In 1959, the CIA is confronting a new enemy, Fidel Castro, a man who threatens to spread communism across America’s backyard. The fear for the United States was that a Cuban-style revolution would explode throughout Latin America. The US President, Dwight Eisenhower, wants him assassinated, and the CIA is given a job, but they need someone who can break through his tight security.
Their unlikely weapon, a 19-year-old woman named Marita Loren. She was the natural choice because she could get through all of the protective layers that Fidel had around him, and she could get into his bed. This is the story of one of the most extraordinary CIA operations of them all. It will involve the mafia, a Watergate burglar, and Castro’s lover.
“He looked at me. Did you come to kill me?”
This, the most bizarre CIA assassination attempt of them all, begins with a chance encounter that took place in the port of Cuba’s capital city, Havana. A 19-year-old German-American woman named Marita Loren is on the deck of her father’s cruise liner, the MS Berlin.
“I was on board the ship. My father was sleeping.”
“I saw this launch coming, and it was coming closer and closer.”
“And then finally, they stood up and waved, and I saw that they all had guns and all wore green uniforms and had beards.”
The launch came up very close, and he just held on to the railing. He looked up and I looked down.
“I’m coming up.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Well, who are you?”
“This is Comandante Fidel Castro.”
Fidel Castro is the most notorious revolutionary in the world. Just one month earlier, at the age of 32, he seizes power in Cuba in January 1959. He overthrows an American-backed dictator and turns his people against the United States. Castro becomes Prime Minister of Cuba and forms a close economic and military alliance with the Soviet Union. Now, his friendship with the Soviets and his desire to spread his communist revolution throughout Latin America is sending shockwaves back to the United States.
“We didn’t realize there was a threat right in the United States’ backyard until it was too late and Castro had seized power. We had to focus our attention because this had the potential to become a communist base in our hemisphere.”
Cuba is only 90 miles away from the American coast. Cuba was so close to the United States and was potentially a place where missiles could be launched directly against the United States. I mean, what a strategic advantage Fidel had. Eisenhower recognizes that Castro is a serious emerging threat to the US that needs to be dealt with. But the young Marita knows nothing about this man who’s about to come on board her father’s ship.
“Very flirtatious, looking at my eyes, trying to size me up.”
As they come together, 19-year-old Marita Loren is swept away by Castro’s charisma.
“And I saw his eyes and that was it, lost in love.”
“I fell in love and that’s the first time I kissed him.”
“And then, uh, my father stormed in, and that’s that picture of me sitting at the table with the first officer and Fidel, and immediately I pulled my hand away so Papa wouldn’t see.”
Marita’s father invites Castro to stay for dinner that evening before he takes his ship and his daughter back to New York.
“I remember standing on the top deck when we pulled out of the harbor and missing him and feeling terrible. I’ve got to see him again.”
As soon as Marita returns to the city, Fidel Castro calls and invites her back to Cuba. This is the beginning of a passionate love affair.
“I hadn’t even unpacked. He said, ‘How are you? I miss you,’ and with this bad English ask me to come back. I send you airplane, and I ended up back in Havana with the same suitcase I hadn’t unpacked.”
A week later, Marita leaves her family’s ship and moves into Castro’s penthouse apartments on the 24th floor of the Havana Hilton.
“I felt absolutely terrified, happy, frustrated, crazy, and defying my parents without telling them. I was, I felt very guilty. I was taken to a suite 2408, which linked to 2406. The doors…”
“At first thing, I remember the smell of cigars. This is his place. I look around and there’s all his uniforms and this beautiful music. It was a record that never stopped that played over and over and over again. And boots turned upside down, and ashtrays with cigars in it. And then I see toys, little tanks.”
“And then, a bazooka sticking out from under the bed. This was where Fidel was living and that kind of scared me a little bit, you know. But I don’t have anywhere to go even if I tried. The whole hall was filled with bodyguards and it was Fidel’s suite and they just said, ‘Wait and don’t go out. Just wait.’ And I did just that. I waited and waited and waited.”
“All of a sudden I hear the door swing open and he came in and picked me up and swung me around. And, ‘I miss you so much,’ you know, and love talk, and that’s a moment I’ll never forget.”
The CIA has been looking for ways of getting to Castro and they’ve just stumbled on their first big break.
“Would have very close access to Fidel. Fidel, I’m sure, had very, very tight security. Uh, he would have bodyguards with him, protective detail wherever he went. Oh, he has, Fidel Castro from the very beginning enjoyed very, very good personal security, very good. It’s comparable to the best anywhere in the world. He created one of the world’s best intelligence and counter-intelligence organizations.”
Back in Washington, CIA agents realized that 19-year-old Marita Loren may be exactly what they are looking for.
“Here you have one of the prime targets by the US government and the CIA, Fidel Castro himself. So anybody that’s accompanying him, around him, or anywhere connected with him is going to be known in detail uh by US intelligence.”
The CIA realizes Marita could be a valuable asset and they are studying her every move.
“Marita had a romantic relationship with him. A romantic relationship would actually get her into his bedroom, so she would be able to bypass all of his security layers. She would be the ultimate recruitment target for the CIA and for the US government. No one could track him down except for this one person who was his lover.”
In April 1959, Fidel Castro is invited to the US by the Society of Newspaper Editors. Castro accepts the invitation, hoping to win over American public opinion as tensions between the two countries steadily rise. Marita accompanies him on their 11-day visit. The CIA is, of course, there too.
“What the CIA would use is what’s called the foreign agent recruitment cycle, and that cycle consists of first spotting a target, a person that has direct access to the person that you’re after. The spotting could have very possibly occurred when Marita was either in Havana, or be a strong possibility it could occur when she traveled to the United States with Fidel and he met with Nixon. He came to New York in anticipation of seeing President Eisenhower and instead Eisenhower rejected him and pushed him off to Nixon, which absolutely infuriated Fidel.”
“He felt very angry that he wasn’t accepted with open arms as the new leader of Cuba. That would have been a prime opportunity for her to be spotted, without, without question. He was meeting with Nixon.”
