Exploding cigar
Exploding cigars are a variety of cigar that explode shortly after being lit. Such cigars are normally packed with a minute explosive charge near the lighting end or sometimes with a device, not necessarily explosive at all, that loudly ruptures the cigar when exposed to heat. The customary intended purpose of exploding cigars is as a form of hostile practical joke, rather than to cause lasting physical harm to the butt of the joke. Nevertheless, the high risk of unintended injuries from their use caused first a decline in their sale, and ultimately, their virtual extinction as a merchantable product. Although far rarer than their prank cousins, exploding cigars' use as a means to kill or attempt to kill targets in real life is known, and is well represented as a fictional device. The most infamous case concerning the intentionally deadly variety was in an alleged plot by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency in the 1960s to assassinate Fidel Castro.
In Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, wherein the character Etzel Ölsch displays his death wish symbolically by eagerly smoking a cigar he knows to be of the explosive variety.[1][2] Reportedly, Ernest Hemingway, at the egging on of a group of journalists he was with at the Palace Hotel bar in Rapallo, Italy, presented an exploding cigar to one of four bodyguards of Turkish General, İsmet İnönü. When the cigar 'went off,' all four guards drew their guns and took a bead on Hemingway. He apparently escaped without any holes.[3]
Deadlier Than the Male starring Elke Sommer featured a murder by exploding cigar.[4]
In comic books such as the Batman #251 (1973) entitled The Joker's Five-way Revenge[5]
As observed by one legal scholar, "The utility of the exploding cigar is so low and the risk of injury so high as the warrant a conclusion that the cigar is defective and should not have been marketed at all."[6]
The Merrie Melodies cartoon, Bacall to Arms in which an animated Humphey Bogart gets zapped by an exploding cigar.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).[7] Many assassination ideas were floated by the CIA in the covert operation which was dubbed "Operation Mongoose."[8] The most infamous was the CIA's alleged plot to capitalize on Castro's well known love of cigars by slipping into his supply a very real and lethal "exploding cigar."[9][10][11][12][13]
While numerous sources state the exploding cigar plot as fact, at least one source asserts it to be simply a myth,[14] and another, mere supermarket tabloid fodder.[15] Another suggests that the story does have its origins in the CIA, but that it was never seriously proposed by them as a plot. Rather, the plot was made up by the CIA as an intentionally "silly" idea to feed to those questioning them about their plans for Castro, in order to deflect scrutiny from more serious areas of inquiry.[16]
Certainly there were numerous incredible plots to do in Castro that are ascribed to the CIA, including among others: poisoning his cigars[7] (a box of the lethal smokes were actually prepared and delivered to Havana[17]); exploding seashells to be planted at a scuba diving site;[18] a gift diving wetsuit impregnated with noxious bacteria[18] and mould spores,[19] or with lethal chemical agents;[20] infecting Castro's scuba regulator apparatus with tuberculous bacilli;[20] dousing his handkerchiefs his tea and his coffee with other lethal bacteria;[21] having a former lover to slip him poison pills;[18][21] and exposing him to various other poisoned items such as a fountain pen and even ice cream.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). Fabian Escalante, who was long tasked with protecting the life of Castro, contends that there have been 638 separate CIA assassination schemes or attempts on Castro's life.[21]
Whether true or not, the exploding cigar CIA plot is the most well known of assassination plots on Castro.[21] It inspired the cover of the October, 1963 issue (#82) of Mad Magazine. The cover bears the headline, "You'll Get a BANG out of this issue of Mad Magazine", and features a painting by Norman Mingo depicting Castro in the act of lighting a cigar wrapped with a cigar band on which is drawn Alfred E. Neuman with his fingers plugging his ears, awaiting the explosion.[22][23] It is also featured on the poster for the Channel 4 British Documentary, 638 Ways to Kill Castro, which shows Castro with a cigar in his mouth that has a fuse projecting from the end and a lit match approaching.[24]
- ^ Thomas Pynchon (1973). Gravity's Rainbow. New York: Penguin Books. pp. p. 300. ISBN 0-14-01-8859-2.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Thomas Moore (1987). The Style of Connectedness: Gravity's Rainbow and Thomas Pynchon. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. pp. p. 213. ISBN 0-8262-0625-5.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Ernest Hemingway, with an introduction and notes by Nicholas Gerogiannis (1992). Complete Poems: Ernest Hemingway. Lincoln, NE and London: University of Nebraska Press. pp. p. 142. ISBN 0-8032-7259-6.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele (2004). Howard Hughes: His Life & Madness. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. p. 547. ISBN 0-393-32602-0.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Peter Middleton (1992). The Inward Gaze: Masculinity and Subjectivity in Modern Culture. London and New York: Routledge. pp. p. 30. ISBN 0-415-07328-6.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Steenson, Michael K. A Comparative Analysis of Minnesota Products Liability Law and the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability. 24 William Mitchell Law Review 1 (1998)
- ^ a b Lucien S. Vandenbroucke (1993). Perilous Options: Special Operations as an Instrument of U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. p. 30. ISBN 0-19-504591-2.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Stewart Brewer and Michael LaRosa (2006). Borders and Bridges: A History of U.S.-Latin American Relations. Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. p. 123. ISBN 0-275-98204-1.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Malcolm Chandler and John Wright (2001). Modern World History. Oxford: Heinemann Education Publishers. pp. p. 282. ISBN 0-435-31141-7.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Joseph J. Hobbs, Christopher L. Salter (2006). Essentials Of World Regional Geography (5th Ed. ed.). Toronto: Thomson Brooks/Cole. pp. p. 543. ISBN 0-534-46600-1.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help);|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Derek Leebaert (2006). The Fifty-year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Shapes Our World. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. pp. p. 302. ISBN 0-316-51847-6.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Fred Inglis (2002). The People's Witness: The Journalist in Modern Politics. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. p. 223. ISBN 0-300-09327-6.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ BBC News (2008-02-19). "Castro: Profile of the great survivor". Retrieved 2008-06-03.
- ^ David Hambling (2005). Weapons Grade: How Modern Warfare Gave Birth to Our High-Tech World. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. pp. p. 391. ISBN 0-786-71769-6.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Charles R. Morris (1984). A Time of Passion: America, 1960-1980. New York: Harper & Row. pp. p. 210. ISBN 0-0603-9023-9.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Cite error: The named reference
Ultimatewas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Charles Schudson (1992). Watergate in American Memory: How We Remember, Forget, and Reconstruct the Past. New York: Basic Books. pp. p. 45. ISBN 0-46509084-2.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b c Ted Shackley and Richard A. Finney (1992). Spymaster: my life in the CIA. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, Inc. pp. p. 57. ISBN 1-57488-915-X.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ Fidel Castro and Ignacio Ramonet (2008). Fidel Castro: My Life: a Spoken Autobiography. Washington D.C.: Simon and Schuster. pp. p. 262. ISBN 1-41655-328-2.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b Humberto Fontova (2005). Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant. Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc. pp. p. 94. ISBN 0-89526-043-3.
{{cite book}}:|pages=has extra text (help) - ^ a b c d "638 ways to kill Castro". The Guardian Unlimited. 2006. Retrieved 2006-05-28.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Ohio State University Press (1994). "Unknown title". Inks: Cartoon and Comic Art Studies. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press: 46. ISSN 1071-9156. OCLC 28763232.
{{cite journal}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ^ October 1963 Mad Magazine Cover. Retrieved on June 3, 2008.
- ^ "638 ways to kill Castro". 638waystokillcastro.com. Retrieved 2006-05-28.
