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

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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. The only way we would have succeeded is by doing exactly what the Russians were doing all over the world, by imposing a government by tyranny, basically what we were accusing Castro himself of doing.” Media Advisory: National Archives Releases Additional Materials Reviewed by the Assassination Records Review Board, archives.gov, 11/17/97 [cached] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/11/19/military-had-plan-to-blame-cuba-if-glenns-space-mission-failed/24eb451e-bdb2-441a-9b83-c4e8aecd6aa1/

Though most of the leading players in Operation Northwoods have since died — Kennedy, of course, was assassinated in November 1963 — those close to the president have flatly denied any knowledge of the anti-Castro plot. 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. https://www.spaceflighthistories.com/post/that-time-castro-would-ve-been-blamed-if-a-mercury-mission-had-failedDavis, 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. The mission of the secret armies was simple: Prepare for a potential communist takeover and lead an armed resistance should such a takeover occur. In some countries, "preparing" for Soviet invasion included espionage and the hoarding of ammunitions. Cuban missile crisis, October 1962 President John F Kennedy with General Curtis LeMay and US Joint Chiefs of Staff dicusse surveillance of Cuba. Source The plan was drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, signed by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer and sent to the Secretary of Defense. Although part of the US government's anti-communist Cuban Project, Operation Northwoods was never officially accepted; it was authorized by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but then rejected by President Kennedy. None of the false flag operations became active under the auspices of the Operation Northwoods proposals. 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.

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

It is assumed that a single agency will be given the primary responsibility for developing military and para-military aspects of the basic plan. It is recommended that this responsibility for both overt and covert military operations be assigned the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Annex to Appendix to Enclosure A: Pretexts to Justify U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba". media.nara.gov. Archived from the original on 2008-08-13 . Retrieved 3 September 2009. The Records of the Assassination Records Review Board," National Archives and Records Administration.

The so-called kidnapping occurred in the early 1960s, at the height of the U.S.-Soviet space race. To make it clear that they were winning this race, the Soviets launched a multinational exhibition of their Lunik satellite, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Earth's moon. [ Top 10 Soviet and Russian Space Missions]Fidel Castro arrives MATS Terminal, Washington, D.C. (Image credit: Warren K. Leffler, Library of Congress) Learn more about 9/11 and the secret societies likely involved in this powerful lesson from the free Insight Course.

U.S. policymakers got the message. And as they publicly declared they would not tolerate “international communism in the Western Hemisphere,” intelligence organizations got to work behind the scenes. 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:Operation Northwoods was a proposed false flag operation that originated within the US Department of Defense of the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for CIA operatives to both stage and commit acts of terrorism against American military and civilian targets, blaming them on the Cuban government, and using it 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 plane, [2] 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, [3] blowing up a U.S. ship, and orchestrating terrorism in U.S. cities. [2] [4] The proposals were rejected by President John F. Kennedy. [5] [6] [7] N E W  Y O R K, May 1, 2001 -- In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.