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No Cigar · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
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  Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
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  Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. In the Superman film starring Christopher Reeve, Lex
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  Speaker 1: Luthor delivers a speech to his henchman and henchwoman about
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  Speaker 1: what truly matters in life. He says, and I quote,
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  Speaker 1: stocks may rise and fall, utilities and transportation systems may collapse,
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  Speaker 1: and people are no damn good, but they will always
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  Speaker 1: need land, and they'll pay through the nose to get it.
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  Speaker 1: And he wasn't wrong. Look back at the legend of
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  Speaker 1: Johnny Appleseed, for example, he was a real man named
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  Speaker 1: John Chapman who hailed from Massachusetts. A nursery man by trade,
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  Speaker 1: Chapman spent much of his life working around plants and flowers.
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  Speaker 1: He set out in the late seventeen hundreds to plant
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  Speaker 1: vast apple orchards in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana,
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  Speaker 1: and even up north into Ontario, Canada. But Contrary to
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  Speaker 1: the stories told in school, he wasn't doing it randomly.
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  Speaker 1: You see, the government recognized new orchards on unclaimed land
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  Speaker 1: as proof of ownership. In other words, Chapman planted apple
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  Speaker 1: trees to build up his real estate portfolio. But Johnny
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  Speaker 1: Appleseed had gone about things the right way. He'd been
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  Speaker 1: a shrewd businessman who worked within the law to earn
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  Speaker 1: himself a hefty income. Another man, on the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: found a much different way to acquire land, although he
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  Speaker 1: might have fared better if he had just stuck with
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  Speaker 1: apples Don Miguel de Peralta was born in seventeen o
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  Speaker 1: eight and joined the military in sevente He became a
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  Speaker 1: lieutenant into dragoons, a class of infantry that traveled by horseback,
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  Speaker 1: as part of the King of Spain service. Fifteen years later,
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  Speaker 1: he traveled to New Spain, a portion of North and
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  Speaker 1: Central America that encompassed modern day Arizona and Mexico. He
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  Speaker 1: had been appointed a royal inspector by King Philip the Fifth,
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  Speaker 1: who also happened to be his cousin. Although on paper,
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  Speaker 1: Peralta had been sent to merely hash out financial issues
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  Speaker 1: in the region, he was also there on a separate
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  Speaker 1: secret mission. The king wanted him to observe the Jesuits,
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  Speaker 1: as there had been rumblings about them wanting independence from Spain,
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  Speaker 1: and Philip wanted proof, and Peralta delivered. He sent back
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  Speaker 1: the evidence his cousin needed to expel all the Jesuits
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  Speaker 1: from New Spain, which worked in Peralta's favor. He was
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  Speaker 1: given the new title of baron day Arizonac and three
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  Speaker 1: hundred square leagues of land. Peralta lived to be one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and sixteen years old and had only one child,
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  Speaker 1: a son, who had a daughter of his own name Sophia,
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  Speaker 1: and as you might imagine, he listed his progeny in
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  Speaker 1: his ill as the heirs to the barony of Arizonac,
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  Speaker 1: the tract of land that makes up most of modern
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  Speaker 1: day Arizona. One hundred and thirty years later, that land
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  Speaker 1: was suddenly under the purview of one James Rivas, a
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  Speaker 1: former Confederate soldier turned land barren. He had come into
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  Speaker 1: possession of several grants, one of which happened to be
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  Speaker 1: the Peralta grant, which gave him ownership of the territory,
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  Speaker 1: and it was a massive territory to the grant specified
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  Speaker 1: a breathtaking eighteen thousand, seven hundred fifty square mile area
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  Speaker 1: that was bigger than Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington d C. Combined.
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  Speaker 1: Rivas quickly established himself as a force to be feared
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  Speaker 1: among settlers and the indigenous people's occupying the territory. Many
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  Speaker 1: left for greener pastures, while railroad and mine owners had
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  Speaker 1: to pay steep taxes to operate on his lands. Anyone
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  Speaker 1: who defied him was either beaten or had their homes
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  Speaker 1: set ablaze, sometimes both. If the newspapers ever wrote anything
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  Speaker 1: bad about him, Rivas's men would show up the next
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  Speaker 1: day and destroy their printing presses. He was a tyrant,
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  Speaker 1: and eventually his tactics could no longer be ignored. The
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  Speaker 1: press stopped being afraid and started printing expose s on
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  Speaker 1: the shady deals that he had been inking behind the scenes.
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  Speaker 1: The governments also then stepped in to assess whether the
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  Speaker 1: land really belonged to him in the first place. Desperate
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  Speaker 1: to hold onto his status in power, Rivas presented Sophia Treadway.
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  Speaker 1: He had met fifteen year old Sophia on a train
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  Speaker 1: trip and noted her uncanny resemblance to Miguel de Peralta's granddaughter, Sophia.
