Subj: Re The Loss of Liberty
Date: 10/29/2003 3:25:39 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: jab@tucradio.org
I would like to believe that Monday's program on Democracy Now!, "The
Loss of Liberty," which depicts for viewers and listeners the deadly and
unwarranted and deliberate attack on a US navy vessel by the Israeli
military in June, 1967, was the most important program Amy Goodman has
ever done:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/27/1625213
It still may be. It certainly should be because there is no event that
has so defined the obscene relationship between the US and Israel than
the combination of that event and its subsequent cover-up by President
Johnson and his flag-waving successors, both houses of Congress, both
political parties, by all sectors of the military, by the media, and
last, and certainly not least, by what is generally referred to as "the
movement."
Whether it will be or not is open to question. If anything outraged the
Israel Lobby which has long controlled both Houses of Congress and the
media, it was Rep. Cynthia McKinney's call in the House for a
Congressional investigation of the the attack on the Liberty which, for
those who still not know it, left 34 US sailors dead and 171 wounded
after an attack by air and sea that lasted close to two hours.
So the Lobby targeted McKinney, and she was left high and dry by the
very "movement" members who applauded her speech in Berkeley on Saturday
night, by Project Censored, for whom she was the featured speaker at its
annual awards dinner two weeks ago. Project Censored should have made
the Cover-up of the Liberty it's top story long ago. It's okay, the
message goes, to criticize the US, but not Israel.
Now, we are going to see what kind of a follow-up movement organizations
and their leading spokespersons, and the major icons of "the left" are
going to do now that Amy has broken the silence (actually, KPFA's Dennis
Bernstein did do a segment on the Liberty some months back, and nothing
happened).
Will Move-on call mobilize it's massive email list encouraging calls to
Congress with demands for an investigation? Will any of the major
anti-war organizations with their massive email lists do the same? Or
will they remain as Zionized as I have described them in the past? Will
any of the Democratic presidential candidates say a word?
Quite seriously, folks, not only justice for the Liberty survivors hangs
in the balance. The relationship between Israel and the US is perverse
beyond any historical precedent and seems about to lead into an expanded
war against both Syrian and Iran which happens to be next on Israel's
"to do" list.
Thanks to Israel's lobby and supporters in the US, who can be found in
every sector of American society, Israel has been controlling the Middle
East policies of the US for the past 40 years and is bringing us ever
closer to catastrophe in the fullest
meaning of the word, or are still there people out there who think
someone other than PNAC and JINSA planned the Iraq War? And that Syria
and Iran are not next?
The loss of liberty, indeed. It's time we take it back.
Jeff Blankfort
USS Liberty attack cover-up on Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" yesterday on (Pacifica Radio) 90.7 FM and via www.kpfk.org
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/ussliberty.html
Be sure to access the embedded links in the following article (by finding this article at the following URL):
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/justincol.html
OUR 'FRIENDS,' THE ISRAELIS
In 1967, they sunk the U.S.S. Liberty – and LBJ engineered a cover-up
by Justin Raimondo
Retired Captain Ward Boston, a former U.S. Navy attorney who was senior legal counsel to the military investigation of the sinking of the U.S.S. Liberty by the Israelis, in 1967, has finally revealed the truth in a signed affidavit:
"For more than 30 years, I have remained silent on the topic of the USS Liberty. I am a military man and when orders come in from the Secretary of Defense and President of the United States, I follow them….
"The evidence was clear. Both [the late] Admiral [Isaac C.] Kidd, [Jr.] and I believed with certainty that this attack, which killed 34 American sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. I am certain that the Israeli pilots that undertook the attack, as well as their superiors who had ordered the attack, were aware that the ship was American….
"I am outraged at the efforts of the apologists for Israel in this country to claim that this attack was a case of 'mistaken identity.' … I know from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary."
At a news conference, put on in the Rayburn House Office Building with the help of Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), retired Admiral Thomas Moorer, a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thundered from his wheelchair:
"Why in the world would our government put Israel's interest ahead of our own?"
A good question, one that baffles patriots – and is especiallyrelevanttoday.
