What Was Operation Northwoods?

In 1962, during the height of the Cold War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the top U.S. military leadership) proposed a plan to justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba by staging false flag operations. The details of the plan are chilling:

1. Fake Terrorism on U.S. Soil: Bombings, shootings, and other attacks that would make it look like Cuba was targeting American civilians.
2. Civilian Airplane Hijackings: Plans to stage or simulate the destruction of a civilian aircraft and blame it on Fidel Castro’s government.
3. Attacks on U.S. Military Assets: Blowing up ships or staging attacks at Guantánamo Bay, making it look like Cuban aggression.
4. Sacrificing Innocent Lives: The plan coldly calculated that public outrage over U.S. casualties would justify a full-scale invasion of Cuba.

The kicker? This wasn’t some rogue group of radicals proposing this—it came from the top levels of the U.S. military and was signed off on by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer before being submitted to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.

Why It Matters

Thankfully, President John F. Kennedy rejected the plan, but just think about what this means:

• If Northwoods wasn’t declassified in the 1990s through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, we might never have known that this proposal existed.
• This wasn’t a "what if" scenario—it was an actual, documented plan. How many similar plans remain classified or were carried out without public knowledge?

The Bigger Picture

Operation Northwoods is a smoking gun for anyone skeptical of government transparency. It demonstrates that false flag operations are not just the stuff of fiction or paranoia. If the U.S. government’s top military leaders were willing to propose bombing their own citizens, what else has been considered—or done—behind closed doors?

Think about how easily this plan could have been carried out without the public ever knowing it was staged. It’s a reminder that we should question official narratives and remain vigilant about the powers we entrust to those in authority.

What Do You Think?

Does Operation Northwoods change how you view other events in history? What else might have been justified or executed under the guise of "national security"?

Sources: Declassified documents from the National Archives (1998), FOIA releases, and public records.