The_Info_Web/40 - EVENTS/INTELLIGENCE_SCANDALS/Operation NORTHWOODS.md

created	updated	title	aliases	tags	category	summary	start	location
2026-05-15	2026-05-17	Operation NORTHWOODS	Northwoods Operation Northwoods	Event CIA JointChiefs Cuba FalseFlag ColdWar 1960s	Intelligence Scandal	Joint Chiefs of Staff paper of March 13, 1962 proposing staged incidents, blamed on Cuba, as pretexts for a U.S. invasion; declassified in 1997 and publicized by James Bamford in 2001.	1962-03-13	Washington, D.C.

Operation NORTHWOODS was a set of proposals developed by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff under General Lyman Lemnitzer and formally submitted to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962. The document, titled "Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba," proposed creating or staging a series of violent incidents - including attacks on American citizens - that could be attributed to Cuba and used as a pretext for a U.S. military invasion. James Bamford wrote that the proposals were rejected by McNamara and President John F. Kennedy.¹ The document was declassified in 1997 through the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act and brought to wide public attention by journalist James Bamford.¹

Context

Operation NORTHWOODS was developed within the framework of Operation Mongoose and the broader Kennedy administration effort to develop options for ending Fidel Castro's rule in Cuba. After the Bay of Pigs failure in April 1961, American military and intelligence planners continued to develop contingency plans for a direct military intervention in Cuba. The strategic problem was the absence of a legitimate trigger - a clear provocation or attack by Cuba that could justify military action before world opinion and the United Nations.

General Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Department of Defense's Office of Special Operations developed NORTHWOODS as a response to this problem. The document proposed manufacturing the trigger.¹

Proposed Operations

The NORTHWOODS document proposed a range of false-flag operations:

"Remember the Maine" scenario: A staged sabotage operation against a U.S. Navy vessel at Guantanamo Bay that could be portrayed as a Cuban attack. The document suggested an unmanned drone ship could be sunk to minimize casualties, or alternatively that a real incident could be staged.

Simulated attacks on Guantanamo: Staging mortar attacks on the Guantanamo perimeter, having U.S. Marines fire at each other in a way that could be attributed to Cuban snipers, and blowing up ammunition at Guantanamo and blaming Cuba.

Terror campaign in Miami and Washington D.C.: The document proposed staging "a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington." This included sinking boats carrying Cuban refugees, attacks on Cuban exiles who had "been to retaliate against any Cubans who assisted the US in the invasion," and U.S.-staged bombings.

Staged aircraft incidents: Proposing to use CIA aircraft painted to simulate Cuban Air Force colors to harass or "attack" U.S. aircraft over international waters, creating incidents that could be documented and publicized. A separate proposal suggested that a passenger aircraft could be hijacked by a "Cuban" (actually a U.S. covert operations team), diverting it and creating an international incident.

Killing of Americans: The document explicitly contemplated staging incidents in which American citizens were killed, attributable to Cuba.¹

Rejection

On March 6, 1962 Edward Lansdale, chief of operations of Operation Mongoose, wrote that he was asking the Defense representative, General Craig, "to give me a brief but precise description of pretexts which the JCS believes desirable if a decision is ultimately made to use direct military intervention."² The Joint Chiefs' memorandum of March 13 recommended that the paper be forwarded "as a preliminary submission suitable for planning purposes." The paper (JCS 1969/321) rested on the premise that intervention "will result from a period of heightened US-Cuban tensions which place the United States in the position of suffering justifiable grievances," and a draft memorandum appended to it stated that a plan built from the suggestions "would enable a logical build-up of incidents to be combined with other seemingly unrelated events to camouflage the ultimate objective and create the necessary impression of Cuban rashness and irresponsibility on a large scale."³

On March 16, 1962 President Kennedy met with John A. McCone, General Maxwell Taylor, Roswell Gilpatric, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, McGeorge Bundy and Lemnitzer to discuss the Mongoose guidelines. U. Alexis Johnson's handwritten note records that "The President also expressed skepticism that in so far as can now be foreseen circumstances will arise that would justify and make desirable the use of American forces for overt military action," and that "no decision was expressed or implied approving the use of such forces although contingency planning would proceed."⁴ At the April 11, 1962 meeting of the Special Group (Augmented), according to McCone's notes, the "JCS paper on pretext or provocative actions was discussed," and McCone wrote that "We should have and review this paper as it is considered to be a very thoughtful and useful document."⁵

Bamford wrote that McNamara rejected the proposals and that Kennedy, meeting with Lemnitzer shortly after receiving the document, left no doubt about his reaction.¹ In July 1962, Kennedy declined to reappoint Lemnitzer as JCS Chairman when his term expired; Lemnitzer was transferred to command NATO forces in Europe. The direct connection between NORTHWOODS and Lemnitzer's removal was not confirmed at the time but became a subject of historical interpretation after declassification.¹

Declassification and Significance

The document remained classified for thirty-five years and was among the records released in 1997 under the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act, which required declassification of documents relating to the Kennedy assassination regardless of their original security designation. NORTHWOODS was included because it was part of the operational planning environment in which Kennedy and the Joint Chiefs were operating in 1962-1963.

James Bamford brought the document to wide public attention in his 2001 book Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency. The NORTHWOODS document became one of the most frequently cited pieces of evidence in discussions of false-flag operations, government deception, and conspiracy theory - used both by legitimate researchers documenting Cold War operational planning and by conspiracy theorists arguing that subsequent events (the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 9/11) followed the template NORTHWOODS had proposed.⁶

Footnotes

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1. Bamford, James. Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency. Doubleday, 2001. Original document: "Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba" (TS), JCS files, March 13, 1962; declassified 1997. Available at nsarchive.gwu.edu. ↩︎

2. Lansdale to Goodwin, March 6, 1962 (Top Secret; Sensitive), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Vol. X, Document 310. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d310 ↩︎

3. Joint Chiefs of Staff, memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)," March 13, 1962, signed by L. L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, with Enclosure A, its appendix and annex, and Enclosure B, from JCS 1969/321 (Top Secret, Special Handling, Noforn; declassified 1997). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf ↩︎

4. Guidelines for Operation Mongoose and editorial note quoting U. Alexis Johnson's handwritten covering memorandum of March 16, 1962, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Vol. X, Document 314. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d314 ↩︎

5. Memorandum by Director of Central Intelligence McCone on the April 11, 1962 meeting of the Special Group (Augmented), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Vol. X, Document 325. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d325 ↩︎

6. Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. Doubleday, 2007. ↩︎