It was March 1961. At the Habana Libre hotel, a waiter was preparing Fidel Castro’s favorite chocolate milkshake. But in the kitchen freezer, hidden in an ice tray, was a capsule containing enough poison to kill 10 men. What happened that night. He saved the Cuban leader’s life by centimeters. But before revealing how the bodyguard discovered the plot.
Let me tell you who the man really was whose job was to keep Fidel Castro alive against 638 assassination attempts. His name was José Miguel. He had fought in the Sierra Maestra alongside Fidel during the Revolution. When they triumphed in 1959, Fidel told him, “Miguel, I trust you with my life.” Literally.
José Miguel became one of Fidel’s five main bodyguards. No, the head of security. That was Fabián Escalante. Miguel was something more valuable, the man Fidel wanted close by when he slept, when he ate, when he relaxed smoking a fan in his private office. Fidel didn’t trust easily. I remembered Miguel years later.
I had seen betrayal many times, but I only allowed you to be near when I let my guard down. That meant he trusted you more than his own family. In 1960, just one year after the revolution, the rumors began. The CIA wanted Fidel dead, and they weren’t kidding. They had recruited the Chicago mafia, Cuban exiles, even Fidel’s former lover .
But Miguel didn’t know how far they would go . until that night at the Habana Libre hotel. To understand what happened that night, you first need to know this. The CIA didn’t try to kill Fidel Castro once, or 10 times, or even 100 times. Fabián Escalante, the head of the Cuban counterintelligence department, documented 638 assassination attempts between 1959 and 2038.
Some were serious. Others are incredibly ridiculous. Cigarettes poisoned with botulinum toxin, a diving suit contaminated with deadly fungi, explosive seashells painted in bright colors to attract Fidel while he was diving. They even tried to spray his radio studio with LSD to make him behave erratically on television.
Miguel remembers when Fabián showed them an intelligence report in 1960. ” Look at this,” Fabián said. The CIA has just contacted Sam Yancana and Santo, a drug trafficker. Do you know who they are? The heads of the Chicago and Miami mafia, Miguel couldn’t believe it. She did it by working with criminals. ” They’re desperate,” Fabian replied, “and that makes them more dangerous.
” The mafia had received $150,000, more than a million dollars in today’s money, to remove Fidel Castro and they had just sent the perfect tool for the job to Cuba. In March 1961, the Habana Libre hotel, formerly the Habana Hilton, had become one of Fidel’s favorite places for informal meetings.
She loved her chocolate milkshake. He asked for it almost every week. The CIA knew it. A hotel waiter, a man named Santos, had been recruited by mafia agents. They had given him a small capsule, about the size of an aspirin tablet, containing botulinum toxin. Just one capsule, a single drop in Fidel’s drink.
30 seconds later he would be dead. Santos hid the capsule in the kitchen freezer. wrapped in an ice tray. Nobody would suspect anything there. The plan was simple. When Fidel asked for his milkshake, Santos would take out the capsule, dissolve it in the drink, and serve it. He would collect his money and disappear before anyone knew what had happened.
But José Miguel had a rule. Never trust food you haven’t seen being prepared from the start. That night, Fidel arrived at the Habana Libre hotel for a meeting with military commanders. They finished around 11 pm. Miguel, Fidel said, “I’m craving a chocolate milkshake.” Miguel nodded. I’m going to the kitchen with you, Fidel Rio.
Don’t you trust the chef? I don’t trust anyone when it comes to your life, commander. They went into the kitchen. Santos, the waiter, was there preparing drinks for other customers. When he saw Fidel and Miguel enter, he turned pale. Miguel noticed it immediately. ” Are you okay?” Miguel asked her. Yes, yes.
Santos stammered, simply surprised to see the commander here. Miguel watched as Santos prepared the smoothie. Milk, chocolate, ice, blender, everything normal. But then Santos looked towards the freezer. A quick, nervous glance. Miguel followed her gaze. “What’s in that freezer?” Miguel asked. Santos began to sweat. Nothing, just ice. Miguel walked to the freezer and opened it. Bring Fabian here now.
Miguel told another guard. Inside the freezer, attached to the ice tray, was a small capsule. Santos had tried to get it out before Fidel arrived, but the capsule had frozen against the metal. When I tried to detach it, it had broken. The poison had spilled onto the ice. If Miguel hadn’t been there, if Santos had had 5 more minutes alone, he would have prepared another plan.
He would have found another way, but Miguel’s presence had made him nervous, too nervous to think clearly. Fabián Escalante arrived 20 minutes later with a counterintelligence team. Santos confessed everything: the connection to the mafia, the $10,000 he had received in advance, the promise of $10,000 more if he succeeded, and the names of his contacts in Miami.
Who else is involved? Fabian asked. Santos gave six more names. All hotel employees. They had all been recruited as a backup plan in case he failed. Miguel remembers the expression on Fidel’s face that night. It wasn’t fear, it was sadness. Santos worked for my father before the revolution, Fidel said in a low voice.
I’ve known him since he was a child. That betrayal hurt more than the attempted murder itself. But what Fidel didn’t know was that Santos wouldn’t be the last, or even the worst. Two months before the milkshake incident, there had been another attempt. This one was even more personal. Marita Lawrence had been Fidel’s lover in 1959, a German woman, daughter of a ship’s captain who had arrived in Havana and had fallen madly in love with the young revolutionary.
Fidel had gotten her pregnant, but the baby disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Marita claimed that Fidel’s agents had drugged her and taken her baby away. Furious and spiteful, Marita returned to Florida. There she was recruited by Frank Sturgis, a CIA agent. “We’ll give you two capsules of poison,” Sturgis told him .
