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Forty years ago this week, I was asked to investigate the
heaviest attack on an American ship since World War II. As
senior legal counsel to the Navy Court of Inquiry it was my
job to help uncover the truth regarding Israel's June 8th
1967 bombing of the USS Liberty.
On that sunny, clear day 40 years ago, Israel's combined air
and naval forces attacked our American
intelligence-gathering ship for two hours, inflicting 70
percent casualties. Thirty-four American sailors died and
172 were injured. The USS Liberty remained afloat only by
the crew's heroic efforts.
Israel claimed it was an accident. Yet I know from personal
conversations with the late Admiral Isaac C. Kidd --
president of the Court of Inquiry -- that President Johnson
and Secretary of Defense McNamara ordered him to conclude
that the attack was a case of "mistaken identity."
The ensuing cover-up has haunted us for forty years. What
does it imply for our national security, not to mention our
ability to honestly broker peace in the Middle East, when we
cannot question Israel's actions – even when they kill
Americans?
On June 8th, survivors of Israel's cruel attack will gather
in Washington, DC to honor their dead shipmates as well as
the mothers, sisters, widows and children they left behind.
They will continue to ask for a fair and impartial
congressional inquiry that, for the first time, would allow
the survivors themselves to testify publicly.
For decades, I have remained silent. I am a military man and
when orders come in from the Secretary of Defense and
President of the United States, I follow them. However,
attempts to rewrite history and concern for my country
compel me to share the truth.
Admiral Kidd and I were given only one week to gather
evidence for the Navy’s official investigation, though we
both estimated that a proper Court of Inquiry would take at
least six months.
We boarded the crippled ship at sea and interviewed
survivors. The evidence was clear. We both believed with
certainty that this attack was a deliberate effort to sink
an American ship and murder its entire crew.
I am certain the Israeli pilots and commanders who had
ordered the attack knew the ship was American. I saw the
bullet-riddled American flag that had been raised by the
crew after their first flag had been shot down completely. I
heard testimony that made it clear the Israelis intended
there be no survivors. Not only did they attack with napalm,
gunfire, and missiles, Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned
at close range three life rafts that had been launched in an
attempt to save the most seriously wounded.
I am outraged at the efforts of Israel’s apologists to claim
this attack was a case of "mistaken identity."
Admiral Kidd told me that after receiving the President's
cover-up orders, he was instructed to sit down with two
civilians from either the White House or the Defense
Department, and rewrite portions of the Court’s findings. He
said, "Ward, they're not interested in the facts. It’s a
political matter and we cannot talk about it." We were to
"put a lid on it" and caution everyone involved never to
speak of it again.
I know that the Court of Inquiry transcript that has been
released to the public is not the same one that I certified
and sent to Washington. I know this because it was
necessary, due to the exigencies of time, to hand correct
and initial a substantial number of pages. I have examined
the released version of the transcript and did not see any
pages that bore my hand corrections and initials. Also, the
original did not have any deliberately blank pages, as the
released version does. In addition, the testimony of Lt.
Lloyd Painter concerning the deliberate machine-gunning of
the life rafts by the Israeli torpedo boat crews, which I
distinctly recall being given at the Court of Inquiry and
including in the original transcript, is now missing.
I join the survivors in their call for an honest inquiry.
Why is there no room to question Israel
– even when they kill Americans -- in the halls of Congress?
Let the survivors testify. Let me testify. Let former
intelligence officers testify that they received real-time
Hebrew translations of Israeli commanders instructing their
pilots to sink "the American ship."
Surely uncovering the truth about what happened to American
servicemen in a bloody attack is more important than
protecting Israel. And surely forty years is long enough to
wait.
In addition to
serving as chief counsel to the Navy’s Court of Inquiry into
the attack on USS Liberty, Ward Boston served as a naval
aviator in World War II on the carrier Yorktown, and as an
FBI agent prior to his assignment to the Navy’s Judge
Advocates General Corps. He is a graduate of the
Law School of the College of William and Mary, and a
resident of Coronado, California.
This article
was originally published by
The San Diego Union
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