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  Speaker 1: After getting to know one another over several months, he
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  Speaker 1: learned the truth. The girl's mother, Sophia de Peralta, had
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  Speaker 1: died giving birth to her and her twin brother, who
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  Speaker 1: had also passed away. Her father had run off to
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  Speaker 1: Spain and sent her to be raised by his friend
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  Speaker 1: John Treadway in California. She was the true heiress to
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  Speaker 1: the Peralta fortune. Rivas was thrilled by the discovery and
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  Speaker 1: married Sophia on December thirty one, eighteen eighty two. He
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  Speaker 1: was now officially bona fide royalty. He and so Via
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  Speaker 1: traveled to Spain and enjoyed living in the lap of luxury,
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  Speaker 1: rubbing elbows with all kinds of nobles and elites while
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  Speaker 1: they were there, But their extended honeymoon soon came crashing
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  Speaker 1: to a halt when Rivas learned that his barony was
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  Speaker 1: being challenged. Back home, President elect Grover Cleveland's new Democratic
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  Speaker 1: administration was taking a long look at the Peralta grant,
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  Speaker 1: especially since its owner had been in the pockets of
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  Speaker 1: the previous Republican administration, and after a long drawn out lawsuit,
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  Speaker 1: the truth finally came out, Rivas did not officially own
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  Speaker 1: any claim to the land in Arizona, nor did his wife,
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  Speaker 1: the Heiress. In fact, she wasn't related to the Peraltas
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  Speaker 1: at all, because there had never been any Peraltas to
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  Speaker 1: begin with. Sophia had been upon and one of the
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  Speaker 1: greatest con jobs in American history. Rivas, you see, had
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  Speaker 1: made the whole Peralta family up. He had invented Miguel
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  Speaker 1: the son and the granddaughter, the relationship to King Philip,
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  Speaker 1: all of it. He had also spent a decade forging
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  Speaker 1: all kinds of official documents as his way to legitimize
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  Speaker 1: his claim, and it had almost worked. Unfortunately, Rivas had
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  Speaker 1: made a lot of enemies along the way, including a
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  Speaker 1: surveyor general named Royal Johnson, who had nearly brought his
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  Speaker 1: scam to an end years earlier. It was his investigation
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  Speaker 1: that had forced Revas to invent a living air in
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  Speaker 1: the first place. Six years after opening up the case,
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  Speaker 1: Johnson came back with proof that all the documentations surrounding
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  Speaker 1: the Peralta grant was fictional. They was full of spelling
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  Speaker 1: and grammatical errors, and had been written with a modern pen.
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  Speaker 1: Rivas lost everything his land his money and his freedom.
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  Speaker 1: He went to prison for six years, after which he
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  Speaker 1: spent his remaining days homeless on the streets of Phoenix,
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  Speaker 1: a far cry from the mansion that he had lived
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  Speaker 1: in not long before. James Rivas was a career criminal,
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  Speaker 1: always looking for the next con. Had he applied half
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  Speaker 1: the effort that he'd put into forging an entire Spanish family,
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  Speaker 1: he might have gone on to do great things. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: he'll be remembered as the artificial land baron who was
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  Speaker 1: left with nothing, no money, no spouse, and no land.
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  Speaker 1: A baron baron, now, I'd call that curious. Each of
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  Speaker 1: the assassination attempts so far had failed miserably, but the
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  Speaker 1: CIA wasn't going to give up. They had Marita Lawrence
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  Speaker 1: in the perfect position, and if everything went according to plan,
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  Speaker 1: they wouldn't have to deal with del Castro anymore. Castro
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  Speaker 1: once said, if surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event,
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  Speaker 1: I would win the gold medal, and he was right.
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  Speaker 1: There were six hundred and thirty seven attempts on his
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  Speaker 1: life as leader of Cuba, spurred on by years of
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  Speaker 1: Spanish colonization and violence followed by dictators and presidents. Castro
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  Speaker 1: and his recruits waged a guerrilla war against the Batista dictatorship,
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  Speaker 1: culminating in the ousting of Batista on January one of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine. Castro took control of the government, rounded
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  Speaker 1: up Batista's supporters, and consolidated power. Batista's supporters were tried
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  Speaker 1: and executed, which helped Castro cement his foothold. The elections
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  Speaker 1: Castro had called for never materialized, and he seemed to
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  Speaker 1: install himself as a new leader for life. At first,
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  Speaker 1: the United States had a friendly relationship with the new
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  Speaker 1: governments and with Castro himself. He visited Washington, d c.
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  Speaker 1: Not long after he took power, where he met Vice
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  Speaker 1: President Nixon and saw the sites and Americans watched Cuba
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  Speaker 1: with interest. That interest turned to anger and fear when
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  Speaker 1: Cuba began reaching out to the other superpower of the day.
