Brigade 2506 Brigade 2506 Brigade 2506 (Brigada Asalto 2506) was the name given to 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. In May 1960, the CIA began to recruit anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the Miami area. For most recruits, infantry training was carried out at a CIA-run base code-named "JMTrax" near Retalhuleu in the Sierra Madre on the Pacific coast of Guatemala. In November 1960, with Gregorio Aguilar Matteo spearheading training
CIA activities in Vietnam had difficulties understanding their politics. This can be attributed to the fact that the CIA did not make a concerted effort to gain a better understanding of the history and people of Vietnam. The CIA instead focused on the military forces occupying the territory instead of the political and economic forces that motivated them. The diplomats were not getting clear information in 1954 and early 1955, but the CIA station "had ... no mandate or mission to perform systematic intelligence and espionage in friendly countries, and so lacks the resources to gather and evaluate the large amounts of information required