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The Plot to Kill Castro! Raul Castro!
31 Plays3 years ago
In this episode of "What the conspiracy!" M introduces Josh to a plot to kill a Castro...
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Josh is @monkeyfluids and M is @conspiracism on Twitter
You can also contact us at: podcastconspiracy@gmail.com
You can learn more about M’s academic work at: http://mrxdentith.com
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Transcript
Introduction & Mad Libs Style Opening
00:00:00
Speaker
You've probably got a lot to organise at the moment, so how about I take care of the intro this week? That would shorten my to-do list. Thanks. OK, so I just want to hope something quick to set the scene for this episode. What was the topic this week? Well, I was going to... Wait a minute. This is a What The Conspiracy week. Are you trying to trick me into giving the game away in advance? What? No. Perish the thought. Well... I said perish it.
00:00:25
Speaker
Has the thought perished? After a long and dignified struggle. Yes, good, good. Yeah, it's probably good. Anyway, I thought I might do a sort of a Mad Libs thing for this intro. So give me a colour. Chartreuse, but chartreuse yellow. Okay. And a species of rare animal. Well, it has to be your mum. Classic. A holiday destination. Damn, I shouldn't have wasted your mum on that last one.
00:00:53
Speaker
Ah, pre-industrial Normandy. I didn't specify you couldn't use time travel, so that one's my fault. And finally, a topic for an upcoming Not the Conspiracy episode? I mean, that's just sad. Ah, come on, I had you going for a minute there. I wish I could say you did, but no. Yeah, well, then you leave me no choice, but to take the information directly from your subconscious, it's time for a mind heist.
Humorous Banter & Drink Pouring
00:01:22
Speaker
And how does that work exactly? I pitch you in the head with this inception DVD into your swillabines, or until Marion Cotillard shows up to ruin everything. Ooh, I see her now. Ha ha, she's bringing the theme to bring this fast to a close. You win this time, Cotillard.
00:01:49
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Addison and Dr. Indented.
00:01:58
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy. I, as usual, am Josh Addison. They, as usual, are Dr. M. Dentith. Is that gin and tonic? Are we going classy or something? We are ever so slightly. I've run out of whiskey. And for some reason, I'm not replacing it. Fair enough. And OK, for the people not watching the video, M is now pouring something green into the gin and tonic. Elixir vegetal.
00:02:28
Speaker
as made by Carthusian monks who make chartreuse. Right. Do you want to smell it? No. To digest it?
00:02:35
Speaker
It smells like a gin. Well, it shouldn't. And that all alcohol smells like gin to me. It's keeping me kind of brandy. So the joke's on you, Joshua.
Conspiracy Theory Discussion
00:02:45
Speaker
Well, the point is, the point is you're getting nicely wasted and I'm not, which could be more of a problem this week than usual, since you're the one who's going to be introducing me to a conspiracy theory I've never heard before. So it'll be a bit harder for me to paper over the cracks in your mad cap demeanor as you become nasty drunk.
00:03:05
Speaker
Yes, I am known for being a very, very nasty drunk. Actually though, before we talk about this week's episode, we should talk about last week's episode. I've got one comment on the new Uncle Sam's thing on YouTube. Yes, well, right. So, because we did talk about this last week, that we basically did a sequel to Uncle Sam's Snuffbox. Stu to thee. I'm going to put in here quotes, popularity of the previous episode. It did take several months.
00:03:32
Speaker
for people to find that first episode because I think the people who are really big fans of Uncle Sam's Snuff Factory are also the kind of people who only search for it every few months to find out there's been any updates. So the messages will come but Josh, what did? What did our correspondence say?
00:03:50
Speaker
Well, they were basically wanting us to know that there's an underground war happening at the moment where the Alliance, with a capital A, are going... That's the political party that used to be run by Jim Anderton and Co. Well, it isn't New Zealand, yes. Then we came to the Jim Anderton Progressive Party.
