OPERATION NORTHWOODS

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http://www.rbnlive.com/northwoods.html

 

OPERATION NORTHWOODS

 

(In)March 13, 1962 - America's top military leaders, who were

staunchly right-wing, drafted Operation Northwoods which were secret

plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S.

cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.

 

" 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.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the

possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban

refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship,

and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the

international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new

leader, communist Fidel Castro.

America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military

casualties, writing: " We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay

and blame Cuba, " and, " casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a

helpful wave of national indignation. "

Details of the plans are described in Body of Secrets (Doubleday), a

new book by investigative reporter James Bamford about the history of

America's largest spy agency, the National Security Agency. However,

the plans were not connected to the agency, he notes.

The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert

McNamara, in March 1962. But they apparently were rejected by the

civilian leadership and have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years.

The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of astronaut

John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit as a

false pretext for war with Cuba, the documents show.

Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, " the objective

is to provide irrevocable proof … that the fault lies with the

Communists et all Cuba [sic]. "

The plans were motivated by an intense desire among senior military

leaders to depose Castro, who seized power in 1959 to become the first

communist leader in the Western Hemisphere — only 90 miles from U.S.

shores.

The earlier CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles

had been a disastrous failure, in which the military was not allowed

to provide firepower. The military leaders now wanted a shot at it.

Reflecting this, the U.S. plan called for establishing prolonged

military — not democratic — control over the island nation after the

invasion.

The Joint Chiefs at the time were headed by Eisenhower appointee Army

Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, who, with the signed plans in hand made a

pitch to McNamara on March 13, 1962, recommending Operation Northwoods

be run by the military.

Whether the Joint Chiefs' plans were rejected by McNamara in the

meeting is not clear. But three days later, President Kennedy told

Lemnitzer directly there was virtually no possibility of ever using

overt force to take Cuba, Bamford reports. Within months, Lemnitzer

would be denied another term as chairman and transferred to another job.

The secret plans came at a time when there was distrust in the

military leadership about their civilian leadership, with leaders in

the Kennedy administration viewed as too liberal, insufficiently

experienced and soft on communism. At the same time, however, there

real were concerns in American society about their military

overstepping its bounds.

There were reports U.S. military leaders had encouraged their

subordinates to vote conservative during the election.

And at least two popular books were published focusing on a right-wing

military leadership pushing the limits against government policy of

the day. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee published its own

report on right-wing extremism in the military, warning a

" considerable danger " in the " education and propaganda activities of

military personnel " had been uncovered. The committee even called for

an examination of any ties between Lemnitzer and right-wing groups.

But Congress didn't get wind of Northwoods, says Bamford.

Even after Lemnitzer was gone, he writes, the Joint Chiefs continued

to plan " pretext " operations at least through 1963.

One idea was to create a war between Cuba and another Latin American

country so that the United States could intervene. Another was to pay

someone in the Castro government to attack U.S. forces at the

Guantanamo naval base — an act, which Bamford notes, would have

amounted to treason. And another was to fly low level U-2 flights over

Cuba, with the intention of having one shot down as a pretext for a war.

Afraid of a congressional investigation, Lemnitzer had ordered all

Joint Chiefs documents related to the Bay of Pigs destroyed, says

Bamford. But somehow, these remained. "

 

See the actual documents here: National Security Archive.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf