If Americans Knew.org has a critique of the Loftus-Aarons theory that the attack on the Liberty was in self-defense:
“Where do they get this stuff?” several of my USS Liberty shipmates asked after reviewing the Loftus-Aarons chapter on the Liberty. “Do they make it up?”
It would seem so. Many of these fables started with Anthony Pearson in his book Conspiracy of Silence, published in England in the late 1970s. Pearson asked me to join him in that effort. I refused. Then I learned that he was lying about alliances with a prominent writer, a senator, and a dozen Arab countries. Still later I learned that most of his book was a lie.
Pearson created the “Major Blue” fable and a host of other fairy tales related to the Liberty. Many of the stories lived on, only to be repeated and embellished by others. Pearson is also the creator of the weird story that has an ICBM submarine lying 90 miles off the Israeli coast during the Six-Day War, ready to nuke Tel Aviv if necessary to keep the Israelis from using nuclear weapons against the Arabs.
Pearson, sadly, was dying from a brain tumor when he wrote his book. It rendered him paranoid. He died on the run from the Mossad, which he believed was trying to silence him. He spent his days slipping in and out of London subways to evade his pursuers; he rarely slept in the same bed twice.
His book reflects his paranoia. Sadly, Pearson’s ramblings are constantly picked up and further embellished by other writers who fail to understand just how sick he really was. Then those writers cite one another as sources for their ravings, never bothering with any serious research or verification. Now, Loftus and Aarons bring 25 years of misinformed embellishments together and give them credence with long lists of “confidential sources” whose identities are known only to themselves.
In a very real sense, this is dangerous, because some of what they say will be believed. Suggestible people will be frightened for no reason, and that should not happen.
In the end, the only thing Loftus and Aarons seem to have gotten right is the fact that the attack was no accident. Even that, they justify as being “necessary.” It was not.”