USS Liberty/San Diego Union Tribune Article on Captain Ward Boston

From the web site at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...17liberty.html
-------------------------------------------------------

EX-OFFICER ALLEGES COVER-UP IN PROBE OF SPY SHIP ATTACK
By James W. Crawley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

February 17, 2004

Ward Boston is an unassuming octogenarian who resides in a gated
community on Coronado's Silver Strand.

A retired Navy captain, he hardly attracts attention in a town
full of active-duty and retired sailors.

Yet Boston is in the maelstrom of a nearly 37-year-old
controversy surrounding Israel's deadly attack on the Navy's spy
ship Liberty during the Six-Day War with Egypt, Syria and
Jordan. The June 1967 attack killed 34 Americans and wounded
171.

Last October, Boston broke decades of silence and declared that
the Navy admiral who investigated the incident had been ordered
by President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert
McNamara to conclude it was a case of mistaken identity, despite
evidence to the contrary.

As the chief counsel for the Navy's court of inquiry, Boston had
an insider's view.

"I didn't speak up earlier because I was told not to," Boston
said in an interview.

His revelation, repeated last month before a State Department
conference about the Six-Day War, has rekindled a smoldering
debate over how it happened and whether the United States and
Israel covered up the truth.

Anti-Israel factions portray Boston's words – true to his legal
background, memorialized in two affidavits but rarely spoken to
an audience larger than one person – as proof of Israel's guilt.

Israel's supporters, including a federal bankruptcy judge who
researched the attack and wrote a book on it, say Boston is
lying. Some pin an anti-Semitic badge on his lapel.

On Web pages and through e-mail, an electronic brawl is raging
over Boston's disclosures among his admirers and detractors.

But, for the men who survived the attack, Boston's comments
endorse views smelted in cordite, blood and smoke.

"We feel we've been vindicated," said James Ennes, the Liberty's
officer of the deck the day of the attack, which left him
severely wounded.

"We've been saying for 37 years that the court of inquiry was a
fraud, that it was corrupted, that it ignored evidence and made
findings not supported by the evidence," said Ennes, whose book
about the incident claims it was a deliberate Israeli attack.

Boston's cover-up allegation is "enormously significant," said
author James Bamford, who has written several books about the
super-secret National Security Agency, which analyzed radio
intercepts from Liberty and other U.S. surveillance ships.

"It's equivalent to former Supreme Court (Chief) Justice Earl
Warren coming out and saying 'the Warren Commission report on
(the) Kennedy (assassination) – everything we said was not what
we believed, but we were pressured to say it,' " Bamford said.

"It puts an enormous shadow over everything that was in the
(Navy) report," he said.

Even with Boston's affidavits and some newly released documents
presented at the State Department conference, no consensus was
reached on whether the attack was deliberate, accidental or the
result of negligence.

---

The Liberty was a Navy spy ship, plain and simple.

Like its ill-fated sister vessel Pueblo, which was captured by
North Korea six months later, the Liberty was festooned with
antennas and its cargo holds were converted into top-secret
locked compartments lined with receivers where petty officers
eavesdropped on other nations' militaries.

During the Six-Day War, the Liberty loitered off the Sinai
Peninsula, listening to Israel's lightning victory over Egypt.

On the afternoon of June 8, 1967, Israeli jets strafed the ship.
Hours later, Israeli torpedo boats attacked. By the evening, 34
U.S. sailors were dead and 171 injured.

Israel said the attack was a terrible mistake caused by the
misidentification of the Liberty as an Egyptian vessel.
Investigations followed, including the Navy's court of inquiry.

That's when Ward Boston's involvement began.

---

If Hollywood had discovered Boston, he could have been the
real-life prototype for Cmdr. Harmon Rabb, one of the leads on
the television show "JAG."

In the Pacific during World War II, Boston flew harrowing
photo-reconnaissance missions over Tokyo and Iwo Jima in Navy
Hellcat fighters, sometimes making three passes over a single
target – once to take pre-bombing pictures, then joining other
planes in attacking the target and, finally, a post-attack pass
to photograph the damage.

