Now that Fidel Castro has resigned as president of Cuba, it seems likely that illness and age will finally be allowed to accomplish what two generations of Cuban exiles have been unable to, despite obsessive zeal and the help of the American government. For a quick and entertaining roundup of their attempts, Sundance Channel is offering the well-timed American television premiere of “638 Ways to Kill Castro,” a 2006 British documentary being shown Monday night.The title refers to the number of assassination plans that Fabián Escalante, the former director of Cuban intelligence, claims to have evidence for and, in many cases, to have thwarted. Mr. Escalante breaks it down by administration: Eisenhower, 38; Kennedy, 42; Johnson, 72; Nixon, 184; Carter, 64; Reagan, 197; Bush Sr., 16; Clinton, 21. (That adds up to 634, but we can forgive him for losing track of a few poisoned diving suits.)
The film doesn’t try to prove those eye-catching figures (and Mr. Escalante is also known for propounding a theory of the John F. Kennedy assassination involving Cuban counterrevolutionaries and the Chicago mob). But it covers more than enough on-the-record plotting and scheming to show just how preoccupied Castro’s enemies have been with removing him.
The more freakish ideas — the poisoned fountain pens and milkshakes, the exploding seashells and cigars — are mentioned in passing, but the focus is on traditional methods like guns and bombs, and much of the story is told in the words of the prospective assassins. The filmmakers track down a number of men known or suspected to have plotted against Castro and interview them on camera, generally in what appear to be comfortable Florida homes.
Some speak guardedly, some openly, but they all project the same aura of righteousness and pride, often echoed by their wives and children: they define themselves through their hatred of Castro and their willingness to do something about it. Luis Posada Carriles, who has been linked to bombings of hotels in Havana and a Cubana Airlines flight, is unusual among the men in this group because he is in jail, facing immigration charges, when the filmmakers find him. But in a telephone interview he sounds the same defiant, if slightly pathetic, note: “I don’t want to be the one to say it, but I think he feels safer when I’m in jail, don’t you?” (Mr. Posada has since been released, even though the Justice Department has labeled him an “admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks.”)
“638 Ways to Kill Castro” is not an objective accounting: the ruggedly handsome Mr. Escalante, who kept Mr. Castro alive for so long, is its action hero, and its primary sources, including the former American diplomat Wayne Smith and the journalist Ann Louise Bardach, are clearly critical of America’s treatment of Cuba. At 75 minutes, the film doesn’t have the time to substantiate themes like the Bush family’s cozy relationship with anti-Castro Cubans in Florida. But it’s hard to doubt the depth of that group’s hatred, and the lengths to which it would go, when you see men in fatigues staging war games in the Everglades, complete with a mock execution of a stand-in Fidel. It’s enough to make you wonder whether he’s safe even now.
638 WAYS TO KILL CASTRO
Sundance, Monday night at 9:15, Eastern and Pacific times; 8:15 Central time.
Directed by Dollan Cannell; Peter Moore, executive producer; Kari Lia, producer; original music by Samuel Sim; cinematography by Petra Graf and Michael Timney.
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