CIA accused of sabotage in Thames

LONDON: The CIA was very much involved in a sabotage in the Thames river in which a Cuba-bound East German ship with British buses aboard was rammed in 1964, it has been claimed.
 
On deck of the Cuba-bound ship were 42 Leyland buses. The company, Leyland Motors, had decided to use an East German ship following a threatening by the United States to blacklist anyone breaking the "transportation blockade".
 
Now, 44 years on after the Thames river incident was termed "an accident", a naval historian has found evidence that the East German vessel, MV Magdeburg, was made to collide with a Japanese ship "at the behest of the CIA".
 
In fact, according to John McGarry, it was part of an effort by the American intelligence agency to sabotage anyone breaking the US embargo on Fidel Castro's Cuba, 'The Observer' newspaper reported.
 
And, McGarry has cited evidence, given by the British captain of the Magdeburg, Gordon Greenfield, from the maritime archives of the former German Democratic Republic to support his claims.

According to the documents, the Japanese vessel broke international maritime law by navigating the wrong way as well as giving misleading signals. The captain of Yamashiro Maru refused to speak.
 
Greenfield said in his statement: "The Yamashiro Maru appeared to sail towards the south of the middle channel, but I interpreted her exchange of signals to mean that she's about to turn to starboard in order to pass me on her port side. At this time there seemed to be no danger of a collision."
 
According to McGarry, the crime was committed by the United States.
 
"I felt that the question of CIA involvement might be resolved by an examination of the pilots' logs which were supposed to be stored at Trinity House and in the Port of London Archives. They cannot be found.
 
"The East German papers show Greenfield was deceived by someone on the Yamashiro Maru who sounded a single siren blast before the collision, an intention to pass port to port," he said.