Joint Chiefs proposed staging terrorist attacks against Americans to justify invading Cuba. Pentagon denied such plans existed until documents were declassified in 1997 through FOIA requests.
“The military has never considered operations against American citizens”
From “crazy” to confirmed
The Claim Is Made
This is the moment they called it crazy.
The Pentagon once drafted a plan to stage false flag terrorist attacks on American citizens. This wasn't the fevered speculation of fringe theorists—it came from the Joint Chiefs of Staff themselves, the highest military authority in the nation.
In 1962, during the height of Cold War tensions over Cuba, the Joint Chiefs proposed a series of elaborate schemes to justify a military invasion. The plans included hijacking commercial airplanes, bombing American cities, and staging attacks on U.S. military installations—all to be blamed on Cuba and used to manufacture public support for war.
For decades, the government flatly denied any such proposal ever existed. When conspiracy researchers and journalists asked about it, they were rebuffed. The narrative was simple: this was fiction, pure fabrication by people who didn't understand how serious military planning actually worked. The Pentagon's position was unambiguous and repeated: no such documents existed.
Then in 1997, through Freedom of Information Act requests, the documents were declassified. They were real. The proposals were detailed and signed off by military leadership. Operation Northwoods, as it came to be known, included plans to use false flag attacks as a pretext for war.
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The documents showed that the Joint Chiefs had proposed numerous scenarios. These included Operation Northwoods actually staging a terrorist attack on Guantanamo Bay, sinking a warship in the Gulf of Mexico and blaming Cuba, and even orchestrating a bombing campaign against American civilians that would be attributed to Fidel Castro. The level of detail and the official nature of the proposals made clear this wasn't idle speculation from junior officers.
President John F. Kennedy reportedly rejected the plans outright. The proposal died there, at least officially. But the fact that it had been seriously considered—and authorized by the top military brass—revealed something unsettling about how national security decisions were made at the highest levels.
What makes Operation Northwoods significant isn't just that the government lied about its existence. It's that the lie persisted for 35 years. Throughout those decades, anyone who suggested the Pentagon might have once considered false flag operations was treated as a conspiracy theorist. Legitimate documents were hidden from the public. The historical record was deliberately obscured.
The declassification proved something crucial: established institutions can and will conceal plans that, if public knowledge, would fundamentally undermine public trust. It demonstrated that the question "Would they really do that?" had to be answered carefully. The answer, in this case, was yes—they would plan it, even if they didn't implement it.
This matters for understanding how institutions operate and how the public is informed. When government agencies deny things categorically, we now know those denials don't guarantee truth. When historians or researchers suggest uncomfortable possibilities, dismissing them reflexively becomes harder to justify.
Operation Northwoods proves that skepticism of official narratives isn't inherently conspiratorial. Sometimes it's simply a requirement for understanding the actual historical record.
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