After the war, Boston went to law school, passed the bar and
entered private practice. Meanwhile, he continued to fly Navy
fighters as a reservist, including its first jet, the FH-1
Phantom.

In the late 1940s, he joined the FBI and was assigned to field
offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles. During the Korean War,
he rejoined the Navy, this time as a JAG officer.

By June 1967, Boston was legal officer for then-Rear Adm. Isaac
Kidd Jr. when the flag officer was assigned to head the hastily
convened inquiry into the Liberty attack.

Unable to interview hospitalized sailors and Israeli military
and civilian officials, the investigative panel was given just a
week to examine the battered ship, interview survivors and
collect radio intercepts and other information.

Boston said it was obvious then who was responsible.

"There's no way in the world that it was an accident," Boston
said.

In his affidavits and a recent interview, Boston recounted how
he and Kidd discussed their conclusions about the survivors'
testimony.

"(Kidd) referred to the Israelis as 'murderous *******s,' "
Boston said.

After Kidd delivered the panel's report to Washington officials,
Boston said the admiral told him, "they aren't interested in the
facts or what happened. It's a political issue. They want to
cover it up." Then Kidd admonished Boston to keep silent.

Boston said Kidd told him privately that orders came from
Johnson and McNamara to find the incident was a mistake and not
a deliberate act.

There is no documentation to support Boston's account.

Kidd died in 1999 at 79 after a career topped by command of the
Atlantic Fleet. He never spoke of a cover-up.

The late '60s was the height of the Cold War between the United
States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets were backing the Arab
nations; the United States was allied with Israel. U.S. troops
were fully engaged in Vietnam and the United States was fearful
of growing Soviet influence, especially in the oil-rich Mideast.

Those who claim the attack was no accident argue that Israel
wanted to stop the Liberty from snooping on its military during
the war.

Boston kept quiet too, until the 2002 publication of "The
Liberty Incident," by Judge Jay Cristol, provoked him.

Cristol's book, based on more than 10 years of research and
hundreds of interviews and the collection of thousands of
documents, argued that Israeli pilots, sailors and top military
officials, in the heat of combat and the fog of war, were
unaware the Liberty was a U.S. ship, mistaking it for an
Egyptian vessel.

The two men spoke twice during the 1990s while Cristol
researched his book, but Boston said recently that he only
discussed his career and did not reveal details of the inquiry.

"It is Cristol's insidious attempt to whitewash the facts that
has pushed me to speak out," Boston said in a Jan. 8 affidavit,
read by Bamford at the State Department conference last month.
Boston did not attend the conference.

Boston's affidavit was passed to Bamford by a friend who
believes that Israel is responsible for the attack on the
Liberty.

The judge, during a recent telephone interview, discounted
Boston's contention that Johnson and McNamara covered up Israel
complicity.

"I think those (accusations) are kind of nonsense," Cristol
said.

Cristol – also a former Navy pilot and JAG officer – said
Boston's comments show that he either lied in 1967 by knowingly
filing a false report or that his memory has changed with age.

Referring to Cristol, Boston said, "I'm not going to get into a
spitting contest with a skunk."

He also rejected suggestions that he is anti-Semitic, while
acknowledging some sympathy for the plight of Palestinian
refugees.

As he splits his day between local organizations and daily
visits to the gym to loosen up arthritic joints, Boston remains
largely oblivious to the electronic cacophony of e-mail and
Internet chat that makes him out to be either a patriot or a
patsy for anti-Israel factions.

That's because Boston doesn't have a computer. Friends print out
and pass along Internet postings mentioning him or his
statements.

"I'm a dinosaur," he said. "I use a pencil with an eraser and a
typewriter."

----------------------------------------------------------------

James W. Crawley: (619) 542-4559;

__________________________________________________ _____________

o__ I'll tell you the truth about the USS LIBERTY, visit
_./)_
(_) \(_) http://home.cfl.rr.com/gidusko/liberty/

_____________________(updated frequently)______________________

Subject: USS Liberty/San Diego Union Tribune Article on Captain Ward
Boston
From: Ari Ben Canaan lid
Date: 2/18/04 12:48 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Ward Boston is an unassuming octogenarian who resides in a gated community

And Morris434 is still grieving over that girl who dumped him for a Jew,
so long ago. Poor bloke.

