[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 96 (Monday, June 8, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H3916-H3918]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  RECOGNIZING LIVES LOST AND SURVIVORS OF 1967 ISRAELI ATTACK ON U.S. 
                            OBSERVATION SHIP

  (Mr. Massie of Kentucky was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, it is my great honor, maybe one of the 
biggest honors of my lifetime, to stand here on the floor and do 
something that is 59 years overdue, to recognize the survivors and 
those who gave their lives on the USS Liberty 59 years ago today, when 
they were viciously attacked by IDF jets and also after that by torpedo 
boats.
  I am going to tell you a little bit of their story. By the way, there 
are at least a dozen of them here today with us. I just met with them 
in my office, and they related this story to me.
  It was a clear day. The USS Liberty was one of the most 
technologically sophisticated ships in the Navy, but it was virtually 
unarmed. It was sent to observe the Six-Day War going on in the Middle 
East between Israel and its neighbors.
  It arrived on June 7, and the weather was clear. Planes came out to 
meet them, to investigate. Then on the next day, on June 8, when they 
started the day, the visibility was unlimited and the American flag was 
flying proudly on the USS Liberty. More planes came from Israel to 
surveil the ship. They thought they were in good shape, but what 
happened next surprised them all.
  French Mirage jets showed up, and for 25 minutes, strafed and 
attacked

[[Page H3917]]

the USS Liberty. They shot rockets. They shot 30-millimeter cannons 
into the hull and into the ship. They even dropped napalm on the bridge 
of the ship. This was an effort to kill everybody on board. There was 
no intention of taking prisoners.
  After the 25 grueling minutes of attack on this virtually unarmed 
ship, when they thought things were over and they could recover, the 
torpedo boats showed up, three torpedo boats. They launched four 
torpedoes. One of them hit the hull of the USS Liberty and killed 25 
people instantly. It blew a 40-by-40-foot hole in the side of this 
ship. They were intent on sinking it. They were intent on not having a 
single survivor.
  According to eyewitness accounts, the Israelis machine-gunned the 
lifeboats that they put down. They machine-gunned the firefighters who 
were on the deck. They were bringing the wounded and the dead to the 
mess hall to triage them. They had one doctor who was trying to help 
them all, put a few stitches in. It was harrowing.
  It was amazing that if not for that crew, that boat would have sunk 
that day.
  But it still wasn't over. Helicopters showed up, combat helicopters. 
The USS Liberty, even though their signals were being jammed by the 
Israelis, got a signal out. There were ships that tried to respond. The 
USS Saratoga and the USS America sent planes. Both of them sent planes 
to help the USS Liberty. And something happened that has never happened 
before to a ship under attack: The planes were recalled. This has never 
happened before. They sat there for 17 hours with 34 dead and 174 
wounded out of 294 crewmembers. That is over a 70 percent casualty 
rate, which is unheard of. The Israelis were intent on leaving no 
survivors.
  What about our own military? Why did they not send anybody for 17 
hours to help these men?
  So what really happened? The official reports say that it was a case 
of mistaken identity. But if you listen to Dean Rusk, former Secretary 
of State; Richard Helms, CIA Director; Bobby Ray Inman, head of the 
NSA; Captain Ward Boston, who was the chief council of the court of 
inquiry; and if you listen to Admiral Moore, who served in Pearl 
Harbor, Midway, commanded both the Atlantic and Pacific fleet, and was 
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, none of these distinguished men 
think this was an accident. They think it was intentional murder by the 
country of Israel, either as a false flag operation or because they 
simply didn't want anybody observing what they were doing that day.
  Well, I have got a call to action for everybody here. Honor these 
individuals. Quit ignoring that they exist. Go to their website, 
ussliberty.org. Support them while they are still alive. They need 
closure. Let's give them closure. Let's have an investigation. Let's 
pass a resolution honoring them. It is long overdue. Then they can have 
their justice.
  Mr. Speaker, I insert into the Record the declaration of Ward Boston 
declaring that the only official court of inquiry was invalid.


 affidavit of captain ward boston, usn. jag (ret.), senior counsel to 
                     the u.s. navy court of inquiry

