The Mammoth Book of Conspiracies (60 page)

Further Reading

Carl Oglesby, “Reinhard Gehlen: The Secret Treaty of Fort Hunt”,
Covert Action Information Bulletin
, No. 35, Autumn 1990

Christopher Simpson,
Blowback
, 1988

OPERATION BLACK DOG

On his DeepBlackLies website, conspiracist David Guyatt claims to have “The Gulf War story that no one would publish”. This is Operation Black Dog, by which a US Navy Viking plane was flown off a carrier in the Red Sea on 25 February 1991 and hit an Iraqi chemical and biological weapons plant with a bio-warfare bomb of its own (“numerous deaths resulted”). On the homeward flight, the Viking was shot down, and a bio bomb on board split and spilled its bacteriological agent. Near the downed craft, later recovered by the Americans, were a number of dead Iraqis, who had presumably inhaled the bio agent leading to death by internal drowning. While the op was done in Navy colours, it was actually a CIA project.

Guyatt’s source for the story was “B”, about whom Guyatt mentions zilch, save for their meeting in a “seamy pub” in England. (Handy, that. No one challenges the story of a man with no name and no background.) After nine months of research, Guyatt took his info on Black Dog to a member of the House of Lords, Countess Mar who, with former Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, met with the MoD in 1997. In Guyatt’s account, “The meeting was acrimonious. The result was that the MOD official could neither confirm nor deny the operation …”

Black Dog, if Guyatt is to be believed, was the CIA’s successor attack to Black Cat, the dropping of a chemical XV nerve bomb from a B52 on the Republican Guard. To hide this underhand, immoral, illegal action – which would put the American military in the same evil bracket as Saddam Hussein – the US Air Force then dropped fuel air bombs, which rid the ground of incriminating traces. Handy, that.

Without corroborating evidence, Black Dog looks like a Black Lie.

Further Reading

www.deepblacklies.co.uk/operation_black_dog.htm

OPERATION NORTHWOODS

After the failure of the CIA to get
Fidel Castro
, the US military decided it was their turn to remove the bearded being from the face of the earth. Not for Army officer Lyman Lemnitzer such penny ante stuff as exploding cigars and “invasions” by half-trained exiles. No. Lemnitzer thought big. His idea was to manipulate public opinion into supporting a full-scale war against Cuba by organizing a fake Cuban attack on American people or territory. Among the “false-flag” scenarios Lemnitzer conjured were blowing up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay, attacks on the Cuban exile community in Florida, the shooting down of passenger planes by “Cuban” fighters, the planting of bombs in Miami and Washington and, if anything should go accidentally wrong with John Glenn’s Apollo space mission, fabricating electronic interference from Cuba to prove Castro guilty. As a further refinement, Lyman Lemnitzer suggested committing an outrage against one of the Commonwealth states in the Caribbean, such as Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago, so Great Britain could be persuaded to join in.

Lemnitzer was no maverick soldier. He was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. All the above proposals were official plots outlined in the Operation Northwoods memo sent by General Lemnitzer and his fellow top brass to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and President Kennedy in March 1962. McNamara and Kennedy vetoed the idea.

The existence of Operation Northwoods was confirmed after author James Bamford sued the National Security Agency for documents on the Cuban missile crisis.

Only two words are necessary to say to those who do not believe in government conspiracies: Operation Northwoods.

Further Reading

James Bamford,
Body of Secrets
, 2001

DOCUMENT: “JUSTIFICATION FOR U.S. MILITARY INVOLVEMENT IN CUBA” FROM THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF TO SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MCNAMARA, 13 JUNE 1962

The document was declassified in 2000. The original is stored at US National Security Archives, George Washington University, Washington DC,

TOP SECRET SPECIAL HANDLING NOFORN

The Joint Chiefs of Staff
Washington 23, DC

13 March 1962

Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense

Subject: Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba (TS)

1.The Joint Chiefs of Staff have considered the attached memorandum for the chief of Operations, Cuba Project, which responds to a request by that office for brief but precise description of pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba.

2. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend that the proposed memorandum be forwarded as a preliminary submission suitable for planning purposes. It is assumed that there will be similar submissions from other agencies and that these inputs will be used as a basis for developing a time-phased plan. Individual projects can then be considered on a case-by-case basis.

3. Further, it is assumed that a single agency will be given the primary responsibility for developing military and para-military [terrorist] aspects of the basic plan. It is recommended that this responsibility for both overt and covert military operations be assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

For the Joint Chiefs of Staff

signed: General L.L. Limnitzer

Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

NOTE BY THE SECRETARIES TO THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF ON NORTHWOODS

[...]

RECOMMENDATIONS:

This paper NOT be forwarded to commanders of specified or unified commands.

This paper NOT be forwarded to US officers assigned to NATO activities.

This paper NOT be forwarded to the Chairman, US Delegation, United Nations Military Staff Committee.

ANNEX TO APPENDIX TO ENCLOSURE A: PRETEXTS TO JUSTIFY US MILITARY INTER VENTION IN CUBA

1) Since it would seem desirable to use legitimate provocation as the basis for US military intervention in Cuba a cover and deception plan, to include requisite preliminary actions such as has been developed in response to Task 33c, could be executed as an initial effort to provoke Cuban reactions. Harrassment plus deceptive actions to convince the Cubans of imminent invasion would be emphasized. Our military posture throughout execution of the plan will allow a rapid change from exercise to invention if Cuban response justifies.

2) A series of well-coordinated incidents will be planned to take place to give genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban forces.

Incidents to establish a credible attack:

1) Start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio.

2) Land friendly Cubans in uniform “over-the-fence” to stage attack on the base.

3) Capture Cuban (friendly) saboteurs inside the base.

4) Start riots near the entrance to the base (friendly Cubans).

5) Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires.

6) Burn aircraft on airbase (sabotage).

7) Lob mortar shells from outside the base to inside the base. Some damage to installation.

8) Capture assault teams.

9) Capture militia group which storms the base.

10) Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires – napthalene [napalm].

11) Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims.

(b) United States would respond by executing offensive operations.

3) A “Remember the Maine” incident could be arranged in several forms:

a. We could blow up a US ship and blame Cuba.

b. We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters. The presence of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of the vessel could be fairly compelling evidence that the ship was taken under attack. The US could follow with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to “evacuate” remaining members of the nonexistent crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.

4) We could develop a Communist Cuba terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Flordia cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cubans in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few bombs in carefully chosen spots. The arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.

5) A “Cuban-based, Castro-supported” filibuster could be simulated against a neighboring Caribbean nation. These efforts can be magnified with additional ones contrived for exposure. “Cuban” B-26 or C-46 type aircraft could make cane-burning raids at night. Soviet Bloc incidiaries could be found. This could be coupled with “Cuban” messages to the Communist underground and “Cuban” shipments of arms which would be found, or intercepted, on the beach.

6) Use of MIG-type aircraft by US pilots could provide additional provocation. Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping, and destruction of US military drone aircraft by MIG type planes would be useful. An F-86 properly painted would convince air passengers that they saw a Cuban MIG, especially if the pilot of the transport were to announce that fact.

7) Hijacking attampts against US civil air and surface craft should be encouraged.

8) It is possible to create an incident which would demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civilian airliner from the United States.

a. An aircraft at Eglin AFB [10 separate landing strips on one giant base in the jungle] would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CIA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and the passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone.

b. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous. From the rendezvous point the passenger-carrying aircraft will descend to minimum altitude and go directly to an auxiliary airfield at Eglin AFB where arrangements will have been made to evacuate the passengers and return the aircraft to its original status. Meanwhile the drone aircraft will continue to fly the filed flight plan. The drone will be transmitting on the international distress frequency “MAY DAY” message stating it is under attack by Cuban MIG aircraft. The transmission will be interrupted by the destruction of aircraft which will be triggered by radio signal. This will allow IACO radio stations to tell the US what has happened to the aircraft instead of the US trying to “sell” the incident.