The CIA Offered the Mob $150,000 to Kill Castro
The two Mafia bosses turned down the money and said they would do it for free, as patriots.
Who Killed JFK? · Strange BedfellowsThe CIA once offered two Mafia bosses $150,000 to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
In the early 1960s, in a private room in a Miami hotel, Johnny Roselli, a senior Mafia figure based out west, met with Sam Giancana, the head of the Chicago Mafia, and Bill Harvey. Harvey led ZR Rifle, the CIA secret program for killing foreign leaders, and he brought a CIA plan for the mob to kill Castro.
When they were approached, Roselli and Giancana wanted the job but turned down the cash. They said they would do it for free, as patriots.
The arrangement was personally approved by Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA, a fact revealed only in 2007. The FBI suspected Roselli in about a dozen murders.
Questions people ask
What was ZR Rifle?
ZR Rifle was the CIA program in the early 1960s for planning the killings of foreign leaders. It was run by CIA officer Bill Harvey and was exposed during congressional investigations in the 1970s.
Who was Allen Dulles?
Allen Dulles was the director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961 and a powerful figure in American intelligence during the Cold War. President Kennedy forced him out after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.