00:04:06
Speaker
Yes. And then just Jim Anderson? I think overseas, though, it seems to be some secret, secret organisation. I mean, it's a classic story, isn't it, Abe? And New Zealander, who isn't successful here, becomes very successful overseas. Well, that's true. Rosemette Feo is doing very well at the moment.
00:04:23
Speaker
Yes, it comes galore. I mean, really, I mean, very, very well done. No, so apparently this alliance are off running around the country, destroying these underground bases that are run by the evil pedophile elites. And closed with a comment of, if you were wondering where all of those millions of missing children have gone, those millions of missing children, no.
00:04:51
Speaker
I mean, it's one of those things you can't really prove in a negative. No. And that if we go, but there are millions of children missing, they'll go, aha! But they're missing. Show me where they are then. Or show me where they aren't. I'll show you where they aren't. So anyway, we've had one bite already, so I guess it's doing its work. Oh, more bites will come. I'm sure they will. I suspect they'll all come from the same people. Well, yes, almost certainly. Anyway, I think that's all we have to talk about.
00:05:18
Speaker
I think. It is.
Game Segment: 'What The Conspiracy'
00:05:20
Speaker
It is indeed all we have to talk about. There is no other news. Yep, I'm going to face away from you now so I don't accidentally read your tablet over your shoulder and find out what you're about to introduce me to as we play the chime and get into What The Conspiracy. It's time to play What The Conspiracy.
00:05:46
Speaker
my tablet's away I don't even care if it restarts in the middle of an episode now because it's not good to let it will it almost certainly will yes now standard three questions where what and the other one the other one when when probably yeah
00:06:03
Speaker
Okay, so last week you tricked me with a thing that turned out to be a work of fiction from late early 1900s, England or something like that, late 1800s. So I'm going to guess you're going to go as far from that as possible. So as far from England as you can get is here, I guess.
00:06:25
Speaker
Alright, so you're saying New Zealand? It's going to be in New Zealand. As far as we can get from the late 1800s would be the early
00:06:38
Speaker
Also 1800s. I don't know how that works. I thought you're going to go to, you know, say 1800 BC. Oh, even better. 1800 BC in New Zealand. I think it's BCE these days before the common era. And as for the nature of it, last time it was about a work of fiction. So this is going to be something real. What's as real as real can be? Your mum.
00:07:02
Speaker
prove that something the opposite of abject of course is concrete. So I'm going to guess it's something about a 4000 year old concrete factory in what would later become New Zealand.
00:07:17
Speaker
Interesting, you are so so incredibly wrong. Well I pretty much have to be. What have we got? It's the 20th century. It is depending on how you want to locate where this caper occurred, it's either Eastern Europe
00:07:35
Speaker
or Cuba or the United States of America. And it's an assassination plot. Oh, good.
Revealing the Conspiracy: Castro Assassination Plot
00:07:43
Speaker
Do you like a good assassination plot? So tell me, Joshua, have you heard about the plot to kill Castro?
00:07:52
Speaker
Obviously, yes I have. All right, tell me about the plot to Kill Castro. There was one, supposedly. So tell me about what you know about the plot to Kill Castro. Well, weren't there lots of them? Weren't there all sorts of different plans to do one? Give me one, go on. Was it the itching powder in the mustard? Or was that Stalin?
00:08:14
Speaker
No, no, that was Fidel Castro. That wasn't to kill him, I suppose. That was just to drive him crazy. To actually murder him.
00:08:22
Speaker
Haven't we done an episode on this? I mean, there's an infamous exploding cigar. Oh, the exploding cigars, yes, yes, yes. Something about poisoning something or other. Oh, yeah, they wanted to use highly soluble poisons and introduce it into Fidel Castro's vote. Yeah, there are certainly more than I can remember, that's for sure, but I'm assuming this will be one
00:08:49
Speaker
that I don't know. A particular assassination plot. I keep saying Fidel Castro. I'm talking about Raul Castro.
