If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
The Johnson administration's control of the press and the silencing of the crewmen was deliberate, thorough and successful. A good indication of this success was the fact that the issue died out and was all but forgotten by the autumn of 1967. The promotion of an official history, and the suppression of a dissenting history, was unnoticed in the press at the time and by historians and scholars later. It would require the efforts of the men themselves to raise the question as to whether a false history of an event in 1967 had been created and accepted without much protest by the world at large, or even much awareness of what had happened. By 1968 the attack on the ship had become a mere footnote to history. The crewmen were scattered all over the world. However, some kept in touch with each other and sent information to James Ennes who was gathering material for a book on the subject. His book, ASSAULT ON THE LIBERTY, was published in 1980 and this led to a revival of the debate which had lasted briefly in 1967. The crewmen gained the support of many important men who had been connected to the LBJ administration. Among these were Dean Rusk, former Secretary of State; Admiral Thomas Moorer, formerly head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Richard Helms, formerly head of the CIA; and presidential advisers George Ball and Lucius Battle. They also were backed by some newspaper columnists and by individual scholars such as Noam Chomsky. A book by an eyewitness of such an important event should have aroused controversy. However, despite having favorable reviews in THE WASHINGTON POST and many military magazines, the book was largely ignored and not reviewed. The crewmen realized that they needed to make greater efforts, and in August 1981 some of them published the first issue of LIBERTY NEWS, a newsletter promoting their cause. In June 1982 they met for their first reunion, and formed the LIBERTY VETERANS ASSOCIATION, to meet every three years and advocate a new investigation of the attack. In trying to make themselves heard in the world, the crewmen faced many problems. First, organized antisemitic groups tried to associate themselves with the LIBERTY men, and the LVA had to learn to avoid what seemed at first to be friendly approaches by these groups. Secondly, the partisans of Israel from 1980 onward increasingly relied upon accusations of antisemitism in attacking the LIBERTY men. This reached a climax in the 1997 dissertation by A. Jay Cristol, THE LIBERTY INCIDENT. Cristol described the contest between the LIBERTY men and the supporters of Israel as "another front in the Arab-Israeli conflict", and, without evidence, claimed that the LVA had been "taken over" by sinister and secretive (Arabic) forces. Third, there were many books on the attack which presented a false story, aside from the books by backers of Israel, and the LVA tried to criticize and refute these. This LIBERTY campaign has gone on for 21 years. However, recently there has been a new event which may do much to promote their cause, and we can fast forward to describe this. On April 23, 200l, Doubleday published BODY OF SECRETS, a study of the National Security Agency, by James Bamford, a journalist who had previously written a bestseller, THE PUZZLE PALACE, on the same subject. The book contains a chapter on THE LIBERTY which provides new information on the attack. Early in June 1967, as the war began, the NSA secretly established a Navy signal intelligence center at the Athens airport. From this center the NSA sent out EC-121 planes on a pattern of patrol which took them over the area where the LIBERTY was and where the attack took place. The planes flew at altitudes of 12,000 feet or more and their presence was unknown to either the LIBERTY or the Israelis. This meant that there was an electronic witness to the attack. The listeners in the EC-121 heard the Israelis (both the pilots and the torpedo boat men) make references to the flag on the ship during the attack. Since the Israelis have insisted for the past 34 years that there was no flag on the ship, and this was their most basic argument, it means that their story has been false. Former Chief Marvin Nowicki, a Hebrew linguist in the plane, recorded "most if not all of the attack" and heard references to the flag during the attack. The tapes sent back to NSA headquarters convinced the senior leadership of NSA that the attack was deliberate. Marshall Carter, director of NSA, appointed a small task force led by Walter Deeley, a senior official of the agency, to keep track of all information on THE LIBERTY. Unlike other probes, this one included all the intercept tapes from the EC-121. In the end, Deeley came to the conclusion: "There was no way that they didn't know THE LIBERTY was American". NSA Director Carter agreed: "There was no other answer than that it was deliberate", he told Bamford. NSA's deputy director, Louis Tordella, agreed, and said this to Congressman George Mahon (D, Tex.), a member of a small "working group" in Congress investigating the matter. Deputy chief John Morrison, a US Air Force Major General, agreed, saying that, "The only conjecture we ever made that made any sense is that the Israelis did not want us to intercept their communications at that time." The NSA's G Group, who analyzed all the intercepts from both LIBERTY and the EC=121, were convinced that the attack was deliberate and no mistake. Another NSA review, conducted 15 years later and classified TOP SECRET/Umbra, agreed and ridiculed the Israeli explanations. There was unanimity on this and no dissent. Speculation as to the Israeli motivation varied. Some NSA men believed that Israel expected the destruction of the ship would lead the US to blame Egypt and bring the US into the war on the side of Israel. Others felt that Israeli forces simply wanted the ship out of the way. The NSA men knew what the tapes told; but they were surprised to find that some senior officials in Washington wanted above all to protect Israel from embarrassment. Tordella recorded his dissent when told that some unnamed Washington authorities wanted to order the LIBERTY sunk in order that newsmen could not photograph her and inflame public opinion against Israel. The information which Israel feared would be known to the world, Bamford believes, concerns the killing of Egyptian prisoners near El Arish. These killings, and the fact that the killings were well known throughout the Israeli Army, is discussed at length by Bamford. All this means that the LIBERTY men have been telling the truth for 34 years when they insisted that the American flag was easy for the Israelis to see. It also means that the Israelis have lied for 34 years, helped by the Johnson administration. © 2001 John Borne. All rights reserved. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Letter from Jess Meyers | Badwater Bill | Home Built | 142 | July 21st 04 02:17 AM |
Liberty Engine(valve) | Frank Sculy | Home Built | 3 | July 15th 04 04:01 AM |
Vernon Peckham's letter about Jerry Rooks | RH | Home Built | 1 | May 11th 04 03:02 PM |
OT - Statue of Liberty reopening B.S! | Bart D. Hull | Home Built | 2 | January 18th 04 01:18 PM |
Declassified documents show Israel's 1967 attack on USS Liberty was accidental | Grantland | Military Aviation | 1 | July 10th 03 04:27 PM |