Operation Northwoods was a plan constructed by the US government (drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and signed by Lyman Lemnitzer) in 1962 to launch terrorist attacks on US military personnel, Cuban refugees in the US, and Caribbean countries while disguising itself as Cuba.  Why?  In order to justify to the world a hostile takeover of Cuba.  The thought was that a communist Cuban presence would destabilize governments in nearby Latin American countries, which would create more footholds for communism in the Western Hemisphere, which would result in increased defense costs for America.  It’s declassified as of 1997 (with additional pieces in 2001) and you can find everything at the National Archives.  There’s a nice, brief PDF of the important stuff here.  There’s an analysis of the key contents here.

It’s important to point out that Operation Northwoods was not proposed by members of the elected executive branch.  Fortunately it was never carried out; when it was presented to the executive branch, Kennedy insisted that a forceful invasion of Cuba was not an option.

If you have an hour or so to spare, read about Operation Northwoods if you haven’t already.  Wikipedia has a really good summary.

I went through and compiled all of the pages I could find from the National Archives, made some notes, and put a bunch of stuff that I thought was important in boxes.  The bulk of the work actually concerns Operation MONGOOSE, which outlines the reasons for wanting to invade Cuba and the requirements for a successful campaign.  All in all, it’s around 90 pages, but most of it is really quick reading and a lot of it is repetitive.  Like I said, you can get a very good summary from Wikipedia, but it’s an incredibly interesting document to dig through yourself and it shouldn’t take more than 45 minutes.  I’ve included summaries, which should take about 5 minutes to read in total.  There’s a lot after the jump, so please take your time with it.

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I hate corruption, don’t you?

Gov. Blagojevich:

[Illinois' vacant Senate seat] is a fucking valuable thing, you just don’t give it away for nothing.

This is probably the most ridiculous thing I ever seen.  The guy actually tried to sell, literally sell, a United States Senate seat.  I have to tell you one thing, though, this dude’s got serious balls.  He actually tried to shake down Obama for a cushy executive job for his wife, in return for appointing Obama’s choice to fill the seat.

ROD BLAGOJEVICH states that he will appoint “[Senate Candidate 1] . . . but if they feel like they can do this and not fucking give me anything . . . then I’ll fucking go [Senate Candidate 5].” (Senate Candidate 5 is publicly reported to be interested in the open Senate seat). ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated that if his wife could get on some corporate boards and “picks up another 150 grand a year or whatever” it would help ROD BLAGOJEVICH get through the next several years as Governor.

Unfortunately, the PEOTUS wouldn’t play ball, prompting this reaction:

In a conversation with Harris on November 11, the charges state, Blagojevich said he knew that the President-elect wanted Senate Candidate 1 for the open seat but “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them.”

This, mind you, is all after it had been publicly known that he was under a corruption investigation.  In fact, he dared the FBI to wiretap him:

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich told people on the eve of his arrest Tuesday that they were welcome to tape his public and private phone calls.

“I can tell you that whatever I say is always lawful,” Blagojevich huffed.

Unbelievable.  But I saved my favorite part for last:

Throughout the intercepted conversations, Blagojevich also allegedly spent significant time weighing the option of appointing himself to the open Senate seat and expressed a variety of reasons for doing so, including: frustration at being “stuck” as governor; a belief that he will be able to obtain greater resources if he is indicted as a sitting Senator as opposed to a sitting governor; a desire to remake his image in consideration of a possible run for President in 2016; avoiding impeachment by the Illinois legislature; making corporate contacts that would be of value to him after leaving public 7 office; facilitating his wife’s employment as a lobbyist; and generating speaking fees should he decide to leave public office.

Sorry, Blago.  I don’t think 2016 is gonna work out…