Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro was a legendary survivor — besting what Cuban officials say were more than 600 attempts to kill him. He lived much of his long life in the spotlight — and much of it in the crosshairs — surviving a half century of assassination plots.
Castro died Friday, his brother Raul Castro announced.
In a column titled “The Birthday” that was published in Cuban-state media on his 90th birthday August 13, Castro wrote that his younger brother Raul would have replaced him had “the adversary been successful in their plans of elimination. I almost laughed at the Machiavellian plans of the US Presidents.”
His would-be assassins are alleged to have plotted to kill him in a variety of ways, including poisoning him, dosing his dive suit with fatal botulism and blowing him up during a speech. Many of the plots were spectacular failures. More Wile E. Coyote than Jason Bourne.
“More people have tried to murder the world’s most famous socialist than any man alive,” according to the 2006 British documentary “638 Ways to Kill Castro.”
Today, Cuban officials claim Castro survived more than 600 attempts on his life, a figure that is impossible to confirm.
“If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal,” Castro liked to tell interviewers.
His reputation as a cheater of death took hold early. As a young revolutionary he was reported dead twice by Cuba’s press — “perishing” once when he led a failed uprising against a military barracks and again when he returned from exile by boat with a guerrilla force.
The number of people wanting Castro dead — or at least gone — rose after he seized power in 1959, took over US property on the island, embraced the Soviet Union and forced thousands of Cubans into exile.
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