00:09:02
Speaker
I see. Raul Castro being in irrelation? The brother of Fidel Castro. And basically the Secretary of State in the Cuban government. Right. And so not only are we talking about an assassination plot to kill Raul Castro, this was the first plot to kill Castro. Oh, I see. So Raul was the first target rather than Fidel.
00:09:27
Speaker
So, Sweet Summer Child, let me take you on a journey. Also, you should be in charge of pressing the surprise button. It shouldn't just be me. You can't lean across a bit and properly express my surprise through the medium of cheap sound effect. I mean, there's also the rimshot if you really want it, which is that one there. Although... OK, I'll keep that in mind.
00:09:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we're talking about the attempted murder of someone, so it's probably not going to be worth too many rimshots. Could be a Jerry Seinfeld routine of some kind. We'll see. OK, so Ramon Castro. I'm assuming he's the remote role. I'm thinking of. Do you know nothing about the Cuban leadership at all? Not a goddamn thing. I know Fidel Castro was there. He had a beard and a cap.
00:10:09
Speaker
And that's about it. My God, you're politically naive. All I've gathered from so far is that Israel, who I'm assuming is the Emilio Estevez to Castro's Charlie Sheen. Kind of, yeah. Although where does Shay Guevara fit into the storyline? I don't know. Is he... Who else was in the Breakfast Club? One of them, I guess.
00:10:32
Speaker
Judd Nelson? Yep, Judd Nelson. Shay Guevara is the Judd Nelson of the Breakfast Club. You heard it here first, though, because you heard it here first. Right, so, OK, people wanted Raoul dead. Yeah, so you actually might think that Fidel Castro would have been the prime target for the CIA. But apparently the first plot against the Cuban leadership targeted Raoul, who was the regime's second-in-command and Minister of the Armed Forces.
00:10:59
Speaker
So the CIA had a particular worry about taking out the Cuban leadership. They were aware that a, Castro's regime was incredibly popular in Cuba, anywhere between 60-70% of the people supported him at any given time.
00:11:18
Speaker
They're also aware that if they just took out one member of the leadership team then they wouldn't be able to make a regime change because the other two would step in and of course their guard would go up. Also there was a threat that maybe Russia might then intervene and do something to protect it. So the CIA were very keen to find a way to get rid of Fidal, Raul and Shae in one foul swoop. They could find a way to get rid of all three leaders
00:11:48
Speaker
then they would be able to affect regime change because they'd just basically lop off the head of what they considered to be the serpent in Cuba. Now of course it turned out that the Cuban leadership was very much aware that there were certain forces, particularly in North America, that were not particularly keen on them.
00:12:06
Speaker
And so they tried to minimize public appearances in the same spaces, and they also tried to make sure that they never traveled together at the same time, so that if someone struck at one of them, they would not be able to easily strike at all three of them.
00:12:24
Speaker
Now back in March of 1960, a special team of CIA officials and operatives gathered for the first meeting of what was called the Branch IV Task Force, which was dedicated to overthrowing Castro, Castro and Guevara in Cuba. And this meeting, or at least this task force, eventually did lead to the Bay of Pigs fiasco slash invasion.
00:12:50
Speaker
Right, but before that, they were trying to bump off roles. Well, before that, they were thinking about assassination plots. Now, the characters involved in our little story here are J.C. King, who was head of the Western Division. He spent most of World War II feeding deceptive information to Japanese agents, and then he retired in 1967, but then went on to have a glorious career as an intelligent consultant, so doing the same job, but being paid a lot more. Thank God for capitalism.
00:13:19
Speaker
There was Tracy Barnes, who was deputy director of covert operations. He was the principal manager of the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat and also the principal manager of the Bay of Pigs invasion. And he eventually got fired from the CIA in 1966. So there were some consequences to not running things particularly well.
