01x01 - The Game

[bunniefuu]

People in the 1950s

had very little idea

of what the CIA was

or what it did.

The original mission

was to know the world,

to gain knowledge

of what was happening abroad.

It was an all-male,

all-white environment.

The Georgetown set,

pipe-smoking WASPs

who believed

they controlled the world

and could mold it

to their will.

It's really hard

to overstate

the sense of panic

that Americans

were thrust into

when the CIA was being formed.

Given the Cold w*r mindset,

it was a huge panic

that Americans were feeling

about the Soviet Union.

There was a sense that

a nuclear attack from Moscow

could happen at any time.

Cuba's Fidel Castro emerged

triumphant after two years

of guerrilla warfare

against

When Castro took power,

that kind of

changed everything.

Because he was starting

to build up power,

the United States

felt threatened.

This literally could be it.

There is fear about

what Castro is going to do.

Tremendous paranoia

and near panic.

The CIA did not want

a Communist beachhead

90 miles from Key West.

This was a time

in our history

when the world came closest

to nuclear Armageddon.

This island nation

could be used

to launch missiles.

The message had come--

there's no living with Castro.

The CIA is going to hire

the mafia to k*ll Castro.

They made a deal

with the devil

to get this job done.

If this comes out,

what will this do to our image

in the eyes of the world?

What cannot happen

is that it gets found out.

It's an incendiary fuel

that's going to blow

One of the most difficult

things in telling this story

is that almost everybody lies.

When you have a world

of liars, fabricators,

half truths,

what is the truth?

A lot of the story

as I've pieced it together

relied on documents

that I could find.

The National Archives

has released

thousands of previously

classified documents.

They describe decades

of spying and surveillance,

assassination plots,

and tension among

U.S. intelligence agencies.

In 2017,

documents became available

that provided

a lot more detail

about what was going on

in the attempts

to k*ll Castro.

There's literally

thousands of documents--

Senate hearings,

FBI documents, even testimony.

Telling this story,

it's almost like

you're putting together

a jigsaw puzzle.

Declassified documents

is the gift of history

that keeps on giving.

The CIA has held on

to so many records.

We have

these incredible reports

that were far more detailed

than anybody knew.

This is in the CIA memo.

It's not in a CIA memo.

It's in the--

In the CIA memo,

Eisenhower states,

"I want him sawed off."

Oh sh*t.

The government is supposed

to pride itself on democracy,

checks and balances,

freedom of the press,

and yet so much of this story

is about concealing

and about trickery

and about the surface

being different

than the agenda

that's going on underneath it.

It took almost 50 years

for the CIA

to even acknowledge

that they indeed hired

two gangsters

to k*ll Fidel Castro.

It is the job of journalists

and historians

to illuminate

what we as citizens

need to know

about what the government

has done in our names.

There are mysteries

that still remain,

but I think

all the secrets are out.

When does the CIA

become a player

in what's happening in Cuba?

It does start to take shape

long before

Fidel Castro has arisen.

In the '50s,

people who lived

in New York and Chicago

in the winter time,

they didn't go to Las Vegas.

They went down to Havana.

Havana, Cuba,

really starts to take shape

as a gambling Mecca.

High style gets aboard for

a flying trip to Havana, Cuba.

It's only 90 miles

from Miami.

Caribbean island.

Good cigars.

The good life.

It was easy to get to,

and people from all over

the world came there.

My parents

would go party in Cuba.

It was like a cool place--

open gambling and drinking,

and where all these rules

were over here,

they didn't have

any of that over there.

Shows were so,

you know, lewd.

Anything was possible

in Havana.

It's a very sensual

and seductive place.

If you wanted

something naughty,

it was pleasure island.

What happens in Havana

stays in Havana.

All bets down.

From really about

'52 to '58,

the mob essentially controlled

the tourism market in Havana.

Long before

Vegas has them,

they have these

thriving casinos.

And the mob is in there

in full force

with a golden goose.

It became the place of which

they had always dreamed,

where they could promote

all kinds of vice,

break every American law

without worrying

because they weren't

in America.

The mob's infiltration

and control in Havana

couldn't have happened

without Meyer Lansky.

Meyer Lansky was

a very high-profile

mob syndicate leader

out of New York.