“One is enough to kill him in 30 seconds. You just have to put them in his drink.” In January 1960, Marita returned to Cuba. The capsules were hidden in a jar of cold cream in her suitcase. Fidel received her at the Hana Hilton hotel, his base of operations at that time. Miguel was on guard outside the room. Commander, Miguel had warned him, this woman had been out of the country for months.
We don’t know who he spoke to. Miguel, Fidel replied, sometimes you have to trust. Miguel didn’t trust him, but he couldn’t arrest Fidel without proof. Inside the room, Marita went to the bathroom and opened the jar of cold cream. The capsules had melted and mixed with the cream. They were ruined, unusable. But even if the capsules had worked, Marita wouldn’t have been able to do it.
Years later, Marita recounted what happened that night. Fidel noticed that she was nervous. He looked at her differently, as if he knew. “Did you come to kill me?” Fidel suddenly asked. Marita froze. Fidel stood up, took out his .45 pistol and handed it over . Go ahead, he said, “Do it.” Marita took the gun.
His hands were trembling. Fidel sat down, lit a fan, and waited. He did n’t seem to be afraid. “You can’t kill me,” Fidel said with a smile. “Nobody can.” “And do you know why?” Marita shook her head. Because if they really wanted to kill me, they would send someone who doesn’t know me, someone who has no doubts, but they keep sending people I knew, people who once felt something for me, and that’s their mistake.
Marita lowered the weapon and began to cry. Fidel hugged her and that night, incredibly, they made love. Miguel heard this days later during an intelligence interrogation. Marita had confessed everything voluntarily. “Commander,” Miguel told him, “you have to stop receiving people from your past. They are vulnerable. The CIA knows it.” Miguel, Fidel replied, “if I live in fear of everyone I’ve ever known, what kind of life is that?” Miguel then understood that protecting Fidel was not just about stopping bullets and checking food. It was to protect him from his
own trusting nature. For 17 years, José Miguel was Fidel Castro’s main bodyguard. During that time he personally thwarted five assassination attempts that came dangerously close to success. The poisoned milkshake in 1961, a sniper on a rooftop in 1963, a car bomb in 1965, an explosive hidden in a conference room in 1971, and in 1976 an ambush on a rural road.
The last one was the closest. They were driving back to Havana after a visit to a factory. Three vehicles. Fidel was in the middle one. Miguel saw a truck stopped on the road. Something didn’t feel right. Miguel ordered the convoy to proceed via radio. Because? The driver asked. It’s just a broken-down truck. Divert now.
The convoy took an alternate route. 10 minutes later. They heard a massive explosion behind them. The broken-down truck was full of 200 kg of TNT. Had they passed by him, the three vehicles would have been pulverized. Miguel, Fidel said to him that night, how did you know? Instinct, commander, after 15 years you develop a sixth sense for danger.
But there was one attempt that Miguel couldn’t stop because it wasn’t against Fidel. It was against himself. In 1994, José Miguel decided to retire. He was 62 years old. He had served Fidel for almost four decades. He wanted to spend time with his grandchildren, fish on the coast, and live his last years in peace. He informed Fidel of his decision.
Fidel did not take it well. You can’t retire, Miguel. You know too much. Commander, I will never betray your trust. I just want to rest. Two weeks later, Miguel was arrested. The charge, attempted escape, a false accusation. He spent 2 years in prison. When he came out in 1996, he was a broken man, not physically, but emotionally.
The man whose life he had saved so many times had locked him up for wanting to retire. Miguel tried to leave Cuba 10 times between 1996 and 2008. 10 times he was captured and returned. Finally, in 2008, he managed to escape to Miami. There he wrote a book, The Double Life of Fidel Castro. In the book, Miguel revealed secrets he had kept for decades.
Fidel’s private mansions, his bank accounts in Switzerland, his yachts, his nine children with different women. But what most shocked readers was not Fidel’s luxuries, it was the story of the bodyguard who saved his life 638 times and was betrayed in the end. And there is one last revelation that Miguel never published.
Something he only told a French journalist before he died. French journalist Axel Hilden interviewed Miguel in 2015, shortly before his death. “There’s something I’ve never told anyone,” said Miguel. About that night at the Habana Libre hotel, the poisoned milkshake. “What happened?” Gilden asked.
Miguel took a deep breath. When I found the broken capsule in the freezer, I wasn’t completely sure it was poison. It could have been anything , but Santos was so nervous that I knew something was wrong. And I asked Fabián if we should try the substance. He said yes. So we took a small sample and gave it to a dog. Miguel paused.
Her eyes filled with tears. The dog died in 15 seconds. 15 seconds, Axel. If Fidel had drunk that milkshake, he wouldn’t have even had time to ask for help. Why didn’t you ever tell anyone this? Because for years the question haunted me. Was it worth it ? I saved Fidel’s life dozens of times and in the end he treated me like a criminal.
Do you regret it? Miguel thought for a long moment. I do not regret saving his life. I regret believing that he valued mine. José Miguel died in Miami in 2015 at the age of 83. Fidel Castro died a year later, in 2016, at the age of 90. During Fidel’s funeral in Cuba, the state media did not mention Miguel even once, as if he had never existed.
But in Miami, Cuban exiles remembered him not as a hero of the revolution, but as a reminder that loyalty is not always reciprocated. Fabián Escalante, the head of counterintelligence who had documented the 638 assassination attempts. He was asked in 2016 if any of them had really come close to succeeding. Five, he replied.
Only five came dangerously close, and in four of them it was José Miguel who detected the danger first, and in the fifth, I stopped the fifth one, but Miguel taught me to see what others did not see. Without him, Fidel would have died in 1961. History remembers the leaders, but forgets the men who died or lived as prisoners just to keep them alive.
