The Probert Encyclopaedia of Warfare

OPERATION NORTHWOODS

Operation Northwoods was a secret American military plan proposed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, on March the 13th, 1962 to provide a justification for the military invasion of Cuba. The plan was to provide a justification and international sympathy for an invasion of Cuba.

This was to be achieved by staging fake Cuban terrorist atrocities and threats to the US, so that the USA could respond in self-defence to the 'rash and irresponsible' Cuban government that was presenting an 'alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace of the western Hemisphere'. The plan was to include the 'capture' of 'Cuban' saboteurs inside the US military base at Guantanamo Bay - these saboteurs actually being US troops in Cuban uniforms; to stage fake riots near the gates of the US military base; to burn aircraft inside the US military base, and claim it was done by the Cubans; to sink a ship near the entrance to the base and hold mock funerals for the 'victims' and to sink, either staged or actually, a boat load of Cuban refugees heading to the USA and blame the Cuban government for the attack. To supplement the incidents, staged terrorist attacks in the Miami area and other Florida cities and 'even in Washington' were also proposed, and the staging of a shooting-down of a civilian passenger airliner en route to a Caribbean destination by Cuban Mig fighter aircraft, complete with transmitted 'May-Day' calls which would enable other countries to receive the distress calls and inform the USA what happened to the aircraft, rather than 'the US trying to 'sell' the incident'.
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