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Explore Fidel Castro's incredible survival story. Witness 11 U.S. presidents and countless CIA plots fail to assassinate him. Discover how he outlasted them all, dying naturally at 90.
Transcript
00:001959, Havana, Cuba.
00:03A 33-year-old revolutionary seizes power.
00:06Fidel Castro overthrows a U.S.-backed dictator.
00:09His first moves shock Washington,
00:12seizes American oil refineries,
00:14nationalizes banks,
00:16gives land to peasants,
00:17then allies with the Soviet Union,
00:2090 miles from Florida.
00:22President Eisenhower's response?
00:24Remove him.
00:26The CIA gets to work.
00:281961.
00:29They train 1,400 Cuban exiles.
00:33Arm them.
00:34Send them to invade.
00:36Bay of Pigs.
00:38Castro's forces crush them in 72 hours.
00:41The invasion fails on live television.
00:44America is humiliated.
00:46So the CIA changes strategy.
00:48Just kill him.
00:49Operation Mongoose begins.
00:51They try poison pills hidden in his food.
00:54Fail.
00:55Exploding cigars.
00:57Fail.
00:57Poison diving suit for his hobby of scuba diving.
01:01Fail.
01:02Mafia hitmen hired with briefcases full of cash.
01:06Fail.
01:07A girlfriend recruited to slip pills into his drink.
01:10She falls for him instead.
01:12Warns him.
01:13Fail.
01:14Sniper rifles.
01:15Car bombs.
01:16Booby-trapped seashells.
01:18Booby-trapped seashells placed where he dives.
01:19All.
01:20Fail.
01:20The attempts keep coming.
01:22Through Kennedy.
01:23Through Johnson.
01:24Nixon.
01:25Ford.
01:25Carter.
01:26Reagan.
01:27Bush.
01:28Clinton.
01:28Bush again.
01:29Obama.
01:30Eleven U.S. presidents.
01:32Over 600 documented assassination attempts.
01:36Not one succeeds.
01:37Castro keeps giving speeches.
01:40Building hospitals.
01:41Defying embargoes.
01:43Outlasts every CIA director who tried to kill him.
01:47November 25th.
01:482016.
01:50Fidel Castro dies.
01:51In his bed.
01:52Surrounded by family.
01:54Age 90.
01:55Natural causes.
01:56The man America spent 60 years trying to kill died on his own terms.
02:02600 attempts.
02:04Eleven presidents.
02:05He outlived them all.
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