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Questions about Cristol’s Liberty claimsThe U.S. Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty was attacked by Israeli forces on 8 June 1967, killing 34 Americans and wounding 174. For that single engagement the Liberty became one of the most highly decorated ships in U.S. naval history. Although the attack was officially labeled a case of “mistaken identity,” the crew were ordered to remain silent, and — unlike any attack on a U.S. ship since WWII — Congress has never conducted a full investigation. Over the decades, dozens of books have re-examined the attack, some written by Liberty crewmembers, others by authors sympathetic to Israel’s official narrative. One of the most visible American defenders of the “mistaken-identity” theory is A. Jay Cristol, a Miami bankruptcy judge and former Naval Reserve officer. Cristol’s 2001 book The Liberty Incident (expanded in 2013 as The Liberty Incident Revealed) argues that every piece of contrary evidence can be explained away. In the notes that follow, Alison Weir dismantles Cristol’s core arguments, drawing on her interview with Captain Ward Boston, debunking the myth of ‘multiple exonerating investigations,’ and documenting Cristol’s extensive personal ties to Israel that call his objectivity into question. The two editions read largely like legal briefs for Israel [51] and are strongly criticized by eyewitnesses and other experts on the attack for what they say are its omissions, misinformation and unsupported claims. A plethora of articles, books, and witness statements support the conclusion that Israel intentionally attacked the USS Liberty. There appears to be only one book focused on the attack that takes a counter view: The Liberty Incident Revealed, by A Jay Cristol. [54] Cristol is a bankruptcy judge and former Naval Reserve officer in Miami. [55] He visited Israel 15 times in the course of writing his book and suggests that those who rebut his conclusions on the Liberty are anti-Semitic, have hidden agendas, or are conspiracy theorists. [56] In his book, Cristol essentially recounts the official Israeli version of the attack, which is at odds with that described by American eyewitnesses and numerous high ranking US military, intelligence, and State Department officials. Liberty specialists and survivors criticize Cristol’s book for omitting eyewitness testimony, key facts, and statements from US government investigators contradicting his conclusion. They also say the book misrepresents the facts and makes unsupported claims. As we shall see, these accusations are valid. Historian John Borne, author of a PhD dissertation on the attack and a subsequent book, writes that Cristol “describes only the Israeli view, and the reader has no way to know that he is hearing only one side of a debate.” In a review of Cristol’s book, Borne details instances in which Cristol omitted critical information, rearranged the data to give a false conclusion, and neglected to interview important eyewitnesses. [57] Similarly, Captain Ward Boston, senior legal counsel for the Naval Court of Inquiry that looked into the attack, stated that Cristol’s book “twists the facts and misrepresents the views of those of us who investigated the attack.” In fact, Boston said that it was “Cristol’s insidious attempt to whitewash the facts” that motivated him to finally speak out in 2002 about the behind-the-scenes intrigue in the Court of Inquiry. [58] In the first edition of his book, published in 2001, Cristol listed Boston in the index and in the text wrote: “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.” [59] After Boston revealed the presidential cover-up and the fact that all the evidence indicated that it had been an intentional attack, Cristol wrote an article calling Boston a liar.[60] In his current, 2013 version of the book, which claims to be “the definitive account,” Cristol fails to provide Boston’s detailed statements about the Court of Inquiry. [61] Even in his chapter on a 2004 State Department conference in which he discusses his appearance on one of the panels, he does not tell readers that a fellow panelist, James Bamford, read into the official record Boston’s dramatic legal declaration that the Naval Inquiry had been a sham, that Johnson had ordered the facts to be covered up, and that all the evidence had indicated that the Israeli attack was intentional. Cristol’s questionable claims about Admiral KiddCristol does mention Admiral Isaac Kidd, who was president of the Naval Court of Inquiry that produced the Navy’s report. Cristol claims a “close friendship” with Kidd, who is now deceased, and includes some complimentary statements about Cristol from a letter that he says Kidd sent him. (He does not include the complete letter.) Boston, who said he remained in contact with Kidd after the two worked together on the Naval inquiry, questioned these statements. He described Kidd’s reaction after Cristol contacted him for his book. “The Admiral spoke of Cristol in disparaging terms and even opined that ‘Cristol must be an Israeli agent,’” Boston wrote in his legal declaration. “I don’t know if he meant that literally or it was his way of expressing his disgust for Cristol’s highly