In this episode, we delve into the harrowing events of the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa. Learn how the CIA's Operation Celestial Balance targeted al-Qaeda operatives and thwarted further terrorist attacks. Experience the bravery and strategic brilliance of John Bennett and his team.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:00and their families, and to conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those
00:00:11folks who committed this act.
00:00:20In Yemen, Mekfaden and Soufan are working the phones, trying to get any information
00:00:24they can on the whereabouts of friends and relatives, and become increasingly concerned
00:00:30about the one man who knew all about al-Qaeda from the start, their former boss and mentor
00:00:36John O'Neill, now head of security at the World Trade Center, and only 11 days into
00:00:42his new job.
00:00:46When they have a routine meeting with a senior Yemeni official, they break the news that
00:00:50they believe their former boss has been murdered by the very people he was sent to Yemen to
00:00:55track down.
00:00:59We told him that his good friend and brother, as he called him, brother John O'Neill, was
00:01:05missing and presumed dead.
00:01:08At that point, when Ali was conveying in Arabic to the general as to what happened, we had
00:01:12a really quite emotional meeting, both the realization of this profound event, the attack
00:01:18of 9-11, and that someone like John O'Neill, missing and presumed dead in the attack.
00:01:24I mean, one of the great ironies you could ever describe.
00:01:33With al-Qaeda now the single greatest threat to U.S. national security, Yemen becomes a
00:01:38front line in the war on terror.
00:01:43Yemen's President Saleh knows that his country is a hotbed of terrorist extremism, and closely
00:01:48associated with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
00:01:52He's in the spotlight, and America is piling on the pressure.
00:01:55Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.
00:02:02President Saleh is incredibly worried about what's about to happen.
00:02:06He knows that Afghanistan is sort of the U.S.'s number one target.
00:02:11But after that, there's a lot of loose speculation that Yemen might be next.
00:02:16Very quickly, Saleh clears his schedule for a visit to the U.S. and a meeting with President
00:02:21Bush.
00:02:23He's been clamoring for a trip to the United States.
00:02:26This is what he really wants, to go to have a one-on-one meeting with President Bush and
00:02:30explain, look, whatever you need to do, I'm here to help you.
00:02:34Just don't bomb Yemen.
00:02:37Saleh came to Washington, met with all of the significant leaders, the director of the
00:02:43FBI, Secretary of Defense Colin Powell, and then finally President Bush himself in the
00:02:49Oval Office.
00:02:51It was cards on the table.
00:02:53It was, you know, you're either with us or against us.
00:02:55Saleh didn't really have much of a choice.
00:02:58He could have told the U.S. he wasn't interested in their friendship, but then there would
00:03:01probably have been an invasion.
00:03:03We spent a lot of time talking about our mutual desire to bring radicals and murderers to
00:03:11justice.
00:03:13The two men, both very originals, had a candid discussion about al-Qaeda and the threat,
00:03:24and they reached a man-to-man agreement.
00:03:28I thank the president for his strong support in this war against extremists and terrorists.
00:03:33And it was on that basis, really, that we built the next three years of active cooperation.
00:03:41Shukran.
00:03:42Shukran.
00:03:43Behind the smiles for the cameras, the tough realities of the U.S. requirement from Saleh
00:03:52are unmistakable.
00:04:01At a meeting with CIA chiefs, President Saleh is handed a list of the terror suspects most
00:04:06wanted in his country.
00:04:11At the top of the list is Abu Ali al-Harati.
00:04:17Within hours, an order comes from President Saleh to give the USS Cole investigation back
00:04:22in Yemen whatever they want.
00:04:26If you talk about a watershed event, there was a sea-changing attitude.
00:04:32Any individual we need access to, unfettered interviews of card-carrying al-Qaeda members.
00:04:40But as well as orders, Yemen's president gets backup.
00:04:44Days after his trip to Washington, Congress authorizes a massive package of counterterrorism
00:04:49aid for Yemen.
00:04:50And taking the lead is the CIA.
00:04:56At the center of the package is the establishment of a training camp led by 100 special forces
00:05:01from the Marines, the Navy SEALs, and units from the Joint Special Operations Command.
00:05:08Paramilitary operatives, contract officers working for the CIA, former Green Berets or
00:05:15U.S. Navy SEAL commandos, go places and do things that your standard CIA field operative
00:05:23is just not trained to do.
00:05:27They set up a base to train a Yemeni counterterrorism battalion.
00:05:35The CIA's classified mission is to help Yemen's special forces find and take out as many al-Qaeda
00:05:40operatives as possible.
00:05:42And al-Harati is the top priority.
00:05:47Supporting the special forces is a top-secret group of communications and CIA intelligence
00:05:52specialists known as the Activity.
00:05:57They come ready to spy on cell phones, satellite phone, and landline networks and quickly start
00:06:02harvesting a wealth of data for analysis in the U.S.
00:06:07On top of that, the investigation starts making the best possible use of President Saleh's
00:06:12increased openness and cooperation.
00:06:16The Yemenis handed over to us a vast amount of information and evidence, which we were
00:06:23then able to send to the United States for processing.
00:06:28So that whole investigation got a real jolt.
00:06:31Now, with unfettered access to interrogate anyone they want, the CIA-led team develops
00:06:39a vastly richer array of new information about al-Qaeda in Yemen.
00:06:46Getting access was tremendous night in and night out.
00:06:49It was a veritable assembly line of reporting of useful intelligence information.
00:06:58Even with this increased level of intelligence, al-Harati remains out of reach in the tribal
00:07:03backcountry of Yemen's empty quarter, an area as impenetrable as Tora Bora in Afghanistan.
00:07:12The key to locating Abu Ali al-Harati is the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh,
00:07:17and all eyes are on him to deliver.
00:07:23President Saleh takes one of the biggest gambles of his career.
00:07:28He decides to take on the tribes in a military confrontation to get al-Harati and to do
00:07:32it with his own troops.
00:07:36It's something he has never dared do before, but he's determined to show he's in control
00:07:40and to assert his authority over the tribes.
00:07:47Shortly after President Saleh arrived back in Yemen, he sent out a group of Yemeni forces
00:07:54about 100 miles east of the capital in an attempt to capture what at the time was believed
00:07:59to be Abu Ali al-Harati.
00:08:13Saleh's troops are far from familiar territory and face a heavily armed opposition of experienced
00:08:19fighters.
00:08:20There was a confrontation between the government forces and the tribal forces.
00:08:30Indeed, 18 Yemeni soldiers were killed in that operation.
00:08:36There was Yemeni blood on the ground in the attempt by Saleh to redeem his pledge from
00:08:41the Oval Office.
00:08:45Saleh not only fails to capture al-Harati, but shows the world he's not in control of
00:08:49his own country.
