Cuba–United States relations Air Force MiG-29, killing three Cuban-Americans and one Cuban U.S. resident. The Cuban government claimed that the planes had entered into Cuban airspace. Some veterans of CIA's 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, while no longer being sponsored by the CIA, are still active, though they are now in their seventies or older. Members of Alpha 66, an anti-Castro paramilitary organization, continue to practice their AK-47 skills in a camp in South Florida. In January 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton eased travel restrictions to Cuba in an effort to increase cultural exchanges between the two nations. The Clinton administration approved a
Friends of Democratic Cuba 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, to collect money to aid Cubans in their fight against Communism." Guy Banister, helped draw up a charter for the organization and was on its board of directors. According to the before cited CIA document: "One month