Back to the future: SS Mayaguez 1975 and Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Kissinger.

March 3-4, 2007 -- Our March 1 report on the 1975 SS Mayaguez incident in Cambodia elicited a response from a U.S. Navy veteran familiar with details of the U.S. Marine and Navy attack on Cambodia following the seizure of the Mayaguez, a purported U.S. spy ship operating within Cambodian territorial waters. Although the Gerald Ford administration claimed 41 Marines died in the "rescue" mission for the Mayaguez, our Navy source reports that U.S. Navy corpsmen who attended to the dead and wounded reported at the time that 120 U.S. servicemen died in the attack. The next-of-kin were told that their sons were one of the brave KIAs (killed in action) who gave up their lives to save the crew of the Mayaguez. Corpsmen who knew the extent of the U.S. deaths in the Mayaguez were told to keep their mouths shut or face courts-martial.

The burden of history is on the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to refute charges that they lied about the number of deaths in Cambodia. Consider the following facts: the attack of Cambodia (and cover-up of the true casualty figures) were ordered by the three principal Ford administration officials involved -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, White House Chief of Staff Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. All three have been involved in similar lies and cover-ups involving Iraq and the so-called "War on Terror."

Back to the future: SS Mayaguez 1975 and Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Kissinger.

Wayne Madsen Report