00:08:55With the president floundering, intelligence comes in that al-Qaeda in Yemen is about to
00:08:59make the most of his weak grip on security and the shock created by 9-11.
00:09:06Al-Harati and the rest of them were as surprised by September 11th as the rest of us.
00:09:12So for them, they had no idea that al-Qaeda was planning this.
00:09:16And so when it happened, then they had to reorganize.
00:09:22Everything that they'd known, the world had changed.
00:09:25And to anticipate any counter-terrorism initiatives, al-Harati now starts a campaign of violence
00:09:31far in excess of anything ever seen before in the country.
00:09:36In late 2001 and early 2002 was this organization, al-Qaeda in Yemen, trying to reorganize, make
00:09:44sense of a world that had changed dramatically around them, where all of a sudden, instead
00:09:48of laying low, carrying out one big attack, now they're just fighting for their lives.
00:09:52And in doing that, they lashed out and they carried out a lot of different attacks, which
00:09:57at the time, I think, led a lot of different analysts, both in the United States as well
00:10:01as in Yemen, to think that the group was much, much bigger than it actually was.
00:10:11Impotent and confined largely to the cities, all Saleh's security forces can do is arrest
00:10:16anyone they suspect and detain them for long periods, a strategy which yields few results.
00:10:26The Yemeni government has just arrested a vast number of people and thrown them all
00:10:30in prison in the hope that the guilty would rise to the surface and they'd be able to
00:10:34give the Americans some of what it is that the U.S. appeared to want.
00:10:40It was very, very intense during that period.
00:10:44It was really a crescendo of us raising our game to try to disestablish al-Qaeda.
00:10:53And al-Qaeda, with the flush of success from 9-11, raising their game, drive us out of
00:10:59Yemen and to intimidate the Yemeni government.
00:11:04Through that first year, it was very touch-and-go about which side was going to prevail.
00:11:15Ever since the attack on the coal, Yemen's two main ports have been closely watched by
00:11:19the security services.
00:11:22But they've ignored a third smaller port that is occasionally used by oil tankers.
00:11:29And then Soufan and McFadden get intelligence that al-Harati is about to exploit a security
00:11:34weakness in Yemen's counter-terrorism strategy.
00:11:39Ali had just composed an information report, an intelligence report, and in that he talked
00:11:46about information we had put together that strongly indicated that a maritime attack
00:11:54was imminent.
00:11:59Two days after Soufan's warning and before Yemen's security forces can act, a small
00:12:05boat laden with explosives approaches a French oil tanker.
00:12:15The attack kills one sailor and spills thousands of barrels of oil into the sea.
00:12:21When we first heard about it, we knew without any doubt whatsoever that this was the next
00:12:26planned attack on a ship, in this case a large French flagged tanker.
00:12:34It's a reminder of just how free al-Qaeda is to operate in Yemen, nearly two years since
00:12:39the attack on the coal.
00:12:41And once again, all fingers point to al-Harati and his network.
00:12:46The FBI was gradually, methodically accumulating evidence.
00:12:53The Yemeni government itself issued a white paper to the parliament during this period,
00:12:58which laid out a lot of the details of the terrorist activity, including the attack on
00:13:06the merchant vessel Limburg, the French oil tanker.
00:13:11And Abu Ali's fingerprints were on those operations.
00:13:16He had acquired and transferred the explosives, for example, for the attack on the Limburg
00:13:24as he was involved in the coal attack as well.
00:13:28So his fingerprints were all over this plotting and he remained at the top of our list of
00:13:36people that we had to deal with to protect ourselves.
00:13:41But with each successive attack, the CIA are learning more and more about how its godfather,
00:13:47the lead terrorist Abu Ali al-Harati, operates.
00:13:51We were conferring every day with the special element that was in Yemen.
00:13:57And they were working very hard, 24 hours a day, to establish communications procedures
00:14:04using the best technology and information available to track Abu Ali al-Harati and those
00:14:10he was with.
00:14:13The information war on al-Qaeda in Yemen is quickly accelerating.
00:14:18But no one is ready for al-Harati's most dangerous plot yet.
00:14:25It's a hot afternoon in a suburb of Yemen's capital, Sana'a, and al-Harati is busy with
00:14:31preparations in a safe house for an operation on a target he's been meaning to hit for years.
00:14:39But then, one of his fighters accidentally triggers a rocket-propelled grenade, setting
00:14:46off an explosion that kills one and wounds another.
00:14:52The explosion alerts the Yemen police, who call on the Americans for assistance.
00:15:04And then, with a CIA signals specialist known as the Activity, they move in.
00:15:11Inside the safe house, the Activity finds a treasure trove of information left by the
00:15:16bombers.
00:15:17Laptops, cell phones, and lists of names.
00:15:23Crucially, they obtain a wealth of detail about the satellite phones used by the cell
00:15:28and its conspirators.
00:15:30It's as good as having the contacts book of the godfather himself.
00:15:34And then they find out what al-Harati had been planning.
00:15:40When we put the intelligence pieces together, we ultimately concluded that the target of
00:15:45the attack was a missile attack against the U.S. embassy.
00:15:51CIA investigators now realize that al-Qaeda is facing a problem in its Yemen operations.
00:15:58The place directly into the hands of the U.S.
00:16:02All the planning needed for his multiple plots means far greater communication is needed.
00:16:07And that is giving much greater scope for surveillance.
00:16:11The problem with Mr. Harati is that he loved to chat on the telephone.
00:16:17He was hiding out in what they call the empty quarter.
00:16:20Now the problem with sat phones are that they're incredibly easy to intercept.
00:16:26Every time you press the talk button, it's like a giant invitation to the world's electronic
00:16:33eavesdroppers to listen in on what it is that you're saying.
00:16:39Sat phones don't just give away what you say, but also show where you are.
00:16:46Because they link to satellites, they act like a GPS.
00:16:50And anyone with the right equipment can pick up your position.
00:16:54As soon as the phone is turned on, NSA, through a series of classified technical means, can
00:17:01locate the person holding that phone.
00:17:03It's called in the business geolocation.
00:17:06The National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland, is now getting routine fixes on
00:17:11Harati's position in Yemen and feeds it to the CIA.
00:17:16NSA identified Harati's telephone number and put him under 24-7 watch.
00:17:22It's what in the business they call cast iron coverage, meaning there's some guy listening
00:17:27to that telephone number 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
00:17:33If the CIA can work with Yemen's army and send in a ground force or airstrike, al-Harati
00:17:38can be easily taken out.
00:17:42And then just as investigators are closing in, al-Harati discovers his sat phone is revealing
00:17:47his location and he stops using it.
00:17:55No one has any idea where he is or where he'll strike next, but everyone knows it won't be
00:18:01long before he does.
