Navy Captain Breaks 36 Years Silence About USS Liberty
Representing the Commission were Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, USN (Ret.), the Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Rear Admiral Merlin Staring, USN (Ret.), who is the Former Judge Advocate General of the Navy.
Moorer and Staring are Chairman, and Director, respectively, of the Liberty Alliance, an organization whose purpose
is to bring about "the convening of a new Naval Board of Inquiry" operating with Congressional oversight to investigation the attack on June 8, 1967 on the USS Liberty by the Israeli armed forces, led by its Air Force and Navy.
Capt. Boston's affidavit, presented publically for the first time was signed earlier this month, and states,
"For 36 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.
"However recent attempts to rewrite history compel me to share the truth."
The affidavit describes how Capt. Boston, then the senior legal counsel for the Navy's Court of Inquiry "into the brutal attack on the USS Liberty," and his superior, the late Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd,
were given only one week to gather evidence for the Navy's official investigation into the attack, which was commissioned by Vice Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., then Commander in Chief of US Naval Forces, Europe.
(McCain is the father of current US Senator John McCain).
Boston attests: "Despite the short amount of time we were given, we gathered a vast amount of evidence ... including hours of heartbreaking testimony from the young survivors. "The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd 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."
The affidavit singles out the recently published book by C. Jay Cristol, "The Liberty Incident," as an "insidious attempt to whitewash the facts."
Boston concludes:
"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."
WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 (EIRNS)--ADM. THOMAS MOORER (USN, Ret.) sounded a certain trumpet in a fiery call for ending the cover-up of the attack on the USS Liberty by the government of Israel, 36 years ago, on June 8, 1967.
Moorer, who is 92 years old, told the audience that the Commission of Inquiry was founded because the U.S. Congress had failed to do its job in investigating ths incident.
Moorer insisted that it is "essential" that military history must be truthful, and that one "cannot undo" the damage which is done from the "rewrite of history" such as had occurred in the Liberty case.
Most of all, it must be ascertained {why} the planes that took off from the USS Saratoga were {called back} by Washington, instead of doing their duty to save the lives of the American sailors and National Security Agency agents who were killed and injured.
Moorer said that the many interviews conducted with the surviving crew members of the Liberty make it "impossible to believe" that the attack was a case of "mistaken identity."
He said that he finds the evidence "more or less `irrefutable'" and that the United States must not allow the truth about the unprovoked attack on those U.S. forces, which injured 70% of the men on board, to be buried.
In an impassioned statement, Moorer said that to investigate this incident requires that Congress overcome "their fear of the pro-Israel lobby."
Moorer received a rousing ovation when he stated that for his part, at 92-years old, it would be "very, very easy," to keep silent, and stay in the background, "but I will not do that."
In answer to an AP reporter who challenged the idea of a cover-up, and demanded an explanation as to why Israel would attack the US, Moorer fired back, "I do not think much of your question," and proceeded to summarize the magnitude of the two hour-plus attack by fighter plane, torpedo boat, and helicopter machine-gun fire. If that's not a cover-up, Moorer asked, then what is?
He also said that Adm. Kidd had told all the sailors that they would be "courtmartialed" if they ever testified before any commission.
Adm. Staring also gave remarkable testimony, detailing his own role, in June 1967, in London, when he began to review the 600 pages of evidence that was brought to him from Malta, by Captain Ward Boston, where a hasty investigation of the incident had occurred, including interviews with the survivors.
After many hours of reading the details in the first third of the report, he reported to Capt. Boston, that the evidence in there {did not} support the Malta finding that it was "mistaken identity."
The next morning, Staring reported, the 600-page report was taken away from him, and whisked off to Washington.
This was the only case in his distinguished career, in which he rose to the level of Judge Advocate General of the Navy, that he never was asked to submit a report on his findings -- which was his duty as legal officer.
The Commissioners also reported that this is the only case of such a major naval attack in Congressional history, which was not investigated by Congress.
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