thumb|General [[Lyman Lemnitzer, who was in charge as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]]

Operation Northwoods was a proposed false flag operation which originated within the Department of Defense of the US government in 1962. The proposals called for Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives to both stage and commit acts of terrorism against US military and civilian targets, blame them on the Cuban government, and use them to justify a war against Cuba. The possibilities detailed in the document included the remote control of civilian aircraft which would be secretly repainted as US Air Force planes, a fabricated 'shoot down' of a US Air Force fighter aircraft off the coast of Cuba, the possible assassination of Cuban immigrants, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, exploding a US ship, and orchestrating terrorism in US cities. The proposals were rejected by US President John F. Kennedy.

Fidel Castro had taken power in Cuba in 1959 and began allowing communists into the new Cuban government, nationalizing US businesses and improving relations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, arousing the concern of the US military. The operation proposed creating public support for a war against Cuba by blaming the Cuban government for terrorist acts that would be perpetrated by the US government.

Several other proposals were included within Operation Northwoods, including real or simulated actions against various US military and civilian targets. The operation recommended developing a "Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington", a U.S. federal agency overseeing the release of government records related to John F. Kennedy's assassination. A total of 1,521 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 online by the National Security Archive on 6 November 1998 in a joint venture with CNN as part of its 1998 Cold War television documentary series—specifically, as a documentation supplement to "Episode 10: Cuba," which aired on 29 November 1998. "Annex to Appendix to Enclosure A" is the section of the document which contains the proposals to stage false flag terrorist attacks.

The Northwoods document was published online in a more complete form, including cover memoranda, by the National Security Archive on 30 April 2001.

Provocations

Responding to a request for pretexts for military intervention by the Chief of Operations of the Cuba Project, Brig. Gen. Edward Lansdale, the document listed methods, such as false flag provocations, that the authors believed would garner support for U.S. military intervention in Cuba. According to the documents, the plan called for several steps to be taken in an attempt to provoke Cuba into an action against the United States, then blame it for "hostilities" carried out by the U.S. against its military base at Guantanamo; these would be followed by executing offensive operations there against tactical Cuban civilian targets and military emplacements, leading to "large scale United States military operations":

thumb|General [[Edward Lansdale, commander of the anti-Cuban Operation Mongoose project]]

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.

Twelve of these proposals come from a 2 February 1962 memorandum entitled "Possible Actions to Provoke, Harass or Disrupt Cuba," written by Brig. Gen. William H. Craig and submitted to Brig. Gen. Edward Lansdale, the commander of the Operation Mongoose project.

The plan expressed confidence that by this action, "the U.S. could almost certainly obtain the necessary two-thirds support among OAS members for collective action against Cuba."

Included in the nations the Joint Chiefs suggested as targets for covert attacks were Jamaica and Trinidad-Tobago. Since both were members of the British Commonwealth, the Joint Chiefs hoped that by secretly attacking them and then falsely blaming Cuba, the United States could incite the people of the United Kingdom into supporting a war against Castro. The proposal was sent for approval to the Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, but was not implemented.

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.

Physical documentation on Operation Northwoods became declassified through the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. This act declassified a total of four million documents, including Operation Northwoods, and was made available through the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. However, public knowledge of Operation Northwoods did not come until 2001 with the release of a book by the author James Bamford titled Body of Secrets.

On 3 August 2001, the National Assembly of People's Power of Cuba (the main legislative body of the Republic of Cuba) issued a statement referring to Operation Northwoods and Operation Mongoose wherein it condemned such U.S. government plans.

See also

  • False flag
  • USS Maine (1890)
  • Gulf of Tonkin incident
  • Operation Gladio
  • Family Jewels (Central Intelligence Agency)
  • Operation Washtub
  • Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group
  • Operation Himmler
  • Bay of Pigs Invasion
  • Operation Sea-Spray

References

Further reading

  • Jon Elliston, editor, Psywar on Cuba: The Declassified History of U.S. Anti-Castro Propaganda (Melbourne, Australia and New York: Ocean Press, 1999), .
  • The Full Operation Northwoods document in both JPEG and fully searchable HTML format.
  • High resolution scans from the National Archives, main pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
  • 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.
  • Ron Kampeas, "Memo: U.S. Mulled Fake Cuba Pretext," Associated Press (AP), 25 April 2001.
  • Bruce Schneier, "'Body of Secrets' by James Bamford: The author of a pioneering work on the NSA delivers a new book of revelations about the mysterious agency's coverups, eavesdropping and secret missions," Salon.com, 25 April 2001.
  • David Ruppe, "U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba; Book: U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba," ABC News, 1 May 2001.
  • "The Truth Is Out There—1962 memo from National Security Agency," Harper's Magazine, July 2001.
  • Chris Floyd, "Head Cases," Moscow Times, 21 December 2001, pg. VIII; also appeared in St. Petersburg Times, Issue 733 (100), 25 December 2001.
  • National Security Archive, "Pentagon Proposed Pretext for Cuba Invasion in 1962", April 30, 2001.