00:18:07But the CIA have one certainty they can rely on.
00:18:11Al-Harati's radio silence puts a huge strain on his ability to organize multiple plots.
00:18:16And so he has to travel a great deal more to talk to his conspirators.
00:18:23The CIA know that to reveal his whereabouts, the terrorist only has to weaken once and
00:18:27resort to using his phone.
00:18:30And so it waits and watches, hoping al-Harati will take a risk.
00:18:37In November 2002, al-Harati's out in the desert with several members of al-Qaeda.
00:18:43They had to come and meet face to face to have these different meetings.
00:18:47They were carrying out one of these and one of al-Harati's phones rings and he's been
00:18:52very disciplined for a very long time about not answering his phone.
00:18:57And for whatever reason, he answered the phone.
00:19:07And he immediately knew it was a mistake.
00:19:11He didn't stay on the phone particularly long, but he stayed on long enough for the intelligence
00:19:17analysts at the NSA in Fort Meade in Maryland to get a lock on him.
00:19:23That was then relayed to different teams on the ground.
00:19:27Al-Harati reveals his location in a moment of carelessness.
00:19:30Just one call and the NSA is locked on.
00:19:34Analysts in Washington quickly gather to review their options.
00:19:38Taking out al-Harati with a team of Navy SEALs or other special forces would be the preferred
00:19:43option.
00:19:45Bouncing around in a Land Rover in the backwoods of eastern Yemen with a minimal escort, if
00:19:53the Yemeni government was willing to give us permission to send in a team of special
00:19:59forces operators, it would have been easy to eliminate his bodyguard and capture him.
00:20:05But there's one big obstacle to a ground attack.
00:20:09The president of Yemen, Abdullah Saleh, has ruled out US forces putting boots on the ground.
00:20:14The only option left to us was an airstrike.
00:20:18Now, President Saleh didn't want American fighter bombers flying over Yemeni airspace,
00:20:26which left basically an unmanned drone as the only option left to us.
00:20:34Until now, an armed drone has only been used once to take out a terrorist.
00:20:40The decision now is to assassinate al-Harati with a new technology, something that has
00:20:45never been done before in the Arab world.
00:20:50There had been an executive order which allowed the use of drones to kill terrorists, effectively,
00:20:58and the implication was al-Qaeda terrorists, and that had happened relatively recently.
00:21:03With al-Harati pinpointed and a presidential order in place authorizing his killing, the
00:21:08decision to use a drone armed with a missile is given the green light, and the CIA's well-rehearsed
00:21:14plan is put into action.
00:21:16As soon as the order came in, a classified message went to the commander, two Predator
00:21:22drones, both armed with Hellfire missiles, were sortied from the base, took off, flew
00:21:30into Yemeni airspace, and just sat there and waited for NSA to tell the controllers where
00:21:36their target was located.
00:21:39The drone can fly up to 9,000, 10,000 feet in the air and just sit there, flying lazy
00:21:46circles in the air, waiting for your target to appear.
00:21:50They can stay in the air up to 25 hours at a time.
00:21:55The CIA's drone operators now track the vehicle containing al-Harati.
00:22:00They're assisted by Yemen's special forces, observing and following from a distance.
00:22:06With the Predator drone directly above the target, the operator releases a Hellfire
00:22:10missile.
00:22:20The time had come to show that the U.S. would not allow al-Qaeda to crop up on different
00:22:27fronts, that if you're going to attack the United States, there are going to be consequences
00:22:32of that.
00:22:33I think actually the attack on Abu Ali was probably a conglomeration of all of those
00:22:38things.
00:22:39In November 2002, the strike on Abu Ali al-Harati is the first time, at least the first recorded
00:22:45time that we have of the U.S. using a drone outside of a declared battlefield.
00:22:52So it's a very big moment, not only for the U.S. war against al-Qaeda, because killing
00:22:58Abu al-Harati sort of cut off the head of al-Qaeda in Yemen, but also for U.S. technology.
00:23:13With al-Harati out of action, al-Qaeda in Yemen is left fragmented and weak.
00:23:19It was a country that had had violent Islamism, including al-Qaeda, since at least the early
00:23:2690s.
00:23:27It was all the way up to 2002, and then with the death of Abu Ali, it suddenly stops.
00:23:34It is one of the very few cases in which a drone strike did exactly what it's meant to,
00:23:37which is decapitate an organization.
00:23:39If you take out the top of an organization, you leave the rest of it without an authority
00:23:44to control it, to tell it what to do.
00:23:48It just kind of crumbles in on itself and fades.
00:23:53In this case, it did work very well.
00:23:58The CIA strike on al-Harati is a textbook operation.
00:24:01It goes down in history as one of the most successful drone operations of its kind.
00:24:09For the next three years, top-secret signals technology combined with advanced intelligence
00:24:14gathering across the Arab world leads to operations that seize Abdul Rahim Nashri and 13 others.
00:24:23All are jailed, al-Qaeda is put out of business, and Yemen is closed down as Osama bin Laden's
00:24:29next place of refuge.
00:24:53In 1959, the CIA is confronting a new enemy, Fidel Castro, the man who threatens to spread
00:25:14communism across America's backyard.
00:25:18The fear for the United States was that a Cuban-style revolution would explode throughout
00:25:22Latin America.
00:25:26The U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower wants him assassinated, and the CIA is given a job.
00:25:33But they need someone who can break through his tight security.
00:25:41Their unlikely weapon, a 19-year-old woman named Marita Lorenz.
00:25:48She was the natural choice because she could get through all of the protective layers that
00:25:53Fidel had around him, and she could get into his bed.
00:25:57This is the story of one of the most extraordinary CIA operations of them all.
00:26:03It will involve the mafia, a Watergate burglar, and Castro's lover.
00:26:08He looked at me.
00:26:09Did you come to kill me?
00:26:38This, the most bizarre CIA assassination attempt of them all, begins with a chance encounter
00:26:45that took place in the port of Cuba's capital city, Havana.
00:26:51A 19-year-old German-American woman named Marita Lorenz is on the deck of her father's
00:26:56cruise liner, the MS Berlin.
00:27:02I was on board the ship.
00:27:04My father was sleeping.
00:27:09I saw this launch coming, and it was coming closer and closer.
00:27:15And then finally, they stood up and waved, and I saw that they all had guns and all wore
00:27:21green uniforms and had beards.
00:27:28The launch came up very close, and he just held on to the railing.
00:27:33He looked up, and I looked down.
00:27:37He said, I'm coming up.
00:27:40And I said, no.
00:27:42And he said, yes.
00:27:45And I said, well, who are you?
00:27:49And he just looked at me, and he said, this is Comandante Fidel Castro.
00:27:59Fidel Castro is the most notorious revolutionary in the world.