       For more than 30 years, I have remained silent on the topic 
     of the USS Liberty. I am a military man and when orders come 
     in from the Secretary of Defense and President of the United 
     States, I follow them.
       However, recent attempts to rewrite history compel me to 
     share the truth.
       In June of 1967, while serving as a Captain in the Judge 
     Advocates General Department of the Navy, I was assigned as 
     senior legal counsel for the Navy's Court of Inquiry into the 
     brutal attack on the USS Liberty, which had occurred on June 
     8th.
       The late Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, president of the Court, and 
     I were given only one week to gather evidence for the Navy's 
     official investigation into the attack, despite the fact that 
     we both has estimated that a proper Court of Inquiry into an 
     attack of this magnitude would take at least six months to 
     conduct.
       Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., then Commander-in-chief, Naval 
     Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR), at his headquarters in London, 
     had charged Admiral Kidd (in a letter dated June 10, 1967) 
     to:
       ``inquire into all the pertinent facts and circumstances 
     leading to and connected with the armed attack: damage 
     resulting therefrom; and deaths of and injuries to Naval 
     personnel.''
       Despite the short amount of time we were given, we gathered 
     a vast amount of evidence including hours of heartbreaking 
     testimony from the young survivors.
       The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed 
     with certainty that this attack which killed 34 American 
     sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate effort to 
     sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. Each 
     evening, after hearing testimony all day, we often spoke our 
     private thoughts concerning what we had seen and heard. I 
     recall Admiral Kidd repeatedly referring to the Israeli 
     Forces responsible for the attack as ``murderous bastards.'' 
     It was our shared belief, based on the documentary evidence 
     and testimony we received first hand, that the Israeli attack 
     was planned and deliberate, and could not possibly have been 
     an accident.
       I am certain that the Israeli pilots that undertook the 
     attack, as well as their superiors who had ordered the 
     attack, were aware that the ship was American.
       I saw the flag, which had visibly identified the ship as 
     American, riddled with bullet holes and heard testimony that 
     made it clear that the Israelis intended there be no 
     survivors.
       Not only did the Israelis attack the ship with napalm, 
     gunfire, and missiles, Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned 
     three lifeboats that had been launched in an attempt by the 
     crew to save the most seriously wounded--a war crime.
       Admiral Kidd and I both felt it necessary to travel to 
     Israel to interview the Israelis who took part in the attack. 
     Admiral Kidd telephoned Admiral McCain to discuss making 
     arrangements. Admiral Kidd later told me that Admiral McCain 
     was adamant that we were not to travel to Israel or contact 
     the Israelis concerning this matter.
       Regrettably, we did not receive into evidence, and the 
     court did not consider any of the more than sixty witness 
     declarations from men who had been hospitalized and were 
     unable to testify in person.
       I am outraged at the efforts of the apologists for Israel 
     in this country to claim that this attack was a case of 
     ``mistaken identity.''
       In particular, the recent publication of Jay Cristol's 
     book, The Liberty Incident, twists the facts and 
     misrepresents the views of those of us who investigated the 
     attack.
       It is Cristol's insidiuous attempt to whitewash the facts 
     that has pushed me to speak out.
       I know from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd 
     that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert 
     McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case 
     of ``mistaken identity'' despite overwhelming evidence to the 
     contrary.
       Admiral Kidd told me, after returning from Washington, D.C. 
     that he had been ordered to sit down with two civilians from 
     either the White House or the Defense Department, and rewrite 
     portions of the court's findings.
       Admiral Kidd also told me that he had been ordered to ``put 
     the lid'' on everything having to do with the attack on the 
     USS Liberty. We were never to speak of it and we were to 
     caution everyone else involved that they could never speak of 
     it again.
       I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of that statement as 
     I know that the Court of Inquiry transcript that has been 
     released to the public is not the same one that I certified 
     and sent off to Washington.
       I know this because it was necessary, due to the exigencies 
     of time, to hand correct and initial a substantial number of 
     pages. I have examined the released version of the transcript 
     and I did not see any pages that bore my hand corrections and 
     initials. Also, the original did not have any deliberately 
     blank pages, as the released version does. Finally, the 
     testimony of Lt. Painter concerning the deliberate machine 
     gunning of the life rafts by the Israeli torpedo boat crews, 
     which I distinctly recall being given at the Court of Inquiry 
     and included in the original transcript, is now missing and 
     has been excised.
       Following the conclusion of the Court of Inquiry, Admiral 
     Kidd and I remained in contact. Though we never spoke of the 
     attack in public, we did discuss it between ourselves, on 
     occasion. Every time we discussed the attack, Admiral Kidd 
     was adamant that it was a deliberate, planned attack on an 
     American ship.
       In 1990, I received a telephone call from Jay Cristol, who 
     wanted to interview me concerning the functioning of the 
     Court of Inquiry. I told him that I would not speak to him on 
     that subject and prepared to hang up the telephone. Cristol 
     then began asking me about my personal background and other, 
     non-Court of Inquiry related matters. I endeavored to answer 
     these questions and politely extricate myself from the 
     conversation. Cristol continued to return to the subject of 
     the Court of Inquiry, which I refused to discuss with him. 
     Finally, I suggested that he contact Admiral Kidd and ask him 
     about the Court of Inquiry.
       Shortly after my conversation with Cristol, I received a 
     telephone call from Admiral Kidd inquiring about Cristol and 
     what he was up to. The Admiral spoke of Cristol in 
     disparaging terms and even opined that ``Cristol must be an 
     Israeli agent.'' 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.
       At no time did I ever hear Admiral Kidd speak of Cristol 
     other than in highly disparaging terms. I find Cristol's 
     claims of a ``close friendship'' with Admiral Kidd to be 
     utterly incredible. I also find it impossible to

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     believe the statements he attributes to Admiral Kidd, 
     concerning the attack on USS Liberty.
       Several years later, I received a letter from Cristol that 
     contained what he purported to be his notes of our prior 
     conversation. These ``notes'' were grossly incorrect and bore 
     no resemblance in reality to that discussion. I find it hard 
     to believe that these ``notes'' were a product of mistake, 
     rather than an attempt to deceive. I informed Cristol that is 
     disagreed with his recollection of our conversation and that 
     he was wrong. Cristol made several attempts to arrange for 
     the two of us to meet in person and talk but I always found 
     ways to avoid doing this. I did not wish to meet with 
     Cristol, as we had nothing in common and I did not trust him.
       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.
       Dated: January 8, 2004, Coronado, California.
       Signed Ward Boston, Jr., Captain, JAGC USN (Ret.), Senior 
     Counsel to the USS Liberty Court of Inquiry

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