Friends of Democratic Cuba was formed on January 6, 1961
JFK Lancer to serve as the fund-raising arm of anti-Castro activist Sergio Arcacha Smith's

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

' branch of the

Cuban Revolutionary Council The Cuban Revolutionary Council (CRC) was a group formed, with CIA assistance, three weeks before the April 17, 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion to "coordinate and direct" the activities of another group known as the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front ...

(CRC).544 Camp Street and Related Events
House Select Committee on Assassinations - Appendix to Hearings, Volume 10, 13, p. 126. According to an October 26, 1967

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

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."Jerry P. Shinley Archive: Sergio Arcacha Smith and the FRD (Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front)
/ref>

Guy Banister William Guy Banister (March 7, 1901 – June 6, 1964) was an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an Assistant Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, and a private investigator. After his death, New Orleans District ...

, helped draw up a charter for the organizationSummers, Anthony. ''Not in Your Lifetime'', (New York: Marlowe & Company, 1998), p. 351. and was on its board of directors. According to the before cited CIA document: "One month after the FDC riends of Democratic Cubawas 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."

References

Cuba–United States relations Paramilitary organizations based in the United States Organizations based in New Orleans Opposition to Fidel Castro 1961 establishments in Louisiana {{Paramilitary-org-stub