https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/jefferson-morley-is-wrong-about-operation-northwoods-again
Jefferson Morley is Wrong about Operation Northwoods, Again!
On his Substack page, Morley claimed that there were redactions in the Northwoods document. This is just not true.
fred
It sees obvious after reading the material
around this originally redacted text that the blacked out text would be referring to specific military actions like how to destroy/disable Cuban PT boats, landings of troops, et cetera. Immediately above and after this redacted material are sections on any military intervention that would be undertaken. The originally redacted material simply goes into more details on this. None of this, as we can now clearly see, has to do in any way with the assassination or, as Morley says, the "JFK Story." That's all too typical Morley hyperbole and exaggeration. Anyway, the material was un-redacted and there's no there there. It's all operational details if an intervention was to take place.
Shorter: Morley is wrong and you are right. Anyone reading your blog post and the links you made can see this.
As to the more important point on the origins of Operation Northwoods: As you mentioned before, all of this ugly nonsense emerged from the Kennedys' obsession with Castro and eliminating him. It didn't come out of nowhere, essentially metaphorically emerge full blown from Lemnitzer's brow. The Kennedys were demanding action, demanding that Castro be removed, demanding that something be done about his regime. Read Joe Califano's account on these meetings in his biography. He was a top aide to the Pentagon (Cyrus Vance, Sec. Army) who attended many of them. He says it was obvious that the Kennedys were obsessed with removing Castro. Why would JFK place RFK of all people in charge of this? His brother, his most trusted person? Who had no experience/background in such operations? But who could be trusted in protecting JFK from any revelations. Meanwhile, those in the Pentagon/military like Lansdale and Lemnitzer understood that at that stage no successful internal revolt was possible: Castro could only be removed by outside intervention. How to justify that intervention was the problem. And so Operation Northwoods was put together. It was shameful, the ideas suggested were disgraceful; but the entire covert war on Cuba was shameful (as Califano admits).
The best evidence for me as to who was driving this policy is that
after the assassination nearly all of these covert attacks/operations on Cuba ended. There was no one in the White House, certainly not LBJ, who had any interest in it. Once JFK was dead and RFK demoralized by it, the drive for action against Castro essentially ended. If, as Morley et al insists, this came from outside the White House then why did it mostly end with the assassination?
