The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations in Cuba, 1959-1965 Book

Making use of recently declassified documents as well as interviews with involved CIA agents and Cuban exiles, Bohning (a former Latin America editor for the Miami Herald) describes the US government's failed covert war against the regime of Fidel Castro during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He examines the policy makers reasoning as they planned the anti-Castro activities and describes how it translated into assassination plots, sabotage, and other attempts at political and economic destabilization that were ultimately undermining of US interests. Distributed in the US by Books International. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Washington Post - Max Holland

Some of Bohning's best insights come from interviews with several key CIA officers who worked at the operational level -- i.e., where airy concepts and neat plans met reality. The perspectives of Ted Shackley, the JMWAVE station chief from 1962 to 1965, and Sam Halpern, an operations officer at CIA headquarters who worked the Cuba account, make for a fascinating look at "Mongoose," a largely fruitless effort conducted from 1961 to 1962. It was the first and last covert operation overseen by an attorney general (Robert Kennedy), and probably the most ill-conceived clandestine operation ever until the Iran-contra folly some 25 years later.