The Quiet Archive
Random

Joint Chiefs of Staff

Operation Northwoods: Joint Chiefs memo ‘Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba’

Memo · written 13 March 1962 · released 1997

Why this matters

A 1962 Joint Chiefs proposal to stage fake attacks, including a staged airliner downing and terror incidents in U.S. cities, to be blamed on Cuba as a pretext for invasion. Kennedy's civilian leadership rejected it. Declassified by the Assassination Records Review Board in 1997, it is the archetypal document of the Cold War national security state.

Read the original

Open official source Internet Archive (2026-10-12) Save a fresh snapshot

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf

Hosted by National Security Archive (GWU)

Tags

Cite

Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Operation Northwoods: Joint Chiefs memo ‘Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba’." 13 March 1962. Released 1997. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/news/20010430/northwoods.pdf (accessed via The Quiet Archive, QA-0049).

Shelved nearby

  1. 1995 QA-0015
    NSA · Official history

    American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945–1989 (Thomas R. Johnson)

    The NSA's own four-volume classified history of U.S. signals intelligence from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall, by agency historian Thomas R. Johnson.

    Written 1995 Released 2008 Declassified United States Live
  2. 1983 QA-0002
    US Army · Report

    Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process

    A 1983 US Army assessment, written by Lt. Col. Wayne McDonnell, of the Monroe Institute's 'Gateway' technique, which uses binaural audio to induce altered states.

    Written 9 Jun 1983 Released Sep 2003 Declassified United States Bot-walled
  3. 1994 QA-0129
    Navy · Report

    Department of the Navy Supplemental Report of Human Radiation Experiments (1994)

    The Navy's 1994 report to the Clinton administration's review of Cold War human radiation experiments, listing Navy-sponsored studies involving radiation exposure of service members and others.

    Written 31 Mar 1994 Released 19 Jan 2026 Never classified United States Live
  4. 1945 QA-0020
    NARA · Collection

    Nazi War Crimes Interagency Working Group records

    The output of the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, which forced the release of more than 8 million pages, including CIA and Army files showing that U.S. intelligence protected and used former Nazis after the war.

    Written 1945 Released Mar 2007 Declassified United States Live