Operation Northwoods, or Northwoods, was a false flag conspiracy plan, proposed within the United States government in 1962. The plan called for CIA or other operatives to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Castro-led Cuba. One plan was to "develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington".
This operation is especially notable in that it included plans for hijackings and bombings followed by the use of phony evidence that would blame the terrorist acts on a foreign government, namely Cuba.
The plan states, "The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere."
Operation Northwoods was drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and signed by then-Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, and sent to the Secretary of Defense.
Several other proposals were listed, including the real or simulated actions against various U.S military and civilian targets. Operation Northwoods was part of the U.S. government's Cuban Project (Operation Mongoose) anti-Castro initiative. It was never officially accepted or executed.
Origins and public release
The main proposal was presented in a do ent en led "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)," 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.[1] (The parenthetical "TS" in the le of the do ent is an initialism for "Top Secret.") The do ent was presented by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13 as a preliminary submission for planning purposes. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that both the covert and overt aspects of any such operation be assigned to them.
The previously secret do ent was originally made public on November 18, 1997, by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board,[2] a U.S. federal agency overseeing the release of government records related to John F. Kennedy's assassination.[3][4][5][6][7] A total 1521 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 do ent were first published online by the National Security Archive on November 6, 1998 in a joint venture with CNN as part of CNN's 1998 Cold War television do entary series[8][9]—specifically, as a do entation supplement to "Episode 10: Cuba," which aired on November 29, 1998.[10][11] "Annex to Appendix to Enclosure A" is the section of the do ent which contains the proposals to stage terrorist attacks.
The Northwoods do ent was published online in a more complete form (i.e., including cover memoranda) by the National Security Archive on April 30, 2001.[12]
James Bamford Summary
Journalist James Bamford summarized Operation Northwoods in his April 24, 2001 book Body of Secrets:
"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."[13
Related Operation Mongoose proposals
In addition to Operation Northwoods, under the Operation Mongoose program the U.S. Department of Defense had a number of similar proposals to be taken against the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro.
Twelve of these proposals come from a February 2, 1962 memorandum en led "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.[14][5][6][7]
The memorandum outlines Operation Bingo, a plan to, in its words, "create an incident which has the appearance of an attack on U.S. facilities (GMO) in Cuba, thus providing an excuse for use of U.S. military might to overthrow the current government of Cuba."
It also includes Operation Dirty Trick, a plot to blame Castro if the 1962 Mercury manned space flight carrying John Glenn crashed, saying
"The objective is to provide irrevocable proof that, should the MERCURY manned orbit flight fail, the fault lies with the Communists et al Cuba [sic]." It continues, "This to be accomplished by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans."
Even after General Lemnitzer lost his job as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Chiefs of Staff still planned false-flag pretext operations at least into 1963. A different U.S. Department of Defense policy paper created in 1963 discussed a plan to make it appear that Cuba had attacked a member of the Organization of American States (OAS) so that the United States could retaliate. The U.S. Department of Defense do ent says of one of the scenarios,
"A contrived 'Cuban' attack on an OAS member could be set up, and the attacked state could be urged to take measures of self-defense and request assistance from the U.S. and OAS."
The plan expresses 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."[15][13]
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.[13] As the U.S. Department of Defense report noted,
"Any of the contrived situations described above are inherently, extremely risky in our democratic system in which security can be maintained, after the fact, with very great difficulty. If the decision should be made to set up a contrived situation it should be one in which participation by U.S. personnel is limited only to the most highly trusted covert personnel. This suggests the infeasibility of the use of military units for any aspect of the contrived situation."[13]
The U.S. Department of Defense report even suggested covertly paying a person in the Castro government to attack the United States:
"The only area remaining for consideration then would be to bribe one of Castro's subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on [the U.S. Navy base at] Guantanamo."[13]
Reaction
It has been reported that John F. Kennedy personally rejected the Northwoods proposal, but no official record of this exists. The proposal was sent for approval to the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, but was not implemented. President Kennedy removed General Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly afterward, although he became Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in January 1963.
The continuing push against the Cuban government by internal elements of the U.S. military and intelligence community (the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Project, etc.) prompted President John F. Kennedy to attempt to rein in burgeoning hardline anti-Communist sentiment that was intent on proactive, aggressive action against communist movements around the globe. After the Bay of Pigs, John F. Kennedy fired then CIA director Allen W. Dulles, Deputy Director Charles P. Cabell, as well as Deputy Director Richard Bissell, and turned his attention towards Vietnam.
Kennedy also took steps to bring discipline to the CIA's Cold War and paramilitary operations by drafting a National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) which called for the shift of Cold War operations to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. Department of Defense as well as a major change in the role of the CIA to exclusively deal in intelligence gathering.
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