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STEPHEN M. ST. JOHN
POST OFFICE BOX 449
ROCKEFELLER CENTER
NEW YORK, NY 10185
TEL/FAX: 212 534 5024
MOBILE:
917 519 2905
Norman E. Zoller 30 July 2001
Circuit Executive
United States Court of Appeals
11th Judicial Circuit
56 Forsyth Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30303
RE: Misc. No. 01-0030
In accordance with the provisions of the law as set forth
in 28 United States Code paragraph 372©)(10), (11) and in conformity with Rule 7(b)(3) of the local rules of the Judicial
Council of the Eleventh Circuit governing petitions for review with respect to complaints of judicial misconduct or disability,
I, the complainant/petitioner, wish to apprise the distinguished members of this Judicial Council of a recent event that took
place out of public view in our nation’s capital and which sheds more light on this matter just placed before them ;
namely, my petition for review of Chief Circuit Judge R. Lanier Anderson’s order of dismissal of my complaint against
United States Bankruptcy Judge A. Jay Cristol.
As per the attached photocopy of an invitation
from Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, USN (Ret.), I had the distinct honor and pleasure to be with the former Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, six USS Liberty survivors and seven other admirals among about sixty supporters who gathered at the historic
Army-Navy Club on 23 July 2001 to celebrate publication of James Bamford’s great new book Body of Secrets: Anatomy of
the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency.
Standing at the podium just a few feet from the original
commission of General George Washington (signed by John Hancock), Mr. Bamford addressed the assembly and in his remarks he
referred to the telephone interview that Judge Cristol conducted with him for his dissertation The Liberty Incident; Mr. Bamford
noted that not one item discussed with Judge Cristol appeared in his dissertation and not one ranking official of the NSA
was interviewed by Judge Cristol for this work on what befell a ship on an NSA mission!
Also
addressing the group was USS Liberty survivor Phil Tourney who related that some survivors deny having given interviews to
Judge Cristol despite Judge Cristol’s claims to the contrary in his dissertation!
And
finally, former Judge Advocate General Admiral Merlin Staring, USN (ret.), spoke and recalled the early days of his career
when in June of 1967 he was at the Atlantic Headquarters in London under Admiral John McCain (father of our distinguished
senator from the great state of Arizona) when he was given the 600 page investigative report of the Navy Court of Inquiry
which had just arrived from Malta where Admiral Isaac Kidd had recently concluded the proceedings with the USS Liberty survivors.
As Admiral Staring tells it, his job was to review the report and endorse it with his signature as a preliminary step toward
formal recommendation by Admiral McCain. But the more Staring read the report, the more he became troubled by it.
At least on a superficial level, there were problems with the report. He considered the presentation to be shoddy in
form and content and of a sort that he himself would be ashamed to call his own. Time flew and Staring’s doubts
increased; after 18 hours he was asked to sign his endorsement and send the report back to Admiral McCain. Staring said
he could not comply with such a request because he found the report to be questionable. Whereupon the report was taken
from him and henceforth Staring was kept “out of the loop” vis a vis the USS Liberty incident. And so thirty-four
years later, Admiral Staring pointed out to Admiral Moorer’s guests at the Army-Navy Club that the only legal endorsement
of the investigative report of Admiral Isaac Kidd’s Navy Court of Inquiry on the USS Liberty incident came from Ward
Boston, Counsel to the very same Navy Court of Inquiry, who helped produce the report! Thus, Staring concluded,
there was no independent and objective legal assessment of the Navy Court of Inquiry report that very soon - too soon! - went
to Washington and, I might add, on which Judge Cristol relied so heavily in his dissertation three decades later.
Let me conclude by pointing out to the members of the Judicial Council that on Thursday evening,
9 August 2001, at 8PM, the HISTORY CHANNEL will broadcast a documentary on the USS Liberty incident. I have not seen
this documentary and therefore cannot recommend it. However, I do urge all members to watch it as it relates directly
to the subject matter at hand.
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