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

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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] Explore the wealth of reliable, verifiable information on 9/11, including several excellent documentaries, in our 9/11 Information Center available here. Arrival ceremony for Giulio Andreotti, President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic, April 17, 1973. (Image credit: National Archives and Records Administration)

In 1962, General Edward Lansdale, the chief of operations for the anti-Castro Cuba Project, or Operation Mongoose, asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a “brief but precise description of pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba.”

Why The U.S. Military Planned False Flag Attacks Directed At Cuba

We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities, and even in Washington." 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 b Tim Weiner, "Documents Show Pentagon's Anti-Castro Plots During Kennedy Years," New York Times, 19 November 1997; appeared on the same date and by the same author in the New York Times itself as "Declassified Papers Show Anti-Castro Ideas Proposed to Kennedy," late edition—final, section A, pg. 25, column 1.

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. 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] 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. I’ve never heard of Operation Northwoods. Never heard of it and don’t believe it,” Theodore Sorenson, Kennedy’s White House special counsel, told The Baltimore Sun in 2001. “Obviously, it would be totally illegal as well as totally unwise.”

The Plots Proposed By Operation Northwoods

Oleg Penkovsky was a high-ranking Soviet military intelligence officer who worked as a spy for the United States and Great Britain during the Cold War. Best known for his role in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Penkovsky supplied the U.S. government with valuable details about the capabilities of Soviet missiles that had been installed in Cuba. And Robert McNamara, who allegedly saw the plan before the president, also denied knowing about it. “I never heard of it,” he told The Baltimore Sun that same year. “I can’t believe the chiefs were talking about or engaged in what I would call CIA-type operations.” During the Cold War, the CIA played a role in distributing the book "Doctor Zhivago" throughout the Soviet Union. The book by Russian writer Boris Pasternak was banned by the Soviets, according to a Washington Post article, because it displayed an open-minded view of the Bolshevik Revolution and its protagonist, a doctor-poet, was staunchly individualistic.