Target: Fidel Castro

Get rid of Fidel Castro. That was the mandate for "Operation Mongoose" in the early 1960s. It began as a simple effort to overthrow the Cuban president but escalated into an attempt to get rid of him by any means necessary -- including assassination.

Mongoose was headed by a special group at the Kennedy White House, including a unit from the CIA. The CIA, meanwhile, had yet another unit targeting Castro. Between 1960 and 1965, the agency launched at least eight different plots against the Cuban leader. In February 1961, it delivered a box of Castro's favorite cigars, contaminated with botulism, to Cuba -- but they apparently never made it to the target. In 1961 and 1962 the CIA worked with members of the Mafia to twice deliver lethal pills to Cuban shores; in neither case were the pills delivered to Castro.

Other plans were considered. In 1963, a CIA group studied and rejected a plan to place an exploding seashell in an area where Castro was known to skin-dive. That same year, a diving suit contaminated with a poisonous fungus was prepared as a gift to Castro from a U.S. emissary. The suit was never delivered.

The plots against Castro were abandoned after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.