Operation Northwoods

In the early 1960s, U.S. military leaders drafted one of the most shocking proposals in American history. Codenamed Operation Northwoods, the plan called for staged terrorist attacks—on U.S. soil and against American citizens—to justify a war with Cuba. From hijacked planes to faked casualties, the documents read like the script of a political thriller… but they were very real. In this episode, we dig into the declassified files, explore the Cold War paranoia that birthed the plan, and ask what it says about the line between national security and manufactured consent.