Central Intelligence Agency face-to-face briefing. The CIA hoped that Castro would bring about a friendly democratic government, and planned to curry his favor with money and guns. On December 11, 1959, a memo reached the DCI's desk recommending Castro's "elimination". Dulles replaced the word "elimination" with "removal", and set the wheels in motion. By mid-August 1960, Dick Bissell would seek, with the blessing of the CIA, to hire the Mafia to assassinate Castro. The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on April 17, 1961. A counter-revolutionary military, trained and funded
CIA activities in Vietnam to use its "tribal forces" in Laos and to "make every possible effort to launch guerrilla operations in North Vietnam’ with its Asian recruits." Hence, under this code name, General Vang Pao, who served the royal Lao family was recruited. He then recruited and trained his Hmong soldiers to ally with the CIA and fight against the communist North. In April 1961, Lansdale, who had been designated the Operations Officer for an interagency Task Force in charge of political, military, economic, psychological, and covert character, was to go to Vietnam. Changes of policy in Washington however, transferred these responsibilities to