Henry Kissinger planned to conduct air strikes in Cuba in 1976: Report

Government documents have revealed that US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had plans to carry out air strikes in Cuba nearly 40 years ago.

Government papers procured by researchers show Kissinger, secretary of state from 1973-77, was furious over Cuba's 1976 military intervention in Angola and was considering retaliation in case Cuba decided to deploy forces elsewhere in Africa.

The documents from the Gerald R Ford Presidential Library show that US officials devised plans to attack ports and military installations in Cuba in addition to measures ordered by Kissinger to deploy Marine battalions based at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay to "clobber" the Cubans, the BBC reports.

While Kissinger was initially interested in improving relations with Cuba, he was enraged by then Cuban President Fidel Castro's decision to send troops to Angola in 1975 to help the newly independent nation defend against attacks from South Africa and right-wing guerrillas, the papers revealed.

The government documents are published in a new book-Back Channel to Cuba- by American University professor William M LeoGrande and the director of the National Security Archive's Cuba Documentation Project, Peter Kornbluh.

According to Kornbluh, Kissinger was angered by what he felt was the decision by then Cuban President Fidel Castro to pursue his own foreign policy agenda in Africa rather than normalise relations with the United States, the report said.