He was involved in developing

Las Vegas, casinos in Florida.

Lansky had cultivated

a relationship

with Fulgencio Batista,

the repressive dictator

of Cuba.

Batista says he is

a friend of the people

as his soldiers patrol

the streets to establish

what he calls

disciplined democracy.

In the 1950s,

the Batista regime

started really investing

in casinos, hotels,

and gambling establishments.

And he started making deals

with mafia bosses.

So Battista literally

paid Meyer Lansky a salary

to be the gambling czar

of Havana.

Lansky knew

that the first thing

that needed to be done

was to make

all the other heads of the mob

feel that they had

a piece of it.

Otherwise, they would

assert their selves in it

through violence and thuggery.

Everyone was going to get

their piece of the pie--

a casino, a club.

This is what was so wonderful

about that metaphor

in "Godfather II."

The scene on the rooftop,

the mafiosi

who were there with a cake

which is the island of Cuba,

and he literally

cuts up the pieces

and hands it

to all the mafiosi.

This is what Lansky

was doing in Havana.

We have now

what we have always needed,

real partnership

with the government.

A smaller piece.

The idea was there's plenty

for everyone.

New York interests

are involved in Havana,

Las Vegas interests.

And then you have

the Chicago Outfit.

And those guys in Chicago

ran things a little different

than the Five Families

in New York.

The Chicago Outfit

has essentially monopoly

over organized crime

in the Chicagoland area.

This was a multi-billion

dollar criminal enterprise.

The boss of

the Chicago Outfit at the time

was Sam Giancana.

Giancana is put in

as the operating boss

of the Outfit,

which is essentially

the organized crime equivalent

of a CEO in a corporation.

He runs it

on a day-to-day basis.

The Outfit really

had control over what was

West of the Mississippi,

including Las Vegas

and then of course Havana.

The Chicago mob

had interests

in some of the casinos,

some of the nightclubs,

some of the prostitution,

some of the live sex shows

that are going on in Havana.

My father Sam

had some stuff doing in Cuba.

Meyer Lansky and he turned out

the best of friends.

They were involved in

a couple of hotels down there.

Did you ever go

to Havana as a teenager?

No.

I want to go now.

To see the people and the food

and walking through the hotels

that my father and his g*ng

were involved with--

I just crave going down there.

One of the people

the Chicago Outfit

relied on down in Havana

was Santo Trafficante.

Trafficante spoke Spanish.

Most of the mobsters did not.

So Trafficante

was always there

as the translator dealing

with the Cuban connections.

Santo Trafficante Jr.

grew up in Tampa, Florida,

in a neighborhood

that was predominantly Cuban.

That's why he spoke Spanish,

understood the culture.

And eventually, he's involved

in the casino industry

and some of the more

illicit activities

that were going on in Havana.

This mode of business is

extraordinarily profitable

to the mafia and Batista.

The money did not

trickle down to anyone.

The Cuban people were not

happy with that arrangement.

An unequal society

had developed

where a certain

small percentage of people

had all the power

and all the money,

and the campesinos

didn't get much education.

There was a high level

of illiteracy.

They didn't own

the property they lived on.

It was a show

of military authority

that kept people

in their place,

and Batista

was a big part of that.

Batista was

an American-backed dictator.

We didn't care about

his repressive ways in Cuba

because he was in the pocket

of the United States,

both in terms of

U.S. foreign policy

and American

business interests.

Batista orders

the suspension

of all civil rights.

Nothing is to be broadcast

or printed

that is displeasing

to Batista.

Many Cubans felt really

cut out of democratic life,

which they thought

they deserved.

This led to the emergence

of dissident groups.

One of them was led

by Fidel Castro.

Fidel Castro was

a reluctant revolutionary.

I mean, he was a lawyer.

He was a civil rights lawyer.

He ran for political office

in the early 1950s

as a senator, and he was

probably going to be elected

until Batista

rolled into Havana

and took over the country

in a coup d'état.

It threw a wrench

into Fidel Castro's career,

and so it laid the groundwork

in many ways for Fidel Castro

as this figure

who was determined

to take down Batista.

He went to the hills

to join guerrilla groups.

Castro and the revolutionaries

starts to develop power

away from Havana,

but you're not going to

get this in a newspaper

or a television news report.