00:13:43
Speaker
We've got William J Murray, who was the CIA officer who was stationed in Havana at the time the story takes place. He actually goes on to be a fairly interesting character because he was a major critic of the intelligence assessment which led to the invasion of Iraq back in 2003.
00:14:01
Speaker
And then in 2004 was a principle behind the creation of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act, which was the first major overhaul of legislation around the intelligence services in the US. So basically as a kind of, ooh,
00:14:20
Speaker
that dossier stuff about the invasion of Iraq. That wasn't very good, was it? Now that we've actually successfully invaded another country on false pretenses, we should do something about cleaning up our messes at home. And finally we have Richard Bissell, who is the head of covert operations. Interesting enough, he studied at Yale and decided not to enter Skull & Bones.
00:14:43
Speaker
So he decided not to enter a secret society, unlike his brother William. He helped run the Marshall Plan post World War II, so was very much involved in fighting communism and providing resources to people in Europe post the Second World War. He helped develop the U2 spy plan and not the band U2, although maybe he had a role in that dastardly endeavour as well.
00:15:08
Speaker
And in the late 50s, he argued the CIA should engage in morally grey activities. So understandably, he was very much involved in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. So yes, these four characters are going to come in and out of our story over time. So...
00:15:24
Speaker
We are now going all the way back to 1959 and the plot to assassinate Raul Castro basically by getting him killed in an aircraft accident. So it turns out that after the 1959 revolution
00:15:44
Speaker
A pilot working in Havana by the name of Jose Raul Martinez had been recruited as an asset by William J Murray who was stationed in the CIA office in Havana.
00:15:59
Speaker
And on July the 18th, 1960s, Martinez told Murray that he'd been selected to pilot a chartered flight to Prague on July 21st to return Royal Castro and his entourage to Havana.
00:16:16
Speaker
Okay so basically they've been a mission into Eastern Europe for communist people to engage in communist things. Raul needed to return back to Cuba and Martinez was going to fly his plane all the way to Prague, pick up Castro and then fly Castro back.
00:16:37
Speaker
So the CIA finding out at the very last minute that one of their assets was going to be flying with someone they really, really wanted. So they didn't arrange for him to be the pilot? No. Which is so happened that he was. Yeah. So this is a case of Martinez going, oh, he's probably having a coffee meeting with his CIA handler. So what are you doing this week? Well, you know, tomorrow I'm going to fly off to Prague. Oh, what are you doing there? I'm picking up Raul Castro to bring him back to Cuba. And they go,
00:17:06
Speaker
Just put a pin in that for a minute. I need to go talk with someone back at the office because you do know that we want this Castro dead, right? So you might be in a fairly good position to do something for us.
00:17:24
Speaker
So Barnes & King offered Martinez US$10,000 or a reasonable demand in excess of that, as well as to arrange rescue facilities for the pilot after an accident had taken place.
00:17:40
Speaker
but they definitely said no money in advance. So you get paid on completion of your service, you're not going to get anything before you actually do the deed.
Challenges & Moral Dilemmas of the Plot
00:17:52
Speaker
I guess that makes sense, don't want him losing his nerve or what have you. I'm interested to hear how they intended to fake an air crash that would be fatal to the passenger but not to the pilot.
00:18:04
Speaker
Well, yes, you're already getting to the nub of the issue of this particular plot. So the timetable for arranging this accident was incredibly tight in that Murray basically was talking to Martinez about the plot as Martinez was literally driving to the airport to fly to Prague.
00:18:24
Speaker
So they knew that he was going to be the pilot. They got low-level authorization that we're going to carry this plot out because we have a pre-existing plan to get rid of a Castro if a Castro presents themselves. But at the same time they are planning the plot on a car drive through Havana.
00:18:44
Speaker
So there's not much in the way of machinations going on here. This is spitballing as someone is driving. They say, hmm, what are the different ways we can potentially take Castro out on a plane? So they discussed several potential accidents that Martinez could engage in. The first was he could crash into the ocean three hours into the trip.
