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FILE #001
DECLASSIFIED

Operation NORTHWOODS

Joint Chiefs memo · 13 March 1962

On 13 March 1962, a memo marked TOP SECRET went from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense. Its subject: “Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba.”

It responded to a request from the head of the Cuba Project for “pretexts,” under the code word Northwoods. The memo proposed ideas such as a staged “Remember the Maine” incident, a “terror campaign,” and a faked airliner incident. These were proposals in a planning paper, described in the memo as preliminary and for planning purposes. This is a Joint Chiefs / Pentagon paper tied to the Cuba Project, not a CIA plan, and this page makes no claim that any of it was carried out.

Three days later, a note of a meeting between President Kennedy and General Lemnitzer records Kennedy replying that “we were not discussing the use of U.S. military force.” The memo reached the public through the JFK Assassination Records Review Board, and the National Security Archive published it online in 2001.

Sources

  1. [A] Joint Chiefs memo, 13 March 1962 (PDF, National Security Archive)https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/2022-10/Joint-Chiefs-pretexts-to-invade-Cuba-March-1962_0.pdf
  2. [B] National Security Archive: Joint Chiefs pretexts to invade Cuba, 1962https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/CMC-60/joint-chiefs-pretexts-to-invade-Cuba-1962
  3. [C] National Security Archive: Lansdale memorandum, 16 March 1962https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/18279-national-security-archive-doc-06-memorandum
  4. [D] National Security Archive: 30 April 2001 postinghttps://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/
  5. [E] U.S. National Archives: JFK Assassination Records Review Boardhttps://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board