00:28:03Just one month earlier, at the age of 32, he seizes power in Cuba in January 1959.
00:28:17He overthrows an American-backed dictator and turns his people against the United States.
00:28:30Castro becomes prime minister of Cuba and forms a close economic and military alliance
00:28:35with the Soviet Union.
00:28:41Now his friendship with the Soviets and his desire to spread his communist revolution
00:28:45throughout Latin America is sending shockwaves back to the United States.
00:28:52We didn't realize there was a threat right in the United States' backyard until it was too late
00:28:57and Castro had seized power.
00:28:59We had to focus our attention because this had the potential to become a communist base
00:29:05in our hemisphere.
00:29:11Cuba is only 90 miles away from the American coast.
00:29:16Cuba was so close to the United States and was potentially a place where missiles could be launched
00:29:21directly against the United States.
00:29:23I mean, what a strategic advantage Fidel had.
00:29:26Eisenhower recognizes that Castro is a serious emerging threat to the U.S.
00:29:31that needs to be dealt with.
00:29:39But the young Marita knows nothing about this man who's about to come on board her father's ship.
00:29:46Very flirtatious, looking at my eyes, trying to size me up.
00:29:55As they come together, 19-year-old Marita Lorenz is swept away by Castro's charisma.
00:30:04And I saw his eyes and that was it.
00:30:08Lost in love.
00:30:13I fell in love.
00:30:16And that's the first time I kissed him.
00:30:22And then my father stormed in.
00:30:26And that's that picture of me sitting at the table with the first officer and Fidel
00:30:33and immediately I pulled my hand away so Papa wouldn't see.
00:30:39Marita's father invites Castro to stay for dinner that evening
00:30:42before he takes his ship and his daughter back to New York.
00:30:46I remember standing on the top deck when we pulled out of the harbor
00:30:52and missing him and feeling terrible.
00:30:57I've got to see him again.
00:31:00As soon as Marita returns to the city, Fidel Castro calls and invites her back to Cuba.
00:31:07This is the beginning of a passionate love affair.
00:31:11I hadn't even unpacked.
00:31:13He said, how are you? I miss you.
00:31:16And with his bad English asked me to come back.
00:31:21I send you airplane and I ended up back in Havana
00:31:25with the same suitcase I hadn't unpacked.
00:31:36A week later, Marita leaves her family's ship
00:31:39and moves into Castro's penthouse apartments on the 24th floor of the Havana Hilton.
00:31:45I felt absolutely terrified, happy, frustrated, crazy
00:31:51and defying my parents without telling them.
00:31:55I felt very guilty.
00:31:58I was taken to a suite, 2408, which linked to 2406, the doors.
00:32:07The first thing I remember, the smell of cigars.
00:32:12This is his place.
00:32:14I look around and there's all his uniforms and this beautiful music.
00:32:21It was a record that never stopped.
00:32:23It played over and over and over again.
00:32:25And boots turned upside down and ashtrays with cigars in it.
00:32:31And then I see toys.
00:32:35Little tanks.
00:32:42And then...
00:32:47a bazooka sticking out from under the bed.
00:32:51This was where Fidel was living and that kind of scared me a little bit.
00:32:57But I don't have anywhere to go.
00:32:59Even if I tried, the whole hall was filled with bodyguards and it was Fidel's suite.
00:33:06And they just said, wait.
00:33:08And don't go out, just wait.
00:33:10And I did just that.
00:33:12I waited and waited and waited.
00:33:18All of a sudden, I hear the door swing open.
00:33:23And he came in and picked me up and swung me around.
00:33:28And I miss you so much, you know.
00:33:32And love talk.
00:33:34And that's a moment I'll never forget.
00:33:46The CIA has been looking for ways of getting information
00:33:50The CIA has been looking for ways of getting to Castro.
00:33:54And they've just stumbled on their first big break.
00:33:57You would have very close access to Fidel.
00:34:00Fidel, I'm sure, had very, very tight security.
00:34:03He would have bodyguards with him, protective detail wherever he went.
00:34:06Fidel Castro, from the very beginning, enjoyed very, very good personal security.
00:34:11Very good.
00:34:13It's comparable to the best anywhere in the world.
00:34:17He created one of the world's best intelligence and counterintelligence organizations.
00:34:23Back in Washington, CIA agents realized that 19-year-old Marita Lorenz
00:34:28may be exactly what they are looking for.
00:34:31Here you have one of the prime targets by the US government and the CIA, Fidel Castro himself.
00:34:39So anybody that's accompanying him, around him, or anywhere connected with him
00:34:43is going to be known in detail by US intelligence.
00:34:48The CIA realizes Marita could be a valuable asset.
00:34:52And they are studying her every move.
00:34:59Marita had a romantic relationship with him.
00:35:02A romantic relationship would actually get her into his bedroom.
00:35:05So she would be able to bypass all of his security layers.
00:35:09She would be the ultimate recruitment target for the CIA and for the US government.
00:35:13No one could track him down except for this one person who was his lover.
00:35:27In April 1959, Fidel Castro is invited to the US by the Society of Newspaper Editors.
00:35:32Castro accepts the invitation, hoping to win over American public opinion
00:35:37as tensions between the two countries steadily rise.
00:35:47Marita accompanies him on their 11-day visit.
00:35:55The CIA is, of course, there too.
00:35:58What the CIA would use is what's called the foreign agent recruitment cycle.
00:36:03And that cycle consists of first spotting a target,
00:36:06a person that has direct access to the person that you're after.
00:36:10The spotting could have very possibly occurred when Marita was either in Havana
00:36:16or be a strong possibility it could occur when she traveled to the United States with Fidel and he met with Nixon.
00:36:23He came to New York in anticipation of seeing President Eisenhower.
00:36:29And instead, Eisenhower rejected him and pushed him off to Nixon,
00:36:35which absolutely infuriated Fidel.
00:36:40He felt very angry that he wasn't accepted with open arms as the new leader of Cuba.
00:36:49That would have been a prime opportunity for her to be spotted.
00:36:52Without question, he was meeting with Nixon. That was a high-level meeting.
00:36:56And you can be sure that U.S. intelligence was all over that visit.
00:37:05Then they would assess the person, their vulnerabilities, whether they were available for recruitment.
00:37:10Then they would develop that person, befriend them, find certain switches maybe that they could use.
00:37:16And then finally they'd make the pitch,
00:37:18would you come over and work with us and can we use you in our operation?
00:37:27After two blissful months, Marita learns that she is pregnant with Castro's child.
00:37:34I was happy to be pregnant, very happy. I wanted it. I wondered what it was going to be.
00:37:43He said, oh, wonderful. Half German, half Cuban. I said, and American.
00:37:50And he was very happy. He said, now I have to build another hospital.
