28: Cuba Cacophony: Northwoods, Mongoose, JMWAVE and DRE

Nearly a year after the Bay of Pigs disaster, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara received a memo from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer (pictured left of JFK next to General Curtis LeMay) on the topic of “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba (TS).”

The March 13, 1962 proposal appears to be heavily influenced by the “more ruthless than the enemy” attitude of the Doolittle Committee report. 

It suggested ways to justify to the American public an all-out war on Cuba. It brought Operation Mongoose to a new level of activity outside the borders of Cuba with recommendations that included assassinating anti-Castro Cuban refugees living in Miami or sinking a boatload of refugees escaping the island and blaming it on Castro by using false documents. The most horrific suggestion was faking a Cuban air force attack on a civilian jetliner or blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Castro-planned sabotage, similar to the “Remember the Maine” incident which justified the U.S. entry into the Spanish American War some six decades earlier.

The justification memo also noted that the project should be undertaken “in the event that current covert efforts to foster an Internal Cuban rebellion are unsuccessful” and “a credible internal revolt is impossible of attainment during the next 9-10 months ... It is understood that the Department of State also is preparing suggested courses of action to develop justification for U.S. military intervention in Cuba.”

The JCS members who put their names to it in addition to Lemnitzer were (to the right of JFK) General George Henry Decker (Chief of Staff, U.S. Army); Admiral George Whelan Anderson Jr. (Chief of Naval Operations); and General David Monroe Shoup (Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps). 

General Curtis Emerson LeMay (Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force) would become as vociferous a hawk on the issue of Cuba as Pawley, and in October President Kennedy would replace Lemnitzer with General Maxwell Taylor.1 

William Bamford, an expert on the National Security Agency who revealed the document in his 2001 book Body of Secrets, stated that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.” What’s more amazing is that the proposal was made three weeks after Robert Kennedy had told Air Force General Edward G. Lansdale, the Pentagon’s Deputy Director of the Office of Special Operations (OSO), to focus on intelligence gathering instead of proposing wildly outrageous schemes for Operation Mongoose, which was originally developed by the JCS and Lansdale to foment a revolt within Cuba to overthrow Castro. 

On April 11, 1962, General Lansdale provided a report on the “Status of Operation Mongoose” at week four of the 19-week Phase 1. “Our Center in Miami processed 1,309 refugees last week ... McCone can provide details” of “debriefing visitors to Cuba, at a number of free world ports.” 

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47: Timeline

1864 ~ Edward Porcher Pawley born.

1890 ~ Edward marries Mary Irene Wallace.

1893 ~ George Plummer Pawley born. 

1896/9/7 ~ William Douglas Pawley born in Florence, South Carolina.

1899 ~ After the Spanish American War when Teddy Roosevelts “Rough Riders” help liberate Cuba from Spain, Pawley spends his early childhood at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station where his father had a store, earning him the nickname “Cuba” from classmates at Gordon Military Academy in Georgia.

1925/5/20 ~ Gerardo Machado becomes the 5th President of Cuba. He is overthrown in 1933.

1928 ~ William Douglas Pawley creates Cubana National Airlines which is sold to Pan American Airlines in 1932.

1929 ~ China Airways financed by Curtiss-Wright and controlled by Clement M. Keys begins flying mail from Shanghai to Hankow, Peiping and Canton. With pressure from the government, it evolves into China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC).

1932 ~ William Pawley establishes Intercontinent Corporation run by him and his brothers Edward and Eugene.

1933 ~ Pawley becomes President of China National Aviation Corporation.

1936 ~ William's oldest brother, George Plummer Pawley, dies.

1940/12/23 ~ Pawley partners with India in establishing Hindustan Aircraft Limited near Calcutta (Bangalore).

1941 ~ Pawley begins China Aircraft Manufacturing Company CAMCO to manufacture planes for the American Volunteer Group (The Flying Tigers headed by General Clair Chennault) to defend Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists against Japanese planes. CAMCO airplane assembly plants moved from Hangzhou to Wuhan to Lowing (on the China-Burma border) to India. 

1941/9 ~ David Harold Byrd, wealthy oil man and owner of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, co-founds the Civil Air Patrol to watch for enemy submarines and border crossings as well as enemy aircraft over the U.S. and provide other civilian support for the U.S. Army Air Force. Byrd is a cousin of Antarctic explorer Richard Byrd and West Virginia politician Harry F. Byrd. 

