Operation 40 necessary some of your own members who were suspected of being foreign agents...We were concentrating strictly in Cuba at that particular time." The group sought to incite civil war in Cuba against the government of prime minister Fidel Castro. "In October 1960, they realize that this project has failed, and that is when 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 Leon Leon, with other members of Operation 40, landed at the Bay of Pigs via the CIA-chartered freighter "Atlantico".
Friends of Democratic Cuba after the FDC [Friends of Democratic Cuba] was created, it was put out of business by strong criticism from prominent Cubans. There was evidence that the FDC was organized strictly for the personal gain of the promoters." Friends of Democratic Cuba Friends of Democratic Cuba was formed on January 6, 1961 to serve as the fund-raising arm of anti-Castro activist Sergio Arcacha Smith's New Orleans' branch of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC). According to an October 26, 1967 CIA document: "This organization was created by several New Orleans business and political figures, including the deceased former FBI agent, Guy BANISTER,