00:19:09
Speaker
and then they'd come along in a boat and help Raul on his way if he hadn't been killed by the crash and pick up the pilot. How many other people would be on this plane? Was it just the two of them? No, so there would be the other crew. There would be other passengers as well. And the CIA are only interested in killing one person on this flight.
00:19:33
Speaker
So there are other people on board the plan. So one option is you crash into the ocean three hours into the trip. In theory that's because three hours into the trip you're over open ocean. So even if Castro survives the crash there's nowhere for Castro to swim. Of course the obvious problem there is if anyone's coming to rescue Martinez
00:19:58
Speaker
then potentially Castro might be able to also get rescued as well. I mean there's also the problem of racism here and that a drowning Cuban probably looks like any other drowning Cuban in the water and you might be like, well before I rescue you sir, could you tell me, are you a Castro? Oh you're not a Castro, please come on board the spot. There's an obvious problem there.
00:20:21
Speaker
Now another option they discussed was an engine burnout on takeoff that would simply delay the truck. Right, to give them time to get agents in position or something to do something else. I mean it's not entirely clear from the CIA memos exactly what a delay would do.
00:20:40
Speaker
because Castro would still be stranded in Prague, probably at that particular point in time, is in a communist block country. So maybe it might allow CIA agents operating in Europe to affect an assassination there.
00:20:55
Speaker
But at the same time, we'd also think, well, we actually now know exactly where he is because we know you're going to pick him up. That's going to take you quite some time to fly from Cuba to Prague anyway. So why don't we just take that action there? So that that plot seemed to go absolutely nowhere. One option was to puncture a tire on the plane to ensure that when the plane landed in Cuba, it would crash and burn up.
00:21:22
Speaker
right and the pilot would have parachuted out before how would they get the pilot to buy into a scheme that involves supposedly his fiery death
00:21:33
Speaker
Well see the thing is Martinez was aware this was a was a potential suicide mission and so he wanted and was granted assurances that his two children would be looked after so he had two sons and he wanted to make sure they had decent college educations so the idea was if I carry this through and it's very likely I'm going to die
00:21:57
Speaker
then you need to make sure that my children are looked after. Okay well that makes it a little bit easier then if you have a pilot who was willing to at least consider the possibility of dying in the act. Ah but he was only willing to sacrifice himself because one scenario that was dismissed very early on was causing engine failure on the flight.
00:22:19
Speaker
which would presumably lead to an onboard fire, which as Martinez pointed out, would make it very hard for the pilot and crew to escape in mid-air. Okay, so he was happy with himself dying, but he wasn't so keen that everyone else on the plane would die as well. Yes, basically. So he was willing to take out Castro.
00:22:38
Speaker
because it does turn out that Martinez was recruited as a CIA asset because he didn't like the Castro regime, but he wasn't willing to sacrifice anyone else on the plane to enact this plan.
00:22:51
Speaker
Yeah, so basically they start talking through options as Martinez is driving to the airport to fly to Prague and basically they come to an agreement that if you can affect an accident that takes out Castro, you are to undertake that accident. They didn't come up with any solid plan, they simply discussed a whole bunch of options and Martinez then takes off.
00:23:18
Speaker
And then we get our plot twist. Oh, I like a good plot twist. Because just after Martinez leaves the Prague, sorry, hang on, so let me just hover my finger over the surprise button as you hit me with this. So yeah, just after Martinez leaves the Prague, Washington contacts the station in Havana and tells them not to pursue the accident plot at all.
00:23:45
Speaker
Which is that classic case in a thriller film where the person takes off and then the person on the ground gets the phone call of mission is cancelled. Abort, abort. In case of... Has it taken that long for word to get back to head office? Yes, because once again this is a very last minute plan. It's very hasty. There's no chance to communicate. So by the time that the CIA station Havana has gotten information back to Washington DC, Martinez has already left for Prague.
