Operation Mongoose: Trying and Failing to Kill Castro - Cold War

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Our historical documentary series on the history of the Cold War continues with a video on the Operation Mongoose - the CIA action sanctioned by the US president Kennedy. The Americans were trying and failing to kill the Cuban leader Fidel Castro for decades.
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#ColdWar #Castro #CIA #Cuba

[@TheColdWarTV]

Get a 7-day free trial and 50% off Blinkist Annual Premium by using my promolink www.blinkist.com/thecoldwar. This offer is valid only until May 29th, 2023.

[@halmstadrapbeats8084]

Any chance of you guys doing an episode on the 1973 Chilean coup? Its one of the more iconic cold war events.

[@nigeh5326]

They will do but not yet. Generally we are still in the 1950s and 60s period. The rise of Pinochet and some other fascist dictators is still in the future at this point. I like you will look forward to that episode when hopefully they will also cover my country’s (Britain) disgraceful support for Pinochet including Margaret Thatcher allowing him to come to Britain for medical treatment 😔

[@halmstadrapbeats8084]

@@nigeh5326 the one positive thing about his friendship with Thatcher i suppose is that it ultimately led to his arrest in London, even if he was let go. My dad is Chilean and had to flee in the 80's. He was very active both in the support of Allende and after the coup in the opposition to Pinochet. In 1972 during the CIA backed Trucking Companies Lockout, where trucking company owners closed down their services to oppose the introduction of a state-owned trucking company, he was part of the group of people who would use their trucks at this time to transport resources and material as they were needed to help alleviate the effects caused by the lockdown. He doesnt talk very much of his time during the dictatorship, though he has started talking more about it lately. He mentioned the 50 year anniversary coming up this year. I dont want to push him to talk about it, but for obvious reasons its a topic that is personal to me and that i want to know more more about.

[@nigeh5326]

@@halmstadrapbeats8084 I get why your father doesn’t want to talk about that time it was horrendous for many in Chile. Maybe you can convince him of the importance of him telling how bad it was so that others will not allow similar things to happen ever again. Also try to record his memories for future generations and maybe for Chilean historians. I’m 58 and my dad never really talked to me about his military service and I really regret that now that he has passed away. The world needs more good people like you and your father buena suerte

[@Boleslav4]

When I did my bonus history lessons for some of my students, Castro was one of the people I covered and mentioned some of the more imaginative plans to get rid of him. At times I felt like I was not reading about the US secret service, but about James Bond or even Johny English.

[@Transmission_Rory]

A figure who doesn't get enough credit in history is an Arlen native called Cotton Hill; a WW2 veteran with 50 confirmed kills who lost his shins during the war. In 1957, he, his pregnant wife and fellow veteran Topsy Toppington went to New York City to assassinate Castro. During his US visit, Castro attended a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. Topsy was going to poison him with a blowdart but missed because Cotton's wife was going into labour. Federal agents protected Castro whilst hunting down the assailants, with Cotton's son, Hank Hill, born in the ladies room. Fast forward to 2001, Hank Hill discovered the truth of his birth, with Cotton feeling guilty and taking him out for a drink. Unbeknownst to Hank, Cotton was setting up Hank to be a patsy; taking his photo with Hank mimicking the Lee Harvey Oswald rifle polaroid. Along with some of his friends at the VFW, Cotton drove to San Antonio to meet Jorge Lopez, a Cuban-Mexican who was going to get them into Cuba. The plan was ultimately foiled when Hank revealed he took out the spark plugs of their truck, leaving them disincentivized and wanting to return home. Cotton's willingness to take down the communist leader is something America needs to acknowledge.

[@TheColdWarTV]

And all his son wants to do is sell propane and propane accessories.

[@Transmission_Rory]

@@TheColdWarTV 🤣🤣

[@davidloomis9282]

Uh, didn't Hank Hills' dad on the show King of the Hill supposedly lose his shins in WWII and he always waddled around when he walked

[@Kawaiijapanlover]

Awesome KoTH reference! I loved it!

[@yotoronto12]

Imagine finding out your fem fetale failed at assasinating Castro and revealed her plans to him because Castro got level 100 rizz.

[@balabanasireti]

Rizz 🤓

[@gOgOoGAgA]

fr lol what a gigachad

[@lisakeitel3957]

True history, no fake

[@fettywap1738]

😂😂😂

[@pyeitme508]

Castro: "Nice try😂."

[@treverblanco]

Jesus, the CIA is wild.

[@KoIossov]

That's a mild way of putting it

[@nikola_tomic]

CIA, Jesus is wild

[@ciaranleonard3744]

Pure evil

[@rc59191]

It actually sounded like a fun time if you were a member lol.