José Miguel Sánchez 1933-215
(111) 🚨 El GUARDAESPALDAS Que SALVÓ a Fidel — La NOCHE Que la CIA Casi Lo MATA en La Habana 1961 – YouTube
Transcripts:
It was March 1961. At the Habana Libre hotel, a waiter was preparing Fidel Castro’s favorite chocolate milkshake. But in the kitchen freezer, hidden in an ice tray, was a capsule containing enough poison to kill 10 men. What happened that night. He saved the Cuban leader’s life by centimeters. But before revealing how the bodyguard discovered the plot.
Let me tell you who the man really was whose job was to keep Fidel Castro alive against 638 assassination attempts. His name was José Miguel. He had fought in the Sierra Maestra alongside Fidel during the Revolution. When they triumphed in 1959, Fidel told him, “Miguel, I trust you with my life.” Literally.
José Miguel became one of Fidel’s five main bodyguards. No, the head of security. That was Fabián Escalante. Miguel was something more valuable, the man Fidel wanted close by when he slept, when he ate, when he relaxed smoking a fan in his private office. Fidel didn’t trust easily. I remembered Miguel years later.
I had seen betrayal many times, but I only allowed you to be near when I let my guard down. That meant he trusted you more than his own family. In 1960, just one year after the revolution, the rumors began. The CIA wanted Fidel dead, and they weren’t kidding. They had recruited the Chicago mafia, Cuban exiles, even Fidel’s former lover .
But Miguel didn’t know how far they would go . until that night at the Habana Libre hotel. To understand what happened that night, you first need to know this. The CIA didn’t try to kill Fidel Castro once, or 10 times, or even 100 times. Fabián Escalante, the head of the Cuban counterintelligence department, documented 638 assassination attempts between 1959 and 2038.
Some were serious. Others are incredibly ridiculous. Cigarettes poisoned with botulinum toxin, a diving suit contaminated with deadly fungi, explosive seashells painted in bright colors to attract Fidel while he was diving. They even tried to spray his radio studio with LSD to make him behave erratically on television.
Miguel remembers when Fabián showed them an intelligence report in 1960. ” Look at this,” Fabián said. The CIA has just contacted Sam Yancana and Santo, a drug trafficker. Do you know who they are? The heads of the Chicago and Miami mafia, Miguel couldn’t believe it. She did it by working with criminals. ” They’re desperate,” Fabian replied, “and that makes them more dangerous.
” The mafia had received $150,000, more than a million dollars in today’s money, to remove Fidel Castro and they had just sent the perfect tool for the job to Cuba. In March 1961, the Habana Libre hotel, formerly the Habana Hilton, had become one of Fidel’s favorite places for informal meetings.
She loved her chocolate milkshake. He asked for it almost every week. The CIA knew it. A hotel waiter, a man named Santos, had been recruited by mafia agents. They had given him a small capsule, about the size of an aspirin tablet, containing botulinum toxin. Just one capsule, a single drop in Fidel’s drink.
30 seconds later he would be dead. Santos hid the capsule in the kitchen freezer. wrapped in an ice tray. Nobody would suspect anything there. The plan was simple. When Fidel asked for his milkshake, Santos would take out the capsule, dissolve it in the drink, and serve it. He would collect his money and disappear before anyone knew what had happened.
But José Miguel had a rule. Never trust food you haven’t seen being prepared from the start. That night, Fidel arrived at the Habana Libre hotel for a meeting with military commanders. They finished around 11 pm. Miguel, Fidel said, “I’m craving a chocolate milkshake.” Miguel nodded. I’m going to the kitchen with you, Fidel Rio.
Don’t you trust the chef? I don’t trust anyone when it comes to your life, commander. They went into the kitchen. Santos, the waiter, was there preparing drinks for other customers. When he saw Fidel and Miguel enter, he turned pale. Miguel noticed it immediately. ” Are you okay?” Miguel asked her. Yes, yes.
Santos stammered, simply surprised to see the commander here. Miguel watched as Santos prepared the smoothie. Milk, chocolate, ice, blender, everything normal. But then Santos looked towards the freezer. A quick, nervous glance. Miguel followed her gaze. “What’s in that freezer?” Miguel asked. Santos began to sweat. Nothing, just ice. Miguel walked to the freezer and opened it. Bring Fabian here now.
Miguel told another guard. Inside the freezer, attached to the ice tray, was a small capsule. Santos had tried to get it out before Fidel arrived, but the capsule had frozen against the metal. When I tried to detach it, it had broken. The poison had spilled onto the ice. If Miguel hadn’t been there, if Santos had had 5 more minutes alone, he would have prepared another plan.
He would have found another way, but Miguel’s presence had made him nervous, too nervous to think clearly. Fabián Escalante arrived 20 minutes later with a counterintelligence team. Santos confessed everything: the connection to the mafia, the $10,000 he had received in advance, the promise of $10,000 more if he succeeded, and the names of his contacts in Miami.
Who else is involved? Fabian asked. Santos gave six more names. All hotel employees. They had all been recruited as a backup plan in case he failed. Miguel remembers the expression on Fidel’s face that night. It wasn’t fear, it was sadness. Santos worked for my father before the revolution, Fidel said in a low voice.
I’ve known him since he was a child. That betrayal hurt more than the attempted murder itself. But what Fidel didn’t know was that Santos wouldn’t be the last, or even the worst. Two months before the milkshake incident, there had been another attempt. This one was even more personal. Marita Lawrence had been Fidel’s lover in 1959, a German woman, daughter of a ship’s captain who had arrived in Havana and had fallen madly in love with the young revolutionary.
Fidel had gotten her pregnant, but the baby disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Marita claimed that Fidel’s agents had drugged her and taken her baby away. Furious and spiteful, Marita returned to Florida. There she was recruited by Frank Sturgis, a CIA agent. “We’ll give you two capsules of poison,” Sturgis told him .