00:37:57But Marita realises there are limitations to being Fidel Castro's lover.
00:38:04I understood that he belonged to Cuba. He made that very clear.
00:38:11He belonged to Cuba.
00:38:13He made that very clear.
00:38:15He belonged to everybody and to Cuba first. And to nobody but to Cuba.
00:38:23By now the U.S. is becoming increasingly concerned by Castro's popularity.
00:38:27Fidel Castro was a titanic figure.
00:38:30When he won power on New Year's Day in 1959,
00:38:33he had come down from the mountains of Cuba after a two-year insurgency.
00:38:37He was the hero of the Cuban population.
00:38:40He was a young man. He was 32 years old.
00:38:43And there was an appeal, the beard and the costume that he cultivated very, very carefully,
00:38:49almost never being seen out of that guerrilla costume.
00:38:54He was admired in much of Latin America, especially among the youth,
00:38:58the university students, the nationalists, and, of course, the radicals.
00:39:04It was just weeks after he won power,
00:39:07and Fidel began very stridently attacking the United States in speeches.
00:39:13He did this in speech after speech. He denounced the United States.
00:39:20If the Americans don't like what is happening in Cuba,
00:39:23they can land the marines and then there will be 200,000 dead.
00:39:27If the Americans don't like what is happening in Cuba,
00:39:30they can land the marines and then there will be 200,000 gringos dead.
00:39:35Even if the Yankee imperialists prepare a bloody drama for America,
00:39:39they will not succeed in crushing the people's struggles.
00:39:43They will only arouse universal hatred against themselves.
00:39:46And such a drama will also mark the death of their greedy and carnivorous system.
00:39:52It is the end of 1959, and US-Cuban relations are deteriorating rapidly.
00:39:59It looks pretty clear now that Fidel was abandoning any pretense of democracy,
00:40:04of fair government, of human rights.
00:40:08He began to support violent incursions, interventions,
00:40:13against other Latin American leaders.
00:40:16He was aggressively exporting the Cuban Revolution to other countries,
00:40:21and the thinking in Washington was becoming much more focused on,
00:40:25we've got to do something about this.
00:40:29It is now that the US government realises that Castro must be removed.
00:40:36The CIA were highly regarded in Washington in those days,
00:40:40and the belief was that covert action against Castro
00:40:43was the best instrument to use.
00:40:50What happens next is a bizarre and strange mystery,
00:40:55but one that eventually leads to Morita being put in contact with the CIA.
00:41:01Morita is alone in Castro's penthouse apartments in the Havana Hilton.
00:41:06The birth of their child is predicted for the beginning of December,
00:41:09and Morita has just ordered her room service breakfast.
00:41:15Everything was fine.
00:41:17Getting big, getting ready for the baby.
00:41:20I had ordered breakfast,
00:41:24and I drank the milk.
00:41:29I felt dizzy.
00:41:31I said, well, maybe this is just because of the pregnancy.
00:41:34I said, well, maybe this is just because of the pregnancy.
00:41:39But no.
00:41:46All I remember was falling backwards on the bed, and I was out.
00:41:53And then I woke up in a car,
00:41:57and I was being driven somewhere.
00:41:59I was like half asleep,
00:42:02and then I was out.
00:42:05Morita's memory of what happens next is very hazy.
00:42:09She has glimpses of events that she can only partially recall.
00:42:13The next thing I remember is lights, a light above me,
00:42:19and arguing, arguing back and forth, cursing in Spanish.
00:42:26They were arguing about Fidel.
00:42:29I don't know if they were arguing at him, or with him,
00:42:32or against him, or for him, or what.
00:42:34I couldn't make it out.
00:42:36And I don't know if my clothes were on or off,
00:42:39or if somebody's moving my body back and forth.
00:42:43Morita is seven and a half months pregnant,
00:42:46and senses that something shocking is happening to her baby.
00:42:50Terrible pain.
00:42:52Terrible pain.
00:42:54But I was like half gone.
00:42:58I thought the baby was born.
00:43:00For a moment, I heard a baby cry.
00:43:03I had a needle in my arm,
00:43:05and the pain was unbearable.
00:43:08And I felt wet.
00:43:11It made me frightened, and I started to cry.
00:43:15And that's all I remember.
00:43:19And then I woke up,
00:43:23back in my suite.
00:43:29MUSIC
00:43:40Morita is so ill,
00:43:42one of Castro's aides arranges for her to fly back to New York
00:43:45for urgent medical treatment.
00:43:50FBI agents are there as her plane touches down.
00:43:54The FBI met me at the airport,
00:43:57and I went straight to Roosevelt Hospital,
00:44:00under FBI protection, surrounded by them.
00:44:08Unbeknown to Morita,
00:44:10this is the beginning of her involvement with the CIA plot
00:44:14to kill Castro.
00:44:19After a forced abortion,
00:44:21and when she was drugged and kidnapped from Castro's residence,
00:44:24Morita is now suffering from blood poisoning
00:44:27and requires immediate surgery.
00:44:30And she's about to find out what has really happened to her.
00:44:39It is apparent that she underwent a forced abortion in Havana,
00:44:43and then the question would be,
00:44:46was that done by the Cuban government,
00:44:48was that done by the US government or the CIA?
00:44:51And based on my knowledge of the kind of operations that happened back then,
00:44:55personally, I don't think the CIA would have done that.
00:44:59It would be my opinion, perhaps,
00:45:01that Castro himself may have been behind that.
00:45:03He had several lovers,
00:45:05and it's very possible that Morita was not the only one.
00:45:08And if a child was born,
00:45:10it could have caused him possibly some political ramifications.
00:45:14The CIA agents begin to use the abortion
00:45:17as a way to turn her against Castro.
00:45:19If Castro was behind this forced abortion,
00:45:22then that would be the ultimate development tool to use with Morita,
00:45:27because that would be a classic betrayal,
00:45:29not just by her romantic lover,
00:45:31but also the loss of her child caused by Fidel Castro.
00:45:41The CIA now initiates its plan to turn Morita into their assassin.
00:45:48The next step in the recruitment cycle is called development,
00:45:52and at that point, they would approach Morita and begin developing her.
00:45:57First, the CIA agents play the good cop and try to win her confidence.
00:46:02After the hospital stay,
00:46:04I was allowed to go home under 24-hour guard
00:46:08and recover physically and mentally and emotionally.
00:46:13I had the agents around me every day giving me so-called vitamins,
00:46:18and they took turns watching me day and night and day and night.
00:46:24The agency would now know the vulnerabilities that Morita had after the assessment,
00:46:29and to develop her, they would begin appealing to those vulnerabilities.
00:46:35I was heartbroken.
00:46:37I was sad.
00:46:39I was lonely.
