The Nine Incidents America Planned to Sell a Fake War With Cuba
The true story behind Operation Northwood.
The six-year Cuban Revolution came to an end in 1959 when Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro overthrew the US-backed Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship. Relations between the US and Cuba soured very quickly after this. Fidel Castro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba in February of 1959, and his new government began to preach communist values. This did not sit well with the Americans, especially considering how it was the Cold War era, a time at which the US was very clearly in a struggle against communism. To add fuel to the fire, Cuba was also beginning to form a friendly relationship with the Soviet Union. The idea of having a Soviet ally in such close proximity to the country sent the alarm bells ringing in America, so they immediately began plotting to overthrow Castro somehow.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion Failed Miserably
Perhaps one of the most well-known of these efforts was the "Bay of Pigs Invasion" that took place between April 17th and 20th in 1961. In this military landing operation, the US financed and directed nearly 1,500 Cuban exiles who were opposed to Fidel Castro's government to storm the southwestern coast of Cuba through the "Bay of Pigs" and overthrow Castro. The plan was formulated toward the end of Eisenhower's term, and the operation itself took place after JFK took office. It was a catastrophic failure because instead of causing an overthrow, it actually solidified Castro's power and made him even more of a hero in the eyes of the Cubans.
But the US wasn't backing down so easily. Just seven or so months after the failed Bay of Pigs landing, the US was already planning its next moves. This time, it was something called "Operation Mongoose," greenlit by JFK on November 30th, 1961. This operation was aimed at using acts of terrorism and sabotage to remove Castro’s regime from power, with many attempts at Castro's life.
They Planned "False Flag Attacks" on Cuba
One of the key features of Operation Mongoose was how the US would conduct "false-flag attacks." A false-flag attack is typically when a country attacks itself and blames someone else for it. One of these plans involved blaming the Cubans for an attack on Guantanamo Bay, a US military base in Cuba. Similarly, they planned to somehow blame the Cubans if the spacecraft carrying John Glenn, the third American in space and the first to orbit Earth, crashed. This was called “Operation Dirty Trick”. These plans never materialized, but by far, the most extensive and detailed plan to instigate a war between America and Cuba was something called "Operation Northwoods."
Operation Northwoods was sort of a last-ditch effort after many failed attempts to overthrow the Cuban government from the inside. Today, the memorandum for this operation is even available online and is only 15 pages long (for those who might be interested in taking a look for themselves). This document basically laid out nine different plans to instigate and justify war with Cuba.
They Would Use "Friendly Cubans" To Stage Attacks On Guantanamo
The first plan revolved around conducting US military provocations near Cuba under the guise of "military training." This plan was aimed at instigating a hostile response from Cuba that the US would then use as an excuse to wage war on Cuba, claiming that their exercise was non-hostile and that the Cubans started it first. As the plan reads, "Harassment plus deceptive actions to convince the Cubans of imminent invasion would be emphasized."
The second plan was called “Operation Bingo,” and it involved a series of "well-coordinated incidents" in and around Guantanamo Bay to make it look like "hostile Cuban forces" were behind them. The plan lists a number of methods to make it look legitimate. This involved starting rumors using clandestine radio and staging attacks using friendly Cubans in uniforms. These "friendly Cubans" would land "over the fence" and into the base. After these attackers were "captured," more of them would create chaos outside Guantanamo Bay, leading to riots and another fake attack where mortars would be fired into the base, and fires started inside. The Americans even planned fake funerals for victims of this attack.
Fake Explosions and Terror Campaigns Were Considered
The third plan proposed blowing up a ship somewhere around Cuba and blaming Cuba for it, much like the USS Maine's explosion in 1898. The plan proposes doing this in two different ways. The first one involved blowing up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blaming Cuba. The second plan proposed blowing up an unmanned drone vessel on Cuban waters near Havana or Santiago. The Cuban planes or vessels in the vicinity that would then investigate the vessel would be used as evidence that it was indeed under attack. The nearness to Havana and Santiago would also make it seem more credible, as Cuban civilians would be able to hear or even see the explosion themselves.
Number four would see the American government staging terror campaigns in the Miami or Washington area, making fake attempts at the lives of Cuban refugees, or even going so far as to sink "simulated" or real boats carrying Cuban refugees to Florida. The fifth point in the memorandum plans to stage a "Cuban-based, Castro-supported" attack on a neighboring Caribbean nation using fake Cuban aircraft.
The sixth point proposed using MiG aircraft piloted by Americans to "provide additional provocation." This "provocation" would include harassment of US shipping and destruction of US military drone aircraft. The plan even acknowledges that a potential drawback could be the "security risk inherent in obtaining or modifying an aircraft." However, it also mentions that reasonable copies of Cuban MiGs could be prepared in about three months.
They Planned to Blow Up a Fake Commercial Flight and Blame Cuba.
For number seven, they proposed staging and attempting plane hijackings under the guise that they were from Cuban government supporters. Number eight was quite an elaborate plan. This would involve taking an aircraft and painting and numbering it as an exact duplicate to a civil registered aircraft belonging to the CIA. This duplicate would be substituted for the real aircraft and loaded full of real people who would board under carefully prepared aliases. Meanwhile, the actual aircraft would be piloted remotely as a drone with nobody inside.
Both aircraft's take-off timings would be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida. From the rendezvous point, the plane with the passengers would fly at a minimum altitude and land at a US auxiliary airbase. The drone aircraft, meanwhile, would continue to fly its planned course to a destination like Panama, Guatemala, or Jamaica, and, while over Cuba, transmit a "MAY DAY" message on the international distress frequency, claiming that it is under attack by a Cuban MiG jet. The transmission would be interrupted by an aircraft explosion triggered through a radio signal.
President Kennedy Rejected the Plans.
The ninth and final plan would manufacture an incident to make it seem that Cuban MiGs destroyed a USAF aircraft over international waters in an unprovoked assault. All of these plans are documented in detail in the declassified memorandum. However, the problem with Operation Northwoods was that John F. Kennedy did not agree with or like these plans whatsoever, which is why he ultimately rejected them.
This was, of course, a good thing, considering the nature of these plans and the deception involved in them. But it was especially good for the US in hindsight because Operation Northwoods was proposed in March of 1962, less than a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Had these plans been greenlit, it would have had dire implications for the Americans, but that's a discussion for another day.