“One is enough to kill him in 30 seconds. You just have to put them in his drink.” In January 1960, Marita returned to Cuba. The capsules were hidden in a jar of cold cream in her suitcase. Fidel received her at the Hana Hilton hotel, his base of operations at that time. Miguel was on guard outside the room. Commander, Miguel had warned him, this woman had been out of the country for months.
We don’t know who he spoke to. Miguel, Fidel replied, sometimes you have to trust. Miguel didn’t trust him, but he couldn’t arrest Fidel without proof. Inside the room, Marita went to the bathroom and opened the jar of cold cream. The capsules had melted and mixed with the cream. They were ruined, unusable. But even if the capsules had worked, Marita wouldn’t have been able to do it.
Years later, Marita recounted what happened that night. Fidel noticed that she was nervous. He looked at her differently, as if he knew. “Did you come to kill me?” Fidel suddenly asked. Marita froze. Fidel stood up, took out his .45 pistol and handed it over . Go ahead, he said, “Do it.” Marita took the gun.
His hands were trembling. Fidel sat down, lit a fan, and waited. He did n’t seem to be afraid. “You can’t kill me,” Fidel said with a smile. “Nobody can.” “And do you know why?” Marita shook her head. Because if they really wanted to kill me, they would send someone who doesn’t know me, someone who has no doubts, but they keep sending people I knew, people who once felt something for me, and that’s their mistake.
Marita lowered the weapon and began to cry. Fidel hugged her and that night, incredibly, they made love. Miguel heard this days later during an intelligence interrogation. Marita had confessed everything voluntarily. “Commander,” Miguel told him, “you have to stop receiving people from your past. They are vulnerable. The CIA knows it.” Miguel, Fidel replied, “if I live in fear of everyone I’ve ever known, what kind of life is that?” Miguel then understood that protecting Fidel was not just about stopping bullets and checking food. It was to protect him from his
own trusting nature. For 17 years, José Miguel was Fidel Castro’s main bodyguard. During that time he personally thwarted five assassination attempts that came dangerously close to success. The poisoned milkshake in 1961, a sniper on a rooftop in 1963, a car bomb in 1965, an explosive hidden in a conference room in 1971, and in 1976 an ambush on a rural road.
The last one was the closest. They were driving back to Havana after a visit to a factory. Three vehicles. Fidel was in the middle one. Miguel saw a truck stopped on the road. Something didn’t feel right. Miguel ordered the convoy to proceed via radio. Because? The driver asked. It’s just a broken-down truck. Divert now.
The convoy took an alternate route. 10 minutes later. They heard a massive explosion behind them. The broken-down truck was full of 200 kg of TNT. Had they passed by him, the three vehicles would have been pulverized. Miguel, Fidel said to him that night, how did you know? Instinct, commander, after 15 years you develop a sixth sense for danger.
But there was one attempt that Miguel couldn’t stop because it wasn’t against Fidel. It was against himself. In 1994, José Miguel decided to retire. He was 62 years old. He had served Fidel for almost four decades. He wanted to spend time with his grandchildren, fish on the coast, and live his last years in peace. He informed Fidel of his decision.
Fidel did not take it well. You can’t retire, Miguel. You know too much. Commander, I will never betray your trust. I just want to rest. Two weeks later, Miguel was arrested. The charge, attempted escape, a false accusation. He spent 2 years in prison. When he came out in 1996, he was a broken man, not physically, but emotionally.
The man whose life he had saved so many times had locked him up for wanting to retire. Miguel tried to leave Cuba 10 times between 1996 and 2008. 10 times he was captured and returned. Finally, in 2008, he managed to escape to Miami. There he wrote a book, The Double Life of Fidel Castro. In the book, Miguel revealed secrets he had kept for decades.
Fidel’s private mansions, his bank accounts in Switzerland, his yachts, his nine children with different women. But what most shocked readers was not Fidel’s luxuries, it was the story of the bodyguard who saved his life 638 times and was betrayed in the end. And there is one last revelation that Miguel never published.
Something he only told a French journalist before he died. French journalist Axel Hilden interviewed Miguel in 2015, shortly before his death. “There’s something I’ve never told anyone,” said Miguel. About that night at the Habana Libre hotel, the poisoned milkshake. “What happened?” Gilden asked.
Miguel took a deep breath. When I found the broken capsule in the freezer, I wasn’t completely sure it was poison. It could have been anything , but Santos was so nervous that I knew something was wrong. And I asked Fabián if we should try the substance. He said yes. So we took a small sample and gave it to a dog. Miguel paused.
Her eyes filled with tears. The dog died in 15 seconds. 15 seconds, Axel. If Fidel had drunk that milkshake, he wouldn’t have even had time to ask for help. Why didn’t you ever tell anyone this? Because for years the question haunted me. Was it worth it ? I saved Fidel’s life dozens of times and in the end he treated me like a criminal.
Do you regret it? Miguel thought for a long moment. I do not regret saving his life. I regret believing that he valued mine. José Miguel died in Miami in 2015 at the age of 83. Fidel Castro died a year later, in 2016, at the age of 90. During Fidel’s funeral in Cuba, the state media did not mention Miguel even once, as if he had never existed.
But in Miami, Cuban exiles remembered him not as a hero of the revolution, but as a reminder that loyalty is not always reciprocated. Fabián Escalante, the head of counterintelligence who had documented the 638 assassination attempts. He was asked in 2016 if any of them had really come close to succeeding. Five, he replied.
Only five came dangerously close, and in four of them it was José Miguel who detected the danger first, and in the fifth, I stopped the fifth one, but Miguel taught me to see what others did not see. Without him, Fidel would have died in 1961. History remembers the leaders, but forgets the men who died or lived as prisoners just to keep them alive.
