Operation Northwoods

If you think its unthinkable that some Americans in high office would kill other
Americans to achieve political and policy objectives, read this and think again.
Operation Northwoods
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Operation Northwoods, or Northwoods, was a 1962 plan to generate U.S. public support for
military action against Cuban government of Fidel Castro, as part of the U.S. government's
Operation Mongoose anti-Castro initiative. The plan, which was not implemented*, called for
various false flag actions, including simulated or real state-sponsored acts of terrorism (such as
hijacked planes) on U.S. and Cuban soil. The plan was proposed by senior U. S. Department of
Defense leaders, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lyman Louis Lemnitzer..
The proposal was presented in a document entitled "Justification for US Military Intervention in
Cuba," a collection of draft memoranda written by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) representative to the Caribbean Survey Group. The document was
presented by the JCS to the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara on March 13 with one
paragraph approved, as a preliminary submission for planning purposes.
The previously secret document was originally made public on November 18, 1997 by the John
F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board, a U.S. federal agency overseeing the release
of government records related to the John F. Kennedy assassination. A total of about 1500 pages
of once-secret military records covering 1962 to 1964 were concomitantly declassified by said
Review Board.
"Appendix to Enclosure A" and "Annex to Appendix to Enclosure A" of the Northwoods
document were first published by the National Security Archive on November 6, 1998 in a joint
venture with CNN as part of CNN's 1998 Cold War documentary seriesspecifically, as a
documentation supplement to "Episode 10: Cuba," which aired on November 29, 1998. "Annex
to Appendix to Enclosure A" is the section of the document which contains the proposals to
stage terrorist attacks.
The Northwoods document was published online in a more complete form (i.e., including cover)
on April 30, 2001.
While Operation Northwoods was not approved by Kennedy and McNamara, it is cited here
as an example of a false-flag operation because of the official nature of the unclassified
document itself. Subsequent similar operations that were actually carried out are, for obvious
reasons, not so well documented.
Content
In response to a request for pretexts for military intervention by the Chief of Operations, Cuba
Project (Col. Edward Lansdale) the document lists methods (with, in some cases, outline plans)
the author believed would garner public and international support for US military intervention in
Cuba. These are staged attacks purporting to be of Cuban origin, with a number of them having
real casualties. Central to the plan was the use of "friendly Cubans" Cuban exiles seeking to
oust Fidel Castro.
The suggestions included:
Starting rumors about Cuba by using clandestine radios.

Staging mock attacks, sabotages and riots at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and blaming it
on Cuban forces.
Firebombing and sinking an American ship at the Guantanamo Bay American military
base reminiscent of the USS Maine incident at Havana in 1898, which started the
Spanish-American War or destroy American aircraft and blame it on Cuban forces.
(The document's first suggestion regarding the sinking of a U.S. ship is to blow up a
manned ship and hence would result in U.S. Navy members being killed, with a
secondary suggestion of possibly using unmanned drones and fake funerals instead.)
"Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping and destruction of US military drone
aircraft by MIG type planes would be useful as complementary actions."
Destroying an unmanned drone masquerading as a commercial aircraft supposedly full of
"college students off on a holiday". This proposal was the one supported by the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
Staging a "terror campaign", including the "real or simulated" sinking of Cuban refugees
"We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other
Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban
refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route
to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the
United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized."
Burning crops by dropping incendiary devices in Haiti, the Dominican Republic or
elsewhere.
James Bamford summarized Operation Northwoods in his Body of Secrets thus:

Operation Northwoods, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every
member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American
streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave
of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People
would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using
phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal
the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their
war.

Operation Northwoods

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If you think its unthinkable that some Americans in high office would kill other

Starting rumors about Cuba by using clandestine radios.

James Bamford summarized Operation Northwoods in his Body of Secrets thus:

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