Operation Northwoods: The History of the Controversial Government Plan to Stage False Flag Attacks on Americans and Blame Cuba

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America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation." In 1962, General Edward Lansdale, the chief of operations for the anti-Castro Cuba Project, or Operation Mongoose, asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a “brief but precise description of pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba.” Oleg Penkovsky was a high-ranking Soviet military intelligence officer who worked as a spy for the United States and Great Britain during the Cold War. Best known for his role in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Penkovsky supplied the U.S. government with valuable details about the capabilities of Soviet missiles that had been installed in Cuba. Here are excerpts from the ideas put forth in a March 13 1962 proposal for U.S.-initiated actions which could be falsely blamed on Cuba:

A declassified document could help clear up some urban legends at one of Mexico's most bizarre tourist traps. The so-called Mapimí Silent Zone is a small stretch of desert in Durango, Mexico, where, according to local legend, radio waves cannot be transmitted. Often compared to the Bermuda Triangle, Mapimí is frequented by tourists looking for a paranormal adventure. Army officials managed to cover up the massacre for a year before an investigative journalist with the Associated Press (AP) brought the atrocity to the attention of the American people in November 1969. In light of news reports, an official inquiry was made into the events at My Lai and was concluded in March 1970. The inquiry resulted in criminal charges against 14 U.S. Army officers, all but one of whom were acquitted for their crimes. Declassified documents associated with the inquiry are available from the Library of Congress. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/19/us/declassified-papers-show-anti-castro-ideas-proposed-to-kennedy.html The Records of the Assassination Records Review Board," National Archives and Records Administration. US Joint Chiefs Of Staff Operation Northwoods Unclassified Document Bolsheviks NWO". Internet Archive. 1962.In September 1946, President Harry Truman authorized a program called Operation Paperclip, which aimed to lure scientists from Nazi Germany to the United States following World War II. Officials at the Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor to the CIA) recruited German scientists to America to aid the country's postwar efforts, which would also ensure that valuable scientific knowledge would not end up in the hands of the Soviet Union or the divided East and West Germany. U.S. Air Force U.S. Air Force General Edward Lansdale was the commander of the anti-Cuban Operation Mongoose, under which Operation Northwoods was developed. Cuban missile crisis, October 1962 President John F Kennedy with General Curtis LeMay and US Joint Chiefs of Staff dicusse surveillance of Cuba. Source Ruppe, David (May 1, 2001). "U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba". ABC News . Retrieved January 21, 2012. Jon Elliston, editor, Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda (Melbourne, Australia and New York: Ocean Press, 1999), ISBN 1-876175-09-5.

U.S. Department of Defense General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the creation of Operation Northwoods. Davis, Tracy C. “Operation Northwoods: The Pentagon's Scripts for Overthrowing Castro.” TDR, vol. 50, no. 1, 2006, pp. 134–148. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4492663. Accessed 4 Mar. 2021. An aircraft at Eglin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CIA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At the designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual aircraft would be converted to a drone.

Other ideas included simulating a shootdown of a US civilian airliner in a convincing way, and contriving "Cuban" subversion of neighboring countries.

I’ve never heard of Operation Northwoods. Never heard of it and don’t believe it,” Theodore Sorenson, Kennedy’s White House special counsel, told The Baltimore Sun in 2001. “Obviously, it would be totally illegal as well as totally unwise.” We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities, and even in Washington." In the end, however, Operation Northwoods never got further than a memo. According to ABC, President John F. Kennedy told Lemnitzer directly on March 16, 1962, that he had no plans to use any sort of force to take Cuba. Following presentation of the Northwoods plan, Kennedy removed Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, although he became Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in January 1963. U.S. military leaders began to perceive Kennedy as going soft on Cuba, and the President became increasingly unpopular with the military. A rift had already developed during Kennedy's disagreements with the service chiefs over the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 and flared up again with his June 10, 1963 announcement of a unilateral U.S. Test Ban Treaty. One of the most well-known secret research programs is the Manhattan Project, which eventually produced the world's first atomic bombs. The project began in 1939, and was cloaked in secrecy as physicists investigated the potential power of atomic weapons. From 1942 to 1946, Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers led the Manhattan Project.after newsletter promotion This is a brave and original book, which invents its own form – it is both intimate and epic, playful and serious In addition to Operation Northwoods, under the Operation Mongoose program the U.S. Department of Defense had a number of similar proposals for actions to be taken against the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro. We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington.

Sometimes, declassified documents read like a scene out of a James Bond film. That's the case with this document, titled "The Kidnapping of the Lunik." It tells the story of a CIA-led mission to "borrow" a Soviet lunar satellite for just one night. Scott Shane and Tom Bowman with contribution from Laura Sullivan, "New book on NSA sheds light on secrets: U.S. terror plan was Cuba invasion pretext," Baltimore Sun, 24 April 2001. Bohning, Don (2005). The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-1965. Potomac Books. p.105. ISBN 978-1-57488-675-7– via Google Books.

The Legacy Of Operation Northwoods

In response, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, led by Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, produced Operation Northwoods. The Plots Proposed By Operation Northwoods A 'Remember the Maine' incident could be arranged in several forms: a. We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba..." General Lyman Lemnitzer, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when Operation Northwoods was developed in early 1962. Photo taken 2 Jan 1963 after his appointment as Supreme Allied Commander Europe. The United States would respond by executing offensive operations to secure water and power supplies, destroying artillery and mortar emplacements which threaten the base. Crew members monitor radar screens in the combat information center aboard the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes in 1988. (Image credit: U.S. Navy)