President Kennedy negative response to Lemitzer is definitely regarding this bizarre proposal.

Mar 13, 62 - JCS "Northwoods" Plan presented to McNamara. According to an ABC article on James Bamford's book Body of Secrets" The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. But they apparently were rejected by the civilian leadership and have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years. Whether the Joint Chiefs' plans were rejected by McNamara in the meeting is not clear. But three days later, President Kennedy told Lemnitzer directly there was virtually no possibility of ever using overt force to take Cuba, Bamford reports. Within months, Lemnitzer would be denied another term as chairman and transferred to another job." http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.html

What Lemnitzer was suggesting was a pretext a bombing, an attack, an act of sabotage carried out secretly against the United States by the United States. Its purpose would be to justify the launching of a war. It was a dangerous suggestion by a desperate president.

Although no such war took place, the idea was not lost on General Lemnitzer. But he and his colleagues were frustrated by Kennedy's failure to authorize their plan, and angry that Castro had not provided an excuse to invade.

The final straw may have come during a White House meeting on February 26, 1962. Concerned that General Lansdale's various covert action plans under Operation Mongoose were simply becoming more outrageous and going nowhere, Robert Kennedy told him to drop all anti-Castro efforts. Instead, Lansdale was ordered to concentrate for the next three months strictly on gathering intelligence about Cuba. It was a humiliating defeat for Lansdale, a man more accustomed to praise than to scorn.

As the Kennedy brothers appeared to suddenly "go soft" on Castro, Lemnitzer could see his opportunity to invade Cuba quickly slipping away. The attempts to provoke the Cuban public to revolt seemed dead and Castro, unfortunately, appeared to have no inclination to launch any attacks against Americans or their property Lemnitzer and the other Chiefs knew there was only one option left that would ensure their war. They would have to trick the American public and world opinion into hating Cuba so much that they would not only go along, but would insist that he and his generals launch their war against Castro. "World opinion, and the United Nations forum," said a secret JCS document, "should be favorably affected by developing the international image of the Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere."

Operation Northwoods called for a war in which many patriotic Americans and innocent Cubans would die senseless deaths, all to satisfy the egos of twisted generals back in Washington, safe in their taxpayer financed homes and limousines. BODY OF SECRETS, James Bamford, Doubleday, 2001, p.82 and following.

* Memo found by Larry Haapanen in the JCS documents released by the ARRB; Northwoods connection found by Debra Conway.

Resources:

Northwoods Documents (pdf)

Researcher Tim Howells on Northwoods (from KAC - pdf)

DID JFK and RFK PLAN CASTRO ASSASSINATION AT HEMMINGWAY'S CABIN IN CUBA?

Article: "The Old Man and the CIA: A Kennedy Plot to Kill Castro?"
by David Corn & Gus Russo

"Did John and Robert Kennedy plot murder? For decades, a clear answer to that dicey question has evaded historians, while Kennedy loyalists have fought hard to prevent such a stain from befouling the memory of the brothers. But a thirty-nine-year-old Pentagon memorandum--found three years ago by a college professor and heretofore unpublicized--suggests that Jack and Bobby discussed and apparently sanctioned the development of a possible assassination attempt against Fidel Castro during a 1962 meeting in the Oval Office. And--in a weirder-than-fiction twist--the scheme they considered involved Ernest Hemingway's farm outside Havana." The Nation, May 26, 2001

2. In this same Pentagon document [Ed Lansdale memo] of March 16, '62: Does it conclude that President Kennedy or Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered or considered the assassination of Cuban President Fidel Castro? Note also that on page one of the memo CIA agents Richard Helms and William Harvey - both whom are aware of the CIA-Mafia plot -- are kept out of the room during this meeting.

Mar 16, 62 - Lansdale suggests killing Castro while he visits Ernest Hemming way's Cuban home in meeting with President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. Read Lansdale's Memo for "MEETING WITH THE PRESIDENT", 16 MARCH 1962

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In context:

Feb 20, 62 - Edward Lansdale presents a six-phase schedule for OPERATION MONGOOSE designed to culminate in October 1962 with an "open revolt and overthrow of the Communist regime."

Feb 26, 62 - Lansdale's Plan Reduced: At a meeting of the SGA , the scale of Lansdale's "Cuba Project" is sharply reduced, and Lansdale is directed to develop a detailed plan for an intelligence-gathering program only.

According to this newly found memo RFK -- and the president -- are sitting calmly listening to Lansdale go on about how the CIA has a staff of assassins and they should use them to take advantage of a chance to assassinate Fidel Castro. *IF* RFK already knew about QJ/WIN agents (US sponsored foreign assassins) then his comment about the CIA using the Mafia is what is new to him -- not assassination plots. The Hemmingway "plan" was never pursued.

NOTE: Larry Haapanen, the finder of the document responded to me regarding my comments:

"The Lansdale memo refers to "invaluable assets" that might be used in the event that the Finca Vigia scheme showed promise. I suspect that these "invaluable assets" were agents already on the ground in Cuba rather than characters like QJ/WIN who would have to be introduced from the outside. Keep in mind that according to Claudia Furiati's book "ZR Rifle: The Plot to Kill Kennedy and Castro" Ocean Press: 1994), the CIA poison pill plot was still alive in in Havana in the Spring of 1962 (Furiati, pp. 47-48). Based on my other reading, I think that the number of such agents must have been small at that time, but there were a few."Haapanen may be correct that the "assets" are in Cuba.