After her book on New Orleans District Attorney James Garrison,
Farewell to Justice, author Joan Mellen was, at least in left-wing JFKA-canon circles, held in reasonable regard.
But thereafter Mellen defecated on her own record, and in so doing has raised high suspicions about the credulity of her JFKA-related observations. (Mellen passed away last year).
The backstory: On June 8, 1967, in the tumult of the Israel-Arab Six Day War, Israeli jets and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, a surveillance ship in international waters off the coast of Egypt—a ship that had sailed into a live-fire war zone without properly notifying the Israelis.
In the ghastly friendly-fire episode, 34 American sailors on the USS Liberty were killed and 174 wounded. Within a day, Israel acknowledged responsibility for the error.
In Mellen’s farce-parade, gong-show of a book,
Blood in the Water: How the US and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty, she contends President LBJ connived with the Israelis, and even the captain of the USS Liberty, to organize the attack on the USS Liberty, with the intention that it be sunk.
The USS Liberty sinking was then was to be blamed on Egypt, and that would justify LBJ sending four fighter planes armed with nuclear warheads to bomb Cairo—an attack that was called off only seven minutes from completion, when heroic USS Liberty sailors defied the odds and saved the ship.
Dead sailors tell no tales, but the USS Liberty crew largely survived, and could identify their tormentors, and so LBJ backed off of his plan to nuke Cairo.
Yes—Mellen contends LBJ recalled the four a-bomb laden jet-fighters only because he knew that the USS Liberty attack could not be pinned on Egypt.
It gets nuttier, and I have just given a slice of Mellen's insanity.
William McGonagle, captain of the USS Liberty, Yellen writes, was an “insecure man and a control freak.”
Mellen claims McGonagle knew in advance about the false-flag scheme, and received a promotion and a new command as a reward for participating in the cover-up.
Which raises an interesting question: If the USS Liberty was supposed to sink with all hands…did not that include McGonagle? In other words, by Mellen’s account, the ship’s captain agreed to visit Davy Jones locker so he could get a promotion? Or was the plan for McGonagle to be the lone survivor? How?
There is much more to the lamentable USS Liberty episode, the many tragic errors made on both sides, including the USS Liberty declining to identify itself when asked by Israeli torpedo boats.
The CIA investigated the USS Liberty attack, under the orders of CIA Director Richard Helms, who was understandably angry and suspicious of the events.
But the CIA, in fact, reviewed intercepted Israeli communications in real time during the attack, and in which Israelis indicated their belief they were striking an Egyptian vessel. Their non-public report cleared the Israelis of intent, if not an unforgivable error.
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84B00049R000902350010-7.pdfThat should have been the end of the story, and every official investigation since has cleared the Israelis of intent. But in conspiracy land, no tale ever really dies, no matter how nutty.
The anti-Semitic crackpots have been flailing the USS Liberty tale ever since 1967, despite there being a ton of reasons for Israel to not attack a vessel belong to its biggest ally, and no credible reason for the attack.
Lately, Tehran-stooge social influencers have been chattering again about the USS Liberty, as in Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson.
Sadly, even JFKA researcher James DiEugenio has seen fit devote a string of heavily slanted, misleading blog posts on the nearly 60-year-old USS Liberty event, one headlined “Israel Attacks America.”
What has the USS Liberty have to do the JFKA?
Well, as floundering JFKA researcher Jefferson Morley dog-whistled to Tucker Carlson, Mossad was close with CIA counterintel chief James Jesus Angleton….and so, you know.
The JFKA research community has always been a motley crew.
And in decline now?
https://honestreporting.com/the-uss-liberty-incident-the-truth-behind-the-tragedy/
