http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/4731/
LBJ, Israel & the USS Liberty Massacre
by William Hughes
(Sunday 08 February 2004)
"The White House knew within minutes of the USS Liberty attack, that the
perpetrator was really Israel. On two separate occasions, the White House
recalled aircraft rescue missions for the Liberty. On the last attempt,
LBJ told Rear-Admiral Lawrence Geis of the Sixth Fleet, "I WILL NOT
EMBARRASS OUR ALLY." The Liberty was then left "dead in the water,"
without any assistance for over 16 hours."
On June 8, 1967, the Israelis attacked the USS Liberty, in international
waters, 13 miles off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula, and tried to sink
it, and kill all 294 American on board the spy ship ("Assault on the
Liberty," James M. Ennes, Jr. and James Bamford’s "Body of Secrets.") The
Israelis then falsely claimed it was just a case of "mistaken identity."
However, according to Peter Hounam, the author of the expose’, "Operation
Cyanide," the murderous Israeli attack was a set up to blame the Egyptians
and bring the U.S. into the 1967 war on their side. The Liberty was a
"sitting duck" for the Israeli jet planes’ missiles and rockets and their
torpedo boats. The attack lasted at least 75 minutes, killing 34 brave
Americans and wounding 172 others. Liberty survivor, Petty Officer Ernie
Gallo, said, "I mean for a group of people, who are suppose to be the
children of God, (the Israelis), they didn’t show any mercy for us."
Both Captain Ward Boston, an ex-Navy attorney, who participated in a Court
of Inquiry, with respect to the Liberty, and Admiral Thomas Moorer, a
former Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chief of Staff, (who recently died),
believe that President Lyndon Baynes Johnson ordered a massive "cover-up"
after the attack by the Israelis (10/23/03, CBSNews.com.)
On first hearing of the Liberty attack by allegedly "unidentified
aircraft," the U.S. launched planes from the Sixth Fleet carriers, then
located in the Mediterranean, off Crete, armed with nuclear weapons. They
were headed for Cairo to retaliate. Only minutes before reaching their
target, they were recalled. Why? The Israelis had failed to sink the
Liberty! The Zionist predators had mistakenly believed U.S. planes were
also on their way to rescue the Liberty, so they were forced to stop their
assault. Only then, did they admit to the U.S., that they were the
culprits.
According to Hounam’s research, the White House knew within minutes of the
Liberty attack, that the perpetrator was really Israel (p. 94). On two
separate occasions, the White House recalled aircraft rescue missions for
the Liberty. On the last attempt, LBJ told Rear-Admiral Lawrence Geis of
the Sixth Fleet, "I WILL NOT EMBARRASS OUR ALLY." The Liberty was then
left "dead in the water," without any assistance for over 16 hours. (See
also, an excellent documentary of the same title by the BBC and affidavits
and statements found at USSLiberty.org.)
At pp. 267-268, Hounam said, "Sinking the Liberty and blaming Egypt and
the Soviets would have freed Johnson’s hand to do almost anything - even
to drop an atomic bomb on Cairo. Trouble only arose when the Israel
operation failed - and the damned ship stayed afloat."
Hounam revealed that within LBJ’s hawkish administration, there was
shadowy clique that met under the rubric of the "303 Committee." Richard
Helms, the late CIA Director, said that entity was, "A device for
examining covert operations of any kind and making a judgment on behalf of
the President, so he wouldn’t be nailed with the thing, if it failed."
Out of the "303 Committee," came a project labeled, "Frontlet 615," which
was furthered defined as, "A secret political agreement in 1966 by which
Israel and the U.S. had vowed to destroy (Egypt’s Gamal Abdel) Nasser."
The military name for the operation was, "Operation Cyanide." The U.S.
also had a draconian plan, entitled, "Condition November," a strategy for
a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. All of the above
ended up being interwoven into the tragic saga of the Liberty.
LBJ was an extremely ambitious man, who was, in 1967, seeking reelection.
The Vietnam War was going badly for him and his popularity was plummeting.
He had surrounded himself with Zionist zealots, like the late Walter
Rostow, his Special Assistant for National Security Affairs.
Here is how Hounam described Rostow, "A sinister, Svengali-like figure, or
simply the biggest and best fixer? Of all the people in Johnson’s
entourage, he was crucial in determining which way the U.S. might respond
to the threatened hostilities in the Middle East... Rostow was a hawk who
believed in the justness of the Vietnam War and, as a Jew, his Zionism was
strongly felt and expressed...(He) had daily contact with the President.
This gave him especially close access." He had acquired enormous influence
running the committee (303 Committee) that sanctioned covert operations by
the CIA. He also knew in taking Israel’s side on most issues he was
playing to the President’s tune. He described Johnson as the ‘most
pro-Semitic man’ he had ever met." Rostow was also an "advisor" to LBJ
when he used the phony "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution," in 1964, to launch the
U.S. into the disastrous Vietnam War.
Just imagine for one moment, if an individual dedicated to putting
America’s interests first - before the interests of the Zionists - had
been the U.S. President on June 8, 1967. Instead of recalling our
aircrafts that were on their way to rescue the Liberty, he (or she) would
have ordered them to continue on their mission, not only to defend the
Liberty and to stop the massacre, but to retaliated against the Zionist
aggressors by bombing their naval base at the port of Ashdod, their
military headquarters at Tel Aviv and Haifa, and for good measure,
dropping a few MX missiles on Dimona, their secret nuke-making plant,
located in the Negev desert. If, only?
What kind of man was LBJ? Well, here is what the distinguished British
statesman, Denis Healey, one of his contemporaries, had to say about him:
"LYNDON JOHNSON WAS A MONSTER. He was one of the few politicians with whom
I found it uncomfortable to be in the same room. He exuded a brutal lust
for power which I found most disagreeable..." (p. 131).
As a result of the Six-Day War, the Israelis illegally seized vast areas
of land belonging to Syria, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian people. It
also began being armed by the U.S. and treated as a strategic ally. Since
1967, Donald Neff pointed out (WRMEA, 08/02), Israel has also received
enormous amounts of U.S. aid. Incredibly, it is "many times over the cost
of the Marshall Plan to regenerate Western Europe after WWII."
Query: Why are we giving billions of dollars of foreign aid to a country,
Israel, that deliberately attacked and tried to sink our vessel, the
Liberty, and that continues to make us more enemies in the Islamic World?
Finally, the last word on the horrors of the Israeli attack on the
Liberty, and the cruel indifference of LBJ to its fate, has to be left to
one of the injured survivors of that terror-filled day, Lt. George Golden,
the Liberty’s chief engineer. He told author Hounam, (at p. 240-41), in a
recent interview, "We were the guinea pigs to get shot up, to make it look
like the Egypt was doing this so the U.S. could step in...to give our
country an excuse to get in there to help Israel..." When asked how he
felt when he was told all of this about being damned guinea pigs, Golden
responded, "I thought I was going to cry because I couldn’t believe
something like that would happen. I didn’t think our government was that
way..."
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