Talk:Cuban Project

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Contents 1 Cleanup 2 Northwoods/Mongoose 3 Info from northwoods page 4 Illegal Activities?

[edit] Cleanup

I "cleaned up" the article a little.--AI 10:56, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

There needs to be more detail about how it ended.

--

I tried to do the same. It is not too badly worded, but a couple things need sourcing, such as the direct quote and the anecdote about Jesus, which is the most odd fact. Contrarrevolucionario 03:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. The most odd fact is clearly: "Many individual plans included making Castro's beard fall out,..."

Is it true, or is it vandalism? It strongly seem to be the latter. -- AttishOculus 09:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe so. This is something I have heard before, but yes it could use a source. Contrarrevolucionario 10:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I've dug up a source for the beard and exploding cigar story. --Zleitzen 01:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Northwoods/Mongoose

This, I believe, seeps too much content from the Northwoods article and gives the impression that this was an important part of TCP when in fact it was barely considered. I moved it to a more appropriate place and shortened it without, I believe, understating the meaning. It appears that there is material at the Northwoods article presently which actually belongs here, on the other hand. See [1]. Anybody want to start? --Contrarrevolucionario 15:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

You may be right Contrarrevolucionario to remove that info at this stage. And you've highlighted the need to format the information on both pages. I'll look into it when time allows. --Zleitzen 16:18, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Info from northwoods page

As per discussion above, below is the info from the Operation Northwoods page. --Zleitzen 15:14, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

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In addition to Operation Northwoods, under the Operation Mongoose program the Department of Defense had a number of similar proposals to be taken against the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro.

Twelve of these proposals come from a February 2, 1962 memorandum entitled "Possible Actions to Provoke, Harass or Disrupt Cuba," written by Brig. Gen. William H. Craig and submitted to Brig. Gen. Edward Lansdale, the commander of the Operation Mongoose project.[2][3][4][5][6][7]

The memorandum outlines Operation Bingo, a plan to, in its words, "create an incident which has the appearance of an attack on U.S. facilities (GMO) in Cuba, thus providing an excuse for use of U.S. military might to overthrow the current government of Cuba."

It also includes Operation Dirty Trick, a plot to blame Castro if the 1962 Mercury manned space flight carrying John Glenn crashed, saying "The objective is to provide irrevocable proof that, should the MERCURY manned orbit flight fail, the fault lies with the Communists et al Cuba [sic]." It continues, "This to be accomplished by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans."

Even after General Lyman Lemnitzer lost his job as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Chiefs of Staff still planned pretext operations at least into 1963. A different Department of Defense policy paper created in 1963 (reported on by the Associated Press on January 29, 1998[8] and later in journalist James Bamford's book Body of Secrets, published April 24, 2001[9]) discussed a plan to make it appear that Cuba had attacked a member of the Organization of American States (OAS) so that the United States could retaliate. The Pentagon document says of one of the scenarios, "A contrived 'Cuban' attack on an OAS member could be set up, and the attacked state could be urged to take measures of self-defense and request assistance from the U.S. and OAS." The plan expresses confidence that by this action "the U.S. could almost certainly obtain the necessary two-thirds support among OAS members for collective action against Cuba."

Included in the nations the Joint Chiefs suggested that the United States covertly attack were Jamaica and Trinidad-Tobago. Since both were members of the British Commonwealth, the Joint Chiefs hoped that by secretly attacking them and then falsely blaming Cuba, the United States could incite the people of England into supporting a war against Castro. As the Pentagon report noted, "Any of the contrived situations described above are inherently, extremely risky in our democratic system in which security can be maintained, after the fact, with very great difficulty. If the decision should be made to set up a contrived situation it should be one in which participation by U.S. personnel is limited only to the most highly trusted covert personnel. This suggests the infeasibility of the use of military units for any aspect of the contrived situation."

The Pentagon report even suggested covertly paying a person in the Castro government to attack the United States: "The only area remaining for consideration then would be to bribe one of Castro's subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on [the U.S. Navy base at] Guantanamo."

[edit] Illegal Activities?

Is it fair to label most (if not all) of the activities that were part of Operation Mongoose as illegal since they broke both US and International laws?

If you can find a source that states that they were unlawful, then yes.--Zleitzen 08:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

From the article

"..coordinated program of political, psychological, military, sabotage, and intelligence operations as well as assassination attempts on key political leaders"

Wouldn't sabotage and assassination attempts on foreign soil would be at the very least be breaking International laws? I have yet to read it but "Reflections on the Cuban Missle Crisis" by Raymond L.Garthoff is supposed to explain the nature of the activities in detail--Bmathew 05:46, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

YOU ARE WRONG! WE PATRIOTIC AMERICANS MUST FIND A NEW ENEMY TO BE SCARED OF TO JUSTIFY OUR MILITARY BUDGET! QUICK! LOOK AT THAT MAN IN A TURBAN, HE IS THREATENING OUR NATIONAL SECURITY! BETTER GET THE DUCT TAPE OUT!