Remember the Maine! Was the Spanish American War Created?

Historical conspiracies are facinating to me. One of the more intersting ones IMHO is what exactly happened to the USS Maine.

At 9:40pm on February 15, 1898, the Battleship USS Maine exploded and sunk in Havana harbor. The press in America immediatly went on the offensive blaming Spain for the attack.



William Randolph Hearst and his New York Journal offered a $50,000 dollar reward for information that led to the capture of the perpetrator (1)

By the end of march, the United States Naval Court of Inquiry, made the determination that the Maine had been destroyed by a mine. Spain was never directly blamed for the explosion.

In fact while the Spanish were reluctant to have the battleship present but agreed to allow it to visit the harbor to protect American citizens on the island. Indeed the Captain of the Maine was extended every courtesy by his Spanish hosts (2) Even after the disaster, crew of a Spanis ship assisted with the recovery efforts and led the Mains Captain to state this on his telegram to Washington "Public opinion should be suspended until further report." (2)

A difinative explanation of what exactly happened to the Maine has never been found. The wrech was re-examined in 1911 after the Corp of Engineers built a dam around the wreck.

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The remains are looked at again in 1911

The group reaced the same conclution as the previous board of Inquiry had reached that a mine had caused the explosion. However in 1976, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear submarine, took an interest in the case. He published his findings in the book "How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed" In the book he concluded that the mine story was non consistent with the damage. He beleived that the explosion was caused by a flash fire in a coal bunker which ignited an ammunition magazine.

While it did not declare war with Spain after this event, it was the precitating event that led to the Spanish American war.

After looking at the literature, there are a number of theories that fit this event:

A mine was attached to the hull of the ship and detonated, either by Spain or an unknown group

A covert operation by the US government to blow up the ship (It was not a front line battleship) to make a case for war (sound familiar)

As Admiral Rickover concluded a fire ina coal bunker lit off an adjacent ammo magazine.

or William Randolph Hearst arranged to have the ship explode so as to profit from selling his newspapers. THis is not as far fetched as it sounds. Hearst was rich beyond belief, practice and perfect the art of Yellow Journalism, and this type of even was tailor made for it.



Which of these do people think is plausable? I really can see the Hearst angle for thim IMO.

(1) February 16 1898: Battleship U.S.S. Maine Explodes

(2) The Destruction of USS Maine

[edit on 10/30/05 by FredT]

[edit on 10/30/05 by FredT]

[edit on 10/30/05 by FredT]

The what? The who? I don't understand.

I saw a show on Discovery that made a REALLY good case for the coal fire. All the evidence of how she was destroyed fit that one quite nicely, where the mine theory left a few holes from the evidence.

It is really sad that people forget things like this. As I understand it, the fact that it was a boiler explosion and not a Spanish mine was actually known at the time, but the current powers that be, including both William Randolph Hurst and his newspapers (the faux news of the times) and Theodore Roosevelt were pushing for an American empire and quietly brushed the truth aside.

As a result "Remember the Maine" became the battle cry for the Spanish/American war and thanks to that little bit of propaganda, over 100,000 Filipinos died in our take over of their islands. We promised the Filipinos their liberty if they helped us throw the Spanish out, which they happily did. Then we reneged and made the Philippines an American colony instead and when the Filipinos caught on they waged a guerrilla war against us for over 5 years.

i am reminded of the words of Tom Watson (a populist leader at the time of the Spanish/American war)

"The Spanish war has finished us reformers. The blare of the bugle drowns the voice of the reformer. Who gets the benefit of the war? The bond seekers, the capitalists, the railroads. National bankers will profit by this war. The new bonds give them the basis for new banks, and their power is prolonged. The privileged classes all profit by this war. It takes the attention of the people off economic issues and perpetuates the unjust economic system they have put upon us. Politicians profit by the war. It buries issues they dare not meet.

"What do the people get out of this war? The fighting and the taxes. What is the United States doing in this war with Spain in the first place? True, Spain is oppressing Cuba, but so is England oppressing Ireland, Egypt and India. [This is 1898.] France is oppressing Siam and Madagascar, Turkey is oppressing Armenia. Should we then take up arms against the oppressors of the world? We would more likely end up by becoming oppressors ourselves.

"The Spaniards and Cubans were bushwhacking one another and killing from three to five men at a battle. We have gone down there and killed more people in three months than they would have killed in 13 years. If they were starving before, who feeds them now? What are we going to get out of this war as a nation? Endless trouble, complications and expenses. Republics can't go into the conquering business and remain republics. Militarism leads to military domination, military despotism. Imperialism smoothes the way for the emperor."

Source

(only source i could find after a quick search is in another (albeit well written) article.)

If find his words not only acurate to his situation, but very prophetic aswell. Who knew his speech, could easily be applied to other conflicts the US has craftily been lead into.

why did Hearst offer the $50,000? COuld he really do something abut all of the accusations of spain?

steamboats............................. hello!

William Randolph Hearst had offered the $50,000 just to cover up the fact that there was no basis in fact for having claimed that it was the Spanish who destroyed the Maine with a mine. I, too, also saw that show on how it was a coal fire that had set off the ammo bin inside the ship that caused it to sink. The U.S. had been in a war fever for several weeks before the Maine exploded and was just spoiling for a fight at the time.

I remember that History Channel program. They said the first investigations relied primarily upon one particular piece of hull that had a big puncture in it. The final investigation in the 1970s revealed that each of those investigations had incorrectly flipped that piece of steel around the other way so that it looked like an explosion came from the outside, instead of the inside.

See how simple it was to fool people for over 70 years?

Devil is in the details.