[clive milne]

There are a few more thought's I'm inclined to share about Castro...

On a personal level, I have no experience of Cuba or Castro other than through the prism of other people's perspectives. One of my very good friends is a dive master who spent some time living in Cuba (as a resident, NOT as a tourist)


Her memories of life in Cuba was that it was little different to what we take for granted here in the West, other than that, things were much cheaper... health care and education were free and people were generally happier and less preoccupied with materialism. The notion of an overbearing police state was nowhere in evidence.

There is of course another side to Castro, and arguably the one point most significant (and ironically, least discussed) is that he was a Jesuit agent.... as was Lenin, Trotsky, Mao Tse Tung and Stalin... (the latter being one of the most evil, manipulative and depraved Satanists ever to walk the planet) -- make of that what you will.

And on the flip side of the dialectic, let us not forget that much of the demonisation of Castro was manufactured 'pretext' .. For historical context, it might be worth a dive down the google rabbit hole and search out what was proposed in operation Northwoods, operation Mongoose, Cointelpro, Gladio et al)

Many individual plans were devised by the CIA to assassinate Castro. Plans to discredit Castro in the eyes of the Cuban public included contaminating his clothing with thallium salts that would make his trademark beard fall out, spraying a broadcasting studio with hallucinogens before a televised speech and if I recall correctly, a contingency plan to blame Castro for the failure of the Mercury ii flight (or re-entry) in the advent of a failure. Assassination plots included poisoning a box of Castro's favorite cigars with botulinus toxin and placing explosive seashells in his favorite diving spot... Northwoods included plans to conduct terrorist attacks on American soil (and allies) .... sinking American ships, bombs in public places (Florida), flying planes in to buildings and blaming it on Cuba (sound familiar?) in order to manufacture consent for an otherwise unnecessary and deeply unpopular war.. Kennedy said no, and of course this didn't go down too well with the CIA, DoD, Joint chief's of Staff, FBI and the Mafia (who had significant financial interests in Cuba)

As others have pointed out... just because Castro was targeted by some seriously unsavoury (mid level) characters, don't presume that he was a nice guy.

It aint black and white.