00:24:14
Speaker
And of course, the other plot twist, although it's not really much of a plot twist given we know what happened, Martinez did not cause an accident. Well, no, I assume we would have heard about it otherwise. Yeah, as in, well, I mean, you didn't seem to know who our orchestra was at all. So in your mind... If he had died quite mysteriously, maybe I would have heard about him because it would have been more of a story. Well, that's true.
00:24:35
Speaker
So apparently he was keen to perform the accident, but there was simply no opportunity for him to do so. We don't know much about what that means. It might have meant that he just couldn't figure a way to do it, or it might have meant that Castro's security was so tight, there was no way to engage any malfeasance on board the plane.
00:24:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it seems like they've kind of got themselves in an impossible position, really, if you want to engineer an accident that will kill one specific person on a plane, but not anyone else, apart from sort of, I don't know, if he was sitting by a window blowing out that one section of the plane, so he gets sucked out before anyone else does or something.
00:25:21
Speaker
tricking him when he goes to the toilet and accidentally chucking him out the bottom of the plane or something. I don't see anything that could do enough damage to the plane that would only harm one person and not result in everyone else going down as well. That does remind me there was an episode of Futility Closet.
00:25:41
Speaker
several months ago about a mysterious disappearance with someone who went to the toilet on a plane in the 1960s and then just completely disappeared and the only operating assumption anyone has is that he must have wanted out the wrong door in mid-air because of course with non-pressurised cabins you'd be in a situation you might accidentally open the outside door rather than the toilet door
00:26:07
Speaker
And people are going, this is really the only way to explain it is either he went to the bathroom and stepped out the wrong door and took a very long drop, or he was assassinated, but no one can explain why he would have been assassinated. There was no rationale as to why someone would push him out the door on that plan. So the idea of
00:26:26
Speaker
Confusing Castro such that when he goes to the toilet, he tumbles out the plane is something which could have occurred. It's just very, very difficult to engineer. And if only the pilot is the one in on it, he's presumably going to be in the cockpit most of the time and not in a position to surreptitiously kick Castro out of the toilet.
00:26:47
Speaker
Oh, passengers who are now on this plane. Some of you might like to go to the toilet, such as your old Castro. Maybe you'd like to go to the toilet. Will all old Castros please go to the toilet? It is on the right-hand side of the plane, not the left-hand side. I know the signage is very confusing, but, old Castro, would you please go to the toilet now? This is a standard announcement on Air Cuba. Good night. I've talked about how the airplane voices Chuck Yeager's voice.
00:27:16
Speaker
No, you have not. If you've read the book The Right Stuff, on which the movie The Right Stuff was based, I don't think this comes up in the movie, but Chuck Yeager, the famous airplane test pilot, at one point in the book they mentioned that he had that sort of drawl, which just became the standard way of speaking for pilots, just said, okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're flying it so and so far.
00:27:43
Speaker
and if you look outside the right-hand window you'll see Raul Castro plummeting to his death over the Pacific Ocean. That cadence supposedly is exactly how Chuck Yeager used to talk and the suggestion was that somehow it sort of percolated through to plain instructors and ended up influencing the way a generation of pilots talked. Might not actually be true, it could just be a coincidence but
00:28:08
Speaker
Now I want to know where train announcer voices come from because they're all designed to be completely inaudible apart from occasionally hearing the name of a station and realizing they're talking about the station you're approaching and three stops time as you jump off at the wrong stop. One time I was in Shanghai Airport
00:28:27
Speaker
and they announced every, every announcement was given in English, French and Mandarin at the same time. Oh yeah. Or at least you'd get the start of an announcement and then the next language would cut off that one and then another language would cut off that one. It was yeah.
00:28:43
Speaker
So we got our flight by basically waiting until we saw a bunch of people lining up at what we thought our gate was and joining that line. And that was the right one. And that's how you went to Cuba? No. That's how I went to Prague actually. Wow.
