The USS Maine and the RMS Lusitania

"What's the point?"

"What's the point in trying to debunk conspiracy theories?" People ask me. "Isn't this like trying to drain the Pacific Ocean with a teaspoon?"

Well, yes it is. But just because it is like trying to drain the Pacific Ocean with a teaspoon doesn't make it pointless and futile! Sometimes they are so easily debunked that they produce a warm feeling of satisfaction in an area just behind the eyes.

Two water-borne conspiracy theories that I only recently became aware of surround the sinkings of the USS Maine and the RMS Lusitania and according to conspiracy site, Hitchens Watch, are believed in by none other than Christopher Hitchens, himself.

Greywolf writes:

Christopher jumps back in time to the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor and how this was used as a pretext for the US to launch the Spanish-American War. The Yankees finally owned up to this false flag op in 1976.

Wow! So the claim is that the USS Maine sailed into Havana Harbor and, in 1898, was deliberately sunk by the United States despite the large loss of life of those on board and then blamed on the Spanish? And not only that but owned up to 1976?

I would have thought I'd have heard of this false-flag attack if it were true and so I decided to pick up a few history books that are on my shelves and find out if they agree with the claim.

First, Niall Ferguson's Colossus, a book in which the author claims the United States has always been an imperialist power. There's only one reference - page 48:

Within just three months of the American declaration of war - the trumped-up pretext for which was the accidental explosion of the battleship Maine in Havana Bay, supposedly the fault of Spain - the Spanish forces in both the Caribbean and the Philippines were defeated.

Accidental? That's not what I was promised. Apparently the Yankees have owned up to it being a "false flag" operation. Either Ferguson has been skimping on his research or, far more likely given that he is a war-mongering neo-con, he's pushing the "accident" theory (sometimes known as the "cock-up theory of history") to deflect attention to the confessed bad behaviour of the US.

So, I picked up Hugh Brogan's The Penguin History of the USA to find out what the author has to say about the incident - on page 440, he describes how "rogue newspaper publisher", William Randolph Hearst was eager to foment a war between Spain and the US - this is more like it. Of the incident itself he says:

[Hearst] got his way. A United States battleship, the Maine, on a courtesy visit to Havana, blew up in the harbour on 15th February 1898, killing most of the crew. The explosion was almost certainly an accident, but Hearst thought otherwise. "Remember the Maine!" screamed his papers, announcing that the episode was the result of a fiendish Spanish plot.

Accident? What is Brogan playing at? Not only has no one apparently told him that the Yankees owned up to their false flag in 1976 (Brogan's book was first published in 1985!), but now he's accusing William Rondolph Hearst of being a conspiracy theorist!

Maybe we'll be on safer ground with Howard Zinn, whose credentials are solidly left-wing and whose opposition to war-like foreign policy by the United States is second-to-none. He'll skewer those dastardly Yankee Imperialist Aggressors. Page 304 of A People's History of the United States:

In February 1898, the US battleship Maine, in Havana harbor as a symbol of American interest in the Cuban events, was destroyed by a mysterious explosion and sank, with the loss of 268 men. There was no evidence produced on the cause of the explosion, but excitement grew swiftly in the United States, and McKinley began to move in the direction of war.

What?!? This isn't fair! I was promised a false-flag conspiracy theory that blamed the Yankee Imperialist Aggressors and I'm let down even by Howard Zinn. I have to conclude that Zinn must be one of the fabled "Left Gatekeepers"! Pretending to criticize US foreign policy while actually giving it a pass on its egregious conspiracies.

Unless of course, it simply isn't true that there was a false-flag incident. Where does the claim, that the US have admitted to a false-flag attack come from in the first place?

Well, looking at Wikipedia it appears there are two theories that mainstream historians propose:

1) That the Maine hit a mine laid by the Spanish navy.

2) That the Maine's coal bunker spontaneously combusted detonating nearby magazines.

1976 is the year in which Admiral Rickover conducted his own investigation essentially concluding that the latter hypothesis was the most likely. He didn't conclusively rule out other possibilities but suggested that an accidental coal-bunker fire was the most likely. His investigation formed the basis of his book, titled How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed.

(Interestingly, however, National Geographic conducted a study in 1999, ressurecting the mine hypothesis.)

In the 1920's the Cubans themselves built a monument to the USS Maine in Havana in which the sailors were honoured for their part in what the government of the time considered the US's assistance in gaining independence for Cuba from the Spanish.

So, just who believes in the false-flag theory if it doesn't form the basis of any officially accepted account?

Well, CNN tells us that it is believed in by Cuban officials who altered the monument to the Maine:

But in 1961, Cuban communist revolutionaries toppled the eagle from the top of that monument. Its mangled remains are proudly displayed in a downtown museum.

Some Cuban officials argue that the United States may have deliberately blown up the Maine to create a pretext for military action against Spain. And today, the wording on the monument describes the Maine's sailors as "victims sacrificed to the imperialist greed in its fervor to seize control of Cuba."

The theory is also hinted at by Holocaust-denying bishop Richard Williamson, who is quoted on Wikipedia as saying:

"There is serious reason to believe – that in 1898, it was not the Spaniards who sank the 'USS Maine'; that in 1917, it was not the Germans who set up the 'Lusitania' as a target; that in 1941 it was not the Japanese who set up Pearl Harbor for attack; that in 1963 it was not Lee Harvey Oswald who killed President Kennedy".

And indeed, it seems to have been Hitchens' purpose in mentioning the Maine that serves as his basis for claiming that the Lusitania was allowed to sink by Winston Churchill, who was at the time first lord of the Admiralty. He's using a standard technique in citing precedent to make a conspiracy seem more credible.

I'll leave it to David Aaronovitch to make this maneouvre more clear:

As has already been noted, conspiracists work hard to convince people that conspiracy is everywhere. An individual theory will seem less improbable if an entire history of similar cases can be cited. These can be as ancient as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, and today may include references to Pearl Harbor, the Reichstag fire, and the 1965 Gulf of Tonkin incident. The plot to murder JFK is first base if you want to convince people that RFK and MLK were also murdered by arms of the American state.

As for the specific claims about the Lusitania, please read this website.


Please note: Howard Zinn passed away on exactly the same day as J.D Salinger 27th January, 2010. As with Salinger's death, I deny all responsibility.