Ward Boston, a former US Navy lawyer who helped investigate the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 crewmen and who years later said that President Lyndon Johnson ordered that the assault be ruled an accident, has died. He was 84.
Mr. Boston, a retired Navy captain from Coronado, Calif., died June 12 of
complications from pneumonia at a San Diego-area hospital, his wife, Emma,
said yesterday.
Mr. Boston was assigned as a legal adviser to a military board of inquiry
investigating the attack on the Liberty, an intelligence-gathering ship that
was cruising international waters off Egypt's coast on June 8, 1967. Israeli
planes and torpedo boats opened fire on the Liberty in the midst of the
Israeli-Arab Six-Day War. In addition to the 34 Americans killed, more than
170 were wounded.
Israel has long maintained that the attack was a case of mistaken identity,
an explanation that the Johnson administration did not formally challenge.
Israel said its forces thought the ship was an Egyptian vessel and
apologized to the United States.
After the attack, a Navy court of inquiry concluded there was insufficient
information to make a judgment about why Israel attacked the ship, stopping short of assigning blame or determining that it was an accident.
In 2002, Mr. Boston said Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, told those heading the Navy's inquiry to "conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary," according to a signed affidavit.
Mr. Boston said he kept his silence because he was a military man, and "when orders come . . . I follow them." He said he felt compelled to go public
following the publication of the book "The Liberty Incident," which
concluded the attack was unintentional.
Mr. Boston said in a legal declaration that he was certain that the Israel
pilots knew the Liberty, which clearly displayed American flags and had
markings in English instead of Arabic, was a US Navy ship.
A. Jay Cristol, a US bankruptcy court judge who wrote "The Liberty
Incident," said in the book that 10 US and three Israeli investigations have
found no evidence of any Israeli intent to attack an American ship.
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