It's old history now , but obviously still very sensitive -- with good reason.
Much has been written, most of it has been supressed for some reason, but there are some links for follow up reading in this article .
Certainly it is all public knowledge , just very sensitive to the perps .Some if not all intelligence and military officials dispute Israel's explanation.[77] Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State at the time of the incident, wrote:
I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. Their sustained attack to disable and sink Liberty precluded an assault by accident or some trigger-happy local commander. Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous.[78]
Retired naval Lieutenant Commander James Ennes, a junior officer (and off-going Officer of the Deck) on Liberty's bridge at the time of the attack, authored a book titled Assault on the Liberty describing the incident and saying, among other things, that the attack was deliberate.[79] Ennes and Joe Meadors, also a survivor of the attack, run a website about the incident.[80] Meadors states that the classification of the attack as deliberate is the official policy of the USS Liberty Veterans Association,[81] to which survivors and other former crew members belong. Other survivors run several additional websites. Citing Ennes's book, Lenczowski notes: Liberty's personnel received firm orders not to say anything to anybody about the attack, and the naval inquiry was conducted in such a way as to earn it the name of "coverup".[53]
In 2002, Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, U.S. Navy, senior counsel for the Court of Inquiry, said that the Court of Inquiry's findings were intended to cover up what was a deliberate attack by Israel on a ship that the Israelis knew to be American. In 2004, in response to the publication of A. Jay Cristol's book The Liberty Incident, which Boston said was an "insidious attempt to whitewash the facts", Boston prepared and signed an affidavit in which he said that Admiral Kidd had told him that the government ordered Kidd to falsely report that the attack was a mistake, and that Boston and Kidd both believed the attack was deliberate.[82] Cristol wrote about Boston's professional qualifications and integrity, on page 149 of his book:
Boston brought two special assets in addition to his skill as a Navy lawyer. He had been a naval aviator in World War II and therefore had insight beyond that of one qualified only in the law. Also, Kidd knew him as a man of integrity. On an earlier matter Boston had been willing to bump heads with Kidd when Boston felt it was more important to do the right thing than to curry favor with the senior who would write his fitness report.
— A. Jay Cristol, The Liberty IncidentBoston brought two special assets in addition to his skill as a Navy lawyer. He had been a naval aviator in World War II and therefore had insight beyond that of one qualified only in the law. Also, Kidd knew him as a man of integrity. On an earlier matter Boston had been willing to bump heads with Kidd when Boston felt it was more important to do the right thing than to curry favor with the senior who would write his fitness report.
— A. Jay Cristol, The Liberty Incident
