USS Liberty Incident

USS Liberty 24 hours after the attack

The USS Liberty Incident of 1967 was an attempt by the Israeli military to sink a United States spy ship. The ship bristled with radio antennas but had no signficant armaments.

For reasons never admitted, President Johnson’s administration refused to interfere while the attack was in progress and both Israel and the U.S. government have officially treated the incident as an accident ever since.

This article is intended to be read in conjunction with the extremely biased USS Liberty Incident at the Wikipedia (which, however, contains large amounts of detail not duplicated here). Wikispooks operates to standards of "Reliable Sources" that the Wikipedia seems unable to do, hence this article contains much that is missing in the other place.

All Reliable Sources dispute Israeli account

"Reliable Sources" (ie independent sources not obviously biased) overwhelmingly state that the Israelis knew what they were doing.

However, it is necessary that the reader has the opportunity to check this for themselves and so this listing covers (or is intended to cover) all significant sources.

Note - The number of citations recorded by "Google Scholar" has been used as a rough and ready guide to the reputation of author/s and the value of a book. Some accounts may be missing from this collection, please register as an editor or contact an admin if you have additions or changes to make.

Editor	Book with publisher, date	In descending order, number of citations by Scholar.	Green for accident, Red Not an Accident. Orange for sources that are prominent but are not cited or can be reasonably suspected of bias.
Bamford	"Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the ultra-secret National Security Agency", 2001 Anchor, Doubleday x 2, Arrow, Century. (+ "The puzzle palace", 1983 various publishers inc Penguin).	Cited 209 times. Intelligence specialist author cited 380 times for "Puzzle Palace".	"Despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel attacked the ship and killed American servicemen deliberately, the Johnson Administration and Congress covered up the entire incident." Find Articles.
Michael Oren	"Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East", 2002 by Presidio Press.	Cited 272 times + 2 at OUP. Specialist ME author from a very pro-Israel positon, widely cited for other books eg "Power, faith, and fantasy: America in the Middle East, Cited by 102.	From his JVL article Case Closed "there were breakdowns in communications between the Israeli navy and air force ... none of these amount to the kind of gross negligence of which the Israelis have been accused." Please note - Oren is the Israel ambassador to the US and was in media relations for the IDF. His book acknowledges the Shalem Center where he is a senior fellow. Shalem's journal champions "a strong, free and Jewish State of Israel".
John Ranelagh	"The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA" 1986 Weidenfeld & Nicolson	Cited by 271	Details unknown, but Michael Oren says of this book "describes the attack as intentional and malicious" and/or "argues that the truth has been obscured by a massive cover-up conducted by Israel and its advocates abroad."
John Loftus	"The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed The Jewish People" St. Martin's Griffin, 1997	Cited 74 times.	A relatively well-cited book from a pro-Israel perspective (perhaps with mixed reviews?): "Israel's attack was justified because 'the Liberty was gathering electronic information ... relayed to the Arabs.'", a claim for which they fail "to present incontrovertible evidence" according to one admirer and "This is why the Israelis knocked out the American surveillance ship the USS Liberty Synopsis/review by Deane Rink.
Andrew and Leslie Cockburn	"Dangerous liaison: the inside story of the US-Israeli covert relationship" 1991 HarperCollins	Cited by 73	Michael Oren says of this book "describes the attack as intentional and malicious" and/or "argues that the truth has been obscured by a massive cover-up conducted by Israel and its advocates abroad."
Green, Stephen	"Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel", 1984 Morrow, Faber, Amana	Cited by 65	"Sometime in the late afternoon or early evening of June 7 ... the NSA learned, from an intelligence report emanating from the Office of the US Defense Attache in Tel Aviv, that Israel was planning to attack the Liberty if her course was not changed." p.215, cited by Ennes at ussliberty.org.