00:28:59
Speaker
Anyway, back to the plot.
The Outcome & Historical Context
00:29:01
Speaker
Yeah, so Martinez did not cause the accident because there's no opportunity to do so. A few years later he defects to Miami and then later on the CIA were effectively expelled from Cuba which of course led to the diplomatic breakdown between Cuba and the US and that of course led to the Bay of Pigs fiasco which of course actually involved all of the people like JC King, Tracy Barnes, William J Murray and Richard Bissell as well.
00:29:29
Speaker
Now what's interesting about this particular assassination plot is that it's not particularly well known even though it was the first plot against Acastro. So the news is all about how they tried to kill Fidel, how they wanted to put itching powder in his moustache, how they wanted to develop exploding cigars and the like. It's quite possible that up until recently not even Raul Acastro
00:29:56
Speaker
was aware there was ever an assassination plot against him. He's still alive. He only just retired from the Cuban government very recently. And I'm assuming we know about this now because of declassified CIA documents. Yeah, so the accident plot was kind of revealed
00:30:15
Speaker
after Seymour Hirsch's story in 1974 about the CIA intervention in Chile, which of course led to the media asking a lot more questions about the CIA's covert activities, which itself led to Ford accidentally revealing the history of assassination plots in early 1975 in an off-the-record conversation with a journalist, which the journalist then duly reported.
00:30:43
Speaker
I think that was the conversation that led to Gerald Ford admitting there had been assassination plots against Castro for Dow in the past. Now after Ford's admission Murray decides to file a memo about the accident plot with the CIA's Inspector General in order to get his side of the story down on paper. What do you think he calls this memo?
00:31:10
Speaker
what i did on my holidays he calls it questionable activities oh nice it's a love a euphemism yeah yeah now this memo got turned over to the rockefeller commission and also the church committee that were investigating the cia's activities talked about the church committee before haven't we we have the name i don't remember why was it
00:31:34
Speaker
It was one of the committees looking at what the intelligence agencies were doing, particularly with regard to those grey areas. Now Murray ended up testifying in both investigations.
00:31:49
Speaker
And the plot itself is referred to very obliquely in the 1976 report, alleged assassination plots involving foreign leaders, in that there is mention of a potential plot against Raul Castro. But at no point do they mention any of the specifics about the plot. As I say, it's mentioned incredibly obliquely.
00:32:15
Speaker
and largely it's probably been missed or sidelined in history because unlike the other plots to assassinate a foreign leader which were meticulously planned and budgeted and arranged this was very much a hasty plot born of circumstance which is probably also the reason as to why the CIA didn't want it to go forward and that it was so hasty and it was so
00:32:43
Speaker
unsure as to exactly what the plot would be, that Washington looked at it and went, we can't commit, yeah, too much could go wrong here, we don't want to, too much that could go wrong and make us look bad if it does. Yes, precisely. I mean, this is kind of plot that if the accident doesn't go right, and so Martinez and Castro survive, and say Martinez is stuck in Prague,
00:33:10
Speaker
being tortured or having an enhanced interrogation by communists there Martinez might end up relaying information about both the CIA and the CIA's plots which are not going to look particularly good so you can kind of see as to why people would go yeah this plot does not seem like a good idea at all but it does kind of fit into the history of the CIA going hmm
00:33:35
Speaker
you're a leader we don't like, or you're a second commander of a regime we don't like, we are going to spend some time thinking very, very clearly about ways to kill you, and also ask people to do it for us as well. COINTELPRO, I think is the last time we looked at the church committee.
00:33:55
Speaker
I nearly remember it because it was named after a guy called Mr Church, not an actual church. No. No, although the church committee, a whole bunch of churches investigating intelligence failures by the CIA, would actually be quite fascinating. So there we have it, is it? That is the story of the accident plot, the first plot to kill a Castro, and not a Fidel Castro. Most interesting, yeah.