[@mnk9073]

_the virgin cia_ : *tries to kill Fidel Castro 638 times in 60 years *THE CHAD FIDEL CASTRO* : *dies peacefully in his sleep at the ripe old age of 90

[@ekmalsukarno2302]

The Cold War, can you please make a video on the history of Thailand during the Cold War. This is because during that time, Thailand's lese-majeste laws were at their strictest and the country bounced back and forth between military and civilian governments, all of which have continued even after the end of the Cold War.

[@darylcheshire1618]

The one about the beard cracked me up. I read there were exploding cigars. Was that an exaggeration? It also reminds me about Stalin’s attempt to liquidate Tito and his famous note to Stalin (before his death).

[@chrisvickers7928]

I've heard some stories of Canada's response to the Cuban missile crisis and done some reading on it. Canadian Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker disliked John Kennedy and the feeling was mutual. When the Americans went to Defcon 3 status, the asked Canada to adopt the same level of alert status. Canada delayed and debated for days. The Americans specifically wanted Canada to deploy more of our east coast fleet on asw patrol freeing up American ships to increase their blockade of Cuba. The RCN was ordered not to do this and to return units to port. The RCN then re-fuelled the ships and sent them back out. The Canadian government debated 2 days and then finally agreed to go to our version of Defcon 3, after the peak of the crisis had passed but the RCN had effectively gone to the higher level of alert.

[@Mrgunsngear]

Thanks

[@alonkilci4352]

With how much the CIA failed to assassinate Castro, I don't get why ''Assad must go memes'' are a thing when Castro fits that meme more.

[@mrmr446]

Well the effort to get rid of Assad failed but at least some haven't accepted it yet and it came with quite the media operation, including the recent resurrection of the White Helmets after the earthquake.

[@nomobobby]

To be fair, beating the CIAs deadly fungus wetsuit, exploding cigars and everything else is hard. Everyone heard of the attempts so "Assad must go"

[@beachboy0505]

Excellent video

[@trizvanov]

I think it would be worth mentioning operations to de-stabilise Vietnam around the same time.

[@Numba003]

This made for bizarre listening while working on my washing machine lol. Thank you for making chores more entertaining lol. God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)

[@gregcampwriter]

Mongoose was a failure, unless a certain Marine defector was connected to it. In that case, it was a disaster.

[@Iconhulk]

Oswald = Patsy

[@shasshas2836]

Finally!

[@luanfonseca5179]

hoping for more stuff on latin america principally south america. amazing video as always

[@andreidarie4076]

You should dedicate an a video to covering Operation Northwoods

[@12mkamran]

Nice

[@RoboticDragon]

haha the revolutionary t shirt icon, nice.

[@andyreznick]

While listening to this episode I kept thinking of the coyote trying to get the road runner...

[@raymonko]

Castro: I will choose to die in my own terms.

[@peterbustin2683]

T shirt icon? The guy was a doctor!

[@nigeh5326]

Yes he was a doctor. But he is best known to most in the West as the guy on the t shirts and college dorm posters in the 60s and 70s. To those interested in the Cold War he is indeed much more and a fascinating figure but so are a lot of others who don’t even get the recognition Che gets as a t shirt and poster icon.

[@donnyboon2896]

He was an evil racist.

[@wazzup233]

His t-shirt is a leftist propaganda. Be careful what you'd buy. 🤑

[@vojislavl6665]

People need to read more on Che. There's a reason he is viewed as a hero, not only in college dorms, but across the third world. The only people that despise him, are rich middle class westerners who have an agenda against him.

[@Cassius609]

Got me with that Bad Empanada thumbnail

[@JARV9701]

Hitler: "I survived docens of assassination attemps" Castro: "Sosten mi puro, gusano."

[@clamm150]

Castro looks like post Malone in the thumbnail

[@brokenbridge6316]

It seems Castro had the devils luck at avoiding assassinations. I wonder just how many attempts were made on the man's life?

[@drewstar412]

When are we going to get the role Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and what effect it had on The Cold War, if any effect? Then we get start making shirts that have Pol Pot's face in front of T-Shirts...Just like Che Guevara. Thanks David.

[@Seouldrift7]

Escambray Rebellion ?

[@Albert-Arthur-Wison225]

Exploding cigars,…facial hair dropping out,…strategically - placed banana peels….it’d all be so hilarious if we forget that these Keystone Kops / Thomson and Thompson clowns were thoroughly involved in the debacle of the Bay of Pigs, much to Joe Pesci’s fury.