00:46:44She was betrayed.
00:46:46She had an abortion, a child that obviously she loved and wanted to keep.
00:46:51She was emotionally traumatized.
00:46:54She wound up in a U.S. hospital alone.
00:46:57So they'd begin appealing to that.
00:47:00They started this program of,
00:47:02let's get even with him. He did this to you.
00:47:04Let's get even with him.
00:47:07He didn't do anything about it, left her in the cold,
00:47:09so he wasn't the person that they were looking for.
00:47:11Left her in the cold, so he wasn't the person that she thought he was.
00:47:15I was 19. I was very naive when it came to matters of politics
00:47:20or international foreign policy affairs or love affairs.
00:47:25They're going to try to convince her that the United States is the good guy
00:47:29and Fidel Castro is the bad guy.
00:47:32They repeated things over and over and over again
00:47:37about Fidel doing this, Fidel that, Fidel this.
00:47:42I would have these crying jags
00:47:45where I would curl up into a ball and cry my eyes out
00:47:50and wanting the baby and throwing things, you know,
00:47:56and they would give me pills to calm me down.
00:48:00They would say, that's the anger coming out
00:48:02and you have to do something to get rid of that anger, you know.
00:48:07Before the CIA agents can go any further with Marita,
00:48:11they need to know that she has been telling them the truth about her past.
00:48:15The next very important step is you have to vet the person, the target.
00:48:20It's critically important because we've had many times,
00:48:23many cases where a person has come over
00:48:25and they've become a double agent or were a double agent.
00:48:31So to vet, in this case, Marita,
00:48:33the agency would have to corroborate all the information she provided.
00:48:36Her trips back to Havana, all her records would be checked,
00:48:39her travel records, the people that knew her over there if we had access to them
00:48:43and the procedure would not proceed forward
00:48:45until the agency was absolutely convinced
00:48:48that the information she was providing was credible.
00:48:51Having worked on her personal relationship with Castro,
00:48:54planting the seed that he is the bad guy,
00:48:56they now need to get her on their side politically.
00:49:02The CIA agents begin to dig deeper into Marita's past.
00:49:21Marita tells them she was born in Germany on the 18th of August 1939
00:49:26and two weeks later, her country invaded Poland.
00:49:30I'm the child of the war.
00:49:32All I remember is hard times.
00:49:36The agents learn that her father, Heinrich, was a German submarine captain.
00:49:43Marita informs them that her mother, Alice,
00:49:46was a spy for both the French resistance and the British intelligence during World War II.
00:49:50My first memories of her were in the basement
00:49:54where she would do Morse code, da-da, da-da-da-da-da.
00:49:59She tells them that in 1944, her mother's cover was blown
00:50:03and that she was thrown into the Nazi German Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
00:50:08Marita, then only five years old, accompanied her there.
00:50:12Marita was incarcerated in an SS home and then transferred to Belsen.
00:50:20At the end of the war in 1945, the Belsen concentration camp was liberated
00:50:25and Marita says she was finally rescued.
00:50:28It was this British ambulance driver that found me half dead
00:50:33under a bunk in Belsen and pulled me out.
00:50:43In 1950, the family moves to the United States,
00:50:47settling eventually in New York, and life begins to improve for Marita.
00:50:55The story of Marita's brutal childhood in Germany
00:50:58allows the CIA agents to play on her loyalty to her new country,
00:51:03the country that's made her happy
00:51:05and the country that Castro is now threatening to destroy.
00:51:10Planting the seed that Castro is the bad guy in their relationship,
00:51:14they now broaden their approach to include his hatred of America.
00:51:20They'd bring out the information such as
00:51:23Castro was determined on invading the United States,
00:51:26overturning the US government, he was a bad guy,
00:51:29he was affiliated with the Russians.
00:51:32He hadn't told her any of that information, she didn't know any of that.
00:51:35You didn't know that? No, you're too dumb, too blind, you know?
00:51:39They would curse at me, they would keep me in the room,
00:51:42they wouldn't open the window, I wouldn't go out.
00:51:45They would just bring food and I felt confined.
00:51:52And all they ever talked about, look, here's more proof,
00:51:55see, he's a commie, he's nothing but a damn commie,
00:51:58and you have to do something.
00:52:05Having now softened Marita up,
00:52:08the agents come clean and ask her to join them.
00:52:12The final step in the recruitment process would be the pitch.
00:52:16And that's when you actually ask the person to come over
00:52:19and work for the CIA, US intelligence, and ultimately the US government.
00:52:24The CIA said to me, now you can work for us.
00:52:30After weeks of developing Marita, she agrees to join them.
00:52:34Only now do the CIA agents finally disclose the real purpose of their mission.
00:52:41We want you to take him out.
00:52:43And I said, you what?
00:52:48Are you trying to tell me to kill him?
00:52:51And they said, well, we don't use those words,
00:52:54it's just kind of neutralising us.
00:52:57It's just kind of neutralising him.
00:52:59Look, can you just put something in his food and put him to sleep?
00:53:03You would never know and you would leave.
00:53:07I said, I can't kill him.
00:53:13The CIA now ramp up the horror of a world under Castro's control
00:53:17and try to explain to Marita that the future of the United States is at stake.
00:53:23They would have to have her so convinced that Castro had absolutely betrayed her,
00:53:27that his sole aim was to invade the United States and overturn the US government,
00:53:31that the lives of millions of American people were at stake,
00:53:34that the US Constitution was at stake, and possibly a nuclear war was at stake.
00:53:39And she was one of the only ones that could stop that.
00:53:44And I started to believe them.
00:53:47You're going to be a good citizen.
00:53:49And I wanted to be good. I didn't want to be bad.
00:53:52You have to do this. You have to do this, not just for you and your freedom,
00:53:56but for the United States and the people in the United States.
00:54:0090 miles away, you know, that's how close he is.
00:54:04You could almost walk there, you could jump a puddle, you know.
00:54:08That's how close he is.
00:54:10Just think of it, Marita.
00:54:12You will save this country from the evils of communism.
00:54:18And how proud my mother would be, and how proud we would be.
00:54:24And I would have a star in the CIA building in Langley.
00:54:34Eventually, it seems the CIA tactics have worked.
00:54:38They slowly convinced me, and I said, well, maybe they weren't all that wrong.
00:54:43If it was unpredictable, you could push that button.
00:54:47If I went ahead and just slipped him something to go to sleep,
00:54:50I would prevent an invasion.
00:54:54And then I thought, I have to go back and kill him.
00:55:05Towards the end of December 1959,
00:55:07the CIA needs to be sure that she's a willing agent,
00:55:11so they send her back to Cuba.
00:55:17Marita enters the country as an American tourist,
00:55:20but her real task is to gauge how Castro will react
00:55:24to seeing his lover after six weeks recuperating in New York.
