Operation Northwoods

March 13, 1962 - Lymon Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presents a proposal to Secretary of Defense Robert Macnamara named Operation Northwoods. The document proposed staging terrorist attacks in and around Guantanamo Bay to provide a pretext for military intervention in Cuba. The plans included starting rumors about Cuba using clandestine radio, landing friendly Cubans inside the base to stage attacks, starting riots at the main gate, blowing up ammunition inside the base, starting fires, sabotaging aircraft and ships on the base, bombing the base with mortar shells, sinking a ship outside the entrance, staging funerals for mock victims, staging a terror campaign in Miami, Florida and Washington, D.C., and finally - destroying a drone aircraft over Cuban waters. The passengers, federal agents in reality, would allegedly be college students on vacation. A plane at Egland Airforce Base would be painted and numbered as a duplicate of a registered civil aircraft belonging to a C.I.A. front in Miami. The duplicate would be substituted for the real plane and loaded with the passengers. The real plane would be converted into a drone. The two planes would rendezvous south of Florida. The passenger laden plane would land at Egland Airforce Base to evacuate its passengers, and return to its original status. The drone would pick up the scheduled flight plan and, over Cuban waters, transmit a mayday signal before being blown up by remote control.

The plan is rejected by Macnamara. President John F. Kennedy personnally removes Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.