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  Speaker 1: The USSR AS relations continued to dissolve through the nineteen sixties,
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  Speaker 1: including the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban
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  Speaker 1: Missile crisis. The United States became desperate to rid themselves
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  Speaker 1: of Castro. The U. S government knew that there wasn't
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  Speaker 1: likely going to be a serious challenge to Castro's regime
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  Speaker 1: from the inside, but they hoped that they might be
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  Speaker 1: able to help the dictator shuffle off his mortal coil
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  Speaker 1: so to speak. Now, you would assume that this would
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  Speaker 1: lead to serious meetings with serious outcomes as they discussed
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  Speaker 1: how best to handle the Cuba problem. And maybe there were,
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  Speaker 1: but the results were something that seemed to come more
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  Speaker 1: from the ACME Corporation's boardroom than any shadowy CIA office.
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  Speaker 1: Marita Lawrence was just one of the CIA's attempts to
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  Speaker 1: assassinate Castro, called Operation Mongoose and costing four point four
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  Speaker 1: million dollars. Young Cuban exiles were recruited to infiltrate Castro's Cuba,
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  Speaker 1: and Lawrence was among them. You see, she was Castro's
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  Speaker 1: ex girlfriend, and even though she had been spurned years earlier,
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  Speaker 1: she still had an intimate access to his home. The
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  Speaker 1: CIA gave her poison pills that would dissolve quickly into
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  Speaker 1: food or drink and we're entirely lethal. Unfortunately, Lawrence decided
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  Speaker 1: to smuggle them inside a jar of cold cream, which
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  Speaker 1: dissolved them. She panicked and confess to everything to Castro,
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  Speaker 1: who lost his temper. He proceeded to rail against the
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  Speaker 1: United States for several minutes before handing over his forty
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  Speaker 1: five and telling her to finish the job. She claimed
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  Speaker 1: to have thrown down the gun and left both Castro
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  Speaker 1: and the CIA to their own devices. Now, clearly this
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  Speaker 1: plan failed due to bad luck, but the CIA had
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  Speaker 1: others in store that probably would only have worked against
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  Speaker 1: the likes of Wiley Coyote and Yosemite Sam. In the
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  Speaker 1: early nineteen sixties, for example, the CIA poured money and
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  Speaker 1: time into researching cigars that would be rolled with explosives
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  Speaker 1: so that they would blow up in Castro's face when
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  Speaker 1: he smoked one. Other sources say that they thought about
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  Speaker 1: coding one of Castro's ever present cigars with a nerotoxin
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  Speaker 1: that would take care of the job. Looking back, the
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  Speaker 1: CIA seemed to be enamored with the idea of explosives,
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  Speaker 1: so when the cigar plan wasn't successful, they decided to
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  Speaker 1: focus on his love of diving. Based on CIA documents,
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  Speaker 1: they debated painting a conk shell with bright colors to
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  Speaker 1: catch his attention, and when he swam over to pick
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  Speaker 1: it up, it would be an explosive. They also tried
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  Speaker 1: a poison pen which apparently failed because the inside man
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  Speaker 1: thought that it was a stupid plan. That attempt to
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  Speaker 1: pass the poison pen off happened on the day that
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  Speaker 1: JFK was assassinated, so the CIA decided to do away
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  Speaker 1: with that one entirely. And there were other crazy ideas
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  Speaker 1: as well. They tried thallium in his shoes, hoping that
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  Speaker 1: he would lose his beard, because in the CIA's mind,
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  Speaker 1: that was the true source of his influence. They tried
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  Speaker 1: blowing up a podium while he was giving a speech
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  Speaker 1: in Panama, which was foiled by Cuban security. For all
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  Speaker 1: the dynamite happy, proactive poisoners that seemed to be operating
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  Speaker 1: the CIA, their most spectacular attempt came when they tried
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  Speaker 1: to hire the real professionals to help. The mob was
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  Speaker 1: extremely bitter about Castro's control of Cuba because they lost
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  Speaker 1: several profitable casinos, and so a CIA agent went undercover
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  Speaker 1: and approached three members of the mafia, pretending to be
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  Speaker 1: an international businessman who had lost money to Castro's gam
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  Speaker 1: billing band. Apparently, poison pills were passed over to the
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  Speaker 1: mafiosi and they tried to get the drugs into Castro's
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  Speaker 1: food for months until the plot was called off due
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  Speaker 1: to the extreme heat and the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, we know that Castro managed to dodge every
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  Speaker 1: assassination attempt that came his way, ridiculous as some of
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  Speaker 1: them may have been, and lived to the rifled age
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  Speaker 1: of ninety. The CIA may have been successful at toppling
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  Speaker 1: regimes all around the world, but in Cuba they hit
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  Speaker 1: a wall that they never quite overcame. As more historical
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  Speaker 1: files are released to the public, maybe we'll come across
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  Speaker 1: something stranger than poison pens and exploding seashells. But for now,
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  Speaker 1: as Porky Pig always said, that's all folks. I hope
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  Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,