Ward Boston: Time for the truth about the Liberty

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COMMENTARY

Time for the truth about the Liberty

By WARD BOSTON JR.

The San Diego Union-Tribune  Friday, 8 June 2007

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 8, 1967, bombing of the Navy intelligence ship Liberty.

On that sunny, clear day 40 years ago, Israel's combined air and naval forces
attacked the Liberty for two hours, inflicting 70 percent casualties. 
Thirty-four
American sailors died, and 172 were injured. The 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 Adm. Isaac C. Kidd - president of the Court of Inquiry - 
that President
Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to
conclude that the attack was a case of "mistaken identity."

The ensuing cover-up has haunted us for 40 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?

Today, survivors of Israel's cruel attack will gather in Washington, D.C., 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.

Adm. 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."

Adm. 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
Department of Defense 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 it kills 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 40 years is
long enough to wait.

=====

Boston served as chief counsel to the Navy's Court of Inquiry into the
attack on the U.S. Navy intelligence ship Liberty. He also 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 the College of William and Mary School of Law
and a resident of Coronado.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070608/news_lz1e8boston.html