'Crown jewels' files show CIA tried to get Mafia to assassinate Castro

By Steve Holland in Washington
June 27, 2007 07:40am

Previously secret papers reveal assassination plot
CIA tried to recruit mobsters to kill Castro
Lethal pill plan hatched, but gangster got cold feet

THE CIA worked with two of America's most-wanted criminals in a botched attempt to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro in a "gangster-type action" in the early 1960s, it has been revealed.
Overnight the agency declassified hundreds of pages of long-secret records that detail some of the agency's worst illegal abuses during about 25 years of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying and kidnapping.
The documents are known in the CIA as the "Family Jewels", and some describe the agency's efforts to persuade Johnny Roselli, believed to be a mobster, to help plot the assassination of Castro.
They show a then CIA official, Richard Bissell, approached Col Sheffield Edwards of the agency's Office of Security in August 1960 to determine if Col Edwards "had assets that may assist in a sensitive mission requiring gangster-type action".
"The mission target was Fidel Castro," one memo said.

LinkHere