deputy. The Directorate for Plans reportedly controlled over half the CIA's budget and was responsible for covert operations. (DDP oversaw plans to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, Patrice Lumumba, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, Ngo Dinh Diem, and others. Bissell's main target was Fidel Castro.) As DD/P, Bissell also oversaw the early stages of Project OXCART, the development of the Lockheed A-12. He also played a key role, as CIA Program Manager, in the development of the Corona program. In March 1960, President Eisenhower approved a CIA plan to overthrow Castro. (See Operation 40). The strategy was organized by Bissell. Sidney Gottlieb of the CIA Technical Services Division was asked to come up with proposals that would undermine Castro's popularity with the Cuban people. (Gottlieb also ran the MK-ULTRA project from 1953–1964.) These schemes were rejected and instead Bissell decided to arrange Castro's assassination. In September 1960, Bissell and Allen W. Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), initiated talks with two leading figures of the Mafia, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana. Later, other crime bosses such as Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante Jr. and Meyer Lansky became involved in this first plot against Castro. The strategy was managed by Sheffield Edwards; Robert Maheu, a veteran of CIA counter-espionage activities, was instructed to offer the Mafia $150,000 to kill Fidel Castro. The advantage of employing the Mafia for this work is that it provided CIA with a credible cover story. The Mafia were known to be angry with Castro for closing down their profitable brothels and casinos in Cuba. If the assassins were killed or captured the media would accept that the Mafia were working on their own. The Mafia played along in order to get protection from the FBI. Bay of Pigs Invasion plans In March 1960 a top-secret policy paper was drafted entitled: "A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime" (code-named JMARC), "to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more ... acceptable to the U.S. in such a manner as to avoid any appearance of U.S. intervention." This paper was based on operation PBSuccess, the policy that had worked so well in Guatemala in 1954. In fact, Bissell assembled the same team as the one used in Guatemala: Tracy Barnes, David Atlee Phillips, Jacob Esterline, William "Rip" Robertson, E. Howard Hunt and Gerry Droller (aka "Frank Bender"). Added to the team were Jack Hawkins