José Miguel Sánchez 1933-215
(111) 🚨 El GUARDAESPALDAS Que SALVÓ a Fidel — La NOCHE Que la CIA Casi Lo MATA en La Habana 1961 – YouTube
Transcripts:
It was March 1961. At the Habana Libre hotel, a waiter was preparing Fidel Castro’s favorite chocolate milkshake. But in the kitchen freezer, hidden in an ice tray, was a capsule containing enough poison to kill 10 men. What happened that night. He saved the Cuban leader’s life by centimeters. But before revealing how the bodyguard discovered the plot.
Let me tell you who the man really was whose job was to keep Fidel Castro alive against 638 assassination attempts. His name was José Miguel. He had fought in the Sierra Maestra alongside Fidel during the Revolution. When they triumphed in 1959, Fidel told him, “Miguel, I trust you with my life.” Literally.
José Miguel became one of Fidel’s five main bodyguards. No, the head of security. That was Fabián Escalante. Miguel was something more valuable, the man Fidel wanted close by when he slept, when he ate, when he relaxed smoking a fan in his private office. Fidel didn’t trust easily. I remembered Miguel years later.
I had seen betrayal many times, but I only allowed you to be near when I let my guard down. That meant he trusted you more than his own family. In 1960, just one year after the revolution, the rumors began. The CIA wanted Fidel dead, and they weren’t kidding. They had recruited the Chicago mafia, Cuban exiles, even Fidel’s former lover .
But Miguel didn’t know how far they would go . until that night at the Habana Libre hotel. To understand what happened that night, you first need to know this. The CIA didn’t try to kill Fidel Castro once, or 10 times, or even 100 times. Fabián Escalante, the head of the Cuban counterintelligence department, documented 638 assassination attempts between 1959 and 2038.
Some were serious. Others are incredibly ridiculous. Cigarettes poisoned with botulinum toxin, a diving suit contaminated with deadly fungi, explosive seashells painted in bright colors to attract Fidel while he was diving. They even tried to spray his radio studio with LSD to make him behave erratically on television.
Miguel remembers when Fabián showed them an intelligence report in 1960. ” Look at this,” Fabián said. The CIA has just contacted Sam Yancana and Santo, a drug trafficker. Do you know who they are? The heads of the Chicago and Miami mafia, Miguel couldn’t believe it. She did it by working with criminals. ” They’re desperate,” Fabian replied, “and that makes them more dangerous.
” The mafia had received $150,000, more than a million dollars in today’s money, to remove Fidel Castro and they had just sent the perfect tool for the job to Cuba. In March 1961, the Habana Libre hotel, formerly the Habana Hilton, had become one of Fidel’s favorite places for informal meetings.
She loved her chocolate milkshake. He asked for it almost every week. The CIA knew it. A hotel waiter, a man named Santos, had been recruited by mafia agents. They had given him a small capsule, about the size of an aspirin tablet, containing botulinum toxin. Just one capsule, a single drop in Fidel’s drink.
30 seconds later he would be dead. Santos hid the capsule in the kitchen freezer. wrapped in an ice tray. Nobody would suspect anything there. The plan was simple. When Fidel asked for his milkshake, Santos would take out the capsule, dissolve it in the drink, and serve it. He would collect his money and disappear before anyone knew what had happened.
But José Miguel had a rule. Never trust food you haven’t seen being prepared from the start. That night, Fidel arrived at the Habana Libre hotel for a meeting with military commanders. They finished around 11 pm. Miguel, Fidel said, “I’m craving a chocolate milkshake.” Miguel nodded. I’m going to the kitchen with you, Fidel Rio.
Don’t you trust the chef? I don’t trust anyone when it comes to your life, commander. They went into the kitchen. Santos, the waiter, was there preparing drinks for other customers. When he saw Fidel and Miguel enter, he turned pale. Miguel noticed it immediately. ” Are you okay?” Miguel asked her. Yes, yes.
Santos stammered, simply surprised to see the commander here. Miguel watched as Santos prepared the smoothie. Milk, chocolate, ice, blender, everything normal. But then Santos looked towards the freezer. A quick, nervous glance. Miguel followed her gaze. “What’s in that freezer?” Miguel asked. Santos began to sweat. Nothing, just ice. Miguel walked to the freezer and opened it. Bring Fabian here now.
Miguel told another guard. Inside the freezer, attached to the ice tray, was a small capsule. Santos had tried to get it out before Fidel arrived, but the capsule had frozen against the metal. When I tried to detach it, it had broken. The poison had spilled onto the ice. If Miguel hadn’t been there, if Santos had had 5 more minutes alone, he would have prepared another plan.
He would have found another way, but Miguel’s presence had made him nervous, too nervous to think clearly. Fabián Escalante arrived 20 minutes later with a counterintelligence team. Santos confessed everything: the connection to the mafia, the $10,000 he had received in advance, the promise of $10,000 more if he succeeded, and the names of his contacts in Miami.
Who else is involved? Fabian asked. Santos gave six more names. All hotel employees. They had all been recruited as a backup plan in case he failed. Miguel remembers the expression on Fidel’s face that night. It wasn’t fear, it was sadness. Santos worked for my father before the revolution, Fidel said in a low voice.
I’ve known him since he was a child. That betrayal hurt more than the attempted murder itself. But what Fidel didn’t know was that Santos wouldn’t be the last, or even the worst. Two months before the milkshake incident, there had been another attempt. This one was even more personal. Marita Lawrence had been Fidel’s lover in 1959, a German woman, daughter of a ship’s captain who had arrived in Havana and had fallen madly in love with the young revolutionary.
Fidel had gotten her pregnant, but the baby disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Marita claimed that Fidel’s agents had drugged her and taken her baby away. Furious and spiteful, Marita returned to Florida. There she was recruited by Frank Sturgis, a CIA agent. “We’ll give you two capsules of poison,” Sturgis told him .
