The Plot: In the fall of 1960, the CIA dispatched Robert Maheu, an employee of Howard Hughes, to recruit the mobsters John Roselli, Sam Giancana, and Santo Trafficante in a Castro assassination plot for a $150,000 bounty.

The Weapon: Poisoning Castro’s food with botulinum toxin

What went wrong: Castro stopped going to the restaurant where the poison was on hand.

The Plot: In January 1960, Frank Sturgis, CIA agent and later Watergate burglar, recruited Marita Lorenz, an ex-lover of Castro’s, to kill him.

The Weapon: Poison pills smuggled in a jar of cold cream

What went wrong: Still in love with Castro, Marita confessed to him before she could do the deed. He gave her a gun to shoot him, but she refused. She fled Cuba but later met up with Castro again in 1981.