I grew up

on a farm just north

of where Fidel Castro

set up his revolution.

At first, it was sort of like

a Robin Hood story.

We had about 35 families,

and some of the older kids

would tell us, "You know what?

"We're going to own all this.

"Fidel is going to take it

all away from you,

and he's going to give it

to us, to the poor people."

I took that lightly,

and they took it lightly too.

They never thought

it would happen either.

Castro was from

a wealthy family

and was well-educated,

but everyone else

was the peasantry.

And this is partly

why those in power

couldn't take it seriously.

How could farmers

and campesinos

rise up and take down

the most powerful military

in the Caribbean?

How could that be possible?

The CIA and the mob

had put in all their chips

with Fulgencio Batista.

But the mob did not have

what the CIA had,

which was spies and people

out gathering information

about what was

really happening

politically in Cuba.

They were blind.

Before he took power,

Castro remained

an obscure figure to the CIA.

The American media

would seek out

Fidel Castro in the mountains.

All the people of

the Sierra Maestra are with us.

This is only the beginning.

"The New York Times" reports

that there's a sizable group

up there in the mountains.

But the CIA, being the CIA,

said to Eisenhower,

"This is not a problem.

We can handle this."

"Don't worry, we'll come up

with a solution."

That's what essentially

they tell the president.

"We've got it.

We've got a handle on it."

And actually, they don't

have an answer for it,

and they're not really sure

what the right answer is.

Really what it is

is about the blindness

of those in power.

It's about the hubris

and the belief

that your power is so supreme

that you don't see

your vulnerability

until it's too late.

Many of the early

CIA leaders came

from a background in which

if you made a mistake,

there was always daddy

to pick you up and fix it.

So they thought

that was true in the world,

that whatever happened,

they'd be able

to control the blowback.

And the mob

is stuck in denial.

They put everything behind

the man in power, Batista.

And so the mob

didn't care about what was

really happening politically.

In the late 1950s,

there was always money

to be made from corruption

in Cuba.

There are still whole loads

of Americans coming down

to enjoy the lush,

tropical sexiness of Havana,

including celebrities,

be it a Frank Sinatra

or a young JFK.

In the '50s, John F. Kennedy

comes to Havana.

I mean, he's like

a brand-new senator

known for having

an interest in women,

and he was sniffing around

at the local talent.

And he puts out the word,

probably through an underling

who goes to the mobsters

and says, you know,

"The Senator

would very much like it

if you could maybe possibly

connect him with a young lady."

Trafficante would say,

"We can do that."

They set John Kennedy up

in a room

that had a two-way mirror.

He had a three-way,

him and two other

Cuban prostit*tes.

Trafficante was on

the other side of the mirror

with another gangster.

The other gangster says,

"Hey, we should be

"filming this

'cause this would make

tremendous blackmail material."

Well, they didn't

have a camera.

But the idea of sex,

that anything goes,

was part of the debasement

of Cuban society,

and it had moral implications

for the Cuban people.

Summer 1958,

Castro records his broadcasts

for the Rebel Radio.

His men now will come down

from the mountains

and fight on the plains.

Castro's revolutionaries

started out

in the eastern part

of the island.

Amazingly,

in a very short time,

they had come

very close to Havana.

Batista had an army,

but it really was

mainly used

for rounding up dissidents

and torturing people

in prisons.

They weren't prepared

to fight real battles.

Castro's revolutionaries were.

On New Year's Eve

and on into New Year's Day

of 1959,

the revolution was arriving.

Tanks and soldiers

were rolling into Havana.

When the

revolutionaries arrived

from the Sierra Maestra,

there was no opposition.

The opposition

picked up and left.

Actually,

Batista evacuated, ran away,

and Castro

happened to just drive

into town in a Jeep

with about 40 people,

and there it was to take.

New Years Day 1959,

the news spreads

through Havana--

Batista is finished.

With Batista in flight

to the Dominican Republic,

the celebrating soon

turns to mob action

and looting.

The situation before long

is completely out of hand.

Mobs loot and pillage.

Gangs roam the streets.

Anarchy reigns.

They have that scene

in "Godfather Part II."

People started to flood

into the casinos,

and they dragged

the slot machines

out into the street,

and they started brush fires

using gambling tables.