00:55:30They wanted me to not be absent too long from Fidel.
00:55:35They didn't want him to think that I had become a turncoat
00:55:39and working for them now.
00:55:42If Marita was sent by the agency back to Havana,
00:55:45that would be a vetting process.
00:55:47Obviously, if she was a double agent,
00:55:50or if she had provided false information and went back to Havana,
00:55:53she would stay there.
00:55:57I had the keys to the suite, room 2408,
00:56:01and I could just walk in and walk out.
00:56:04And the toys are still there, the music is still there,
00:56:07the boots are still there, his clothes are still in the closet.
00:56:12So if she went there and she behaved the way that her handlers
00:56:15in the US had told her to do,
00:56:17did the things that they told her to do,
00:56:19and then if she came back,
00:56:21then that would be a very, very good indication
00:56:24that she was indeed now properly assessed and recruited.
00:56:32Marita passes the test.
00:56:34The CIA now prepares the assassination plan.
00:56:39BEEPING
00:56:42At the beginning of January 1960,
00:56:45the CIA instructs Marita to travel to Miami
00:56:49to meet a man called Frank Sturgis.
00:56:55A former US Marine,
00:56:57Sturgis fights alongside Fidel Castro in the 1950s
00:57:01and becomes his Chief of Air Force Intelligence.
00:57:04But when Sturgis realises the direction Castro's revolution is heading,
00:57:08he changes sides.
00:57:10And now he's working for the CIA.
00:57:13Some people in the press call him a real-life James Bond,
00:57:16and he certainly was.
00:57:18He used over 30 different aliases in his career as a spy
00:57:23and as an assassin.
00:57:26I lived with Frank for a year in Miami.
00:57:31I lived with Frank for a year in Miami when I was in college.
00:57:35He had a whole drawer full of phony IDs.
00:57:39I mean, some of them were from South American countries.
00:57:44I mean, he, the man, was clearly...
00:57:47He was a man of action.
00:57:49He didn't just sit around and talk about his beliefs.
00:57:52He firmly and deeply believed in the freedoms
00:57:54that we have here in the United States
00:57:56and didn't like communism.
00:57:58He wanted to take the total control of the individual's life
00:58:01and took a stand against those things
00:58:04and basically waged a war against Fidel Castro.
00:58:09When Marita Lorenz met with Frank Sturgis in January of 1960
00:58:13to proceed with this plot to assassinate Fidel Castro,
00:58:17Frank at that point was working hand-in-hand with the CIA
00:58:21in an attempt to overthrow the Fidel Castro government.
00:58:25He told me that Marita was a very intelligent, beautiful,
00:58:30secure, 19-, 20-year-old woman.
00:58:33He was very impressed with her
00:58:35in terms of her maturity for her young age.
00:58:38She basically was thrust onto a kind of a world stage
00:58:42in terms of the relationship she had with Fidel.
00:58:47Sturgis' job is to come up with a suitable murder weapon
00:58:50for Marita to use against Castro.
00:58:54Should it be a gun?
00:58:56A knife?
00:58:58Eventually, he decides on poison pills.
00:59:04To get hold of the poison,
00:59:06Sturgis turns to an unlikely source to obtain it.
00:59:10When Frank Sturgis told me the story, I said,
00:59:13Poison? How do you get... Where do you come up with poison, Frank?
00:59:17And he looked at me and said,
00:59:19Well, I got them from some friends.
00:59:22And I said, Friends?
00:59:25He said, Let's just say close family of friends.
00:59:30And, of course, I knew he was talking about the mafia.
00:59:34The thought that the CIA working with the mafia
00:59:37is not such a far-fetched idea.
00:59:40The mob had controlled much of Cuba's gambling interests
00:59:43for 50 years,
00:59:45but when Castro came to power, he kicked them out.
00:59:48The mob knows that if Castro is taken out,
00:59:51they can move back in.
00:59:58The mafia and the CIA had a community of interest
01:00:01in terms of getting rid of Fidel,
01:00:03and so I think all those things kind of gelled together
01:00:05in this particular plot.
01:00:12It is clear, and there is documented evidence,
01:00:15that between 1960 and 1965,
01:00:17the CIA did approach the mafia to obtain the poison pills
01:00:21to use against, specifically, Castro.
01:00:29The reason that they would do that, obviously,
01:00:32is the mafia could get these poisons illegally,
01:00:35which the United States could not do,
01:00:37or even the CIA officers would prefer not to do.
01:00:46Sturgis gives Morita the pills containing botulism toxin.
01:00:51The weapon is very carefully chosen.
01:00:54They are not traceable.
01:00:56They would dissolve completely and invisibly in liquid.
01:01:00There would be no odour or taste.
01:01:03Critically, they will be easy to use
01:01:06for someone emotionally involved,
01:01:09because the death will not be long.
01:01:15It would be unpleasant.
01:01:21They would portray to her that, look,
01:01:23this is a very easy way to go.
01:01:25You're not going to be pulling the trigger on a gun.
01:01:28There's no violence in this,
01:01:30and it's a merciful way to do it, to use poison.
01:01:34Really, this is the most painless, soft way to do it.
01:01:38Castro won't suffer at all.
01:01:46MUSIC
01:01:51The CIA has got their agent and their murder weapon.
01:01:55All that is left now is to set their assassin in motion.
01:02:03The problem now facing the CIA is that Castro has no routine,
01:02:07no set pattern, which drives the agents wild with frustration.
01:02:12He is in Havana one minute,
01:02:14then across the other side of the island the next.
01:02:17Even his closest associates have little idea
01:02:20where he will be spending the night.
01:02:24He had no hours.
01:02:26He had no timing.
01:02:28Nobody could make an appointment with him.
01:02:30He was always six or eight hours late.
01:02:32His watches meant nothing.
01:02:35He would come and go as he pleased and he wished.
01:02:39Nobody ever knew what he was going to do.
01:02:42He was a pretty hard target,
01:02:44so they would have to find out a routine, a habit,
01:02:47something that would occur pretty regularly
01:02:49so they could have things set up to occur at that time or that place.
01:02:53Eventually, CIA agents spot a pattern.
01:03:00Castro gives regular public television broadcasts
01:03:03to tell his people how they are all benefiting from the revolution.
01:03:10The CIA agents discover that whenever he is going to make
01:03:13a live television speech,
01:03:15he stays at his penthouse in the Havana Hilton.
01:03:24Just after New Year,
01:03:26the CIA sends Marita back to Havana to assassinate Castro.
01:03:33She is told they have intelligence
01:03:35that he will be at the penthouse that night.
01:03:38It was one of the most tense times in U.S. history.