“One is enough to kill him in 30 seconds. You just have to put them in his drink.” In January 1960, Marita returned to Cuba. The capsules were hidden in a jar of cold cream in her suitcase. Fidel received her at the Hana Hilton hotel, his base of operations at that time. Miguel was on guard outside the room. Commander, Miguel had warned him, this woman had been out of the country for months.
We don’t know who he spoke to. Miguel, Fidel replied, sometimes you have to trust. Miguel didn’t trust him, but he couldn’t arrest Fidel without proof. Inside the room, Marita went to the bathroom and opened the jar of cold cream. The capsules had melted and mixed with the cream. They were ruined, unusable. But even if the capsules had worked, Marita wouldn’t have been able to do it.
Years later, Marita recounted what happened that night. Fidel noticed that she was nervous. He looked at her differently, as if he knew. “Did you come to kill me?” Fidel suddenly asked. Marita froze. Fidel stood up, took out his .45 pistol and handed it over . Go ahead, he said, “Do it.” Marita took the gun.
His hands were trembling. Fidel sat down, lit a fan, and waited. He did n’t seem to be afraid. “You can’t kill me,” Fidel said with a smile. “Nobody can.” “And do you know why?” Marita shook her head. Because if they really wanted to kill me, they would send someone who doesn’t know me, someone who has no doubts, but they keep sending people I knew, people who once felt something for me, and that’s their mistake.
Marita lowered the weapon and began to cry. Fidel hugged her and that night, incredibly, they made love. Miguel heard this days later during an intelligence interrogation. Marita had confessed everything voluntarily. “Commander,” Miguel told him, “you have to stop receiving people from your past. They are vulnerable. The CIA knows it.” Miguel, Fidel replied, “if I live in fear of everyone I’ve ever known, what kind of life is that?” Miguel then understood that protecting Fidel was not just about stopping bullets and checking food. It was to protect him from his
own trusting nature. For 17 years, José Miguel was Fidel Castro’s main bodyguard. During that time he personally thwarted five assassination attempts that came dangerously close to success. The poisoned milkshake in 1961, a sniper on a rooftop in 1963, a car bomb in 1965, an explosive hidden in a conference room in 1971, and in 1976 an ambush on a rural road.
The last one was the closest. They were driving back to Havana after a visit to a factory. Three vehicles. Fidel was in the middle one. Miguel saw a truck stopped on the road. Something didn’t feel right. Miguel ordered the convoy to proceed via radio. Because? The driver asked. It’s just a broken-down truck. Divert now.
The convoy took an alternate route. 10 minutes later. They heard a massive explosion behind them. The broken-down truck was full of 200 kg of TNT. Had they passed by him, the three vehicles would have been pulverized. Miguel, Fidel said to him that night, how did you know? Instinct, commander, after 15 years you develop a sixth sense for danger.
But there was one attempt that Miguel couldn’t stop because it wasn’t against Fidel. It was against himself. In 1994, José Miguel decided to retire. He was 62 years old. He had served Fidel for almost four decades. He wanted to spend time with his grandchildren, fish on the coast, and live his last years in peace. He informed Fidel of his decision.
Fidel did not take it well. You can’t retire, Miguel. You know too much. Commander, I will never betray your trust. I just want to rest. Two weeks later, Miguel was arrested. The charge, attempted escape, a false accusation. He spent 2 years in prison. When he came out in 1996, he was a broken man, not physically, but emotionally.
The man whose life he had saved so many times had locked him up for wanting to retire. Miguel tried to leave Cuba 10 times between 1996 and 2008. 10 times he was captured and returned. Finally, in 2008, he managed to escape to Miami. There he wrote a book, The Double Life of Fidel Castro. In the book, Miguel revealed secrets he had kept for decades.
Fidel’s private mansions, his bank accounts in Switzerland, his yachts, his nine children with different women. But what most shocked readers was not Fidel’s luxuries, it was the story of the bodyguard who saved his life 638 times and was betrayed in the end. And there is one last revelation that Miguel never published.
Something he only told a French journalist before he died. French journalist Axel Hilden interviewed Miguel in 2015, shortly before his death. “There’s something I’ve never told anyone,” said Miguel. About that night at the Habana Libre hotel, the poisoned milkshake. “What happened?” Gilden asked.
Miguel took a deep breath. When I found the broken capsule in the freezer, I wasn’t completely sure it was poison. It could have been anything , but Santos was so nervous that I knew something was wrong. And I asked Fabián if we should try the substance. He said yes. So we took a small sample and gave it to a dog. Miguel paused.
Her eyes filled with tears. The dog died in 15 seconds. 15 seconds, Axel. If Fidel had drunk that milkshake, he wouldn’t have even had time to ask for help. Why didn’t you ever tell anyone this? Because for years the question haunted me. Was it worth it ? I saved Fidel’s life dozens of times and in the end he treated me like a criminal.
Do you regret it? Miguel thought for a long moment. I do not regret saving his life. I regret believing that he valued mine. José Miguel died in Miami in 2015 at the age of 83. Fidel Castro died a year later, in 2016, at the age of 90. During Fidel’s funeral in Cuba, the state media did not mention Miguel even once, as if he had never existed.
But in Miami, Cuban exiles remembered him not as a hero of the revolution, but as a reminder that loyalty is not always reciprocated. Fabián Escalante, the head of counterintelligence who had documented the 638 assassination attempts. He was asked in 2016 if any of them had really come close to succeeding. Five, he replied.
Only five came dangerously close, and in four of them it was José Miguel who detected the danger first, and in the fifth, I stopped the fifth one, but Miguel taught me to see what others did not see. Without him, Fidel would have died in 1961. History remembers the leaders, but forgets the men who died or lived as prisoners just to keep them alive.
