What The Files Say

The Joint Chiefs Proposed Staging Fake Attacks to Justify Invading Cuba. Kennedy Said No

Operation Northwoods is the document conspiracy theorists point to when someone says 'the government would never do that.' The proposals were real and signed. They were also rejected.

On the recordFILE 002Era: 1962Military secrets

Our rating: On the record. Confirmed by released government records or official investigations. Not a theory any more, though the theories around it may go further than the files do. How we rate.

First page of the 1962 Joint Chiefs of Staff Northwoods memorandum, stamped Top Secret
The Northwoods memorandum, Joint Chiefs of Staff, March 1962. Source & license

01 What the theory says

The theory: the U.S. military planned "false flag" attacks on Americans, such as fake terrorism, staged plane incidents and a staged ship sinking, and blamed them on Cuba to win public support for an invasion.

02 Why people believe it

Because there's a signed document. In 1962 the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent the Secretary of Defense a memo listing exactly these kinds of ideas. For anyone arguing that governments stage events, Northwoods is Exhibit A, and it's often used to argue that later events could have been staged too.

03 What's on the record

Each point links to a primary source or official report.

  • On March 13, 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara a memo titled "Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba," signed by Chairman Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer. (the memo, via the National Security Archive (PDF))
  • Its annex listed pretexts that could be staged and blamed on Cuba. They included a "Remember the Maine" type incident (blowing up a U.S. ship), a "Communist Cuban terror campaign" in Florida and Washington, and faking the shoot-down of a civilian airliner. (memo)
  • The Kennedy administration did not adopt the plan.
  • The document was released on November 18, 1997 by the Assassination Records Review Board, which was set up to declassify records related to President Kennedy. (National Archives: ARRB)

04 What's unproven or disputed

  • That any Northwoods proposal was carried out. No record shows that.
  • That Northwoods proves later events were false flags. It shows that military planners proposed such ideas in 1962 and that civilian leaders said no. It's evidence of what was considered, not proof about any other event.
  • A direct line from Northwoods to the Kennedy assassination. This is a popular connection (Lemnitzer was moved out of the chairmanship later in 1962), but it's speculation.

05 Open questions

  1. How far did these proposals get before they were rejected, and who else saw them?
  2. Were similar pretext plans drawn up for other countries and are they still classified?
  3. Why did it take until 1997 for the memo to be released?

06 Read the files yourself

  1. Joint Chiefs memo, March 13, 1962 (National Security Archive, PDF)
  2. National Archives: Assassination Records Review Board

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