The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit as a false pretext for war with Cuba, the documents show.
Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof -- that the fault lies with the Communists et all Cuba [sic]."
The plans were motivated by an intense desire among senior military leaders to depose Castro, who seized power in 1959 to become the first communist leader in the Western Hemisphere -- only 90 miles from U.S. shores.
The earlier CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles had been a disastrous failure, in which the military was not allowed to provide firepower. The military leaders now wanted a shot at it.
"The whole thing was so bizarre," says Bamford, noting public and international support would be needed for an invasion, but apparently neither the American public, nor the Cuban public, wanted to see U.S. troops deployed to drive out Castro.
Reflecting this, the U.S. plan called for establishing prolonged military -- not democratic -- control over the island nation after the invasion.
"That's what we're supposed to be freeing them from," Bamford says. "The only way we would have succeeded is by doing exactly what the Russians were doing all over the world, by imposing a government by tyranny, basically what we were accusing Castro himself of doing."
'Over the Edge'
The Joint Chiefs at the time were headed by Eisenhower appointee Army Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, who, with the signed plans in hand made a pitch to McNamara on March 13, 1962, recommending Operation Northwoods be run by the military.
Whether the Joint Chiefs' plans were rejected by McNamara in the meeting is not clear. But three days later, President Kennedy told Lemnitzer directly there was virtually no possibility of ever using overt force to take Cuba, Bamford reports. Within months, Lemnitzer would be denied another term as chairman and transferred to another job.
The secret plans came at a time when there was distrust in the military leadership about their civilian leadership, with leaders in the Kennedy administration viewed as too liberal, insufficiently experienced and soft on communism. At the same time, however, there real were concerns in American society about their military overstepping its bounds.
There were reports U.S. military leaders had encouraged their subordinates to vote conservative during the election.
And at least two popular books were published focusing on a right-wing military leadership pushing the limits against government policy of the day.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee published its own report on right-wing extremism in the military, warning a "considerable danger" in the "education and propaganda activities of military personnel" had been uncovered. The committee even called for an examination of any ties between Lemnitzer and right-wing groups. But Congress didn't get wind of Northwoods, says Bamford.
"Although no one in Congress could have known at the time," he writes, "Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs had quietly slipped over the edge."
Even after Lemnitzer was gone, he writes, the Joint Chiefs continued to plan "pretext" operations at least through 1963.
One idea was to create a war between Cuba and another Latin American country so that the United States could intervene. Another was to pay someone in the Castro government to attack U.S. forces at the Guantanamo naval base -- an act, which Bamford notes, would have amounted to treason. And another was to fly low level U-2 flights over Cuba, with the intention of having one shot down as a pretext for a war.
"There really was a worry at the time about the military going off crazy and they did, but they never succeeded, but it wasn't for lack of trying," he says.
After 40 Years
Ironically, the documents came to light, says Bamford, in part because of the 1992 Oliver Stone film JFK, which examined the possibility of a conspiracy behind the assassination of President Kennedy.
As public interest in the assassination swelled after JFK's release, Congress passed a law designed to increase the public's access to government records related to the assassination.
The author says a friend on the board tipped him off to the documents.
Afraid of a congressional investigation, Lemnitzer had ordered all Joint Chiefs documents related to the Bay of Pigs destroyed, says Bamford. But somehow, these remained.
"The scary thing is none of this stuff comes out until 40 years after," says Bamford.
Operation Northwoods And The Reichstag Fire
By Bill Molson
Online Journal Contributing Writer
May 5, 2002 Operation Northwoods
Could the United States government conceive of carrying out attacks against the American people under the pretext that the attacks came from a foreign enemy? We have to look back only 40 years to find that the answer is yes.
The plan was called Operation Northwoods and it called for engaging in such unsavory activities as assassination, hijacking airplanes, blowing up ships, orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities, and even blowing up John Glenn's space capsule, while pinning the blame on Fidel Castro. This would whip up necessary public support for a full-scale invasion of Cuba, which the military believed was necessary. These details are revealed in a book entitled Body of Secrets, a book about the National Security Agency, by James Bamford.
"We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," wrote the military, and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."