Ari.

What a pathetic response by a Jew in Ari.

We have heard much about the treacherous Israeli attack during the six day war
on the U.S.S. Liberty, and the inflicted causalities. Since that was in 1967,
nothing was done then, and nothing will ever be done to expose the infamy of
that attack, and seek compensation.
The U.S. has continued over the years to give israel many billions of dollars
in aid, and forgive billions more in debt, and arm them with everything in our
vast military arsenal.
Lets be realistic the Hebrew controls the U.S. and no politician has the guts
to stand up to the dangerous crowd that take their orders from Israel.
Every Hebrew can immediately be a citizen of Israel, and they all know that.
The Israeli law enhances loyalty, and in fact a number of Jews in very high
places actually have dual citizenship. At this point in time the concern of our
citizens should be the deaths, and maiming of American service people, and
innocent persons in foreign countries including the many children in both Iraq
and Afghanistan that have suffered.
Of course many Americans were rightfully angry about 9-11, but anyone with an
ounce of brains knows that it happened because of American support of Israel
and a lopsided foreign policy. Many people think the incursion into Iraq, and
Afghanistan was for oil but they are mistaken for it was done to accommodate
Israel, and eliminate Israel's enemies. Oil was a secondary consideration. Thus
far there have been several thousand U.S. casualties and it would not be
inappropriate to say they died, and were wounded for the benefit of Israel.
The U.S. is Israel's means of subduing the world, and establishing a World
Government with orders emanating from Israel through their puppets in the U.S.

The thought that should be on many peoples mind is will there ultimately be a
nuclear war because of the U.S. behaving like a rogue state in the interest of
Israel.
Should a new World War break out millions of casualties will result because
non Jews have acted at the behest of the Jews.
These parasites truly believe they are a chosen people, and entitled to a
land that is not theirs. If the truth was known the Palestinians are probably
more related to Biblical Jews than those from Russia, Brooklyn, and elsewhere.
Personally I think it's wrong to hate people because of their race, but firmly
believe that the Hebrews should not impinge on the security of our nation, and
folk in their strange beliefs that they are a race entitled to a small piece of
semi desert land in the middle east.
Most intelligent people know of the Jewish hand in pushing the middle east
war, and drive to dominate every aspect of our nations sources of political
power.
There are no Jews in China, and therein lies the danger to the Jews as well as
western man because to dominate the planet and destroy potential enemies they
must eliminate the political structure of China, and fragment countries in
furtherance of control and that includes Russia, as well as India.
All non Jews should be of grave concern because the grave is where many will
prematurely go and the markers should read that their demise occurred because
of Israel.
Then who will be left of our race to shed the rivers of tears ?

SURVIVORS PROTEST COVER-UP

Angry exchange at USS Liberty session




Tempers flare over US spy-ship inquiry

By GUY DINMORE

The Financial Times, London Sunday, January 12, 2004

WASHINGTON**Survivors of one of the most hotly disputed
incidents in American military history**the Israeli attack on the
USS Liberty spy-ship in 1967**on Monday accused the U.S.
authorities, past and present, of a cover-up in backing Israeli
claims that it was a tragic mistake.

Emotions boiled over in the basement of the State Department
as the Office of the Historian opened a public conference on the
six-day Arab-Israeli war with heated debate over newly released
intercepts from the archives of the secretive National Security
Agency.

Most of the basic facts are undisputed. On June 8 1967, Israeli
aircraft and later torpedo boats struck the Liberty just off the
Mediterranean coast, killing 34 crew and wounding 172. The ship,
one of the world's most sophisticated listening vessels but only
lightly armed, limped into port.

From there the controversy begins. An immediate U.S. Navy court
of inquiry backed the Israeli claim that it had been mistaken for
an Egyptian warship. The U.S. accepted $12m in compensation.

While some historians have accepted this, survivors and a varied
group of academics and former military officials insist the attack
was deliberate.

"You're trying to whitewash it," one survivor shouted from the
audience as Marc Susser, the State Department's historian,
acted as moderator and sought to keep order, refusing to allow
speeches from the floor. Even debate on the panel of invited
historians descended into acrimony with one contributor
accused of being an Israeli agent.