The mafiosi were thinking,

"How do I get out of here?"

They realized

their lives were in danger.

It was a full-fledged uprising.

The same way

that a heroin addict

goes cold turkey,

the mob had to go cold turkey

over the Havana casinos.

Many people were surprised

when it fell as fast as it did,

none more so than the mafia.

The people of Cuba

see that it's happening,

the revolution is here,

and there's

a spontaneous outbreak of joy.

Every town and hamlet

cheering welcome

greeted the revolution.

Well, this is

the spontaneous,

unrehearsed enthusiasm

greeting the Cuban premier,

bearded Fidel Castro,

visiting the big town.

Only a few months after

the success of the revolution,

Castro was invited

to come to the United States

by the American

Newspaper Guild.

He's on "Face the Nation."

He's talking to Ed Sullivan.

You are in the real

American tradition

of a George Washington,

of any man who started off

with a small body,

fought against a great nation,

and won.

He was not invited

on a state visit

by the Eisenhower

Administration,

which, of course,

had opposed his revolution.

Fidel Castro

had his admirers.

Many people in the U.S.

saw him as a young Kennedy.

He was extremely charismatic.

And I think there were people

who thought that change

was necessary

and that Castro seemed

to have the backing of

the Cuban people behind him.

So I think there were

a lot of people

who thought that

this could portend

a good future for Cuba.

The CIA actually

took the opportunity

of Castro's visit

to try and recruit him.

They wanted him to purge Cuba

of all the Communists.

Fidel made the point

to the CIA

that they were

overly concerned

about Communism

in Latin America

and what they really

should be concerned about

was inequality.

The U.S. government

was prepared to try

and offer him some aid,

but the Cubans did not come

to beg for money.

The revolution was proud.

It was young.

Fidel was not gonna continue

the same relationship

that previous sycophantic-type

leaders of Cuba had had.

It was clear

that the United States

was not going to be able

to control Fidel Castro,

which scared the sh*t

out of the CIA.

Back in Cuba,

Castro clamps down.

The mafia

was losing its assets.

Their casinos

had been expropriated.

They'd been kicked out

of their hotels.

They'd all been forced

to flee back to Florida.

That was something

that the mobsters

particularly resented,

and they were

gonna want revenge.

Lansky gets off

the island pretty quickly.

Santo Trafficante

gets left behind,

and he gets arrested

by military police.

Trafficante is put in the

Trescornia Detention Center.

Castro announced

to the public,

I'm not only aware

of the gangsters in Havana,

I'm inclined to want

to execute them.

Trafficante was

understandably nervous

when he was hearing these

firing squads going off.

So the story is that

Santo Trafficante's lawyer

Frank Ragano comes to see him.

And Ragano says,

"Well, I'm gonna try

"to set up

a meeting with Raul Castro

to get you out of here."

Supposedly,

a $1 million cash payment

was delivered to Raul Castro,

and Santo Trafficante

was released for that reason.

When Santo Trafficante

leaves Cuba

and comes back

to the United States,

he sets up operations

in Miami.

He's really still fixated

on this concept

of getting back into Cuba

and getting those casinos

running again.

Back in Chicago,

Sam Giancana

was so angry

about what happened

with their casinos

in Havana.

And I guess my father

was in a bad mood.

I mentioned that Fidel Castro

was very sexy

because he was just

what I thought I would like,

a little rough on the edges.

My father

just tore into me

and said, "Don't you ever

bring that man's name up

in this house again."

And his temper showed no end.

And I'd seen him get enraged.

If some man aggravated him,

his temper just blew up.

In the last year

of Eisenhower's presidency,

there was a huge expl*si*n

of a French ship

called "La Coubre"

in Havana Harbor.

It was a horrendous tragedy.

75 people on the docks

were k*lled

and on board the ship.

More than 200 Cuban

dock workers were injured.

Smoke billows around

the helicopter on which

Castro himself

is surveying the scene.

Castro's reaction

to the expl*si*n of the ship

was to blame it

on the United States.

Castro says

the ship has been blown up

by United States agents.

US-Cuban relations

were spiraling downward.

From then on out,

it was low-intensity warfare

against the Cuban Revolution.