When Israeli war planes descended on the Liberty, which was parked in international waters in the Mediterranean, the crew was caught completely unawares: sailors were up on deck sunning themselves. It was a cowardly and vicious attack in which 34 U.S. sailors were killed, and 171 wounded. When the Israelis, after torpedoing the ship, came back in a second assault, they strafed the lifeboats as the crew tried to clamber aboard – a war crime. Those rafts are now on display in an Israeli museum, according to one account, and, as the [UK] Guardianpoints out:
"No one was ever court-martialed, reduced in rank or even reprimanded. Israel chose instead to honor motor torpedo boat 203, which fired the deadly torpedo at the Liberty. The ship's wheel and bell were placed on prominent display at the naval museum, among the maritime artifacts of which the Israeli navy was most proud."
Ah yes, our friends, the Israelis. It takes a special kind of arrogance to memorialize such a wanton, brazen murder – especially when U.S. taxpayers paid for that memorial, as they pay for practically everything else in Israel, from helicopter gunships and tanks to special subsidies for religious schools and right-wing politicians.
Apologists for Israel defend the attack, saying it was a "mistake," and, alternately (and often simultaneously) pointing out that the Liberty was spying on Israel in wartime, and so deserved its fate. But now, thirty-five years later, the truth has been uncovered at last. The question raised by Admiral Moorer is surely relevant, but beyond that, another issue arises: what else are they covering up?
The official verdict was hardly challenged at the time – except by the survivors and the families
of the dead – an attitude that reflected the generally pro-Israel bias of the American media, but there was one prominent exception: National Review. The flagship journal of the American conservative movement ran an article that gave "the inside story" on the incident. Author James Jackson Kilpatrick reported what many of the survivors were saying at the time: that the attack was deliberate.
Now that NR has been vindicated, do you think they'll have a piece triumphantly pointing out that Jackson's reporting was right? Sadly, I rather doubt it. The NR of yesteryear was a patriotic nationalist magazine that put America first: the NR of today is Ariel Sharon's bitch. No, we won't be seeing so much as a note about this in the thoroughly neocon-ized National Review any time soon.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
Speaking of cover-ups, has anybody noticed that the story about the anti-terrorist sting operation involving the sale of surface-to-air missiles seems to have disappeared into the ether? It was an odd item, involving a reputed arms dealer, Hemant Lakhani, a native of India, and one Yehuda Abraham, of Rego Park, New York, an Orthodox Jewish gem merchant. Mr. Abraham was charged with coordinating the financial transactions involved. He denies knowing what was being sold and to whom. Lakhani and a Malaysian accomplice were detained without bond, while the 75-year-old Abraham was released on a $10 million bond. The story then dropped out of sight, except for this exculpatory story in which the old crook "pours out his heart" in an interview:
"'My wife cried because she didn't know how I would manage. It was a dog house,' he recalled. His nightmare was eased only when his wife, Zina, was granted permission to take him kosher food.'"
His wife wails:
"We are family people, we have children and grandchildren. Whenever we see a terrorist attack in Israel or elsewhere on television, I always see Yehuda take out his handkerchief to wipe his eye. Never in our life have we been to court for anything."
Yeah, well there's always a first time – especially when you're in the habit of financing arms transfers to terrorists who openly express admiration for Osama bin Laden and talk about how they're going to down a U.S. airliner with a SAM.
Abraham's defense, as he puts it, seems to be that he is "incapable" of aiding and abetting terrorism precisely because of who he is: but wouldn't that be the perfect cover?
An Israeli connection to Islamic terrorist activity in the U.S. has been a longstanding theme of the continuing "Israeli art students" story: Salon, Fox News, Le Monde, Die Zeit, and this column have all broached the possibility. In Mr. Abraham we have someone who is a staunch supporter of Israel, an immigrant from Afghanistan, the head of an international gem-dealing business with offices in Bangkok and Saudi Arabia – just the sort of person who might be useful to the Israelis – with a direct connection to terrorist activity.
And I'll tell you what really worries me: the re-appearance of those Israeli "art students" – in Canada, this time – in tandem with the news of an unspecified "missle threat" to planes landing in Toronto. An El Al flight from Israel's Ben Gurion airport to Toronto was diverted to nearby Hamilton because El Al had information about a possible SAM attack. Question: How did El Al get this inside information?
The U.S. government covered up Israel's murder and maiming of American sailors for 35 years. Are we going to have to wait that long before we uncover the history of Israel's more recent misdeeds?
–Justin Raimondo
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Artic
le_Type1&c=Article&cid=1066860175122&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968705899037
Toronto Star | Oct. 22, 2003. 10:43 PM
Lyndon Johnson ordered cover-up: Former navy lawyer
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - A former navy lawyer who helped lead the military
investigation of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34
American servicemen says former president Lyndon Johnson and his defence
secretary, Robert McNamara, ordered that the inquiry conclude the incident
was an accident.
