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DETAILS of the US plans to destabilize Cuba during the 1960s released by the Pentagon in December reveal a Kennedy presidency obsessed with the overthrow of the revolution and the murder of Fidel Castro through ludicrous plans more at home in the pages of children's adventure novels than the annals of a state security system.
One proposal called for the U.S. to airdrop over Cuba pictures of an "obese Castro next to two shapely women." with a caption reading: "My ration is different."
Another plan, called for the U.S. to airdrop valid one-way airline tickets out of Cuba but conveniently not to the United States. The Pentagon plans specifically mentioned that the tickets would be to countries like Mexico and Venezuela.
Other plans had a more sinister character. One pretext suggested for attacking Cuba was to fake hijackings of American airliners. This complicated scheme recommended putting a group of college students on a charter airliner, having this plane rendezvous with an unmanned drone off the coast of Florida, landing the passenger-carrying plane at an auxiliary field and then shooting down the drone with U.S. warplanes pretending to be Cuban MiGs.
The same info-warriors did not shrink from proposing that the U.S. commit felonies in the sky. Another plan was to selectively clog radio frequencies causing Cuban airlines to crash.
Nor were proposed acts of terror limited to the sky. The same planners advocated the murder of civilians in the U.S. in actions designed to blame pro-Castro "terrorists." Ironically, the anti-Cuban planners were prepared to "eat their own", for the proposed victims were to be anti- Castro refugees who had immigrated to Miami.
"The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States," said one document quoted by John Lang. "We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized."
Readers familiar with the history of U.S. naval disasters leading to declarations of war should not be surprised that the Pentagon suggested another "Remember the Maine" campaign. They proposed to blow up a U.S. ship and use it as a pretext for a military attack on Cuba. Naval "vulnerability" has a long history in the initiation of U.S. wars.
It includes the: impressment of U.S. mariners--War of 1812; attack on the naval base at Fort Sumter--Civil War; sinking the battleship Maine--Spanish-American War 1898; sinking the ship Lusitania--World War I; attack on Pearl Harbor--World War II; attacks on U.S. patrol boats in the Ton kin Gulf--Vietnam.
In an article by Nicanor Leon Catayo, who usually writes about the United States embargo of Cuba, Cuba's daily newspaper Granma said that documents released in Washington showed that the United States lied, and has always lied, about the Cuban revolution.
"Naturally, this little Caribbean archipelago where we live is no paradise and is not a place where they don't commit errors, but at the same time ...it is a million kilometres from the caricature of the country described daily by United States propaganda," the article said.
The documents were declassified by the Defense Department at the instigation of the Assassination Records Review Board, a small agency created by Congress.
"These documents further expand the historical record by illustrating the United States government's deep interest in developing a policy that would force Castro from power during the early 1960s," said board member Anna Nelson, a historian.
When Kennedy was killed, Cuba was immediately suspected of involvement.
In a memo written just before John Glenn left Earth on America's first orbital space mission in 1962 the pentagon planners proposed blaming Cuba if the flight went wrong.
"This would be accomplished by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans," the memo said.
One memo laid out the case for an American invasion. Adm. L. L. Lemnitzer, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, wrote Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara in April 1962 that "the Cuban problem must be solved in the near future." He contended that "military intervention by the United States will be required to overthrow the present communist regime."
Airdrop pictures of an "obese Castro with two shapely women" and a table "brimming over with the most delectable Cuban food." Proposed caption: "My ration is different."
"This should put even a Commie Dictator in the proper perspective with the underprivileged masses," the memo noted.
Simulate the sinking of a U.S. warship in Guantanamo Bay in a "Remember the Maine" incident reminiscent of the event that led to America's war against Spain in 1898.
Alternatively, stage the downing of an American warplane or "demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner en route from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela."
The task would be accomplished by substituting an empty drone plane for an identical chartered airliner full of college students. While the drone was blown up after transmitting radio signals reporting an attack by Cuban MIGs, the student plane would fly low and land in Florida. The paper did not say how the students would be persuaded to keep the secret.
"Create the impression that anti-Castro opposition is continuing" by flying Air Force F-101s faster than the speed of sound over Cuba. "Awakened Cubans would think their homeland was under attack," the planners said.
Create unrest by dropping valid one-way airline tickets to Mexico City or Caracas, Venezuela.
Have Cuban refugee pilots fly close to Cuba to get into radio arguments with Cuban pilots, distracting them and possibly causing them to crash.