01:03:43In terms of intelligence and military involvement in the Cold War,
01:03:47our relations with Russia and their connection to Cuba,
01:03:50so this operation would have been of utmost importance
01:03:53to the CIA and to the U.S. government.
01:04:00I was in the plane.
01:04:02I was going to go to Quilford Hill, you know.
01:04:06The pills made me nervous.
01:04:09Marita, terrified she will be stopped going through customs,
01:04:12decides on an extra precaution to try and conceal the poisoned pills.
01:04:16I went into the bathroom and I put them in a cold cream jar.
01:04:22And I felt better.
01:04:24I felt I'd be OK going through customs.
01:04:28The 90-mile trip from Miami to Havana takes about 30 minutes.
01:04:36Marita makes it through customs unchecked.
01:04:39It seems her trick with the cold cream has worked.
01:04:42Marita now heads to the Havana Hilton and Fidel Castro's penthouse suite.
01:04:46I felt important.
01:04:48I almost felt like it was a grasp that I couldn't get out of
01:04:51and that I was going to be saving American lives
01:04:55if I took this one life.
01:05:01I walked right in
01:05:04and snuck in the bathroom,
01:05:07closed the door, hoping Fidel didn't walk in right now.
01:05:13I was nervous because I have this man's life in my hands,
01:05:18all because of these little tiny pills.
01:05:22My heart was crying.
01:05:25Oh, God, I was absolutely scared.
01:05:29Marita's mission is to place the poison pills in Castro's drink
01:05:33to assassinate him.
01:05:35But they are covered in cold cream,
01:05:37which is sticking to the pills like glue.
01:05:40I tried to wipe the cold cream off the pills.
01:05:43Oh!
01:05:45I was panicking.
01:05:47My God, there was no way I could grasp the pills.
01:05:54Marita now desperately tries to abort the mission.
01:05:58And I just took them like that and...
01:06:08And they wouldn't go down and they kept floating.
01:06:12I was panicking.
01:06:14I thought I heard the door and Fidel was coming in.
01:06:19I kept pushing the lever down and one went down
01:06:22and the other one didn't.
01:06:24And I smelt like cold cream and Fidel walks in.
01:06:33I said, Fidel, I love you, I love you, I'm back.
01:06:36I'm going to stay, this and that, you know.
01:06:42He laid down on the bed like nothing.
01:06:45He said, you're back.
01:06:47What you been up to, hanging around those Miami people?
01:06:50And when he said that, oh, my God, he knows.
01:06:57He knows.
01:07:05And he just looked at me and shook his head.
01:07:11And he just looked at me and shook his head.
01:07:23And then he just took off the gun belt
01:07:25and threw it over the lamp.
01:07:30And he took the gun out of the holster.
01:07:34I thought that he's going to shoot me.
01:07:42But then he flipped it around and he gave it to me.
01:07:47He looked at me and he said, did you come to kill me?
01:08:03He left himself wide open, vulnerable.
01:08:07He turned to his side, you know, like,
01:08:09she's got the gun in her hand, what is she going to do?
01:08:11Who is she really?
01:08:14He was, for a split second, a little nervous.
01:08:19And then he just took a puff of smoke and a cigar
01:08:22and closed his eyes.
01:08:24He said, nobody can kill me.
01:08:26Nunca.
01:08:28Nobody ever can kill me.
01:08:33I ejected the magazine out of the gun
01:08:36and then I put the gun back in the holster
01:08:40and then he said, come here.
01:08:43And that was the end of that.
01:08:46I could have killed him, but I didn't kill him.
01:08:53I went to bed with him.
01:08:55He took the phone off the hook.
01:08:58I was so relieved about the pills.
01:09:02I was even afraid that my make-up case
01:09:06would come walking out of the bathroom.
01:09:10But I made love to him.
01:09:13And it was as beautiful as ever,
01:09:17but something was missing.
01:09:19And that was the baby.
01:09:24On the same evening, Marita flies back to Miami
01:09:27and tells the CIA she has failed to kill Castro.
01:09:32Frank felt that Marita lost her nerve on this particular assignment
01:09:36mainly because of her feelings about Fidel.
01:09:39The old emotions, if you will, took over
01:09:42and she just wasn't willing to take the step to actually end his life.
01:09:50You know, the CIA is not always successful in what it does
01:09:53and it has failed a number of times.
01:09:55We never know about that because it's an enclosed, secret world.
01:09:58So failure is something that the CIA is used to.
01:10:07So if Marita was not successful in her operation,
01:10:10the agency would just move on to the next plan.
01:10:12That's exactly what they did.
01:10:16Marita's failure causes the CIA to realise
01:10:19they will need to continue exploring ways to get to Castro.
01:10:24Marita's was the first assassination attempt on Castro's life
01:10:28and is the closest anyone has managed to get to him.
01:10:34Since then, there's been an estimated 638 plots to kill Castro,
01:10:40ranging from an all-out invasion
01:10:42to exploding cigars, poison pens and sniper attacks.
01:10:47All have failed, including Marita.
01:10:51And Castro, who steps down in 2008
01:10:53as one of the longest-serving heads of state in the world,
01:10:56is still alive today.
01:10:58He's survived quite a few assassination attempts.
01:11:01Only a few of them were sponsored by the American government.
01:11:04Many others were sponsored by Cuban exiles
01:11:06who were violently opposed to the Castro government.
01:11:09Fidel survived because he created a very powerful
01:11:13and thoroughly ruthless machine for internal security.
01:11:18He was absolutely ruthless.
01:11:20Whenever he even had a scent of opposition,
01:11:23whether it was a group of Cubans somewhere on the island
01:11:27or some prominent individual in the Cuban leadership,
01:11:30even a hint of opposition was enough to result
01:11:33in that person's political extermination
01:11:36and possibly even their execution.
01:11:40The year after Frank Sturgis gave Marita the poison pills,
01:11:43he helped plan the CIA-funded Bay of Pigs,
01:11:46invasion of Cuba, to overthrow the Castro government.
01:11:51He was later arrested as one of the Watergate burglars,
01:11:54sent by President Richard Nixon
01:11:56to break into the Democratic National Headquarters in Washington.
01:12:02Sturgis was imprisoned for 13 months.
01:12:06As for Marita, she continued to work against the Castro government
01:12:13and during a fundraising mission met another dictator,
01:12:17former president of Venezuela, Marcos Pérez Jiménez.
01:12:22Marita fell in love with Pérez.
01:12:25They had a daughter and a brief affair,
01:12:28and then he was imprisoned on charges of embezzling $200 million.
01:12:34In 2000, Marita returned to Havana
01:12:37in the hope of meeting with Fidel Castro again,
01:12:40but he refused to see her.
01:12:43Today, she is still living in New York.
01:13:10For more UN videos visit www.un.org