The CIA and Facial Hair

As a Latin American historian, one of the lighter moments of the 20th century is how far the CIA went to try to remove Castro. Of the numerous plots, from Bay of Pigs to exploding cigars, one of the more popular was the CIA's consideration of poisoning Castro so that his beard would fall out. The thinking went that if Castro lost his beard, he would lose his masculine authority among the Cuban peoples, would be emasculated. Seeing such a weak, "feminine" leader now, the macho-oriented Cubans would rise against his new "weakness" to overthrow him and the U.S. could elbow its way back into Cuba (and I am not making a bit of this up). It's one of those anecdotes that gives the students a chance to chuckle while revealing just how absurd the U.S. policy towards Cuba and Castro could get - sort of a "they were so possessed with this man that they thought he'd lose power if they could just make his beard fall out!!"

Thanks to this article about the toothbrush moustache (the "Hitler" moustache) that d points us to, it appears this idea actually had precedent. In discussing how the German dictator's use of the toothbrush led to the death of said moustache forevermore, Rich Cohen goes through the history of the moustache. Apparently, at one point during World War II, "the plan cooked up by officers of the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the C.I.A., to inject estrogen into Hitler's food—female hormone that would make Hitler grow weepy, make Hitler grow breasts, and, crucially, destroy his mustache. A smooth-faced Adolf would lose confidence and fall from power." I had no idea that any form of the CIA/OSS had ever considered the facial-hair-loss-as-loss-of-power approach before, yet apparently, what almost every Latin American survey will convey, Castro actually wasn't an exception. If you get a chance, read the whole article - it provides an excellent analysis of how facial hair can define somebody, if a symbol like the toothbrush moustache can ever be re-coopted, why facial hair has all but disappeared from American politics, and other issues.