In a signed affidavit released at a Capitol Hill news conference, retired
captain Ward Boston said Johnson and McNamara told those heading the navy's
inquiry to "conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity'
despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary."
Boston was senior legal counsel to the navy's original 1967 review of the
attack. He said in the sworn statement that he stayed silent for years
because he's a military man, and "when orders come, I follow them."
He said he felt compelled to "share the truth" following the publication of
a recent book, The Liberty Incident, which concluded the attack was
unintentional.
The USS Liberty was an electronic intelligence-gathering ship that was
cruising international waters off the Egyptian coast June 8, 1967. Israeli
planes and torpedo boats opened fire on the Liberty at what became known as
the outbreak of the Israeli-Arab Six-Day War.
In addition to the 34 Americans killed, more than 170 were wounded.
Israel has long maintained that the attack was a case of mistaken identity,
an explanation that the Johnson administration did not formally challenge.
Israel claimed its forces thought the ship was an Egyptian vessel and
apologized to the United States.
After the attack, a navy court of inquiry concluded there was insufficient
information to make a judgment about why Israel attacked the ship, stopping
short of assigning blame or determining whether it was an accident.
It was "one of the classic all-American cover-ups," said retired admiral
Thomas Moorer, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who spent a year
investigating the attack as part of an independent panel he formed with
other former military officials. The panel also included a former U.S.
ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins.
"Why would our government put Israel's interests ahead of our own?" Moorer
asked from his wheelchair at the news conference. He was chief of naval
operations at the time of the attack.
Moorer, who has long held that the attack was a deliberate act, wants
Congress to investigate.
David Lewis of Lemington, Vt., was on the Liberty when it was attacked. In
an interview, he said Israel had to know it was targeting an American ship.
He said a U.S. flag was flying that day and Israel shot it full of holes.
The sailors on the ship, he said, quickly hoisted another American flag, a
much bigger one, to show Israel it was a U.S. vessel.
"No trained individual could be that inept," said Lewis of the Israeli forces.
Israeli Embassy spokesman Mark Regev disputed any notion that Israel
knowingly went after American sailors.
"I can say unequivocally that the Liberty tragedy was a terrible accident,
that the Israeli pilots involved believed they were attacking an enemy
ship," Regev said. "This was in the middle of a war. This is something that
we are not proud of."
Calls to the navy seeking comment were not immediately returned.
In Boston's statement, he does not say why Johnson would have ordered a
cover-up. Attempts were made to reach Boston at his home in Coronado,
Calif., but he did not return calls seeking comment.
Moorer's panel suggested several possible reasons Israel might have wanted
to attack a U.S. ship. Among them: Israel intended to sink the ship and
blame Egypt because it might have brought the United States into the 1967
war.
Here' the second article..........
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031022-052400-3673r
New charges vs. Israel in '67 ship attack
By Nicholas M. Horrock
UPI Chief White House Correspondent
Published 10/22/2003 6:22 PM
View printer-friendly version
WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- A private commission investigating the 1967 attack on the U.S. spy ship USS Liberty on Wednesday released the sworn testimony of one naval investigator that the Israelis knew the ship was American and intended to "murder its entire crew."
Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, killing 34 U.S. sailors and injuring 172 others in one of the deadliest attacks suffered by a U.S. ship that remained afloat.
The Israeli government claimed it was a case of "mistaken identity" and that their pilots were gunning for a 1937-era Egyptian freighter, but this claim set off a 36-year controversy between the two countries. Both U.S. and Israel groups have investigated the attack over the years, but the issue has never been settled.
Coming now, the evidence becomes part of a controversy over Israelis influence in Washington and whether it has tilted the Bush administration toward Jerusalem.
A private commission headed by a former chief of naval operations, retired Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, made public an affidavit by retired Capt. Ward Boston, formerly of the judge advocate general's office and one of two senior naval officials investigating the attack.
"The evidence was clear. Both Admiral (Isaac) Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack, which killed 34 America sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. I am certain that the Israeli pilots that undertook the attack as well as their superiors who had ordered the attack, were aware the ship was American."
