Bacteriological warfare against Cuba, a long-standing aggression

Details of the U.S. bacteriological warfare campaign against Cuba were revealed with the declassification of the results of the U.S. Senate Special Commission that investigated the illegal actions of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1975, and other documents that gave historical reason to the denunciations made by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro about those events.

The public accusation made by the revolutionary leader occurred on June 1, 1964, when he made internationally known the use of those operations against the Cuban people, the island's economy and its leaders. A plan to eliminate Fidel had already begun in the summer of 1962, when Sidney Gottlieb, a CIA chemist, contaminated a diving suit allegedly to be used by him.

According to the attempt, James Donovan, a lawyer who was negotiating the release of the mercenaries from Bay of Pigs, would give the equipment as a gift, but -according to versions- the jurist refused or looked for a pretext not to deliver the gift infected in the parts that would come into contact with the respiratory tract and the skin with the tuberculosis bacteria and the fungus called mature foot, which causes death under a necrosis that decomposes the victim's tissues while he is alive.

The 1975 Senate Special Committee report noted: "In November 1962 a proposal was developed for a broader program of new clandestine actions to overthrow Castro. Assistant to the President, Richard Goodwin, and General Edward Lansdale, both of whom had experience in counterinsurgency operations, played key leadership roles in creating this program, which was called Operation Mongoose (Mongoose).

"General Lansdale's program review for the Cuba Project, dated February 20, 1962, included a basic plan of action, phase four had as one of its components: attack on regime cadres, including key leaders. This should be a special target operation. In this the CIA's operations with defectors are vital. Gangster elements can provide the best potential recruiting for actions against G-2 officers. Block technicians should be added to the target list. CW (Chemical Warfare) agents should be taken fully into consideration."

They were intended to "destroy crops with biological or chemical weapons, and change the regime before the next congressional elections in November 1962," the operation's bullet points noted.

No time, money, effort or human resources were to be spared to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. Actions to achieve this included the introduction of viruses and pests against crops, livestock, poultry and swine production. Thus, the pathogenic Newcastle virus, which eliminated almost the entire poultry population, African swine fever, sugar cane rust and tobacco blue mold, among others, appeared.

It is worth remembering that in the 1970s and 1980s many people contracted hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, suffered dysentery and dengue serotype 02, which caused 158 deaths, including children, as part of the damage inflicted on the Cuban people by U.S. biological terrorism.