Operation Northwoods

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Approved Document for Operation Northwoods

Operation Northwoods was an American secret plan drawn up in 1962 by the General Staff of the United States Department of Defense and presented to President John F. Kennedy on March 13, 1962 . In addition to Operation Mongoose , this plan envisaged further expanding the United States' covert warfare against Cuba . A pretext for the invasion of Cuba was to be created by staged false flag terrorist attacks against civil aviation and shipping within the USA, for which Fidel Castro was to be blamed in retrospect . Unlike Mongoose, however, Northwoods was not implemented because Kennedy refused to approve. The plans were made under President Eisenhower . The document was signed for the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Lyman L. Lemnitzer , the chairman and later commander in chief of NATO in Europe . After more than 30 years of secrecy, the secret plan came to the public in 1997/98 through the Freedom of Information Act .

occasion

With the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba and the apparent involvement of CIA agents in connection with an organized army of Cubans in exile, the Kennedy administration looked for more subtle ways of operating against Cuba. Northwoods was considered a draft that should convince the world public of the dangerousness of the Castro regime.

Content of the document

Lyman L. Lemnitzer, at the time chiefly responsible for the planning of Operation Northwoods as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The document was written with the intention of gaining general approval and support for a military invasion of Cuba . The chiefs of staff assumed that the US population would only support a military attack on Cuba if the attack was preceded by threatening and aggressive actions by the island nation against American soldiers, civilians, refugees or Cubans in exile. Shortly after the documents were published, James Bamford comments on the content as follows:

"According to secret documents that have been kept under wraps for a long time [...] the United General Staff made and passed plans that were perhaps the worst ever produced by any US government. In the name of anti-communism, the military proposed a secret and bloody terror war against their own country in order to win the American public over to the insane war they wanted to wage against Cuba. "

- James Bamford : NSA . The anatomy of the most powerful intelligence agency in the world. 2001, p. 89.

The document includes statements on a planned staging of fictitious attacks with fictitious victims, in other cases it leaves open whether the attacks should be deceptive maneuvers or real actions. For some attacks, it was expressly considered that they could become a reality. After the successful Operation Northwoods, further coordination by the CIA was planned.

Some of the recommendations made by Operation Northwoods were:

  • Secret radio stations spread rumors about Cuba
  • Attacks against Cuban refugees in the United States for which Castro was believed to be responsible
  • Sinking of an American ship in the Bay of Guantánamo
  • Destruction of an American military base or an American aircraft, subsequent accusation of Cuban troops
  • Disruption of civil air traffic, attacks on ships and destruction of a US military aircraft by MiG aircraft
  • Destruction of a passenger plane allegedly filled with vacationing students
  • possible accidental death of astronaut John Glenn as Cuban sabotage
  • Staging a terrorist action by means of the actual or simulated sinking of Cuban refugees
  • Staging of communist Cuban terrorist actions in the Miami area and in other Florida cities as well as in Washington
  • Attack and shooting down of a civilian charter plane by a Cuban aircraft.

For the attack and shooting down of a civilian charter plane, it was planned to make an exact duplicate of an actually registered civilian aircraft of the CIA. The Eglin Air Force Base was planned for this . The duplicate was to be exchanged for a rendezvous between the two planes south of Florida. Previously, passengers with false names had already entered the actually registered aircraft and flew back to the designated air force base in Eglin at minimum altitude. The duplicate was supposed to fly as a drone towards Cuba and simulate an attack by a Cuban fighter plane with the emergency signal “ Mayday ”. By intercepting the signal and reporting it to the International Civil Aviation Organization , the incident would attract enough attention on its own, without much intervention from the US government. Since the document was rejected by John F. Kennedy , Operation Northwoods remained a draft without profound consequences for the Cuban Missile Crisis that followed shortly thereafter .

Web links

Commons : Operation Northwoods  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Text: www.gwu.edu (PDF; 796 kB)
  2. ↑ [1]
  3. ↑ [2]
  4. ↑ Dirty Tricks: When Reasons for War Are Invented Mirror March 10, 2003
  5. ↑ Bamford, James: NSA. The anatomy of the most powerful intelligence agency in the world. 2001, p. 92 f.
  6. ↑ Lansdale Memo, March 16, 1962