[@markcana2917]

The numbers mason!! What do they mean?

[@reeyees50]

Fidel lived and Kennedy died.......W in the chat

[@Iconhulk]

Huh.. No.. Jfk > LBJ T.f.

[@2broketim479]

Traficante was the Mob Boss of Tampa not New Orleans..

[@michaelsinger4638]

Watching the US try for decades to topple Castro, and fail miserably, is very amusing. Karma perhaps.

[@BPAIZZY]

That's the same government that easily took out JFK.

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

Then again, Cuba is not in a good position either when he was around until 2010. Fido oversaw the "Special Period of Peace" in Cuba that is practically an economic collapse...

[@iannarita9816]

It would be interesting to ponder if the US Government had instead just tried to deal with Castro as the new leader of Cuba and just tried to get along. Now Fidel is gone and buried. We should try for a restart.

[@Dave_Sisson]

I'm not sure if the USA is very good at subtlety and "hearts and minds" campaigns? They are much better at "big gun diplomacy" than being charming and making friends with leaders.

[@danielwesterlund1905]

Any chance we can get a Freudian analysis of the CIA's obsession with Fidel's big fat cigars?

[@janetleeadams7287]

Love the videos, but the music is so distracting. don't need it at all.

[@alandesouzacruz5124]

Make a vídeo about operation Power pack and republican dominican civil war

[@lundsweden]

Maybe the U.S should've tried diplomacy with Cuba. I think they actually pushed Cuba away from them and towards their enemies.

[@donnyboon2896]

Character assassination complete- Justin Trudeau

[@PaulZyCZ]

11:00 - In the Eastern Bloc it was popular to blame Americans for releasing the Colorado beetle on "socialistic potatoes". At same time Soviets were releasing Asian lady beetles on their fields to fight aphids, despite protests of countless citizens who were bitten by agitated bugs.

[@nomobobby]

Wait the soviets deliberately released beetles to fight aphid pests? I wanna see more on it.

[@PaulZyCZ]

​@@nomobobby My mother was born in the Soviet Union (near lake Baikal). She told me one sunny day she was taking a walk and the local Kolkhoz seemed to spray the fields with something... which turned into a cloud of angry lady beetles (or ladybugs, but knowing "comrades engineers"...). I tried finding some document about it, but the mentions are sporadic on the Internet (since the 1960s), but in the USA there were similar experiments since the early 20th century.

[@jameswyre6480]

Wily dictators and crazy government plots are no new thing as this excellent episode points out. Still, after being too weak and disengaged against Stalin until after ww2, I can see how learning more about his machinations and seeing the Axis efforts would lead to the US being overly active to the point of being the baddies or at best being seen as incompetent. Notable is the occasional restraint, I guess. Not usually a feature of hardcore baddies.

[@racudo1898]

Crazy dictatorships like USA and their lobbyist government council

[@nvelsen1975]

@@racudo1898 Condoleances with the death of another 1000 of your orc invaders this week, Sergei.

[@stefanodadamo6809]

When infamy meets incompetence.

[@KoIossov]

Castro is based

[@user-hj9ej1so9y]

US Agricultural dept 1961 62 63 Target # Cuban Agricultural projects, Operation mongoose

[@nikola_tomic]

OK, Silence please! Killing Castro attempt No. 135 Action 🎬 😎

[@chenyaolu4213]

Since you also agree that the CIA is making coups and disasters everywhere, I wonder why you usually blame the planned economy, shortages, and secret police in communist countries? To some extent, it is necessary to deal with the CIA. Also, although Cuba is not a rich country, it develops much better than Haiti.

[@david___7039]

This is an incredibly binary way to view history. One is bad so the other must be good? History is not a zero-sum game; all parties involved in something can be awful. And why would you bring up Haiti? This is pure whataboutist deflection.

[@ShubhamMishrabro]

No it's not necessary to abuse human rights to counter cia

[@MithunOnTheNet]

Because CIA didn't bankrupt Soviet Union. Communist policies did that. As it did in many Communist European nations who were much poorer compared to their Western counterparts and eventually collapsed one after another. CIA didn't end Communism in Poland, Hungry, Czechoslovakia, Romania, etc.

[@lisakeitel3957]

​@@ShubhamMishrabro but there were no specially high human rights abuse cases in Cuba. It was better than most of latinamerican countries in that period. It probably was better than in US.

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

So you're telling me Nicolae Ceaucescu of Romainia is a CIA agent for spending all the country's money on pointlessly grand buildings?

