THE BACKSTORY -- OPERATION NORTHWOODS

THE BACKSTORY -- OPERATION NORTHWOODS

The full details of the plan, including its origin, are classified -- as some of the people involved are still alive. Any attempt to attach it to a particular time window could significantly increase the threat of exposing them.
However, in Operation Northwoods, the US government seriously considered terrorizing its own cities to provoke a war with Cuba -- as of 1962.
ABC News published the details of this plan on May 1, 2001 -- before 9/11.

U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War with Cuba
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662

By David Ruppe

N E W  Y O R K, May 1, 2001

 

In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.

 

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

 

The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.

 

America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."

 

You can read original scans of the entire document, in all its chilling clarity, here.
The Wikipedia page on Operation Northwoods is also quite good -- at least right at this time.