Two recent developments added fuel to the controversy.

Last week Ward Boston, a naval captain who acted as senior
legal counsel for the Navy's court of inquiry in 1967, signed an
affidavit declaring that the late Admiral Isaac Kidd, president of
the court, had told him that President Lyndon Johnson and
Robert McNamara, defense secretary, had ordered a cover-up.

And on Monday, David Hatch, the National Security Agency's
own historian, elaborated on the recently declassified NSA
material, the first time the eavesdropping agency had released
real voice intercepts.*

Mr Hatch confessed that the information "doesn't settle much".

But his analysis of the conversations between an Israeli air
controller and two helicopter pilots "suggested strongly" that the
Israelis did not know at first they were attacking a U.S. vessel,
although there was mention of a U.S. flag flying.

He also regretted that the new NSA material did not clarify why
the Liberty had not received orders sent to it to leave a war zone.

Joseph Lentini, a survivor who has spent the past 36 years
researching the tragedy, told reporters he remained convinced
that the attack was deliberate.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentSe.../FullStory&c=S
toryFT&cid=1073280974558&p=1012571727162

__________________________



Remember the LIBERTY**
and all those who perpetrated this foul atrocity

Betrayal behind
Israeli attack on U.S. ship


By ADM. THOMAS MOORER



After State Department officials and historians assembled
in Washington, D.C., last week to discuss the 1967 war in the
Middle East, I am compelled to speak out about one of U.S.
history's most shocking cover-ups.

On June 8, 1967, Israel attacked our proud naval shipÂ*Â*the
USS LibertyÂ*Â*killing 34 American servicemen and wounding
172. Those men were then betrayed and left to die by our own
government.

U.S. military rescue aircraft were recalled, not once, but twice,
through direct intervention by the Johnson administration.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's cancellation of the
Navy's attempt to rescue the Liberty, which I personally
confirmed from the commanders of the aircraft carriers America
and Saratoga, was the most disgraceful act I witnessed in my
entire military career.

To add insult to injury, Congress, to this day, has failed to hold
formal hearings on Israel's attack on this American ship. No
official investigation of Israel's attack has ever permitted the
testimony of the surviving crew members.

A 1967 investigation by the Navy, upon which all other reports
are based, has now been fully discredited as a cover-up by its
senior attorney. Capt. Ward Boston, in a sworn affidavit, recently
revealed that the court was ordered by the White House to cover
up the incident and find that Israel's attack was "a case of
mistaken identity."

Some distinguished colleagues and I formed an independent
commission to investigate the attack on the USS Liberty. After
an exhaustive review of previous reports, naval and other military
records, including eyewitness testimony from survivors, we
recently presented our findings on Capitol Hill. They include:

€ Israeli reconnaissance aircraft closely studied the Liberty
during an eight-hour period prior to the attack, one flying within
200 feet of the ship. Weather reports confirm the day was clear
with unlimited visibility. The Liberty was a clearly marked American
ship in international waters, flying an American flag and carrying
large U.S. Navy hull letters and numbers on its bow.

Despite claims by Israeli intelligence that they confused the
Liberty with a small Egyptian transport, the Liberty was
conspicuously different from any vessel in the Egyptian navy.
It was the most sophisticated intelligence ship in the world in
1967. With its massive radio antennae, including a large satellite
dish, it looked like a large lobster and was one of the most easily
identifiable ships afloat.

€ Israel attempted to prevent the Liberty's radio operators from
sending a call for help by jamming American emergency radio
channels.

€ Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned lifeboats at close range
that had been lowered to rescue the most seriously wounded.
As a result, our commission concluded that:

€ There is compelling evidence that Israel's attack was a deliberate
attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew.

€ In attacking the USS Liberty, Israel committed acts of murder
against U.S. servicemen and an act of war against the United
States.

€ The White House knowingly covered up the facts of this attack
from the American people.

€ The truth continues to be concealed to the present day in what
can only be termed a national disgrace.

What was Israel's motive in launching this attack? Congress must
address this question with full cooperation from the National
Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the military
intelligence services.

