The CIA Offered the Mafia $150,000 to Kill Castro
The mobsters said they would kill the Cuban leader for free, in a deal personally approved by the head of the CIA.
Who Killed JFK? · Strange BedfellowsThe scene, as reconstructed from later accounts, is set in the early 1960s in one of Miami's most fashionable hotels, a place crowded with tourists and expensive cars. In a private room off the lobby, three men meet in secret.
One is Johnny Roselli, a well dressed man wearing dark glasses who helps direct Mafia operations in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Beside him is Sam Giancana, the head of the Chicago Mafia. Their power over American organized crime was at its height.
The third man is Bill Harvey, a CIA officer who runs a secret unit called ZR Rifle. The unit was created to kill foreign leaders considered problems for the United States. Harvey has come with an official proposal from the CIA to hire the two crime bosses to kill Fidel Castro, the revolutionary who had taken power in Cuba.
Harvey puts a figure on the table. The two men are promised $150,000 for carrying out the killing. It was revealed in 2007 that Allen Dulles, the longtime chief of the CIA, had personally approved the arrangement.
The mobsters wanted the job but turned down the money, offering to do it without payment. In the telling, they were acting as patriots.
Questions people ask
Did the plot to kill Castro ever succeed?
No. The CIA and its Mafia contacts explored poison pills, guns, and other schemes against Castro in the early 1960s, but none succeeded. Castro remained in power for decades and died in 2016, at age 90, of natural causes.
Who was Allen Dulles?
Allen Dulles was the longest serving director of the CIA, leading the agency from 1953 to 1961. He oversaw covert operations around the world during the early Cold War and was dismissed by President John F. Kennedy after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
Who was Bill Harvey?
Harvey ran covert operations for the CIA and later became chief of the agency's station in Rome. He was known inside the government as an aggressive operator who clashed bitterly with President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, over Cuba policy.