Operation Northwoods

The Joint Chiefs signed a plan to stage attacks on Americans. Kennedy said no.

The signatures are the point: every Joint Chief endorsed staged terrorism against American citizens — sunk boats, fake casualties, a remote-controlled airliner — to license an invasion. Kennedy refused; the document waited in a vault until 1997. It settles, permanently, the argument about what institutions will put in writing. The believers' corollary: Northwoods is the one that got declassified.