Though Boston had made these charges informally, this was the first time a sworn affidavit supported them. Boston said he had been a serving naval officer and followed orders keeping quiet about his knowledge for 36 years. "I am outraged at the efforts of apologists for Israel in this country to claim this attack was a case of 'mistaken identity,'" he wrote. "In particular, the recent publication of Jay Cristol's book, the 'Liberty Incident,' twists the facts and misrepresents the views of those of us who investigated the attack. It is Cristol's insidious attempt to whitewash the facts that has pushed me to speak out." Cristol, a retired Navy pilot and member of judge advocate's office, published a book in 2002 that found the attack was accidental.
Boston said "I saw the flag, which visibly identified the ship as American, riddled with bullet holes, and heard testimony that made it clear the Israelis intended there be no survivors."
With the help of Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the private commission arranged a news conference in the Rayburn House Office building. Moorer said the group wants the official naval report rescinded and a new court of inquiry convened and investigations launched by appropriate Capitol Hill committees.
The first court of inquiry was ordered by Adm. John S. McCain Jr. -- father of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- who was then commanding in London and over the vessels in the Mediterranean. Kidd and Boston conducted the inquiry in Malta where the Liberty had been taken for repairs and care of the wounded. Though they both agreed the attack was intentional, Kidd prepared a report that went with the Israeli version. "I know from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense (Robert) McNamara ordered him to conclude the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity,'" Boston's affidavit said.
There are numerous discrepancies between the Israeli version and the U.S. sailors' report. The U.S. sailors reported they were under aerial surveillance by Israeli planes for hours before the attack and were flying the American flag. They said they were hit by aircraft, torpedoed and strafed by fast-moving surface vessels. The Israelis said only aircraft were used in the attack. The sailors said that when they tried to launch lifeboats to secure the wounded the torpedo boats strafed and sank them. They reported that the Israelis jammed the radio so they couldn't call for help, but later when American aircraft were launched to help, they were recalled. Moorer said he has interviewed officers on the USS Saratoga, where the planes were based, who said the White House ordered them to abandon the rescue.
The Liberty was a World War II freighter converted to the role of a spy ship that the Navy said was very distinctive with massive aerials and satellite dishes. These spy vessels and spy flights later were replaced by satellite surveillance.
Why the Israelis would want to attack an American vessel has never been explained, but the incident came a few months before the 1967 Middle East war in which Egypt and Israel were adversaries.
Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
Israel has been murdering with impunity since the treacherous attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 (in which 34 American sailors were killed and 171 were wounded) as the USS Liberty survivors have been trying to get an official investigation (to no avail) for decades :
http://www.ussliberty.com
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/dead_in_the_water.shtml
Washington Post article: Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=2916
From the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Magazine (http://www.wrmea.com)
July/August 2003 Page 42
----------------------------------------------------------
NAVY CAPTAIN, OTHER OFFICIALS CALL FOR INVESTIGATION OF
ISRAEL'S ATTACK ON USS LIBERTY
By Delinda C. Hanley
Nearly every former senior government and military official
who has examined Israel's 1967 attack on the USS LIBERTY agrees
it was deliberate. Now, thanks to the publication of Judge A.
Jay Cristol's book, THE LIBERTY INCIDENT: THE 1967 ATTACK ON A
U.S. NAVY SPY SHIP, they are going public. Cristol's book tour
included a December 2002 presentation at the Naval Historical
Center in Washington, DC, where he touted his version of the
attack which, based primarily on Israeli sources, he says was
unintentional. Ironically, it looks like what actually was un-
intentional is that Cristol's efforts to quell the debate have
had exactly the opposite effect.
Reading reports of Cristol's whitewash of the devastating
attack, which killed 34 American crewmen and wounded 172 others,
was the last straw for Captain Ward Boston, senior legal counsel
for the Navy's Court of Inquiry. Commander-in-Chief Naval Forces
Europe, Boston and the late Rear Admiral Isaac "Ike" Kidd were
given just one week by Admiral John McCain (father of Sen. John
McCain) to investigate the attack and gather testimony from
survivors still on board the crippled ship. Captain Boston asked
each witness to tell his story for a court stenographer.
"There is no question in my mind that those goddamned bastards
tried to kill everyone on board," Boston told the WASHINGTON REPORT.
"I was the counsel. I put witnesses on. I talked to kids never
exposed to combat who'd seen their friend's head blown off. Kids
who were crying as they told me what they'd gone through. Those
boys who had their heads blown away were not out fighting [the
Israelis]. They were sunbathing. They weren't even given a
chance to get to their machine guns."