00:34:22
Speaker
Yeah, like I say, I pay very little attention to Cuba, other than that's where cigars come from, and everyone's heard of Fidel. Is he still around? No, he died. He died many years ago. That's why I was surprised when you said, Ro, I thought, like, he must be pretty old now, Ro. So he was the younger brother by, I think, half a decade? Oh.
00:34:46
Speaker
Goodness. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah. I imagine had they succeeded, we probably would know the name of Raul Castro. I mean, many of us do know the name of Raul Castro. It just turns out that you don't. No, no. Like most people, I assume. No, just you. Just you. No, I'm going to go full steam into the false consensus.
00:35:15
Speaker
bias and assume that everything what I know is what most people think. And anyone who thinks otherwise, there's something horribly wrong with them. Well, I mean, there is something horribly wrong with them. It's just not for the reason that you think. Right. And so, oh, hang on. I just realized...
00:35:29
Speaker
So, we've got a bonus episode coming up. I was the one who suggested we talk about this topic, and it ends up being very, very closely related to the topic you'd chosen. Yes, because we're going to be talking in the bonus episode about that old Havana sound, Havana Syndrome.
Wrap Up & Listener Engagement
00:35:49
Speaker
Well how about that? So I picked a topic that happened to be closely related to the topic that you had picked and neither of us knew that the other was thinking that. Psychic connection? I mean I knew. Well I mean you knew after I said that's what we were gonna do but...
00:36:06
Speaker
You didn't know I was going to suggest that when you thought up this topic. Didn't I, Joshua? Didn't I? See, this is the point where we do the kind of reveal song from the Saw films, where it turns out that using a series of flashbacks, I've been psychologically conditioning Josh to make sure we talk about Havana Syndrome for several weeks by using coded phrases or making really, really broad hints. Right.
00:36:32
Speaker
Never seen a whole Saw film. Don't watch Spiral then. Good. I wasn't going to. It's quite bad. It's not bad, but it's just really, really boring. Is it like, has it moved any past just sort of torture porn? Look at these elaborate deaths for people? That stuff?
00:36:55
Speaker
No, not really. No. No. It's very disappointing. Have you seen the empty man though? No. And then I have heard good things about. I've heard it's a good sort of Lovecraftian strange genre hopping movie that got marketed as a generic horror film and therefore didn't do well. It's well worth tracking down. Watch the empty man. No, I must get onto that at some stage.
00:37:25
Speaker
and that concludes review section of our podcast so yes in our patron bonus episode for our lovely lovely patrons we'll be talking about the latest updates to talk of Havana syndrome and that old Havana sound a rumbling rumbling sound that makes you feel very very ill in vague sort of sort of non-specific ways
00:37:50
Speaker
I'm beginning to think that every time I have a slight pang, or I feel Billy is going, oh, I've got Havana syndrome. Could be, but we'll have to investigate further. And if you'd like to hear us investigate further and you're a patron, then your work is done. If you'd like to become a patron, go to Betrayon and search for the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy. And if you don't want to be a patron, well, then you've had a whole episode of Cuba stuff already, so you should probably be thoroughly sated.
00:38:18
Speaker
Precisely. Just light up that Cuban cigar, drink that Cuban rum, and run your Cuban bath. Is that a thing? I just made that up. But if you know what a Cuban bath is, please do write into the podcast and let us know. That's podcastconspiracy at gmail.com.
00:38:38
Speaker
Yes. So, I guess there's nothing more to say, but for me, they call me Cuban Pete. I'm the king of the samba beat. When I shake my maracas, they go chick, chickie, boom, chick, chickie, boom. And I'm just going to say that rewatch the mask. It's not as bad as you think it's going to be.
00:38:57
Speaker
The podcaster's guide to the conspiracy is Josh Addison and me, Dr. M.R.X.Dentist. You can contact us at podcastconspiracygmail.com and please do consider supporting the podcast via our Patreon. And remember, the truth is out there, but not quite where you think you left it.