The USS Liberty and the McCain Presidential Bid
Could the USS Liberty surface as a campaign issue?
The latest news on the Liberty, the Navy spook ****p attacked by Israel on
June 8, 1967, during
the Six-Day War, is that recently released National Security Agency
do***ents are backing up
what many -- including the survivors of Liberty -- have been saying for 40
years: that Israel
knew full well that it was attacking -- with aerial strafing, napalm and
torpedoes -- an
American vessel.
You may have read it on Military.com, one of the few news sites to run the
piece in total.
Other than The Chicago Tribune, which came out with the story, only The
Baltimore Sun picked up
the piece, according to a Google search.
It will be interesting to see is whether any presidential candidates
address the latest
revelations, since those from both parties frequently tout longstanding
ties and mutual loyalty
between the U.S. and Israel.
One candidate with a real interest in this story is Sen. John McCain,
R-Ariz., who five years
ago endorsed a book, The Liberty Incident, that concluded it was a
mistake. McCain's interest
stems from the fact that his father, the late Adm. John S. McCain, was
commander of U.S. Naval
Forces, Europe, at the time, and ordered the official court of inquiry to
investigate the attack.
Based on the court's findings, Adm. McCain concluded it was a case of
mistaken identity. But
five years ago the legal advisor to the court broke his own silence in an
interview with me,
calling the final re****t a sham, a cover-up. It was about that same time
that The Liberty
Incident, by A. Jay Cristol, a former Navy pilot and retired judge, hit
the bookshelves.
Sen. McCain praised the book and its findings in a blurb that appeared on
the back cover.
In recent months there have been more revelations about the attack and
immediate aftermath,
however. In June, I re****ted that the Navy already was calling the attack
accidental in its
casualty notification telegrams to next of kin even before the court of
inquiry convened for
the first time.
Then came the Tribune story last week, re****ting that the National
Security Agency's deputy
director of operations in 1967 now confirms that transcripts of U.S.
intercepts of Israeli
communications show the Israelis knew exactly who they were attacking.
Oliver Kirby is quoted in the Trib story as recalling the Israeli pilots
several times
identifying the ****p as American but being told to attack anyway. While
some of the original
transcripts and intel have disappeared, the story re****ts that some of it
is still in U.S.
government archives.
So far, calls to McCain's senate and campaign offices have not been
returned.
-- Bryant Jordan
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003776.html
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