José Miguel Sánchez 1933-215
(111) 🚨 El GUARDAESPALDAS Que SALVÓ a Fidel — La NOCHE Que la CIA Casi Lo MATA en La Habana 1961 – YouTube
Transcripts:
It was March 1961. At the Habana Libre hotel, a waiter was preparing Fidel Castro’s favorite chocolate milkshake. But in the kitchen freezer, hidden in an ice tray, was a capsule containing enough poison to kill 10 men. What happened that night. He saved the Cuban leader’s life by centimeters. But before revealing how the bodyguard discovered the plot.
Let me tell you who the man really was whose job was to keep Fidel Castro alive against 638 assassination attempts. His name was José Miguel. He had fought in the Sierra Maestra alongside Fidel during the Revolution. When they triumphed in 1959, Fidel told him, “Miguel, I trust you with my life.” Literally.
José Miguel became one of Fidel’s five main bodyguards. No, the head of security. That was Fabián Escalante. Miguel was something more valuable, the man Fidel wanted close by when he slept, when he ate, when he relaxed smoking a fan in his private office. Fidel didn’t trust easily. I remembered Miguel years later.
I had seen betrayal many times, but I only allowed you to be near when I let my guard down. That meant he trusted you more than his own family. In 1960, just one year after the revolution, the rumors began. The CIA wanted Fidel dead, and they weren’t kidding. They had recruited the Chicago mafia, Cuban exiles, even Fidel’s former lover .
But Miguel didn’t know how far they would go . until that night at the Habana Libre hotel. To understand what happened that night, you first need to know this. The CIA didn’t try to kill Fidel Castro once, or 10 times, or even 100 times. Fabián Escalante, the head of the Cuban counterintelligence department, documented 638 assassination attempts between 1959 and 2038.
Some were serious. Others are incredibly ridiculous. Cigarettes poisoned with botulinum toxin, a diving suit contaminated with deadly fungi, explosive seashells painted in bright colors to attract Fidel while he was diving. They even tried to spray his radio studio with LSD to make him behave erratically on television.
Miguel remembers when Fabián showed them an intelligence report in 1960. ” Look at this,” Fabián said. The CIA has just contacted Sam Yancana and Santo, a drug trafficker. Do you know who they are? The heads of the Chicago and Miami mafia, Miguel couldn’t believe it. She did it by working with criminals. ” They’re desperate,” Fabian replied, “and that makes them more dangerous.
” The mafia had received $150,000, more than a million dollars in today’s money, to remove Fidel Castro and they had just sent the perfect tool for the job to Cuba. In March 1961, the Habana Libre hotel, formerly the Habana Hilton, had become one of Fidel’s favorite places for informal meetings.
She loved her chocolate milkshake. He asked for it almost every week. The CIA knew it. A hotel waiter, a man named Santos, had been recruited by mafia agents. They had given him a small capsule, about the size of an aspirin tablet, containing botulinum toxin. Just one capsule, a single drop in Fidel’s drink.
30 seconds later he would be dead. Santos hid the capsule in the kitchen freezer. wrapped in an ice tray. Nobody would suspect anything there. The plan was simple. When Fidel asked for his milkshake, Santos would take out the capsule, dissolve it in the drink, and serve it. He would collect his money and disappear before anyone knew what had happened.
But José Miguel had a rule. Never trust food you haven’t seen being prepared from the start. That night, Fidel arrived at the Habana Libre hotel for a meeting with military commanders. They finished around 11 pm. Miguel, Fidel said, “I’m craving a chocolate milkshake.” Miguel nodded. I’m going to the kitchen with you, Fidel Rio.
Don’t you trust the chef? I don’t trust anyone when it comes to your life, commander. They went into the kitchen. Santos, the waiter, was there preparing drinks for other customers. When he saw Fidel and Miguel enter, he turned pale. Miguel noticed it immediately. ” Are you okay?” Miguel asked her. Yes, yes.
Santos stammered, simply surprised to see the commander here. Miguel watched as Santos prepared the smoothie. Milk, chocolate, ice, blender, everything normal. But then Santos looked towards the freezer. A quick, nervous glance. Miguel followed her gaze. “What’s in that freezer?” Miguel asked. Santos began to sweat. Nothing, just ice. Miguel walked to the freezer and opened it. Bring Fabian here now.
Miguel told another guard. Inside the freezer, attached to the ice tray, was a small capsule. Santos had tried to get it out before Fidel arrived, but the capsule had frozen against the metal. When I tried to detach it, it had broken. The poison had spilled onto the ice. If Miguel hadn’t been there, if Santos had had 5 more minutes alone, he would have prepared another plan.
He would have found another way, but Miguel’s presence had made him nervous, too nervous to think clearly. Fabián Escalante arrived 20 minutes later with a counterintelligence team. Santos confessed everything: the connection to the mafia, the $10,000 he had received in advance, the promise of $10,000 more if he succeeded, and the names of his contacts in Miami.
Who else is involved? Fabian asked. Santos gave six more names. All hotel employees. They had all been recruited as a backup plan in case he failed. Miguel remembers the expression on Fidel’s face that night. It wasn’t fear, it was sadness. Santos worked for my father before the revolution, Fidel said in a low voice.
I’ve known him since he was a child. That betrayal hurt more than the attempted murder itself. But what Fidel didn’t know was that Santos wouldn’t be the last, or even the worst. Two months before the milkshake incident, there had been another attempt. This one was even more personal. Marita Lawrence had been Fidel’s lover in 1959, a German woman, daughter of a ship’s captain who had arrived in Havana and had fallen madly in love with the young revolutionary.
Fidel had gotten her pregnant, but the baby disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Marita claimed that Fidel’s agents had drugged her and taken her baby away. Furious and spiteful, Marita returned to Florida. There she was recruited by Frank Sturgis, a CIA agent. “We’ll give you two capsules of poison,” Sturgis told him .
