Project Northwoods

[MakeYouThink]

[url="http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf"]Project Northwoods document[/url]

[quote][img]http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/pentagon.jpg[/img]

In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.”[/quote]

No copyright as this is a public domain document that was declassified in April 30, 2001.

Official National Security Archive page [url="http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/"]http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/[/url]

Do you still trust your government.

It planned out the murder of innocent civilians in the 1960s, how much has it changed since then?

[LouisvilleFan]

Actually, from what I can tell, it isn't the U.S. Government that came up with this plan. It was L.L. Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs of Staff who came up with it. His name and signature are on the document as Chairman of the JCS. I don't see that the IRS, Board of Education, Coast Guard, National Forest Service, Supreme Court, U.S. Postal Service, or any other such agencies were included. In fact, a few people were specifically left in the dark.

Now, having read most of this document, if this truly "may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government," as James Bamford believes, then I'm actually surprised. Maybe I can trust my government more than I thought. When you read the summary, you get the impression that the JCS was suggesting we just go blow up a random American Airlines flight full of passengers and blame the Cubans. The actual plan suggests using a drone aircraft belonging to a CIA organization that would be painted to match an actual chartered flight with real passengers. The actual flight would land at Eglin AFB to evacuate the passengers and return the chartered plane to its original status while the drone aircraft would fly over Cuba (following the flight path to the chartered flight's destination). After transmitting a "MAY DAY" message, the plane would be blown up by radio signal, and Cuba would be blamed for killing innocent Americans. Of course, nobody actually dies in the process.

So... not much to see here. I'm sure there's some juicier stuff out there, but it won't ever be unclassified.

[Justin86]

So the most you can come up with is a corrupt plan that the government never actually executed? How scandalous. I'm still trying to figure out why anyone thinks this is at all worthy of our attention. We all know there are people in the government who come up with evil plans, however it is the responsibility of our leaders to overrule them and reject their plans, which in this case they did.

[LouisvilleFan]

Hmm... no response

At any rate, this shows why it pays to read things firsthand rather than take someone's summation of it, which always reflects their interpretation, views, and bias. Bottom line is, we needed to attack Cuba before they established any military alliance with the USSR, and we knew they would smartly keep to themselves before that time. Just about every generation of American history has erred in ways much more embarassing than this.

Edited August 25, 2008 by LouisvilleFan

[Justin86]

Why did you respond to the topic twice? I'm confused.

[LouisvilleFan]

Just adding to what I wrote previously... bored at work...

Does every post here need a specific mission statement?

[Justin86]

It was just confusing seeing two posts from you in the same thread that were slightly different. At first I wondered if someone had hijacked your account.