At the time,

with Cold w*r mania

and paranoia,

there is a lot of fear

about what Castro

is going to do.

Will he embrace

the Soviet Union?

Will he become Communist?

In the 1950s,

there was a sense

of tremendous paranoia

and near panic.

There was a sense

that a nuclear attack

could happen at any time.

Newspapers were even printing

little clocks

about how many minutes

it would take

a Russian m*ssile

to destroy New York.

Our cities are prime targets

for atomic attack.

It's estimated

over 4 million

will die in New York City.

Eisenhower was under pressure.

You have this island nation

so close

to the United States

that could be used

to launch Soviet missiles.

You're going to just

let this happen?

This is our backyard.

The CIA officers

in that era believed

that they knew more

than anybody

about how intense

the threat was.

And therefore,

they were motivated

to do absolutely whatever

was necessary to defend

against this threat.

Allen Dulles

was in charge of the CIA,

looking out to protect

America's interests

in a very dangerous world.

Dulles was the scholarly,

pipe-smoking master spy.

Allen Dulles

was the dominant figure

in the early age of the CIA.

It was actually the golden age

for covert action.

Allen Dulles comes from

a politically-connected

family--

grandfather,

secretary of state.

Brother becomes

secretary of state.

These are connected people.

Allen Dulles was fascinated

with what we now call

intelligence ever since

he was a little boy.

He discovered the novel

"Kim" by Rudyard Kipling.

It became his favorite book.

"Kim" is written in 1901,

and it's often considered

the great novel

about what it is

to become a spy.

You have this young guy

who literally is gonna

make a name for himself.

One of the things

that he learns

is what he calls

the great game,

and the great game

is the power

of having information.

"Here was a new craft

that a man

"could tuck away in his head;

"and by the look

of the wide world

"unfolding itself before him,

it seemed

that the more a man knew,

the better for him."

Information.

Everything.

And that's what he discovered.

From the days of Socrates,

mankind has been

seeking knowledge.

Intelligence is nothing really

other than information

and knowledge.

Dulles was very aware of

what the Soviet intent was,

and he was determined

to stop it.

The CIA knew quite rightly

that the United States

was a colossus

that bestrode the world,

and they saw themselves

as the force that would slay

the beast of Soviet Communism.

Dulles was intensely interested

in cultivating

the public image of the CIA

as this

shadowy super force

that could

accomplish miracles.

It was Allen Dulles who

was the head of the CIA,

but right below him

was Richard Bissell.

Rick Bissell

was regarded as a genius,

a product of great wealth,

educated at Groton and Yale

and the London School

of Economics.

Bissell was a man who wasn't

the traditional spy.

He believed in

the high-tech aspects of it.

He thought in big terms.

He's reported as a guy

who couldn't sit still.

He was always pacing

in his office.

And when he had

to sit at meetings,

he would compulsively

bend and re-bend paper clips

or crush pieces of paper up

into tiny ba*ls.

Eisenhower and Allen Dulles

had become strongly convinced

that Fidel Castro

was a mortal threat

to the United States.

They didn't want

a Communist beachhead

90 miles from Key West.

And to avert that,

they had to do something.

Eisenhower was a passionate

supporter of covert action.

There were all sorts

of ideas--

commando raids,

sabotage, and arson.

And Eisenhower said,

"These are not

"going far enough.

I want things

that might be more drastic."

In memorandum of conference

with the President

dated May 13, 1960,

Eisenhower states,

"I want him sawed off."

The meaning of that

would have been

very clear

to everyone who was present.

Eisenhower was a tough guy

behind that smile.

This became Allen Dulles's

responsibility to carry out.

He asked his Covert

Operations Director Bissell

to take on the project.

Bissell proposed

in a written memo

to Dulles "the elimination

of Fidel Castro."

Well, Dulles, perhaps a little

more politically savvy,

suggested "elimination"

had more

than a tinge of m*rder in it

and edited that to say,

"the removal

of Castro from power."

And that's when

the ball started rolling.

The whole strategy

by the CIA was two-tiered.

It was, one,

to try to assassinate Castro,

and then also

to plan for an invasion

by an army of Cuban exiles

that would establish

a new American-friendly

government in Havana.

d*ck Bissell

tells the vice president

that the CIA is gonna need

500 trained Cuban exiles

to do the job.