partisan, pro-Israeli approach to questions involving USS Liberty.” [62] Boston went on to state: "I find Cristol’s claims of a ‘close friendship’ with Admiral Kidd to be utterly incredible. I also find it impossible to believe the statements he attributes to Admiral Kidd, concerning the attack on USS Liberty.” Rather, according to Boston, Kidd privately shared the conclusions of others who worked on the Navy report. “Every time we discussed the attack, Admiral Kidd was adamant that it was a deliberate, planned attack on an American ship,” wrote Boston. “Contrary to the misinformation presented by Cristol and others, it is important for the American people to know that it is clear that Israel is responsible for deliberately attacking an American ship and murdering American sailors, whose bereaved shipmates have lived with this egregious conclusion for many years,” Boston declared. Finally, Boston reveals that Cristol attempted to misrepresent a brief telephone interview he conducted with Boston before his first book. “Several years later, I received a letter from Cristol that contained what he purported to be his notes of our prior conversation,” declared Boston. “These ‘notes’ were grossly incorrect and bore no resemblance in reality to that discussion. I find it hard to believe that these ‘notes’ were the product of a mistake, rather than an attempt to deceive. I informed Cristol that I disagreed with his recollection of our conversation and that he was wrong.” In a magazine interview, Boston said, "There is no question in my mind that those goddamned bastards tried to kill everyone on board. I was the counsel. I put witnesses on. I talked to kids never exposed to combat who'd seen their friend's head blown off. Kids who were crying as they told me what they'd gone through. Those boys who had their heads blown away were not out fighting [the Israelis]. They were sunbathing. They weren't even given a chance to get to their machine guns." [63] I personally interviewed Captain Boston in his Coronado home in 2003, where he described the facts he had found and the subsequent cover-up in outraged detail. Deconstructing Cristol’s “investigations”Cristol repeats in his book the Israeli talking point that multiple investigations have found Israel innocent of intentionally attacking the Liberty, but closer examination fails to support his claim. Cristol claims there were several Congressional investigations, yet the Reference Librarian at the Library of Congress found “no evidence that the Congress ever held hearings or launched an investigation into the June 8, 1967 incident with the USS Liberty.” [64] An official Navy response to a Congressional inquiry went even further, saying, “The Court of Inquiry was the only United States Government investigation into the attack.” Moreover, the letter said, “That investigation focused primarily on U.S. military communications problems prior to the attack and the heroic effort of LIBERTY’s crew in damage control during the aftermath of the attack.” [65] In reality, none of Cristol’s alleged “investigations” turn out to be real investigations, most of the examinations came to no conclusion or actually suggested that the attack was intentional,[66] an NSA report that Cristol claims absolved Israel of guilt actually considers this an “unanswered question” and tilts toward skepticism of the Israeli claims, [67] and the week-long Naval Inquiry has since been discredited. (Cristol’s claim is thoroughly laid to rest in a 2005 article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. [68]) Of all Cristol’s claimed investigations, the inquiry is the closest thing to a real investigation, yet Cristol fails to include the fact that the report states, “It was not the responsibility of the court to rule on the culpability of the attackers.” Cristol also omits the statements from Boston and Rear Admiral Merlin Staring that the inquiry did not find evidence that the attack was accidental. [See main article for details.] Cristol does mention Staring (though he misspells his first name [69]), but he leaves out Staring’s statement that “the conclusions recorded by the Court were ordered by the President of the United States and his Secretary of Defense and were inconsistent with and were contrary to any evidence the Court of Inquiry had adduced.” [70] The publisher of Cristol’s first version of the book in 2001 was Brassey's, Inc. Brassey’s was known for its works on military history and had been the U.S. subsidiary of Brassey's Ltd, but in 1999 it had come under the ownership of Books International, a warehouse and distribution company based in Dulles, Va.[71] Cristol has a number of connections to Israel.In the preface to the first edition of his book, Cristol describes his longtime friendships with a number of high level Israeli officials and senior military officers. For example, he describes becoming a close friend of the Israeli Naval attaché as early as 1976. These Israeli friends, he boasts, “opened doors” for him. Cristol writes in the preface that he began his research on the incident with a trip to Israel, rather than with American experts and crewmembers – at least one of whom lives in Florida. Also in the preface to his first edition, Cristol reveals that the person who first suggested he write a book on the Liberty was Dr. Haim Shaked, a professor at the University of Miami.[72] Interestingly, Cristol fails to inform readers that Shaked is an Israeli citizen.[73] The new edition of the book published by the Naval Institute contains none of this information, because, oddly, it omits this preface entirely. While second editions of books occasionally contain an additional preface for the new edition, standard practice is to also include the first one. At the very bottom of Cristol’s website for his book is, in small print, “Disclaimer.” This links to an unusual, perhaps unique statement, for the website of a nonfiction book:[74] Disclaimer
