3 stars.

[Warwick Conway · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating topic written in a really dry style. Needed a decent editor or ghost writer.

[Sheehan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, even more than most of the known attempts on Castro's life, is about the lengths the CIA was willing to go to decapitate Cuba's newest leader. What Noam Chomsky used to refer to as the "threat of a good example"; the US during the cold war, just couldn't allow any semi-functional example of communism operating on the back doorstep of the capitalists' house. This is not a new history, but it was a fresh take from the Cuban anti-terror response perspective, and it shows they were never caught short, Castro lived long past his haters, the security services saw most of these attempts coming well before they were tried. And seem to have lucked out on any number of occasions, but just dumb luck...Like the poison capsule just broke in freezer before being deployed?!

The amount of collaboration with organized crime and Batista era disgruntleds was pretty eye opening, and provided a pretty obvious throughline to later narcotrafficking as funding off books for the CIA up to the modern era of security services globally.

Its a kinda slow read, but if you are interested in the historical era, clandestine hijinks, and the details of how to assasinate heads of state, you may find it engaging too.

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

You'd think this would be a fascinating, extremely compelling read. Unfortunately, interesting topic and plenty of sounds-too-bizarre-to-be-true-but-actually-is incidents notwithstanding, it's mostly just extremely dry. More of a 2.5/5, really.

[Sarah Bodaly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabian Escalante was head of a Cuban team whose mission was to protect the Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro. As such, he became privy to dozens…hundreds…of failed attempts to off the dictator. There were poison cigars, exploding cigars, sharpshooters in hotels, bazookas, plane crashes, beard-dissolving solutions, and drugs to make him go crazy. Nationals, Americans, foreigners from other lands, the FBI, the CIA – nobody liked the man, and (just about everybody wanted him dead.) He led a charmed life, for sure, surviving so many attempts. (Though many plans didn’t make it to the “attempt” stage due to stage fright, intimidation, or changes of plans and travel routes.) Escalante writes in a fast-paced manner, keeping interest engaged, as he tells story after story of how the dictator managed to live another day. And then, at the end of the book, he sorts and lists out all the attempts into the chronological lists, by type of assassination plot. Detailed, to say the least. It was clean, it was interesting, it covered a lot of information that was new territory for me - five stars!

[Camille Schyns · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the topic of Escalante's study is fascinating, and it is especially interesting to get an encyclopaedic overview of all attempts to do away with the Cuban revolutionary leader, I had quite a hard time reading this book. The strongest parts of the book are where Escalante, who was involved himself directly, writes from direct experience. The use of testimonies from others comes across as a bit disjointed, sometimes without a clear explanation connecting it to the larger narrative. The weaker parts are where Escalante describes the inner workings of the CIA, which reads less like a non-fiction study and more like historical fiction. For example, when he imagines the morning routine and thoughts of Colonel C.J. King, the book veers more clearly into the speculative, and Escalante is on less steady ground with this material. It could be that some of the nuance was lost in the translation into English from the Spanish original, but overall this felt too much of a dramatisation of something that did not need it.

[Jack Barrett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Im glad this book exists and im glad my sister got it for me for Christmas. It could be an interesting source if you were researching the topic specifically or cia intervention in Latin America generally.

I give it two stars because the reading is exceedingly dry and feels unreliable. At times it feels that you are reading lists of names and the author is going off a single tip or source that best suits his narrative. Both detract to the point where I would give this book a 2.5/5.

But it was still somewhat fun and very much demonstrated the incompetence of the CIA in the 60s and 70s as well as the ineptitude of half-assing an overthrow of the Cuban government, which surely gave more fuel to propaganda than to a counterrevolutionary movement. Maybe this was for the better, as the alternative for a US without confidence in the CIA may have been an outright war.

[Avinash Aggarwal · Rating 3 out of 5]

634 Ways to Kill Fidel
Author: Fabian Escalante
The book is all about the attacks as many as 634 ,planned by the CIA, on Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro during 1959-2000. The plans were desperate to the extent of putting a bomb in his cigar and chemically treating his body suit for swimming.
The author, himself a Cuban Intelligence chief, furnishes a firsthand account of all such bizarrely designed plans.
PS: I saw this book at Janpath street bookseller some two decades ago but couldn’t buy it due to its expensive price.

[Ian McGaffey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book feels like it was written only in order to run the Americans nose in it. I found to epilogue to be the best organized and readable portion. Probably should have written the whole book like that. No effort seems to have been put into streamlining the narrative, so it felt like a long list of facts.

[Joshua Arnett · Rating 3 out of 5]

L after L for the CIA

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little on the dry side, but an interesting historical document of sorts.

[Ashley Grossman · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF - the subject matter was interesting, but I didn’t like the way it was written.

[Natali · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was boring, rarely gave full context and was very biased towards the US.

[Μίλτος Τρ. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Σπάνια ένα τόσο ενδιαφέρον θέμα γίνεται ένα τόσο στεγνό βιβλίο. Για τις πληροφορίες και μόνο.

[Rich · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry as hell

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring book on such an interesting topic, left it halfway

[nico flores · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabian Escalante's extensive report on the CIA's terrorist actions against the Cuban government is a wonderful resource to have access to. I enjoyed the read as it gave concrete examples and had a consistent style. Escalante introduces the scenario, discusses the events leading up to it using both CIA and Cuban Intelligence documents, and then details the eventual thwarting of said plans. That being said, this is not an action book. There is not a narrative tone to it as much as many people would like. It is much like reading a list of all the CIA attempts on Fidel and then the documentation of their foiling. So, it is important to keep in mind before picking up this book that - because it is closer to journalism and reporting on these factual events than it is to a story or action book - it does not read so smoothly or entertainingly. However, this book is an important resource and contains very valuable information. We seldom are granted access to documents from both sides and told in extreme detail how the CIA was involved in nefarious plots against the Cubans. So, as boring as some may see it, this book is an important read and a very informative read that I highly recommend.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s quite literally about plots to assassinate fidel, filled to the brim with the dumbest cia agents and gusano
litchrally rocks for brains

[Yared · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite part was where a contracted killer who, tired and frustrated, asks the CIA to stop handing him various pens that either shoot needles or inject poison and if they'd kindly give him an actual gun. Reading this book made it clear that if Havana syndrome is real, it's something the CIA has inflicted on itself like Wile E. Coyote getting crushed by his own anvil.

[Ana Perera · Rating 1 out of 5]

Me aburrió lo indecible, ni siquiera pude terminarlo. Esperaba mucho más de este libro.