This is just one item taken from a long dissection of Cristol's book:
<<< ... Cristol says (p. 207) that in 1967 the US did not have the technical ability to make a telephone call from the White House to a ship in the Mediterranean. He then contradicts himself by saying (p. 411) that McNamara sent an order to the fleet by telephone from the Situation Room in the White House.
The statements by Cristol and by McNamara at this point in our story are absolutely astonishing. Both men breezily contradict themselves without hesitation. First, as just noted above, Cristol says emphatically that telephone calls from the White House to ships in the Mediterranean were absolutely impossible. Almost immediately he forgets his own statement and tells of McNamara making such calls. Secondly, McNamara is recorded by Cristol as making these calls. (p. 55, Cristol: "Sec. McNamara sent a message to the Sixth Fleet to recall the naval aircraft en route to the LIBERTY"; p.411, Cristol: "Sec McNamara sends order to recall second "ready group" from the Situation Room of the White House").
McNamara then says, astoundingly, in a personal interview with Cristol on 12/17/93, that "he never spoke on the telephone to anyone in the Sixth Fleet on that day (June 8) and specifically not to ADM Geis". Cristol, p, 207, p. 243, fn 21.
If Cristol had wanted to prove McNamara to be a liar at this point, it would have been easy; there are McNamara's own statements, and the testimony of Julian Hart (my book, p. 3l8). (Hart was a CPO in Morocco who patched McNamara's call to Sixth Fleet through and overheard part of it. Cristol does not mention Hart).
But Cristol is entirely passive (or gullible?) and does not question McNamara's statements that he (A) did and (B) did not make these calls.
This is the most astonishing thing about Cristol, illustrated here: he simply has no interest in pursuing leads, pointing out contradictions (except those of the LIBERTY men) or doing any of the investigative work which an historian is supposed to be doing. Far from being the "rigorous research" which his followers claim, his research is timid and hollow ... >>>
A CLOSER LOOK AT A. JAY CRISTOL'S DISSERTATION
by John E Borne
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