What if another country openly attacked a U.S. Navy ship? You would think there would be mass outrage and talk of war, correct? Now what if the country doing the attacking was Israel? Well back in 1967 exactly that happened, and it appears the U.S. president himself helped to cover up the whole incident.
A Special Report by the Chicago Tribune details declassified cables, from the Israeli State Archive, which add further evidence that Israel knew it was attacking an American ship as it attacked the USS Liberty.
Last month, a new documentary broadcast a tape for the first time, of Israeli military transmissions during the attack, which established that the ship was confirmed to be U.S. by 2:14pm that day, local time. The timeline of the attack establishes that the attack continued for another hour after that time...
...the investigation was relegated to a U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, presided over by Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., father of John McCain, the US senator and former presidential candidate. In 2003 the lead counsel for the Court, Captain Ward Boston, stepped forward to say that the Court had been ordered by President Lyndon B. Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to conclude that the attack had been a case of mistaken identity, "despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary." Captain Boston resigned from the Court before the inquiry was complete. He passed away in 2008.
