Operation Northwoods
Operation Northwoods Memo.
In the only known existing document of its kind, the United States government, in the form of the highest-ranking officers of the US military, proposed on March 13, 1962, to commit acts of terrorism against American military personnel, military ships and bases, and American citizens. Discovered among more than 1,500 pages of unclassified documents in the late 1990s, the document was signed by General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The subject of the memo introducing the document is: “Justification for military intervention in Cuba.” Here are some of the “highlights,” with only a few misspelled words corrected in italics:
• It is recognized that any action which becomes pretext for US military intervention in Cuba will lead to a political decision which then would lead to military action.
• Such a plan would enable a logical build-up of incidents to be combined with other seemingly unrelated events to camouflage the ultimate objective and create the necessary impression of Cuban rashness and irresponsibility on a large scale, directed at other countries as well as the United 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.
• A series of well-coordinated incidents will be planned to take place in and around Guantanamo to give genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban forces.
a. Incidents to establish a credible attack (not in chronological order):
1. Start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio.
2. Land friendly Cubans in uniform “over-the-fence” to stage attack on base.
3. Capture Cuban (friendly) saboteurs inside the base.
4. Start riots near the base main gate (friendly Cubans).
5. Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires.
6. Burn aircraft on air base (sabotage).
7. Lob mortar shells from outside of base into base. Some damage to installations.
8. Capture assault teams approaching from the sea or vicinity of Guantanamo City.
9. Capture militia group which storms the base.
10. Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires—naphthalene.
11. Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims . . .
b. United States would respond by executing offensive operations to secure water and power supplies, destroying artillery and mortar emplacements which threaten the base.
c. Commence large scale United States military operations.
• 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. [S. H. Note: Is this an admittance by the Joint Chiefs in 1962 that US. military forces intentionally started an explosion on the USS Maine in the Cuban Harbor in 1898, causing the loss of 260 US service personnel to begin the Spanish-American War?]
b. We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters. We could arrange to cause such incident in the vicinity of Havana or Santiago as a spectacular result of Cuban attack from the air or sea, or both. The presence of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of the vessel could be fairly compelling evidence that the ship was taken under attack. The nearness to Havana or Santiago would add credibility especially to those people that might have heard the blast or have seen the fire. The US could follow up with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to “evacuate” remaining members of the non-existent crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.
• We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. . . . We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute 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. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban Involvement, also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.
• Use of MIG type aircraft by US pilots could provide additional provocation. . . . It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama, or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight.
a. 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 a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone.
b. Take-off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida. From the rendezvous point the passenger-carrying aircraft will descend to minimum altitude and go directly into an auxiliary field at Eglin AFB where arrangements will have been made to evacuate the passengers and return the aircraft to its original status. The drone aircraft meanwhile will continue to fly the filed flight plan. When over Cuba the drone will being transmitting on the international distress frequency a “MAY DAY” message stating he is under attack by Cuban MIG aircraft. The transmission will be interrupted by destruction of the aircraft which will be triggered by radio signal. This will allow ICAO radio stations in the Western hemisphere to tell the US what has happened to the aircraft instead of the US trying to “sell” the incident.
• It is possible to create an incident which will make it appear that Communist Cuban MIGs have destroyed a USAF aircraft over International waters in an unprovoked attack.120
If not for President Kennedy and his Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy nixing this proposal, the United States almost certainly would have attacked and regime-removed an autonomous government in Cuba in 1962, exactly as the United States did in 2001 and 2003 when they regime-removed the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, respectively. We know for certain from this document that justification for that action would almost certainly have taken American and Cuban refugee life and limbs. The big question is whether or not the justification for American action in 2001 and 2003 came from another document justifying the loss of American life on September 11.
It should be further noted that the last entry of the Operation Northwoods document, Enclosure B, states, “It is understood that the Department of State also is preparing suggested courses of action to develop justification for US military intervention in Cuba.”121
As will be seen next, Kennedy was distancing himself from most of the powers in Washington, and now he could add the military and the State Department to the list of branches and agencies disenchanted with its presidency. Add the CIA and the military industrial complex to this ever-growing list, and all the ingredients are present to launch the second successful coup d’état in United States history.