Boston also watched the bodies of the dead carried out of
the hold, and saw boys throw up as they retrieved body parts
and mopped up after the shelling and torpedo attack. He recalled
seeing the shot-up U.S. flags that had clearly marked the ship
as an American vessel. Boston flatly dismisses the claims of
Cristol and Israel that Israeli fighter pilots mistook the
electronically advanced spy ship, complete with an 18-foot-wide
satellite dish, a microwave dish, and antennae, for the EL
QUSEIR, a 1920s-era Egyptian horse transport ship.
The Navy captain heard survivors' testimonies that the
Israelis even shot up the LIBERTY's lifeboats after they were
lowered into the waters to save the crew. That testimony was
excised from the official record at some point after it left
Boston's hands. (The tattered rafts now are proudly displayed
in an Israeli museum.) Boston recalls shaking hands with
LIBERTY skipper Commander William McGonagle, who had a big hole
in his leg. "He thanked me later for that handshake," Boston
recalled, "because it made some shrapnel pop out of his hand."
When Boston suggested going to Tel Aviv to have the Israelis
tell their side of the story, he was told, "You can't do it.
Come on home and present the evidence you have."
Armed with a gun to protect the evidence, which he had
attached to himself with handcuffs, Admiral Kidd, along with
Captain Boston took the records to London. As the week allotted
for gathering testimony came to an end, the team gathered 20
people to type up the report, which ended up being three inches
thick. After all the evidence painstakingly collected was turned
over to the U.S. Embassy there, the report may have been
altered. "I made lots of corrections which are no longer in the
report," Captain Boston told the WASHINGTON REPORT. "There are
even pages missing."
A U.S. Embassy official in London told Kidd that he and his
men must keep quiet. Ten days after the attack, the Navy's Court
of Inquiry, despite all the evidence to the contrary, somehow
exonerated Israel and ruled the attack was a case of mistaken
identity. Following the Court proceedings in London, Admiral
Kidd returned to Washington, DC and called Boston, with whom
he was very close. "We have to be quiet," he said. "We can't
talk to the media."
"LBJ [President Lyndon B. Johnson] had ordered us to put
the lid on it. Don't talk about it," Boston told the WASHING-
TON REPORT. "And after 35 years of active duty, when I get an
order, even from a yellow-bellied superior, I follow those
orders. All this time I've kept quiet until this [explicative
deleted, Cristol] book came out."
After years of obeying those orders, Captain Boston broke
his silence on June 26, 2002, when he told MARINE CORPS TIMES
reporter Bryant Jordan the attack was deliberate (see "Israel
Attack on USS Liberty 'No Accident' Says Helms" published in
the Navy Times July 2, 2002).
Boston said he just had to speak out after reading
Cristol's claim that Kidd, in interviews conducted in the early
1990s, had said Israel's attack was not intentional. The captain
told the WASHINGTON REPORT that he finds it hard to believe
Cristol's version of interviews with the now deceased Admiral
Kidd, a man Boston greatly admired. "Admiral Kidd called me two
hours after an interview with Cristol," Boston related, "and
said, 'I think Cristol's an Israeli agent.'"
According to Boston, both he and Admiral Kidd always be-
lieved that, despite the Court's official conclusion, the
Israelis knew the ship was American. "I have strong patriotic
feelings," he explained. "I believe the CIA slogan, 'the truth
will out,' and hate the Israeli Mossad's motto: 'Win By
Deception.'"
"Madder Than Hell"
"Cristol now says I recanted my interview with the NAVY TIMES.
That makes me madder than hell," Boston said. "I have not
recanted one thing. If anything, now I'm going to speak out
louder than before and tell people what Admiral Kidd told me.
He and I were very close. He said, 'those sons of bitches
knew what they were doing when they killed innocent sunbathing
kids. They tried to sink that ship.'" Cristol may now be
kicking himself for waxing so eloquently about Boston's quali-
fications and skills, calling him a "man of integrity" on pg.
149 of his book.
LIBERTY survivor James Ennes, author the groundbreaking
book ASSAULT ON THE LIBERTY, also had numerous conversations
with Admiral Kidd over the years. Kidd never characterized the
attack as an accident. In fact, Ennes says Kidd told him many
times, "You are on the right track, Jim. Just keep on probing.
Keep on doing what you're doing."
