Human rights violations by the CIA Patrice Lumumba. In yet another category was noninterference in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) coup in which President Ngo Dinh Diem was killed. A distinction has been drawn between political assassinations and "targeted killing" of leaders of non-state belligerents. Perhaps the best-documented account of CIA-sponsored assassination plans were against President Fidel Castro of Cuba. According to columnist Jack Anderson, the first attempt was part of the Bay of Pigs Invasion operation, but five more teams were sent, the last apprehended on a rooftop within rifle range of Castro, at the end of February or beginning of March 1963. Anderson
Special Activities Division Girón" in Cuba), was an unsuccessful attempt by a U.S.-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba and overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The plan was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency of the United States. The Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the exile-combatants in three days. The sea-borne invasion force landed on April 17, and fighting lasted until April 19, 1961. CIA Paramilitary Operations Officers Grayston Lynch and William "Rip" Robertson led the first assault on the beaches, and supervised