The Joint Chiefs wanted their own sources of information. They didn't trust the State Department (rightly so, in my opinion.) Remember, a few years later, in the Nixon administration, the Joint Chiefs had that yeoman in the White House spy on the administration for them.
Sure, there was murky bureaucratic politics going on. But that doesn't excuse killing the sailors.
113 posted on 10/20/2002 3:48:11 PM PDT by aristeides