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The Shadow Dossier — The Invasion That Was Never Ordered · The Shadow Dossier

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  the shadow dossier act i a problem called cuba
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  in early 1962 the kennedy administration was
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  still recovering from the humiliation of the
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  bay of pigs the failed invasion of cuba by cia
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  trained exiles the year before which this dossier
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  has covered in an earlier file fidel castro was
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  still in power closer than ever to the Soviet
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  Union, and senior officials in Washington were
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  under pressure to find a way to remove him. The
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  main effort was a covert campaign called Operation
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  Mongoose, run by Air Force General Edward Lansdale,
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  aimed at undermining Castro's government through
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  sabotage, propaganda, and support for resistance
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  inside Cuba. But there was a problem. Mongoose
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  alone was unlikely to succeed, and an open American
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  invasion of Cuba would need a justification that
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  the world and the American public would accept.
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  On March 13, 1962, the Chairman of the Joint
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  Chiefs of Staff, General Laman Lemitzer sent
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  a memorandum to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
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  Its subject was justification for U .S. military
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  intervention in Cuba. Attached was a list of
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  proposals prepared at the Joint Chiefs Direction.
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  The plan would later become known by its code
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  name Operation Northwoods. The document suggested
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  creating pretexts In effect, staged incidents
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  that would be blamed on Cuba in order to justify
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  a military response. Some of the proposals were
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  relatively limited, such as staging a fake attack
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  on a U .S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay with
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  friendly Cubans dressed as Castro's soldiers.
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  Others went much further. One proposal suggested
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  blowing up an American ship in Guantanamo Bay
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  and blaming Cuba, recalling the sinking of a
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  USS Maine, which had helped start the Spanish
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  -American War in 1898. The memo noted that casualty
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  lists in American newspapers would cause a helpful
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  wave of national indignation. Another proposed
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  staging an incident in which a Cuban aircraft
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  appeared to shoot down a civilian airliner. In
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  the plan, a real aircraft carrying passengers
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  would be secretly swapped for an empty, remote
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  -controlled drone painted to look identical,
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  and the drone would be destroyed over the sea,
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  while the real aircraft landed safely at a military
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  base. The memorandum also raised the idea of
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  a campaign of terror in the Miami area, or even
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  in Washington, which could be blamed on Cuban
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  agents, and of sinking a boatload of Cuban refugees
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  heading for Florida, whether real or simulated.
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  Operation Northwoods was never carried out. The
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  civilian leadership rejected it. Secretary McNamara
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  did not approve the proposals, and President
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  Kennedy made clear he would not authorize an
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  invasion of Cuba on such terms. Within months,
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  Kennedy chose not to reappoint Lemitzer to a
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  second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
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  Lemitzer was moved to Europe, where he became
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  Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. Later that
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  year, The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the United
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  States and the Soviet Union closer to nuclear
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  war than ever before, and the idea of provoking
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  a conflict over Cuba took on a very different
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  meaning. Act IV declassified. The Northwoods
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  Memorandum stayed secret for more than three
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  decades. It was released in 1997 by the Assassination
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  Records Review Board, a body created to declassify
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  documents related to the assassination of President
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  Kennedy, and it reached a wide audience in 2001
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  when the journalist James Bamford described it
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  in detail in his book about the National Security
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  Agency. Northwoods is often cited in discussions
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  about government deception, and it's important
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  to be precise about what it shows. It doesn't
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  prove that any of these false flag operations
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  happened. What it proves is that at the height
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  of the Cold War, the most senior uniformed officers
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  in the American military were willing to put
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  proposals like these in writing and send them
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  up the chain of command. It also shows the importance
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  of the people who said no. The plan was stopped
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  by civilian officials who refused to approve
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  it. The system worked, and it only worked because
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  someone at the top rejected it. This concludes
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  declassified file number 0045 of the Shadow Dossier.
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  The invasion that was never ordered. What dangerous
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  secrets await in our next file? Subscribe on
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  This is the Shadow Dossier. Thank you for listening.