This was not a "rogue" operation, or loners acting outside the government. These plans were devised by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in 1962. The Kennedy administration rejected the plan, but pretext operations would continue to be drawn up as late as 1963. Among these were to create a war between Cuba and another Latin American country so the U.S. could intervene, and paying someone in Castro's government to attack Guantanamo Bay.
The author, in an interview with ABC news, said, "The whole point of a democracy is to have leaders responding to the public will, and here is the complete reverse, the military trying to trick the American people into a war that they want but nobody else wants."
It should be noted that it was the objections of Robert McNamara, and his revelation of the plot to Kennedy which prevented this operation from occurring. It was Kennedy McNamara and who rejected the nuclear first strike option during the Cuban Missile crisis and negotiated a peaceful resolution, saving the world from annihilation. These were the so-called "leftists" elements which no longer exist in the executive branch today (either of them). In fact, if there is a conspiracy, it is likely originating from the executive branch.
Then there is the Kennedy assassination itself, which has been examined with exhausting detail over the years, revealing that there were almost certainly conspiratorial elements behind the assassination. This tenet has received widespread acceptance by the public.
Yet despite this, nothing definitive has been brought to light to indict any of the conspirators to this day.
The Rise of Hitler 
It may be considered crass by some to compare the rise of the current administration to that of Hitler's regime. While no accusations are being made, only the surface historical similarities between those events and now are being considered as merely a cautionary note, and a proof that sometimes a path, once started, leads to an unforeseen conclusion.
There was a great fear in the capitals of Europe at the time from the threat of Communism. Towards the end of World War I, the Bolshevik revolution in Russia toppled the Czar and installed a totalitarian dictatorship. Russia's strategic position and military might were a matter of grave concern. It was felt that the threat of Communism could spread like a virus to all of Europe. It was especially a concern in Russia's perennial enemy Germany, which was plagued by unemployment and labor unrest, and whose currency had become nearly worthless.
In 1933, through a series of backroom deals and political intrigues, Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of a bankrupt, chaotic and divided Germany on the verge of Civil War.
Hitler convinced German President Hindenburg to hold new elections on March 5 of that year, and Hitler believed the Nazi party would gain control of the legislature. The Nazis controlled the courts, and had the backing of the major industrial powers and bankers, who believed Hitler would be "good for business." They blanketed the nation with propaganda from all media outlets.
Then in late February, shortly before the elections, the German parliament building, the Reichstag, was set ablaze by an arsonist.
The arson was blamed on a 24-year-old Dutch Communist named Marianus Van Der Lubbe. He allegedly confessed to the crime and was quickly tried and executed.
The Nazis used the public fear of the Communists to establish their dictatorship. Just as today, the opposition parties were cowed into silence in the face of an external threat. Hitler grabbed more and more power. An emergency decree was passed the very next day that stated:
"Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed."
Similar to today's ongoing and never-ending terror alerts, frenzied news reports of Communist plots continued to circulate in the press. The Nazis vowed to prove the fire was part of a vast Communist plot to take over Germany. Their propaganda emphasized that only they could control the threat to the nation. Despite this effort, they won only 40 percent of the legislature.
As with Bush, Hitler faced increasingly vocal concern about his measures, and an opposition party controlling the legislature. His tactic was to get an enabling act passed, giving him essentially dictatorial powers and rendering the legislature irrelevant.
On March 23, the newly elected Reichstag met in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin to consider passing Hitler's Enabling Act. It was officially called the "Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich." If passed, it would in effect vote democracy out of existence in Germany and establish the legal dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.
Just as today, the public was assured that the sweeping new emergency powers would never be used unjustly against its own citizens. In a speech before the deciding vote, Hitler told the lawmakers, "The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures . . . The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one."
And, much like today, Hitler pledged to end the chronic unemployment facing his country, and to promote peace, not war, with Germany's enemies: Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union.
The vote was takenó441 for, and only 84, the Social Democrats, against. The Nazis could now control the German political process and declare war at any time, against any foe, without the legislature. Far from aghast, much of the German public would support Hitler and the Nazis through 1945, by which time Germany would be reduced to rubble.
After the war, evidence led historians to concur that the Reichstag fire that the Nazis used so successfully to gain political power was, in fact, planned by the Nazis themselves for that end. Although there is no consensus, a new book published in Germany in 2001 that reexamined all the court evidence (Der ReichstagbrandñWie Geschichte gemacht wird: The Reichstag FireñHow History is Created ), makes a clear and convincing case that the Nazis themselves aided and abetted Van der Lubbe's torching of the Reichstag.
