Operation Northwoods

Operation Northwoods was a document drafted in 1962 by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and presented to President John F. Kennedy on March 13, 1962. Long believed to be residing in the imagination of conspiracy theorists, the document was declassified in recent years by the Freedom of Information Act.

Table of contents

1 Content
2 What Happened?
3 External link

Content

The document was drafted with the intent of getting public support for an invasion of Cuba. The Joint Chiefs of Staff argued that the US population would only support military intervention in Cuba in the event of provocative, aggressive action by the island nation against American soldiers, American civilians or Cuban refugees and Cubans in exile. The document frequently refers to staging fake attacks with fake victims, but in other cases does not specify whether the attacks should be fake or real, and for some recommended attacks explicitly notes that they could be real. Had Operation Northwoods been carried out, it would likely have required the coordinative efforts of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is mentioned several times.

Some of the recommendations of Operation Northwoods were:

Start false rumors about Cuba by using clandestine radios.
Stage mock attacks, sabotages and riots and blame it on Cuban forces
Sink an American ship at the Guantanamo Bay American military base or destroy American aircraft and blame it on Cuban forces. (The document refers to unmanned drones, fake funerals etc.)
"Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping and destruction of US military drone aircraft by MIG type [sic] planes would be useful as complementary actions."
Destroy a fake commercial aircraft supposedly full of "college students off on a holiday" (really an unmanned drone)
Stage a "terror campaign", including the "real or simulated" sinking of Cuban refugees:

"We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute [sic] 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."

What Happened?

The document was rejected by John F. Kennedy and with the Bay of Pigs Invasion disaster contributed to efforts by John F. Kennedy to break the military-industrial complex that was constantly asking for war. After the Bay of Pigs disaster, John F. Kennedy fired then CIA director Allen W. Dulles, Deputy Director Charles P. Cabell and Deputy Director Richard Bissell.

Kennedy also took steps in breaking the Cold War and paramilitary operations of the CIA 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 Pentagon as well as a major change in the role of the CIA to exclusively deal in intelligence gathering.