the USS “Liberty”
The U.S. government’s coverup of the premeditated attack on [the U.S.S.] Liberty has now burst into the open and demands an investigation . –Eric Margolis New York Press New York, May 1, 2001 [Images added by this website: Website hint: Click on book image to visit the brilliant Doubleday website feature on the controversy] [ Larger book image ] Le Maitre Taki The Liberty IN early May, 1967, I got my first job.
I was 29 years old, and until then I had been a rather unsuccessful player on the tennis circuit.
On April 21 of that year, a bunch of patriotic, anticommunist, but as it turned out misguided colonels staged a coup against the then legitimate Greek government. I will not go into the details because they have nothing to do with my story.
Suffice it to say that the democratic process and the political parties of the time were totally corrupt, the head of state, 26-year-old King Constantine , was being pressured by both the right and the left to rule in their favor, and there was serious rioting in the streets. Soon after the colonels took over, a childhood friend of mine, Nikos Farmakis , called me to his office for a chat.
Farmakis was the first press secretary of the colonels, and it was rumored that he was up for secretary of state but that his appointment was blocked by the King — who had, incidentally, sworn in the coup-makers to avoid bloodshed, and who was to move against them (unsuccessfully) six months later. Farmakis was judged by Constantine to be much too right wing. “How would you like to be my deputy?” asked Niko. I of course jumped at the chance. My credentials, after all, were impeccable.
I spoke English, which was more than most people who went to work for the military did at the time. Deputy to the government spokesman meant I was given a briefing by some flunky about what was going on, and in turn I then briefed the foreign journalists lounging about the Foreign Ministry on Zalokosta St. Nothing very difficult was involved, except for finding a parking space outside. Everything was hunky-dory for a while, and then both Niko and I were fired.
The former for insisting that everyone who was against the government should be shot. He meant it. The latter, little old me, for threatening to hang every foreign journalist who criticized the government. I had said it tongue-in-cheek. While sulking on my daddy’s boat, I heard the news of Israel’s lightning six-day war. I went into Athens and called on my friends at the U.S. Embassy who had been briefing me during my short and inglorious career as a government spokesman.
My conversation with one in particular came