WASHINGTON – A State Department panel discussion of the 1967 case of the USS Liberty concluded Monday with several shouted protests by veterans of the intelligence ship.

The Liberty was spotted by Israelis 12 miles off the Egyptian coastal town of El Arish, on June 8, 1967, two days after the beginning of the Six Day War.

The ship had been sent five messages from the Navy Department ordering her to travel 100 miles away. But none of these messages reached the Liberty.

Therefore, Israeli planes and torpedo boats attacked, under the presumption that this was an Egyptian warship in disguise. Thirty four were killed and 174 wounded.

Multiple investigations by both Israel and the United States have concluded that this Israeli attack was by no means a deliberate firing on what they knew to be a U.S. vessel.

Despite extensive panel discussion by participants on both sides of the issue – mainly retired journalist James Bamford vs. author, judge and retired U.S. Navy flier Capt. Jay Cristol, some of the veterans of the Liberty lined up at guest microphones.

Chief Petty Officer Lentini's question was so extensively preceded by a statement, and so continuous, that the moderator, Department of State Historian Dr. Marc Susser was obliged, repeatedly, to ask him to state his question.

When that was unsuccessful, the moderator moved to another questioner. This was a woman who shouted denunciations, claiming: "This is a whitewash!"

The third questioner also disregarded the moderator – as did another man, who shouted "Philip Tourney will speak to us!" But by that time, moderator Susser ended the program for the scheduled luncheon.

Security officials were obliged to usher out of the Loy Henderson Auditorium other shouting protesters, as well as distributors of protest leaflets.

Among points raised by the panelists, author James Bamford declared: "There has never been an investigation" of this case, and he charged: "Governments cover things up."

When he noted that the panel had what he termed "two from Israel and none from the Liberty," there was loud applause from some of the audience of 300.

Bamford also charged that Judge Cristol "twists the facts" and has been reported to be "an Israeli agent."

But Dr. Michael Oren, of the Shalom Center in Jerusalem, noted: "Israel has had two official investigations, plus U.S. Navy Courts of Inquiry and several investigations, and Israel paid $12 million to families of the dead and wounded. Despite this, there have been dozens of claims including hate groups and conspiracy theorists."

On June 8, 1967, Navy Lt. Maurice Bennett was part of the National Security Agency's contingent aboard the Liberty, just 12 miles off the Egyptian-Sinai coast, near where the Israeli air force had just wiped out Nasser's air force the following morning.

Lt. Bennett devoted himself to saving lives and to help keep the ship from sinking, for which he was awarded a Purple Heart and the Silver Star.

Bennett is now a retired Navy commander. Last June 3, 2003, he wrote to Judge Cristol, author of perhaps the definitive book on this issue, "The Liberty Incident."

Cmdr. Bennett wrote:

From the viewpoint of one who was on board the Liberty at the time of the attack, your account leaves little doubt that the attack was the result of a series of confused decisions, made in a war setting. Error seems to compound error both on the part of the Israelis and the U.S. Perhaps your account will lay to rest the many conspiracy theories which have plagued us all these last 30 off years.

One month later, Bennett heard the following, among other things, from a former Liberty shipmate named John Gidusko, who left the ship a month before it was attacked:

I was aghast when I saw you supported Judge Cristol ... you know what the ship looked like Murray! A 10-year-old boy could have identified it. Israel couldn't? I find your way of thinking absolutely unbelievable and consider you a traitor to your shipmates!

This is just the kind of e-mail blasting I received from some, in September 2002, when I wrote in WorldNetDaily that the idea of Israel deliberately attacking the Liberty is "as preposterous as the idea that Capt. John Paul Jones would have been ordered by Gen. George Washington to sink the French troop ships bringing soldiers and artillery to help us win our war of independence."

Recently, the Jerusalem Post interviewed Judge Cristol and they asked him: Why do many of the conspiracy theorists continue to demand a U.S. congressional investigation and is such an investigation appropriate?

CRISTOL: The goal is simply to provide a platform for propaganda. There have been 10 official U.S. investigations. Five of them were congressional. They all reached the same conclusion that the incident was a tragic mistake. Eight United States Presidents: Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush (41), Clinton, and Bush (43) have supported and adopted these conclusions. In fact, the current president of the United States, George W. Bush, through White House staff, issued a letter in October 2002 indicating his position that no further investigation of this incident was needed.

THE POST: Would you comment on the claims of author James Bamford that the Liberty was attacked to prevent the United States from learning of massacres of Egyptian prisoners in the Sinai?

CRISTOL: Mr. Bamford provides as his source of this claim two Israeli journalists, both of whom have denied statements attributed to them by Bamford. First, it is literally impossible for an electronic intelligence gatherer to overhear murders taking place in a desert more than a dozen miles away. The Sinai was returned to Egypt in 1973. Egypt has made no claim that such murders took place. No mass graves have been located and no Egyptian soldiers from the '67 war are missing or unaccounted for. Mr. Bamford's writings are much closer to fiction than to history.

THE POST: Are all the former crew members of the USS Liberty unanimous in their belief in conspiracy theories?

CRISTOL: Absolutely not. The spectrum of opinions is quite varied from those who are rabid conspiracy-theory supporters, to others who accept the fact that the tragedy was the result of both Israeli and U.S. mistakes. I have been asked for the names of crew members who accept the mistake theory, but have declined to name anyone as I have no intention of creating animosity among shipmates.

THE POST: The Liberty Veteran's Association appears to be very active in support of conspiracy theories. How is the association organized and are all former Liberty crew-members members of the Association?

CRISTOL: There are many crew-members that have never joined the Association. The Association was founded with the assistance of two former United States congressmen, Paul Findley of Illinois, the first U.S. congressman to espouse the PLO, and Paul N. "Pete" McCloskey, who is well known for his anti-Israel sentiments.

McCloskey drafted the incorporation papers for the Association and also served as legal adviser to the Association. He has spoken at Holocaust-denial organization conferences. He and Findley, together with three other former congresspersons, established the Council for the National Interest, CNI, an organization whose avowed purposes (according to their own press release) was to be an anti-Israel lobby.