Operation Northwoods
In1962,theUSJointChiefsofStaffunanimouslyapprovedaplantostagefaketerroristattacksonAmericancities,sinkboatsofCubanrefugees,andblowupaUSship—alltocreateapretextforinvadingCuba.JFKrejecteditandfiredtheChairman.Thedocumentsweredeclassifiedin1997.
In March 1962, the United States Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff — the highest-ranking military leaders in the country — signed off on a plan called Operation Northwoods. The plan proposed staging fake terrorist attacks on American soil to justify a military invasion of Cuba.
This is not speculation. The original documents were declassified in 1997 and are available in the National Archives.
The proposals included:
- Staging bombings in Miami, Washington, D.C., and other American cities and blaming them on Cuban agents
- Sinking a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated) to generate outrage
- Blowing up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blaming Cuba — an explicit echo of the USS Maine incident that helped trigger the Spanish-American War in 1898
- Hijacking and shooting down a civilian aircraft and attributing it to the Cuban air force
- Creating a fake "Cuban terror campaign" in the Miami area, including exploding plastic bombs, arresting Cuban agents carrying forged documents, and releasing previously prepared casualty lists to the press
The document is chillingly detailed. It doesn't just outline the attacks — it describes the propaganda campaign that would follow. Fake funerals. Planted news stories. Manufactured witnesses. The entire machinery of public opinion, turned against Cuba through deliberate deception.
General Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presented the plan to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962. McNamara rejected it. President John F. Kennedy was reportedly furious when he learned of the proposal. He denied the operation and, shortly afterward, removed Lemnitzer as Chairman — reassigning him to become Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in Europe.
The plan was shelved. No attacks were carried out. But the fact that it was conceived, written up in formal military memoranda, and unanimously approved by every branch of the US military remains one of the most extraordinary declassified documents in American history.
Operation Northwoods proves something that conspiracy theorists have long alleged but rarely been able to document: the highest levels of the US military were willing to kill American citizens and blame it on a foreign enemy to justify a war.
The actual declassified document
The original Operation Northwoods memorandum — typed on Department of Defense letterhead, signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Reading the military's own words proposing fake terrorist attacks on American cities is a surreal experience.
The document goes into extraordinary detail about exactly how to fake the attacks.
Operation Northwoods explained
A clear, methodical walkthrough of the Northwoods proposals — from the fake bombings to the simulated aircraft shootdown. The specificity of the planning is what makes it so disturbing.
Kennedy's reaction to the plan changed the course of the Cold War.
The Wikipedia deep-dive
A comprehensive overview of Operation Northwoods including its context within the broader anti-Castro operations of the early 1960s, and how the documents came to be declassified 35 years later.
What you now know
- Operation Northwoods was a real plan, unanimously approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962, proposing fake terrorist attacks on American soil to justify invading Cuba
- The proposals included staging bombings in US cities, sinking refugee boats, blowing up a US ship, and faking a civilian aircraft shootdown
- President Kennedy rejected the plan and removed Chairman Lemnitzer — the documents were classified for 35 years until their release in 1997