The men of the USS Liberty represented the United States. They
were attacked for two hours, causing 70 percent of American
casualties, and the eventual loss of our best intelligence ship.

These sailors and Marines were entitled to our best defense.
We gave them no defense.

Did our government put Israel's interests ahead of our own? If so,
why? Does our government continue to subordinate American
interests to Israeli interests? These are important questions
that should be investigated by an independent, fully empowered
commission of the American government.

The American people deserve to know the truth about this attack.
We must finally shed some light on one of the blackest pages in
American naval history. It is a duty we owe not only to the brave
men of the USS Liberty, but to every man and woman who is
asked to wear the uniform of the United States.
__________________________________________________ ____



This guest article appeared in the Houston Chronicle on Thursday,
January 9, 2004

Moorer was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff from 1970 to 1974.
He is joined in the independent commission of inquiry by Gen. Ray
Davis (recently deceased); Rear Adm. Merlin Staring; former Judge
Advocate General of the Navy and Ambassador James Akins.

From: (MORRIS434)


What a pathetic response by a Jew in Ari.

Do you have a problem with Jews?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Maybe he has a problem with anyone who bombs our ships. We didn't like it
when the Japs did it, same with Germans. No reason we should like it when
"our" friends do it..

Frank

"B2431" wrote in message
...
From: (MORRIS434)


What a pathetic response by a Jew in Ari.

Do you have a problem with Jews?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

From: "Legal Tender"


Maybe he has a problem with anyone who bombs our ships. We didn't like it
when the Japs did it, same with Germans. No reason we should like it when
"our" friends do it..

Frank

"B2431" wrote in message
...
From: (MORRIS434)


What a pathetic response by a Jew in Ari.

Do you have a problem with Jews?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Maybe so, but his "Jew from Ari" is off the mark. It is also out of line.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

"Legal Tender" wrote in message
...
Maybe he has a problem with anyone who bombs our ships.
No, he and you only have problems when Jews bomb American ships in error.
People of that sort have no problems with non-Jews deliberately murdering
241 Marines Beirut, killing 37 sailors aboard the USS Stark or crashing
passenger planes into buildings. I'm pretty sure that Morris subscribes to
the "Mossad did 9-11" theory.

We didn't like it when the Japs did it, same with Germans. No reason we
should like it when "our" friends do it..

Somehow I don't think you objected too strongly to the Iraqi attack on the
Stark or Beirut 1983. I doubt if you remember those attacks at all. I posted
a message about the March 2003 USAF attack in Iraq where 18 Marines got
killed. Nobody seemed to care and I guess the reasons for that are that
there was no Israeli involvement and no Arab money to promote the story.


Frank

"B2431" wrote in message
...
From: (MORRIS434)


What a pathetic response by a Jew in Ari.

Do you have a problem with Jews?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

http://www.ussliberty.org
http://natallwest.com/docs/lg/USS_Liberty(CO)lg.gif


Taken from: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ar...004_02_15.html

Ex-officer alleges cover-up in probe of spy ship attack
Israel's shills are already screaming "anti-Semite" at anyone who
mentions this story, and the reason they do that is a simple one. They
cannot answer two simple questions about the attack on the USS
Liberty.
1. If it was a case of mistaken identity, with Israel attacking what
they thought was a legitimate enemy ship in time of war, why did they
attack using UNMARKED aircraft and boats?

2. If Israel thought they were attacking an Egyptian ship, why did
they jam AMERICAN military emergency channels?

But the real question is why would LBJ be more worried about Israel
than the US servicemen killed in the attack? What hold did (does)
Israel have over the US Government that they can carry out these kinds
of actions against American lives and know that it will be covered up?

What did LBJ owe Israel for that he would help them get away with
murdering 34 Americans? - M. R.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...17liberty.html


Pictures from Palestine:
http://www.alkhilafah.info/massacres...ne/index10.htm



"Legal Tender" wrote:
Maybe he has a problem with anyone who bombs our ships. We didn't like it
when the Japs did it, same with Germans. No reason we should like it when
"our" friends do it..
Frank

"B2431" wrote:
Do you have a problem with Jews?
Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired