‘Mafia Spies’ Recounts the C.I.A. Plot to Kill Castro

The stories have swirled around for years, often in the form of feverish conspiracy theories. The major players should ring familiar by now: John F. Kennedy. Fidel Castro. The C.I.A. The mob. Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie “JFK” raised the delirium to operatic heights; Don DeLillo’s 1988 novel “Libra” gave it a jolt of postmodern cool.

But “Mafia Spies,” the new docuseries now streaming on Paramount+, takes a different tack. Based on Thomas Maier’s nonfiction book of the same name, it lays out the true story of how the C.I.A. collaborated with the mafia to plot the assassination of Castro. Much of this is documented in files about the assassination of John F. Kennedy that were released in batches by the National Archives in 2017 and 2018, and which Maier used as the basis of his book.

Maier — who is also a producer on the series — and the showrunners, Tom Donahue and Ilan Arboleda, turn the archive data into a narrative that prompts one double take after another and is often intentionally funny. But however improbable some of it seems, the guiding premise is that it all really happened. One goal of the show is to debunk the many conspiracy theories that swirl around this era of history.

“If we had relied on conspiracy theories, you just wouldn’t believe it,” Donahue, who also directed the series, said in a video interview alongside Arboleda. “As they say, the truth is stranger than fiction.”

The six episodes of “Mafia Spies” feature a labyrinth of plots and a sprawling cast of mobsters, spies, politicians, revolutionaries and entertainers. But the big picture is actually pretty simple.

The C.I.A., led at the time by Allen Dulles, wanted to eliminate the new Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro — or, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower put it, he wanted Castro “sawed off,” according to the historian Stephen Kinzer, who is featured in the series. Through a “cutout” (or middle man), Robert Maheu, a businessman and lawyer, the C.I.A. enlisted organized crime leaders, chiefly the Chicago Outfit’s Sam Giancana and John Roselli, to assassinate Castro. (The mafia had its own reasons for wanting Castro dead: After he seized power in 1959, Havana’s casinos were no longer a cash-cow haven for them.)