Operation Northwoods: The False-Flag War Plan the U.S. Almost Used

In this gripping episode of Cold Logic, Silas Gray exposes Operation Northwoods—the declassified Cold War-era plan in which U.S. military leaders formally proposed staging terrorist attacks (including the killing of American civilians and servicemen) and blaming them on Cuba to manufacture public outrage and justify an invasion. Born out of the humiliation of the Bay of Pigs and fueled by geopolitical paranoia, the blueprint included hijackings, bombings, fabricated sabotage, and propaganda operations designed to create a casus belli. We trace the origin of the proposal, walk through its most disturbing false-flag components, introduce the officials behind it, and explore how close the United States came to betraying its own citizens in the name of strategic advantage. The episode also examines the ethical rupture the plan represented, why President Kennedy rejected it, and how its legacy reverberates today in the age of manufactured crises, disinformation, and eroding trust between governments and the governed. Cold Logic weaves archival truth with cinematic storytelling to ask: Who builds the stage for war, and what happens when the audience is unknowingly enlisted as a pawn? #OperationNorthwoods #ColdLogicPodcast #FalseFlag #ManufacturedOutrage #Cuba #BayOfPigs #JohnFKennedy #ColdWarSecrets #DeepState #GovernmentDeception #IntelligenceOversight #PropagandaWar #HistoricalPodcast #NationalSecurity #EthicalFailure #WarByNarrative #ConspiracyHistory #NorthwoodsMemo #MilitaryPlanning #StrategicManipulation Sources & Key References:U.S. Department of Defense / Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” (Operation Northwoods memorandum), March 1962. Declassified internal planning document outlining proposed false-flag operations. Available via the National Archives and the National Security Archive at George Washington University.National Security Archive (George Washington University) — Document collection and analysis on Operation Northwoods, including contextual briefings and the 1997 public release of the memo.John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum — White House and Defense Department correspondence, meeting notes, and policy discussions in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs invasion; material related to the consideration and ultimate rejection of Northwoods.Scholarly and investigative histories of Cold War covert operations and manufactured consent, including analyses in works such as David Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard (for cultural/intelligence context) and critical examinations of crisis fabrication in U.S. foreign policy.Retrospective reporting and declassification commentary (1990s onward) on how internal strategic planning sometimes blurred ethical boundaries—used to situate Northwoods among broader patterns like the Gulf of Tonkin escalation and later information-age crisis narratives.Publicly available government archives and historical overviews of U.S.–Cuba relations during the early 1960s, including the Bay of Pigs failure and the lead-up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, to frame the strategic pressures that produced the proposal.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/cold-logic-podcast--6699574/support.