Desmond Fitzgerald (CIA agent)

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For other people with similar names, see Desmond FitzGerald (disambiguation)

Desmond Fitzgerald (1910 – July 23, 1967) was an American Central Intelligence Agency deputy director, who planned three different assassinations of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

He was educated at Harvard University and served as a member of the Office of Strategic Services in the Far East in World War II. He participated in the campaign to retake Burma from the Japanese.

After the war, he worked as a lawyer in New York City, where he was active in fighting corruption. He was friends with Frank Wisner, who persuaded him to join the CIA's Far East Division as an executive officer. He arranged for over 200 agents to be parachuted into China, 101 of which were killed or captured.

He was based in Taiwan during the Korean War, and then became CIA station chief in the Philippines and Japan. Eventually, he became head of the Far Eastern Division.

In 1962 during the John F. Kennedy administration, he became chief of the Cuban Task Force. He personally was involved in three plots to assassinate Castro, working with Rolando Cubela, a senior Cuban government official.

He died of a heart attack while playing tennis in Virginia.