Joint Chiefs of Staff drafted detailed plans in 1962 to stage terrorist attacks against American civilians and blame Cuba to justify invasion. Documents released through FOIA in 1997 revealed the shocking scope.
From “crazy” to confirmed
The Claim Is Made
This is the moment they called it crazy.
In 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States military drafted a series of proposals so extreme that they read like fiction from a dystopian novel. These weren't theoretical exercises or academic thought experiments. They were detailed operational plans, complete with logistics and implementation strategies, designed to stage violent attacks on American civilians and blame Cuba for them.
The proposal was called Operation Northwoods, and its stated purpose was to create a justification for a full-scale invasion of Cuba. President Kennedy had already been embarrassed by the failed Bay of Pigs invasion the previous year, and there was institutional pressure within the Pentagon to pursue another attempt at regime change. The military brass believed they needed a convincing pretext—and they were willing to fabricate one.
The specific proposals documented in the Northwoods files are disturbing in their scope. The Joint Chiefs suggested staging incidents that would kill American citizens and property. These included false flag attacks on naval vessels, bombings of U.S. cities, the destruction of American aircraft, and even proposals to hijack passenger planes—a chilling detail given what would happen nearly 40 years later on 9/11. The plans included detailed contingencies for blaming these staged attacks on the Cuban government.
For decades, the general public had no idea any of this existed. Those who suggested the government might stage terrorist attacks to justify military action were dismissed as paranoid conspiracy theorists. The idea was too outrageous, too un-American, too implausible to be taken seriously. Mainstream institutions and official sources denied or simply ignored suggestions that such plans could ever exist at high levels of government.
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Then in 1997, the National Security Archive released declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The official records confirmed what had previously been unthinkable. Not only had Operation Northwoods existed—it had been formally presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the signature and approval of Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer. The only reason these attacks never occurred was that President Kennedy rejected the proposals outright. His refusal to authorize the operations is documented in the same files that revealed their existence.
The evidence is not circumstantial or inferential. It consists of official Department of Defense memoranda, the actual operational proposals with specific attack scenarios, and the chain of command documentation. The National Security Archive, a reputable research institute at George Washington University, made these documents publicly available. They are not classified, disputed, or subject to reasonable interpretation. They exist.
What Operation Northwoods reveals is that at the highest levels of American military leadership, there were officials willing to propose killing their own citizens to achieve a foreign policy objective. Whether you believe this represents an isolated incident or a symptom of institutional attitudes, the documented fact of these proposals is significant.
This matters because it should inform how we evaluate claims about government operations. It's a reminder that institutions sometimes propose things we find morally unacceptable, and that skepticism toward official narratives isn't inherently paranoid—it's actually justified by history. The question isn't whether to trust the government blindly. The question is whether we're willing to examine the evidence when it emerges.
Unlikely leak
Only 22.6% chance this would come out. It did.
Conspirators
~1,000Large op
Secret kept
64.2 years
Time to 95% exposure
500+ years
