Screw Loose #4--Lyman Lemnitzer

Lyman Lemnitzer gets cited at 0:52:

March 13, 1962. Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presents a proposal to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara named Operations Northwoods. The documents proposed staging terrorist attacks in and around Guantanamo Bay that would provide a pretext for military intervention in Cuba.

Details of Operation Northwoods follow. At 2:20, Avery says:

The plan is rejected by McNamara. President John F. Kennedy personally removes Lemnitzer as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In fact, as Lemnitzer's Wikipedia bio notes:

Lemnitzer was named as Commander of U.S. Forces in Europe in November 1962 and was appointed as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in January 1963. Once again, he was called upon to lead in difficult times as this period encompassed the Cyprus crisis of 1963-1964 and the withdrawal of NATO forces from France in 1966.

So the notion that Lemnitzer was canned for proposing the Operation Northwoods is rather undercut by the fact that Kennedy later named him to head NATO. Lemnitzer also served at the Pentagon until September 30, 1962; consider that of the 16 former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, eight of them left that position on September 30 (in different years) and it becomes obvious that is a traditional transition date (and indeed, it is the end of the government's fiscal year).