JFK Files: From Ticks To Tricks, How The U.S. Planned To Sabotage Cuba

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A newly declassified document shows U.S. officials contemplated disguising biological warfare against Cuba as a natural disaster in 1962.
The file, titled MINUTES OF MEETING OF THE SPECIAL GROUP ON MONGOOSE 6 SEP 62, suggests top U.S. intelligence and defense officials, including the CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the State Department, discussed the possibility of using covert biological agents to induce crop failure in Cuba during the Cold War.
In a section of the document, General Marshall Carter of the Army discussed the 'extreme sensitivity' of such operations but proposed methods to make crop failures 'appear (to be) of natural origin.'
McGeorge Bundy, then President John F Kennedy's National Security Advisor, reportedly said such sabotage would be acceptable if it could be plausibly denied and blamed on local disaffection or natural causes—urging caution against 'external activities such as release of chemicals… unless they could be completely covered up.'
The document is heavily redacted and appears incomplete, cutting off mid-sentence. Two overlapping versions of the minutes appear in the file, one containing handwritten notes and markings and another including stamps indicating that the CIA objected to its release as recently as 2016. Despite no objection from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA marked the document 'Top Secret,' not releasing it until this year.
Also included in the file is a note that 'the Attorney General and Mr. Bundy said that no reprisals against exiles who undertake active operations on their own are contemplated.' The Attorney General at the time was Robert F. Kennedy, President Kennedy's brother, indicating he was directly involved in deliberations over sabotage operations against Cuba, although his views were not recorded on the biological warfare element.
Though the list of 'contemplated actions' referenced in the meeting is not included in this batch of released materials, the document indicates that the group spent significant time considering biological sabotage. Throughout the conversation, the assumption is that the United States not only had the capability to develop such agents but also the logistical means to deploy them covertly in a hostile nation.
These revelations deepen the historical record of Operation Mongoose, a covert anti-Castro campaign launched in 1961 following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. As noted by the State Department's Office of the Historian, Operation Mongoose was designed 'to remove the Communist Castro regime from power in Cuba.' Directed by Air Force General Edward Lansdale, the program involved coordinated psychological, political, military, and intelligence efforts, including propaganda dissemination, sabotage missions, and assassination attempts.
The State Department Historian notes that Lansdale's plan laid out a six-phase strategy presented to Robert Kennedy in February 1962 and to President Kennedy in March. Monthly initiatives were set in motion to destabilize the Cuban government, culminating in preparations for a potential military intervention in October 1962. Though many of these operations were deployed, the military intervention never occurred.
The newly revealed document echoes earlier reporting from The Dallas Express, which uncovered evidence of biological tactics being used to manipulate international opinion.
That report, titled JFK Files: From Hoof to Hoax, Revealing the Army's Epidemic PR Stunt, cited an Army intelligence memorandum describing how U.S. operatives influenced Mexican media to report outbreaks of hoof-and-mouth and smallpox in Cuba. The effort apparently discouraged Mexican professionals from attending an architecture conference in Havana under the guise of a public health scare. It remains unclear whether the reported epidemic ever existed—or whether it was planted as part of a psychological operation.
These disclosures align with firsthand accounts like that of Kris Newby, author and science journalist, who told Corporate Crime Reporter in 2024 about a conversation with a former CIA operative who claimed he had 'dropped infected ticks on Cuban sugar cane workers in 1962.' Newby, who has extensively researched the origins of Lyme disease, said the man admitted the goal was to cripple Cuba's economy by targeting its most lucrative crop—sugar.
Newby said she later verified aspects of the man's story, tracing it back to Operation Mongoose. The tactic, she explained, aimed to weaken the Cuban labor force and induce economic collapse, consistent with broader U.S. objectives in the region.
Newby wrote the 2020 non-fiction Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons.
These new documents and testimonies suggest that U.S. intelligence agencies had the means to execute a biological attack, as well as to control the media coverage around it. As DX reported, the Army previously used fabricated or exaggerated outbreaks to shape international perception and discourage engagement with Cuba. The covert planting of diseases—or even rumors of diseases—was part of a larger strategy of media manipulation and subversion.
Such operations were conducted in a geopolitical context marked by Cold War paranoia, heightened by the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Fidel Castro's growing ties with the Soviet Union led U.S. intelligence officials to view Cuba not just as a local threat but as a potential launching point for communist influence throughout Latin America, DX reported.
A 2017 CBS report on a prior batch of JFK files revealed that the CIA had even considered staging bombings in Miami to justify retaliation against Cuba. The declassified materials documented deliberations over creating a wave of staged terrorist attacks to justify military action.
In the years since these operations were conceived, U.S. policy ostensibly moved away from biological weapons. On November 25, 1969, President Richard Nixon formally renounced the use of biological warfare, ordering the end of all offensive biological research. Fort Detrick, once an apparent nerve center of such experimentation, allegedly shifted to focus solely on defensive research and diagnostics.
The Mongoose meeting minutes were obtained by The Dallas Express in the outlet's ongoing processing of the approximately 80,000 files related to the assassination of President John F Kennedy that were declassified by the Trump administration earlier this spring.