Had he been given the chance, Freud would probably have authoritatively proclaimed Theodore Roosevelt's rugged doodle sketch of two dogs staring across a campfire to be evidence of an oedipus complex (or some other myopic interpretation) but one particular scribbling by one of America's most famous presidents would certainly have left him stumped.

JFK was apparently wont to etch the odd box or circle with a few numbers inside, yet among the scraps of presidential paper relinquished by the Kennedy estate to the author's of the book is one particular 'scrawl' that defines the term "presidential foreknowledge". Apparently, at some point during his short tenure, Kennedy had drawn a small circle on a piece of paper with the numbers "9-11" contained within it. Just below and to the left, the word "conspiracy" was underlined.

Of course, there is no particular reason why we should think that Kennedy's subconscious threw up to him, 40 years in advance, the date of the plot by a section of the American and Israeli governments to attack the American people and blame it on a bunch of Arabs; but we can't rule it out. Perhaps the truth is more mundane; perhaps this particular doodle was simply a peronal memo by John Kennedy to remind himself to put the 'kabosh' on the plan by his Joint Chiefs of Staff to hijack American airliners and blow them up over Cuba as a way to precipitate war with Castro, aka "Operation Northwoods":

According to secret and long-hidden documents now released under the freedom of information act, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962 drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government. In the name of "antiCommunism", they proposed launching a secret and bloody war of terrorism against their own country in order to trick the American public into supporting an ill-conceived war they intended to launch against Cuba. [Ed: Sound familiar?]

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war. [Ed: any clearer now?]

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.

One idea seriously considered involved the launch of John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth. On February 20,1962, Glenn was to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on his historic journey. The flight was to carry the banner of America's virtues of truth, freedom, and democracy into orbit high over the planet. But Lemnitzer and his Chiefs had a different idea. They proposed to Lansdale that, should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof that...the fault lies with the Communists et al Cuba [sic.]"

Among the most elaborate schemes was to "create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner en route from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of [American] college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight."

Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs worked out a complex deception:

An aircraft at Elgin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CJA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone [a remotely controlled unmanned aircraft]. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida.