Every world leader has some kind of hobby. Boris Johnson likes to paint model buses. Donald Trump likes to hug American flags. And Putin likes to push dissidents and protesters out of windows. Even Fidel Castro, the dictator of communist Cuba had a hobby. And that being anything milk related. That guy liked milk, where it bordered with unhealthy obsession. That will be the first theme of this article. The second theme is the assassination attempts CIA tried on Fidel.
His second favourite piece of dairy product was ice cream. After full course dinner he was able to eat eighteen scoops of ice cream. And on empty stomach he often ate thirty scoops. And he was not stingy with his love, he wanted to share it with all the people of Cuba. He ordered an ice cream parlour to be build. It is called Coppelia and it is still open to this day.
But that was not the end of his plans. He wanted to make Cuba a milk superpower. He asked his scientist to create a cow the size of a dog, so everyone can make milk at home. It was subsequently talked down by the scientists. When he found out he could not make the most milk he wanted to make the best milk products in the world. Mainly he wanted overtrump the French in making camembert. And he had chance to see if he had succeeded. French diplomat was visiting Cuba in 1964 and was asked to taste the Cuban camemberte by Castro. He commented that it is "nearly as good as the French one." which enraged the despot who immedietly started pressuring him to say it is better than the one from his home country. The diplomat responded by pulling out a cigar out of Fidel's coat and saying, " Will you agree that there is a better cigar in the world than this? You can't beat tradition." But it was not all sunshine and smiles, this obsession of his nearly killed him. Here' why:
He had his favourite ice cream parlour, where he always ordered his favourite food in the world- chocolate milkshake. He went to his favourite shop as usual and ordered the same. The waiter who was supposed carry on the assassination attempt had put the pill with poison into the freezer until the time was right. Because of this the pill froze to the bottom of the freezer's panel and broke when the assassin tried to pick it up. This wasn't the only botched assassination attempts that CIA had tried. Castro's bodyguard said that CIA had planned 638 assassination attempts, none of them succesful. Which let Castro to saying, " If surviving assassination attempts were an olympic sport I would win gold medal."
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