So hundreds of Cuban exiles

are being trained

in an invasion plan.

While all these Cuban exiles

are being trained in Florida

and Latin America,

CIA officials

had gotten the approval of

President Dwight Eisenhower

to go ahead with

this assassination attempt

against Castro.

President Eisenhower

was adamant

that there would be

no fingerprints

on the Castro plot.

For the CIA,

the big question was,

how do we do this so that

the President could

plausibly deny

that he approved the attempts

to k*ll a foreign leader?

"Plausible deniability"

means even if people

don't believe you

when you say

you're not involved

in this operation,

there's no clear evidence.

They wanted somebody else

to do it

as opposed to the government.

They want a middleman,

if you will.

So the plan to get rid

of Castro

goes down the hierarchy

of the CIA,

from Dulles to Bissell

to Head of Security

Shef Edwards

In the CIA memo

dated August 1960,

Bissell asked

Sheffield Edwards

"if Edwards

could establish contact

"with the U.S.

gambling syndicate

that was active in Cuba."

Bissell is gonna hire

the mafia to k*ll Castro.

The idea of the mafia

created a great cover

for the CIA.

The mafia had a grievance

against the Cuban Revolution.

If they were identified as

the assassins of Fidel Castro,

everybody would go, "Oh, yeah,

sure, that makes sense."

But government

shouldn't be assassinating

foreign heads of state

to start with.

But if you've already crossed

that line in the Rubicon

and now you've decided

to become partners

with the mafia,

it's a whole

different operation.

The CIA can't be seen

directly dealing

with the mafia.

So what they have to do

is use a cutout,

somebody that they know

knows mafiosos.

Shef Edwards told Bissell

that he had a friend,

a private investigator through

whom syndicate elements

in Cuba could be reached.

That was the path

to Robert Maheu.

Now, Bob Maheu had been

an FBI agent in the 1940s.

And then during the '50s,

he had gone

into private practice as

a private investigator in DC.

He had several clients,

and one of them was the CIA.

So he could be trusted.

The mission,

should you decide

to accept it, is to put them

out of business permanently.

Robert Maheu claimed

that he was the inspiration

for "Mission Impossible"--

very popular,

very suave 1960s spy show.

And one of

his big clients becomes

Howard Hughes, the wealthiest

man in the United States.

Obviously, working

for Howard Hughes,

he was somebody

that had a lot of access.

Remember, if you get

around powerful people,

you're going to get

information.

Sheffield Edwards

from the CIA reached out

to Bob Maheu and said,

"Hey, this is something

we want to do."

Maheu was reluctant

to get involved in this

because, hey, we're talking

about assassinating

the head of a government.

But the argument was made,

"Hey, this is a w*r.

"You're doing this

for your country.

This is a patriotic thing

for you to do."

Patriotism justifies people

doing all kinds of things--

in this case,

to have a m*rder arranged.

Maheu is conflicted.

Here he is

a good Catholic boy,

went to Holy Cross.

Can I k*ll Fidel Castro

in all good conscience?

And he ultimately decides

that if he had been able

to k*ll Hitler

in World w*r II,

he could have saved lives.

So he says yes.

People had no idea

that this sort of stuff

was going on.

The activities of the CIA

must be secret.

People really thought

that the FBI,

the CIA were slaying

the dragons of evil.

They were presenting

a public image of rectitude

and always being on

the right side of the law.

So the United States being

involved in assassinating

a head of state

at the height of the Cold w*r,

this thing's fraught

with peril.

Maheu himself was nervous

about the whole operation.

Maheu voiced concerns

with the CIA contacts,

like, "Are you really sure

this is the direction

you want to go?"

If this comes out,

what will this do to our image

in the eyes of the world?

But the CIA at that time

was so arrogant

that it didn't even

think about

the operation falling apart.

So Maheu sets up

a meeting with his connection

to the mafia, Johnny Roselli.

Who is Johnny Roselli?

I would say that the answer

to that question

depends upon who's asking it.

In terms of all

of the characters

throughout this story,

Johnny Roselli,

the gangster,

is at the root of everything.

Roselli would team up

with the CIA

to create one of the strangest

and most ill*gal chapters

in the history

of the United States.

in the history

of the United States.