MIAMI: A Cuban CIA spy who dedicated his life to trying to kill Fidel Castro and destabilize the communist government, Antonio Veciana today says his is “the story of failure.” It is a tale he recounts with rage — and no regrets. “I was an unlikely terrorist,” he said in his book “Trained to Kill,” co-written with journalist Carlos Harrison. “I was skinny, asthmatic, and plagued with insecurities.” The 88 year-old anti-Castro activist, sitting with a medical walker by his side in his daughter’s Miami living room, clarifies those words. “The work I did is what terrorists do. It’s just that it wasn’t called that.” The book details how CIA agent David Atlee Phillips — known by the alias “Bishop” — recruited him in 1959 and trained him in Havana to kill Fidel Castro, who died last year of natural causes. “Bishop invited me to lunch,” he says. “It was easy, he didn’t have to convince me about the danger of communism in Cuba.” Originally an accountant at Cuba’s National Bank, Veciana was taught to be invisible, to plot, to be unscrupulous and to distrust. “At first, the idea was to destabilize,” he says. “In countries with destabilization, people believe rumors.” “That was my job — creating those rumors.” The first was an alleged bill under which the Cuban government would strip parents of legal custody over their children. Parents then sent some 14,000 children to the United States in an exodus known as “Operation Peter Pan.” “Many parents later met with their children, but others could not see them again, because they died or because they couldn’t leave the country,” Veciana said. Between 1960 and 1962, parents took their children out of Cuba via offices of the Catholic Church. Minors without adult companions were received at camps in Florida. Veciana says he has no regrets over his role in separating these children from their parents. “It might have been irresponsible, but what I did was out of conviction,” he says. “At the time I was convinced I was doing the right thing, so I would do it again.” Veciana fled to the United States in 1961 following a botched attack on Castro that would have easily led authorities to him. When contacted by Bishop in Miami, Veciana founded the anti-Castro paramilitary group “Alpha 66,” which during the 60s and 70s carried out commando-type strikes against the Castro regime. “These attacks encouraged hope, and when they were published in the press there was euphoria — people still had hope they could win the battle,” says Veciana. He acknowledged however that the success and magnitude of the attacks were “always exaggerated.”