Killing Castro (comics)

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Killing Castro is a 2015 graphic novel published by Caliber Comics. It is written by Jason Ciaccia and illustrated by Aaron Norhanian. The story draws on declassified CIA documents and MKULTRA history for its content.

The work began as a self-published edition titled The Sinister Truth: MkUltra in 2009, which received positive reviews. It was named one of the best graphic novels of 2010 by R. C. Baker in the Village Voice and was added to Brooklyn College’s Core Curriculum in 2011.

Set in 1963, the plot places Cuba as a Communist threat near the United States. The CIA sends three elite operatives to Havana on a mission codenamed Operation Good Times, aimed at humiliating Fidel Castro on live television by dosing him with LSD and trying to cause his beard to fall out. One agent, known as Bob, carries permanent MKULTRA scars and has been kept in a sensory deprivation tank, making it hard for him to stay undercover when he spots a pretty woman at a bar.

Back home, MKULTRA mastermind Dr. Sidney Gottlieb tries to regain control of Bob using new technology—satellites, radio waves, and implanted devices in the agents’ brains. The book depicts several failed, often humorous attempts to infiltrate Castro’s inner circle to assassinate or publicly humiliate him.