When asked why he thought the U.S. government has covered
up the attack for 36 years, Captain Boston replied: "Iraq,
Vietnam, the LIBERTY -- it's the same old story. When people
are in power they don't want to upset people who may help them
get reelected. Maybe people didn't want the world to see that
Israelis were slaughtering Egyptian prisoners of war. Maybe
Johnson was afraid of upsetting potential voters."
As a captain and staff legal officer in London, retired
Admiral Merlin Staring reviewed the Court of Inquiry's report
in 1967. Before he could finish, however, the report was taken
away. Based on what he read however, Staring, who later became
the top JAG officer, has said the evidence did not support the
"accidental" attack contention.
Last year Richard Helms, CIA director at the time of the attack,
agreed that "it was no accident." Helms also told MARINE CORPS
TIMES correspondent Jordan on May 29, 2002, "I've done all I can.
I don't want to spend the rest of my life in court testifying
about the incident."
Helms' book, A LOOK OVER MY SHOULDER, written in collabo-
ration with William Hood, describes the LIBERTY attack as "one
of the most disturbing incidents in the six days [war]...Israeli
authorities subsequently apologized for the accident, but few in
Washington could believe that the ship had not been identified
as an American naval vessel."
Admiral Rufus Taylor, Helms' deputy, told his boss, "To me,
the picture thus far presents the distinct possibility that the
Israelis knew that LIBERTY might be their target and attacked
anyway..."
A fine article by David Walsh was released in the NAVAL
INSTITUTE PROCEEDINGS on June 3, 2003, (available on the USNI
Web site at <http://www.usni.org>). Walsh's well-documented
article notes that even Clark Clifford, chairman of President
Johnson's, Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a great sup-
porter of Israel, called Israeli claims that the attack was
accidental "unbelievable." Clifford told the president, "Some-
thing had gone terribly wrong and then it had been covered up.
I never felt the Israelis had made adequate restitution or
explanation for their...unprovoked actions."
U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Walsh's article adds,
had said there was "every reason to believe that the USS
LIBERTY was identified, or at least her nationality deter-
mined...one hour before the attack." Finally, Walsh notes,
former NSA and CIA director Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, based
on his talks with NSA seniors at the time, "flatly rejected"
the Cristol/Israel thesis.
Former Chief of Naval Operations and Joint Chiefs of
Staff Chairman Admiral Thomas Moorer has been on the record
for some time as saying the attack on the LIBERTY was delib-
erate. Among those agreeing with him are then-NSA Director
Marshall Carter, Carter's deputy, Louis Tordella, NSA
"LIBERTY Incident" analyst Walter Deeley, and Hayden Peake,
professor of intelligence history at the Joint Military
Intelligence College and a retired CIA officer.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control,
Communications and Intelligence John Stenbit told an audi-
ence at a conference on "Transforming National Security and
Protecting the Homeland," held April 15 to 17 in Vienna, VA,
that the Israelis had warned the U.S. to move the USS
LIBERTY or they would sink it. His comments appeared in the
Israeli daily JERUSALEM POST and elicited a letter to the
editor in the online section of the magazine. Both the
letter and the article have mysteriously vanished from the
Web site.
In addition to the many Americans noted above, Israelis
and even Russians are adding to the public record on the attack.
Nikolay Cherkashin, who has spent years investigating the
LIBERTY tragedy, quoted a recently published Russian trans-
lation of Joseph Daichman's HISTORY OF THE MOSSAD, which states
that it was perfectly clear to Israelis that the LIBERTY was an
American ship and that the attack was committed to deprive the
U.S. "of its eyes and ears."
Daichman also argues that Israel had every right to attack
the American ship. If the LIBERTY had reported that Israeli
troops had moved from the Egyptian borders to the Syrian front,
the Soviets, if they were eavesdropping on the U.S., could have
warned the Arabs. Eliminating any eyes and ears, Israel was
able to attack Syria and capture the Golan Heights.
Daichman also speculates that Israel may have tried to sink
the ship and blame Egypt, and thus provoke a lethal U.S.
response. That theory is the theme of the documentary "DEAD IN
THE WATER," nominated for Best Documentary at the Vancouver Film
Festival, and the new OPERATION CYANIDE book by Peter Hounam.
Despite overwhelming new testimony, however, Cristol's
version of the attack on the LIBERTY is gaining notoriety.
Michael Oren's SIX DAYS OF WAR won an award for best history book
at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. According to Ennes,
Oren's chapter on the treacherous attack echoes Cristol's version,
which Ennes describes as "pure Israeli s