It should be clear from the above that there was no widespread feeling in Germany that it was becoming a dictatorship. Opposition forces were silenced by propaganda and public ostracism. Dissenters were tried in secret and killed, or sent to the camps. No one knew the true motives behind the Nazi party. Money and propaganda were the tools the Nazis used to devastating effect.
People believe that our great nation, which has always been on the right side of history, will never walk that insidious path. But this is more a matter of faith then of fact. Ever since that dark period, historians, writers and philosophers have wrestled with the agonizing question: "How did it happen," and more importantly, "Could it happen again?" We should be asking, "Could it happen here?"
The Scenario
We now know that the military has planned terrorist operations against Americans as a pretext for war. To deny that a 9/11 conspiracy is even possible is, quite simply, to deny history.
What if this time, the plans were carried out? Furthermore, given the after effects, what if this is part of a larger plan to dismantle American democracy? One more catastrophic event, and the U.S. could easily become a dictatorship.
Extreme? Perhaps. But consider the facts:
- Consider the fact that the anthrax attacks were almost certainly designed to foment war with Iraq, and that the anthrax itself came from U.S. government labs.
- Consider the fact that stock bets were made with insider knowledge of the attacks, and placed at a bank formerly run by the CIA chief.
- Consider the fact that the U.S. was planning to attack Afghanistan as early as July.
- Consider the fact that the U.S. apparently rewarded, and then threatened the Taliban after Bush took office.
- Consider the fact that the shadow government was activated shortly after the attacks and kept a secret.
- Consider the fact that the Office of Homeland Security is working on emergency plans involving martial law.
- Consider the fact that the government can now legally spy on Americans much more easily and without constitutional and legal roadblocks.
- Consider the fact that the president can define terrorism, and that the attorney general can choose what groups are considered "terrorists" without legal oversight.
- Consider the Pentagon planning an office to propagandize noncombatants.
- Consider the fact that Bush's policies now receive unthinking support from the public, even though he received fewer votes than his opponent in the election.
- Consider the numerous government figures that have said that the "war" will not end in our lifetime.
- Consider the fact that both Bush and Cheney asked Congress to back off the 9/11 investigations.
- Consider the fact that Afghanistan is a major prize for the oil industry, and Bush's government is largely oil executives backed by large energy concerns.
- Consider that the Iran-Contra conspirators drew up plans to declare martial law and suspend the Constitution, and that some of these men are now back in power.
- Consider that two of the hijackers were wanted by the CIA, and that nine of the hijackers were selected for security screenings but were allowed to board their flights.
- Consider that terrorism investigators were told to back off investigating the Saudis and Osama bin Laden's siblings.
- Consider the fact that bin Laden's siblings lived close to CIA headquarters, and near a place listed by four hijackers as their address, and that they were allowed to leave the country while thousands of other Muslims were rounded up.
- Consider that former president Bush is a known friend of the bin Laden family, and works for a company that had the bin Laden Group as an investor, a company which now makes billions from the war.
If we can spend $70 million to investigate the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas, isn't there enough evidence to warrant an investigation into these 9/11 connections, especially considering the gravity of what we're facing?
If we accept the fact that government agents can mail deadly anthrax to our citizens, as we must at this point, why couldn't they be capable of at least permitting an attack for their own benefit?
What if the former Iran/Contra conspirators decided to take a page from Hitler's playbook and manufacture a crisis? Moreover, a crisis that would give them unquestioning public support and make them very, very rich?
If this is true, these same forces could be conspiring to permit or unleash another, perhaps more horrible, attack on the American people if their hold on power is threatened.
Please don't take my word for it. Make up your own mind, don't let the government or press make it for you. I'm not a journalist. I don't have insider knowledge. I'm just a concerned citizen with a modem who is worried about what is happening to our country. I've included every reference and source I used at the end of every article. I've intentionally relied on well-known respectable news sources. Most of these are available online. Please, please, please, go check them out yourself, and don't let your political or patriotic feelings get in the way. Remember, American democracy and freedom are greater than any president or administration. We are still free. Only we can make sure it stays that way.
U.S. Terror 
