On 11 December 1959, following the Cuban Revolution of January 1959, Colonel J.C. King, chief of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division, sent a confidential memorandum to CIA director Allen W. Dulles. King argued that in Cuba there existed a "far-left dictatorship, which if allowed to remain will encourage similar actions against U.S. holdings in other Latin American countries."[citation needed]
Operation 40 was not only involved in sabotage operations. One associate of the group, although never a member, Frank Sturgis, allegedly told author Mike Canfield: "this assassination group (Operation 40) would upon orders, naturally, assassinate either members of the military or the political parties of the foreign country that you were going to infiltrate, and if necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents...We were concentrating strictly in Cuba at that particular time." [citation needed] The group sought to incite civil war in Cuba against the government of prime minister Fidel Castro. When Operation 40 failed in accomplishing this goal, then in October 1960, Brigade 2506 was created, a CIA-sponsored group made up of 1,511 Cuban exiles who fought in the April 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion.
On 17 April 1961, Vicente León León, with other members of Operation 40, landed at the Bay of Pigs via the CIA-chartered freighter Atlántico. He was killed in action.[3]
In popular culture
Operation 40 is a playable faction in the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops. Within the game's campaign mode, there is heavy implication that the main protagonist and Operation 40 operative Alex Mason may have been involved in the assassination of President Kennedy as a Soviet sleeper agent.[citation needed]
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF), consisting of Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, covertly financed and directed by the U.S. government. The operation took place at the height of the Cold War, and its failure influenced relations between Cuba, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
Frank Anthony Sturgis, born Frank Angelo Fiorini, was one of the five Watergate burglars whose capture led to the end of the presidency of Richard Nixon.
Félix Ismael Rodríguez Mendigutia is a Cuban American former Central Intelligence Agency Paramilitary Operations Officer in the Special Activities Division, known for his involvement in the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the execution of communist revolutionary Che Guevara as well as his close ties to George H. W. Bush during the Iran–Contra affair.
Omega 7 was an anti-Castro Cuban group based in Florida and New York made up of Cuban exiles whose stated goal was to overthrow Fidel Castro. The group had fewer than 20 members. According to the Global Terrorism Database, Omega 7 was responsible for at least 55 known anti-Castro attacks over the span of eight years with a majority of them being bombs. The group also took part in multiple high-profile murders and assassination attempts and has committed four known murders. Among their assassinations was Felix Garcia Rodriguez, a Cuban delegate who was gunned down on the 6th anniversary of the group. The group had conspired to assassinate Fidel Castro during the Cuban leader's visit to the United Nations in 1979.
Manuel Francisco Artime Buesa, M.D. was a Cuban-American who at one time was a member of the rebel army of Fidel Castro but later was the political leader of Brigade 2506 land forces in the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961.
Radio Swan was a pirate radio station owned by the CIA, and based in the Swan Islands, a group of islands in the western Caribbean Sea, near the coastline of Honduras. Under the "Radio Swan" and "Radio Americas" names, the station was in operation from 1960 to 1968.
The Cuban Project, also known as Operation Mongoose, was an extensive campaign of terrorist attacks against civilians, and covert operations, carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Cuba. It was officially authorized on November 30, 1961 by U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The name "Operation Mongoose" was agreed to at a White House meeting on November 4, 1961.
The Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations was a militant group responsible for a number of terrorist activities directed at the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. It was founded by a group that included Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, both of whom worked with the CIA at various times, and was composed chiefly of Cuban exiles opposed to the Castro government. It was formed in 1976 as an umbrella group for a number of anti-Castro militant groups. Its activities included a number of bombings and assassinations, including the killing of human-rights activist Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C., and the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 which killed 73 people.
Richard Mervin Bissell Jr. was an American Central Intelligence Agency officer responsible for major projects such as the U-2 spy plane and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He is seen as one of the most important spymasters in CIA history.
Brigade 2506 was a CIA-sponsored group of Cuban exiles formed in 1960 to attempt the military overthrow of the Cuban government headed by Fidel Castro. It carried out the abortive Bay of Pigs Invasion landings in Cuba on 17 April 1961.
Erneido Andres Oliva Gonzalez was a Cuban-American who was the deputy commander of Brigade 2506 land forces in the abortive Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in April 1961.
Executive oversight of United States covert operations has been carried out by a series of sub-committees of the National Security Council (NSC).
Manuel Antonio de Varona y Loredo was a Cuban lawyer and politician.
William Alexander "Rip" Robertson Jr. was a United States Marine Corps officer—a combat veteran of the World War II and the Korean War—and a Central Intelligence Agency Case Officer in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970, in what became the Special Activities Division. Robertson was one of the two CIA officers who commanded the faction of the army that went to war in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The other agent was Grayston Lynch.
Rafael "Chi Chi" Quintero Ibaria was a CIA operative.
José Alfredo Pérez San Román, known as Pepe San Román, was the commander of Brigade 2506 ground troops in the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in April 1961. Pérez was his father's last name.
Efigenio Ameijeiras Delgado was a Cuban military commander affiliated with Fidel Castro from the 1950s. Son of Manuel Ameijeiras Fontelo, a native of Pontevedra (Spain) and the Cuban María de las Angustias Delgado Romo, from Corral Falso, in Matanzas. At the age of four, his father disappeared, so his mother had to take care of her children alone.
Gerard "Gerry" Droller was a German CIA officer involved in the covert 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état and the recruitment of Cuban exiles in the preparation of the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961.
Humberto Sorí Marín was a Cuban revolutionary. After the Cuban Revolution in January 1959, he served as minister of agriculture, but resigned in May 1959. Shortly before the Bay of Pigs Invasion, he was arrested after landing in Cuba with arms and explosives, and was executed after the invasion.
The United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made numerous unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. There were also attempts by Cuban exiles, sometimes in cooperation with the CIA. The 1975 Church Committee claimed eight proven CIA assassination attempts between 1960 and 1965. In 1976, President Gerald Ford issued an Executive Order banning political assassinations. In 2006, Fabián Escalante, former chief of Cuba's counterintelligence, stated that there had been 634 assassination schemes or attempts. The last known plot to assassinate Castro was by Cuban exiles in 2000.
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