Operation Northwoods was a 1962 secret memorandum drafted by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff that proposed staging false flag terrorist attacks to justify a military intervention in Cuba.
Purpose and Context
• Origin: Created in March 1962 by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (led by General Lyman Lemnitzer) at the request of the National Security Archive Cuba Project.
• Goal: Design plausible pretexts—including framing the Cuban government for attacks—to generate public and international support for a U.S. military invasion to oust Fidel Castro.
• Connection: It formed part of the broader Operation Mongoose covert program.
Proposed Actions
The document outlined extreme and theatrical scenarios, which included:
• Staging a fake "shoot-down" of a U.S. Air Force aircraft or a drone commercial airliner over Cuban waters.
• Orchestrating violent terrorism and bombings in U.S. cities like Miami or Washington, D.C., and blaming them on Cuba.
• Sinking real or simulated boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas.
• Blowing up a U.S. ship (reminiscent of the USS Maine) at Guantánamo Bay to create artificial casualties and national outrage.
Outcome and Declassification
• Rejection: President John F. Kennedy flatly rejected the proposals, and the plan was never implemented. General Lemnitzer was subsequently moved out of his position to a NATO command.
• Discovery: The documents remained classified for decades until they were declassified and released to the public in the late 1990s through the JFK Assassination Records Review Board.