“One is enough to kill him in 30 seconds. You just have to put them in his drink.” In January 1960, Marita returned to Cuba. The capsules were hidden in a jar of cold cream in her suitcase. Fidel received her at the Hana Hilton hotel, his base of operations at that time. Miguel was on guard outside the room. Commander, Miguel had warned him, this woman had been out of the country for months.
We don’t know who he spoke to. Miguel, Fidel replied, sometimes you have to trust. Miguel didn’t trust him, but he couldn’t arrest Fidel without proof. Inside the room, Marita went to the bathroom and opened the jar of cold cream. The capsules had melted and mixed with the cream. They were ruined, unusable. But even if the capsules had worked, Marita wouldn’t have been able to do it.
Years later, Marita recounted what happened that night. Fidel noticed that she was nervous. He looked at her differently, as if he knew. “Did you come to kill me?” Fidel suddenly asked. Marita froze. Fidel stood up, took out his .45 pistol and handed it over . Go ahead, he said, “Do it.” Marita took the gun.
His hands were trembling. Fidel sat down, lit a fan, and waited. He did n’t seem to be afraid. “You can’t kill me,” Fidel said with a smile. “Nobody can.” “And do you know why?” Marita shook her head. Because if they really wanted to kill me, they would send someone who doesn’t know me, someone who has no doubts, but they keep sending people I knew, people who once felt something for me, and that’s their mistake.
Marita lowered the weapon and began to cry. Fidel hugged her and that night, incredibly, they made love. Miguel heard this days later during an intelligence interrogation. Marita had confessed everything voluntarily. “Commander,” Miguel told him, “you have to stop receiving people from your past. They are vulnerable. The CIA knows it.” Miguel, Fidel replied, “if I live in fear of everyone I’ve ever known, what kind of life is that?” Miguel then understood that protecting Fidel was not just about stopping bullets and checking food. It was to protect him from his
own trusting nature. For 17 years, José Miguel was Fidel Castro’s main bodyguard. During that time he personally thwarted five assassination attempts that came dangerously close to success. The poisoned milkshake in 1961, a sniper on a rooftop in 1963, a car bomb in 1965, an explosive hidden in a conference room in 1971, and in 1976 an ambush on a rural road.
The last one was the closest. They were driving back to Havana after a visit to a factory. Three vehicles. Fidel was in the middle one. Miguel saw a truck stopped on the road. Something didn’t feel right. Miguel ordered the convoy to proceed via radio. Because? The driver asked. It’s just a broken-down truck. Divert now.
The convoy took an alternate route. 10 minutes later. They heard a massive explosion behind them. The broken-down truck was full of 200 kg of TNT. Had they passed by him, the three vehicles would have been pulverized. Miguel, Fidel said to him that night, how did you know? Instinct, commander, after 15 years you develop a sixth sense for danger.
But there was one attempt that Miguel couldn’t stop because it wasn’t against Fidel. It was against himself. In 1994, José Miguel decided to retire. He was 62 years old. He had served Fidel for almost four decades. He wanted to spend time with his grandchildren, fish on the coast, and live his last years in peace. He informed Fidel of his decision.
Fidel did not take it well. You can’t retire, Miguel. You know too much. Commander, I will never betray your trust. I just want to rest. Two weeks later, Miguel was arrested. The charge, attempted escape, a false accusation. He spent 2 years in prison. When he came out in 1996, he was a broken man, not physically, but emotionally.
The man whose life he had saved so many times had locked him up for wanting to retire. Miguel tried to leave Cuba 10 times between 1996 and 2008. 10 times he was captured and returned. Finally, in 2008, he managed to escape to Miami. There he wrote a book, The Double Life of Fidel Castro. In the book, Miguel revealed secrets he had kept for decades.
Fidel’s private mansions, his bank accounts in Switzerland, his yachts, his nine children with different women. But what most shocked readers was not Fidel’s luxuries, it was the story of the bodyguard who saved his life 638 times and was betrayed in the end. And there is one last revelation that Miguel never published.
Something he only told a French journalist before he died. French journalist Axel Hilden interviewed Miguel in 2015, shortly before his death. “There’s something I’ve never told anyone,” said Miguel. About that night at the Habana Libre hotel, the poisoned milkshake. “What happened?” Gilden asked.
Miguel took a deep breath. When I found the broken capsule in the freezer, I wasn’t completely sure it was poison. It could have been anything , but Santos was so nervous that I knew something was wrong. And I asked Fabián if we should try the substance. He said yes. So we took a small sample and gave it to a dog. Miguel paused.
Her eyes filled with tears. The dog died in 15 seconds. 15 seconds, Axel. If Fidel had drunk that milkshake, he wouldn’t have even had time to ask for help. Why didn’t you ever tell anyone this? Because for years the question haunted me. Was it worth it ? I saved Fidel’s life dozens of times and in the end he treated me like a criminal.
Do you regret it? Miguel thought for a long moment. I do not regret saving his life. I regret believing that he valued mine. José Miguel died in Miami in 2015 at the age of 83. Fidel Castro died a year later, in 2016, at the age of 90. During Fidel’s funeral in Cuba, the state media did not mention Miguel even once, as if he had never existed.
But in Miami, Cuban exiles remembered him not as a hero of the revolution, but as a reminder that loyalty is not always reciprocated. Fabián Escalante, the head of counterintelligence who had documented the 638 assassination attempts. He was asked in 2016 if any of them had really come close to succeeding. Five, he replied.
Only five came dangerously close, and in four of them it was José Miguel who detected the danger first, and in the fifth, I stopped the fifth one, but Miguel taught me to see what others did not see. Without him, Fidel would have died in 1961. History remembers the leaders, but forgets the men who died or lived as prisoners just to keep them alive.
José Miguel Sánchez 1933-215
