Delinda C. Hanley, Special to Arab News

WASHINGTON, 29 January 2004 — US Department of State hosted recently a highly charged panel discussion on Israel’s June 8, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty, which killed 34 Americans and wounded 172.

Panelists included historians, an Israeli author, a bankruptcy judge, and a plucky investigative reporter. But neither Liberty survivors nor military experts who played key roles in the tragedy were invited as speakers. Nonetheless, despite clumsy attempts to silence them, the voices of survivors and their supporters came through loud and clear.

Moderator Dr. Marc Susser, the State Department historian, opened the two-day conference, called to mark the release of the third volume of a trilogy focusing on US foreign policy during the Johnson administration. Trilogy Editor Dr. Harriet Schwar, said her staff found no evidence that the US had overheard Israel’s orders to attack the Liberty, or any indication that there ever had been any such recordings.

Dr. David Hatch, technical director at the Center for Cryptologic History, began his remarks on the Liberty controversy by saying, “The good news is that information long sought by researchers is now out — and the bad news is that it does not settle it.”

Next to speak was Judge A. Jay Cristol, whose recent book, “The Liberty Incident: The 1967 Attack on the US Navy Spy Ship”, was described by one retired government official in the audience as a “brief for a guilty client: Israel.”

Cristol turned to Adm. Isaac C. Kidd’s Naval Court of Inquiry, which concluded that Israel’s attack on the Liberty was a mistake. Cristol acknowledged the recent declaration by Capt. Ward Boston, the former US Navy attorney who helped Kidd investigate the attack. This document was submitted to State Department panel organizers, but had not been mentioned until that point. Alison Weir, founder of If Americans Knew, passed out copies of the declaration to members of the audience.

Boston states that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he and the admiral had been ordered to make a false report and say the attack was an accident. Like a breath of fresh air, investigative journalist James Bamford took his turn at the podium. He gave a concise account of the “planned and deliberate” attack on the Liberty and the subsequent cover-up, comparing it to Iran-Contra and other scandals Bamford has investigated over the years. “I wouldn’t be in business if the government didn’t cover things up,” he said.

He expressed indignation that two of the panelists selected by the US State Department represented Israel, while no one was there to represent the Liberty survivors.

Scoffing at claims that Israelis believed the ship was an Egyptian horse carrier, Bamford cited a TV interview with the Israeli who was tasked to identify the ship in Jane’s Fighting Ship manual. He then proceeded to read the hard-hitting Boston declaration.

Israel intentionally tried to sink the Liberty, Bamford argued, to cover up the massacre of Egyptian prisoners of war in the Sinai. President Johnson’s administration then hid the facts to avoid harming ties with Israel.

Bamford, whose book “Body of Secrets” includes a chapter on the Liberty, charged that there never has been an independent investigation of the attack.

Newspaper accounts of the conference concluded that Israel and the US share the blame for Israel’s attack on the Liberty.

Although the conference was broadcast live on C-SPAN 2, most mainstream media reports did not include the very moving comments and questions posed by Liberty survivors in the audience. Joe Lentini said he was appalled to hear “gentlemen who were in diapers in 1967” justify what happened to his shipmates. When panel moderator Susser asked Lentini to ask one question instead of making a comment, Lentini responded there were so many half— truths and misstatements spoken at the conference, he didn’t know which question to ask first.

Josey Toth Linen, whose brother Stephen was killed as he tried to identify the markings on the attacking planes, said she had questions about how Israelis knew which frequencies to jam if they didn’t know the ship was American. She wondered who recalled the planes sent from the 6th Fleet to help the ship. She asked about the think tank that financed Dr. Michael Oren’s book about the 1967 war until an irate Susser abruptly cut her questions short and brought the session to a close.

The moderator’s treatment of survivors bordered on abusive, according to former Congressman Paul Findley, who watched the session from his home in Illinois. Frustrated audience members shouted, “Let’s hear from another survivor (referring to USS Liberty Survivor Association President Phil Tourney, who was waiting to speak), one more survivor! Two Israelis and one survivor...one more survivor has the right to talk.”

Others angrily accused the State Department of helping cover up Israel’s actions. Few of those in the long line at the microphone had the opportunity to pose their questions in the 15 minutes allotted.

As attendees filed out, journalists swarmed around survivors and their supporters, who finally were given the chance to speak — even if not by representatives of their own government. A young man wearing a yarmulke was heard to comment, “I can’t believe people are still so upset after all these years!” While Liberty survivors and their supporters were prepared and eager to present their evidence and eyewitness accounts of the Israeli attack on a lightly armed American intelligence ship, they instead were witness to a cover-up in action by the US State Department. Americans who had the chance to watch the hearing might wonder why their government is afraid to release every document in its possession, no matter how damaging, and hold a congressional investigation in order to set the historical record straight — once and for all.

— Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs magazine.