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ENCLOSURE

DRAFT

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

Subject: Cuban Actions (U)

1. On 21 March 1964, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in responding to a Presidential request for new ideas relative to Cuba, stated that the President would be advised of any new and promising courses of action which could possibly bring pressure upon the Castro regime.

2. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have completed a review of a study which examines world sugar economics and the vulnerabilities of Cuba's sugar industry. The study proposes an outline program which would undermine Castro's economy, deprive him of convertible currency, and cause political instability in Cuba through covert attacks against Cuba's sugar industry coupled with US stabilization actions on the world sugar market. Basically, the proposal envisions a three- to six-year program, beginning with a 30 per cent reduction of anticipated 1966 Cuban sugar production, by introducing aerially from off-shore, a sugar cane plant parasite, Bunga. Subsequently, the economic and political disturbances caused by this attack could be exacerbated and exploited by such measures as spreading hoof-and-mouth disease among draft animals; controlling rainfall by cloud seeding, mining canefields, burning cane, and directing other acts of conventional sabotage against the cane milling and transportation systems.

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Lyndon B. Johnson Library

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JCS 2304/244-1

NW 50955 DocId:32423566 Page 151