End Notes[51] Beyond Treason: Reflections on the Cover-up of the June 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty an American Spy Ship , by Robert J. Allen, J.D. particularly analyzes Cristol’s legalistic approach. Allen, who is a retired police investigative captain, deconstructs some of Cristol’s strategies. For example, Allen writes that while “Judge Cristol in his book cites the Hearsay Rule to denigrate and impeach the witness contentions of the Liberty crew,” the reality is that such information is often “given a presumptive credence and probative value” and is regularly used in investigating crimes, obtaining search warrants, bringing about indictments in federal court, etc. (pp 110, 455-456) While Allen’s book is unfortunately marred by lack of editing and typos, it contains a useful forensic investigation of the attack, provides significant information on NSA actions, and demonstrates places where Cristol’s book at times inadvertently provides evidence counter to his claims. [54] Some articles have also taken an anti-Liberty stand, including pieces by Steven Aftergood in Secrecy News and by Israeli Ambassador (and former Israeli military officer) Michael Oren in the New Republic. For a detailed rebuttal of the claims in these articles, some of which were taken up by Cristol, see [55] It is difficult to learn much about Cristol’s personal background despite his prominent position as an author and governmental official, whether he received outside funding for his project, and the names of those who assisted him in writing his book. He refuses to divulge what the “A” in his name stands for (it appears to be Ahron) and has not responded to requests for an interview. It appears from census records that his great grandfather was among the first wave of Jewish colonists who had gone to Palestine in the late 1800s to create a Jewish state on land that that at that time was approximately 80 percent Muslim, 15 percent Christian, and 5 percent Jewish. There have at times been criticisms of Cristol’s judicial actions in Miami. In his role as a bankruptcy judge in Miami, Cristol sometimes adjudicates cases involving extremely large sums of money. According to mainstream news reports, a Miami lawyer-accountant that Cristol sometimes assigned as a bankruptcy trustee was found to have been involved in a decade-long shell game. The IRS also said that the man, Lewis Freeman, owed millions of dollars for his public promotion of what they termed a tax dodge. Cristol’s connection to Freeman was mentioned in several articles about the scandal. The articles reported that Cristol called Freeman "an expert in his field" and said that his criminality came as “a total shock" to Cristol. Cristol called his fall from grace “ an unimaginable, terrible tragedy.” An article pointed out, however, that Freeman’s work had been called into question years earlier and that some people had tried to remove him from a case at the time. See for example: · Siobhan Morrissey, “Fall From Grace,” ABA Journal, June 10, 2010. · John Pacenti and Jose Pagliery, “Prominent Miami Receiver Charged in Multimillion-Dollar Fraud,” Daily Business Review, Feb. 4, 2010 There are also some anonymous Internet articles (e.g. http://barejustice.com/news.court.florida.corruption.bankruptcy-060311.html ) that accuse Cristol of “cronyism.” [56] http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=17293 - Another Anti-Semitic Canard Dies, By: Nathan Guttman Ha'aretz | Thursday, July 10, 2003 http://www.usni.org/store/books/cold-war/liberty-incident-revealed-0
“Judge Cristol tells Post how he set record straight on USS Liberty”,
[57] Washington Report on Middle East Affairs , June 1999, page 62, “The Liberty Incident,” By A. Jay Cristol, Univ. of Miami, 1997. Reviewed by John E. Borne. An earlier article by Borne also discusses Cristol’s claims: A CLOSER LOOK AT A. JAY CRISTOL’S DISSERTATION. John E. Borne http://www.uss-liberty.com/2010/01/25/a-closer-look-at-a-jay-cristols-dissertation-by-john-e-borne/ See also: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May-June 2007, pages 26-27, “Special Report: Four Decades of Twisting Facts About Israel’s Attack on the USS Liberty,” By James Ennes Cristol refuses to debate – see http://www.ussliberty.org/gotcher2cristol.htm [58] Declaration of Ward Boston, Jr., Captain, JAGC, USN (Ret.) Counsel to the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry’s investigation into the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ul-boston.html Washington Report on Middle East Affairs , July/August 2003, pages 