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Obituaries

Ward Boston | Naval investigator, 84

    Inquirer
    Published 

Ward Boston, 84, a former Navy lawyer who helped investigate the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 crewmen and years later said President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered that the assault be ruled an accident, died June 12 of pneumonia at a hospital in the San Diego, Calif., area.

Capt. Boston was assigned as a legal adviser to a military board of inquiry investigating the attack on the Liberty, an electronic-intelligence-gathering ship that was cruising international waters off the Egyptian coast on June 8, 1967. Israeli planes and torpedo boats opened fire on the Liberty in the midst of the Six-Day War.

Israel has long maintained that the attack was a case of mistaken identity, an explanation that the Johnson administration did not formally challenge. Israel claimed its forces thought the ship was an Egyptian vessel and apologized to the United States.

In 2002, Capt. 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.

- AP

    Inquirer