1942 ~ CNAC operates out of Calcutta until 1945.

1943 - E. Howard Hunt, Jr. serves as a wartime intelligence officer in China.

1945/7/20 ~ Pawley becomes U.S. Ambassador to Peru.

1945/10/13 ~ Carlos Prio Socrarrás becomes 5th Prime Minister of Cuba. 

1946/6/13 ~ Pawley becomes U.S. Ambassador to Brazil.

1947 ~ Antonio de Varona appointed leader of the parliamentary committee of his party under Prio. Previously, de Varona was involved in the overthrow of Gerardo Machado and was elected to the Cuban congress and the senate.

1948 ~ E. Howard Hunt, Jr. becomes spokesperson in Paris for the Marshall Plan's Economic Cooperation Administration. George C. Marshall and his wife are close friends of the Pawleys.

1948/10/10 ~ Carlos Prio becomes President of Cuba, succeeding Ramon Grau.

1949/9 ~ Pawley negotiates taking over the Havana trolley system.

1950/1 ~ Pawley runs Havana Autobuses Modernos, removing trolley car tracks. He also becomes a partner with John J. McCloy and others in Commerce International China.  

1950 ~ E. Howard Hunt becomes Chief of Station of the Office of Policy Coordination in Mexico City. 

1951/2/4 ~ Pawley's daughter, Annie Hahr, weds.

1951/2/19 ~ Pawley enters State Department as special assistant to Dean Acheson.

1951/6 ~ Pawley visits India re wheat and monazite.

1951/9 ~ Son, Clifton Pawley, dies in Mexico; William flies from Washington to Mexico City and Miami. 

1951/11/20 ~ Pawley resigns from State Department effective the 30th. 

1951/12/3 ~ Pawley enters Defense Department as special assistant to Lovett.

1952/1/17 ~ Pawley sails with Edna and Anita Pawley and his assistant Ed Harris to Europe; stays until May, but returns to Washington to settle a strike in Miami then flies to Lisbon Conference with Lovett and takes a two week trip for consultation with Defense Department.

1952/5 ~ Pawley resigns as assistant to Lovett.

1952/6 ~ At Belvoir House farm in Virginia.

1952/9 ~ Pawley in Europe and Middle East with Edna.   

1952/3/10 ~ Fulgencio Batista overthrows Prio; de Varona begins fight against Batista.

1953 ~ Pawley in Miami serving as owner president and general manager of the Miami Beach Railway Co. since 1941 and of Miami Transit Co. since 1948. Also owner of South Miami Coach Line and Tropical Coach Line Inc. and Grayline Sightseeing Co. of Miami.

1953 ~ William, Edward and Eugene Pawley develop oil and mining companies in Mexico.

1953/4/4 ~ CIA coup against Mossadegh in Iran (Operation AJAX) is hatched by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, CIA Director Allen Dulles, Frank Wisner and Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.  Mossadegh is replaced by the Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, coincidentally a former classmate of future CIA Director Richard Helms.

1954/6 ~ Pawley works with the CIA on PBSUCCESS, the overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala. So does E. Howard Hunt, Jr.

1954/6 ~ William Pawley, William Franke, Morris Hadley and General Jimmy Doolittle appointed by President Eisenhower to review the Central Intelligence Agency. They recommend that the CIA become “more ruthless than the enemy.”

1955/7/27 ~ Lee Harvey Oswald joins the Civil Air Patrol in New Orleans which also includes Captain David Ferrie.

1956/10/24 ~ Oswald drops out of high school in Texas and joins the U.S. Marine Corps where he is trained as a sharpshooter.

1958/10/5 ~ Oswald is stationed at the Air Force base in Atsugi, Japan where the U.S. dispatches U-2 planes to spy on Russia. Oswald learns Russian.

1959/Spring ~ Oswald, back in the U.S., becomes friend of Kerry Thornley. 

1959/9/4 ~ Oswald applies for a passport a week before he is discharged from active duty in the Marine Corps.

1959/9/20 ~ Oswald departs the U.S. 

1959/10/2 ~ Pawley is given the CIA cryptonym QDDALE.

1959/10/15 ~ Pawley installs a tape recorder to tape discussions with Cuban exiles.

1959/10/31 ~ Oswald defects to the Soviet Union offers U-2 secrets.

1959/11/16 ~ Oswald interviewed by Priscilla Johnson.   

1959/12 ~ Pawley tries to convince Batista to step aside so an interim government could be put in place as a buffer against Castro.

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