42, 53, “Navy Captain, Other Officials Call for Investigation of Israel's Attack on USS Liberty” By Delinda C. Hanley “Israel Attack On USS Liberty 'No Accident' Says Helms,” By Bryant Jordan, Staff Writer, Marine Corps Times, Navy Times, 7-7-2 [59] p. 149. [60] “Why You Shouldn't Pay Attention to the Claims that Israel Attacked the USS Liberty,” A Jay Cristol, History News Network. [61] Instead, he mentions only one small part of what Boston said, and then goes on to describe a strategy that lawyers use to discredit statements that hurt their case. [62] Declaration of Ward Boston, Jr., Captain, JAGC, USN (Ret.) http://www.ifamericansknew.org/download/BostonDeclaration.pdf [63] “Navy Captain, Other Officials Call for Investigation of Israel's Attack on USS Liberty,” By Delinda C. Hanley, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 2003, pages 42, 53 [65] March, 16, 2005 response to Congressman Rob Simmons on official Department of the Navy letterhead by Jane G. Dalton, Captain, JAGC, U.S. Navy. Dalton was the Navy’s Assistant Judge Advocate General for Civil Law and managed a 75-person legal team that advised the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDkQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cap-press.com%2Fpdf%2F1550.pdf&ei=Go-FUsCoLOHWiwLm-YCgBA&usg=AFQjCNExjq6R5mFPnsAJZBKYUAo4QxlLsw&bvm=bv.56643336,d.cGE&cad=rja [66] For example, one of the alleged ten investigations was a report by a single individual, Clark Clifford, done without any staff and without a firm conclusion as to the cause of the attack. Cristol claims that Clifford later told him that the attack was “a mistake,” and then includes a partial quote from Clifford’s memoir that appears to substantiate this statement: “[T]here was no evidence that the highest levels of the Israeli government... were aware of Liberty’s true identity...” However, Cristol leaves out Clifford’s statement in the same book demonstrating that Clifford did not believe in the “mistaken identity” version put forth by Cristol: “I do not know to this day at what level the attack on the Liberty was authorized and I think it is unlikely that the full truth will ever come out...” p. 447. [67] On page 171 Cristol writes that the NSA “concluded in the report that the Liberty had been mistaken for an Egyptian ship as a result of miscalculations and egregious errors.” However, the NSA report actually states, “The fact that two separate torpedo boat commanders made the same false identification only raises the question of the veracity of both commanders. The El Kasir [the Egyptian ship] was approximately one-quarter of the Liberty tonnage, about one-half its length, and offered a radically different silhouette. To claim that the Liberty closely resembled the El Kasir was most illogical.” The report also specifically notes, “When NSA’s deputy director read the decision of the Israeli Defense Forces Preliminary Inquiry, he summed up his personal feelings on the subject by calling it ‘a nice whitewash.’” (online at http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB24/nsa10.pdf ) Finally, Cristol fails to inform readers that the lead author of the report, William D. Gerhard, wrote a synopsis of the attack, Attack on the USS Liberty: An Edited Version of SRH-256, available in a book by the Aegean Park Press, that thoroughly discredits Cristol’s claim that the attack was unintentional. This book reveals that Israel’s official preliminary investigation into the attack, “The Yerushalmi report,” was suppressed and reports that those who tried to obtain it were sometimes told that the release would “embarrass an ally.” Gerhard’s book also includes a report by Carl F. Salans, a legal advisor to the U.S. Department of State, which examined the Israeli report that concluded that Israel’s attack was “accidental.” Salans’ report found that virtually every major Israeli point was contradicted by U.S. information. Finally, the book also includes “A Juridical Examination of the Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty” by Lieutenant Commander Walter L. Jacobsen, JAGC, USN, published by the Naval Law Review, Winter 1986. This states: “The Israeli attack on the Liberty was intentional and premeditated.” It further says, “The decision to attack the Liberty was a conscious one, taken by Israeli leadership in the command center,” and provides considerable information for this conclusion. [68] “Cristol Claim of 13 Investigations Into Israel’s Attack on USS Liberty a Travesty,” By Terence O’Keefe, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2003, pages 14-15. [69] While anyone should be forgiven for typos, it is perhaps revealing that Cristol continually calls Merlin Staring “Merwin” Staring, and does this in both versions of his book. This suggests that the Naval Institute did not fact-check the book before publishing it. [71] Publishers Weekly, “Brassey's Inc. Acquired” Oct 04, 1999 – http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/19991004/24043-brassey-s-inc-acquired.html [72] Cristol, The Liberty Incident, Brassey’s, 2002, p. xviii http://www.as.miami.edu/judaic/pdf/Shaked-Bio.pdf [74] http://libertyincident.com/disclaimer.html - accessed May 14, 2014. |
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