[@lilaudiolympianYt]

What happened in history is as simple as black & and white, which is why I won't remember any Grey areas. 🤔

[@beepboop204]

😍😍😍😍

[@deptusmechanikus7362]

Spoiler: it failed

[@WriteInAaronBushnell]

Was this a failure...yes unequivocally. It would be funny if this also involve the economic strangulation of cuba

[@TheLilikprasaja]

The numbers, Mason, what do they mean?

[@douglas69ification]

60+ years later and Castro is still there.😮

[@austinjonestyler]

operation mongoose ended in 2000, not 1962.

[@kevinsysyn4487]

American military aggression towards Cuba justified and compelled them to seek defense aid from the USSR. That's what the military build-up was about.

[@josedavidgarcesceballos7]

Just in case, who got most failed attempts, Castro or Tito?

[@techbit7607]

Kennedy I am starting to believe would've been better off as a hollywood actor, all of his war adventures were a blatant disaster.

[@frankchan4272]

He lived to ripe old age of 90 & outlasted administration& presidents.

[@beachboy0505]

I think the USA never wanted to remove him , they kept him isolated and sanctioned as as example to all of Latin Americans, this is what happens if you ‘go alone ‘ . The proverbial ‘whipping boy’. The US also allowed Cuba to bring South Africa into a more manageable entity.

[@nvelsen1975]

You meant to say of course "Brutally invaded Angola on a campaign of genocide and opression", because that's what Cuba did, and even today it ranks as one of the occasions when Apartheid was right.

[@condimentofmassdestruction9114]

@@nvelsen1975No it wasn’t. The Cubans went there to fought with the Angolans.

[@nvelsen1975]

@@condimentofmassdestruction9114 Oh here we go, the lovers of tyranny are here to argue bloodthirsty invaders were 'liberators'. Your kind hasn't changed since at least 1938.

[@BTScriviner]

How so? The USA's Cuba policy after JFK was heavily influenced by bitter Cuban émi​grés in Miami, to the detriment of both the US and Cuba.

[@vojislavl6665]

@@nvelsen1975 .... Do you not know history?

[@kamilebrahimoff3589]

The C.I.A agent and the Mobsters meet at Fountainblue hotel in Miami in 1962. C.i.A offers money, but the Mobsters were willing to carry out a hit on Castro for free. How embarrassing for the U.S. to sit down with Mobsters to take out Castro.

[@saiprateek5779]

If anyone remembers legacy Call of Duty Black ops 1... you will know who Fidel Castro is😊🥰

[@mokarokas-1727]

Also fairly common to know who he is WITHOUT playing/remembering that game. lol

[@jiv0der]

😂

[@BPAIZZY]

I always wonder, why so many Americans support Castro. Some actually side with Castro and are against the US, I could never figure that out.

[@MrJonnydanger]

The modern democratic party is based on communism

[@racudo1898]

I wonder how anyone can side with the US. It isn't a nation, it's a cancer

[@vojislavl6665]

Its fairly easy actually. The US on this case, are the actual baddies, objectively speaking. There's a reason why many in power are against you lot learning history, particularly in Florida.

[@petergray7576]

Operation Mongoose: When the USA went 100% on state-sponsored terrorism. And the Kennedy Brothers washed themselves clean of the stigma of their very personal micromanaging of the Operation thanks to the selective amnesia of later generations.

[@alex4863]

Well we know what inspired the Matrix 😂

[@brokenbridge6316]

My sister has a few Cuban in-laws and when I met with them she very specifically told me and the rest of the family to never mention Che Guevarra. They still had sore feelings over what happened in Cuba to this day. I can't really blame them.

[@peter_de_Jong817]

Imagine being mad because you can no longer oppress people 😂

[@scythal]

@@peter_de_Jong817 ...They're Cubans. Pretty sure they're mad over having their lives be disrupted by a rag-tag band of communist guerillas with support from a nation that actively suppressed its own people (the USSR)

[@vojislavl6665]

@@peter_de_Jong817 "but I treated my slaves really well! The shack they slept in was better than the neighbours' one."

[@cubanreemachine9592]

@@vojislavl6665 You know that there was not slaves in cuba when it became a nation right. Black Cubans mangaed to gain freedom in the 1850s under the spanish government. Also cuba before the revolution was one of the most progressivest nation in latin America. Cuba had Ramon Grau which was a nationalist and he gave woman the right to vote. Cuba was one of the nations with the biggest workers unions. So you are talking alot of crap. Batista was a social democrat he had members of his cabinet that were members of the communist party of cuba like lazaro peña. You need to learn more about history before you start talking trash.

[@MrJonnydanger]

Too bad it didn't succeed. Canada would have been spared Justin Trudeau 😂