Donald Neff	"Warriors for Jerusalem: The Six Days that Changed the Middle East" 1984 Simon & Schuster	Cited by 63	Michael Oren says of this book "the charge of Israeli premeditation" features prominently.
JM Ennes	"Assault on the Liberty: The True Story of the Israeli Attack on an American Intelligence Ship", 1979 - Random House	Cited by 59	"US Air Force intercept operators heard Israeli jet being vectored to "the American ship" which they were ordered to sink quickly. Those who have seen these transcripts insist that they leave no doubt that the Israelis knew they were attacking an American ship." ussliberty.org
Richard Helms, CIA director in 1967 (with William Hood)	"A look over my shoulder: a life in the Central Intelligence Agency", 2004, editions by Presidio, Random House and ?another	Cited by 43	"one of the most disturbing incidents in the six days [war] ... Israeli authorities subsequently apologized for the accident, but few in Washington could believe that the ship had not been identified as an American naval vessel." WRMEA.
Richard Deason	"The Israeli Secret Service" 1977 Hamish Hamilton	Cited by 34	Michael Oren says of this book "describes the attack as intentional and malicious" and/or "argues that the truth has been obscured by a massive cover-up conducted by Israel and its advocates abroad."
A Bregman	"Israel's Wars, A history since 1947" 2002, Routledge (+ others, eg "A History of Israel" 2003, Palgrave Macmillan, "The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs", 1998, Penguin)	Cited by 30 "Since 1947" (Acclaimed ME author also gets 29 cites to "History" + 33 cites to "50 years")	"A short but significant recording of a conversation over the radio link between Israeli pilots and the Air Force headquarters during the attack on Liberty, published here for the first time, shows beyond doubt, that the Israelis did know, even in the initial stages of their strike on Liberty, that this was an American vessel."Preface to 2002 edition, p.xiii of "Israel's Wars A history since 1947"
William B. Quandt	"Lyndon Johnson and the June 1967 War: What Color Was the Light?" 1992, The Middle East Journal	Cited by 24	Note 80 on page 225 says: "80. Clark Clifford was asked to determine who was responsible for the Liberty attack. According to the notes of the NSC Special Committee meeting on June 9, 1967 (declassified August 12, 1985), Clifford reported that it was "inconceivable that it was an accident." A marginal note says, "President agreed 100%."
AJ Cristol	Google-book 2002 version is on web. "The Liberty Incident: The 1967 Israeli Attack on the US Navy Spy Ship"	Book is "The Liberty Incident" cited by 17 or maybe 19. Web-version at Google books gets 1 cite	"Ten official U.S. investigations and three official Israeli investigations have all concluded that the attack was a tragic mistake or that there is no evidence to establish that it was not a tragic mistake. Seven U. S. Presidents, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton have all accepted the conclusion that the attack was a tragic mistake."
Elie Podeh	"The Lie That Won't Die: Collusion" 1967 Middle East Quarterly Winter 2004, pp. 51-62	Cited by 7 in Scholar.	"Israel's mistaken attack on the USS Liberty, a radio ship of the U.S. Sixth Fleet near the shores of Sinai, was paraded as proof that U.S. forces were located near the battlefield and therefore took part in the war".
H Goodman, Z Schiff.	"The Attack on the Liberty" Atlantic Monthly, September 1984. See False Flag Attacks for evidence that Zionist sources exaggerate all such attacks eg 1954 Lavon Affair.	Cited by 6	This article is said to be the sole source for "the day before the Liberty was attacked, Israeli pilots accidentally bombed one of their own armored columns". "The IDF, who even recorded near miss friendly fire incidents, has no record of it that I can find" ... "All the secondary sources cite the same primary source (Goodman's 1984 article). The only incident that resembles the claim ... on the night of June 8th is no where near Jenin where Goodman claimed it happened".
Peter Hounam	"Operation Cyanide: How the Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused World War Three", 2003 Vision # Hardcover: 288 pages ISBN-13: 978-1904132196.	cited by 3 or maybe by 6?	"Peter Hounam reveals that the attack was part of a clandestine plan between the US and Israel known as "Operation Cyanide," designed to ensure victory for Israel in the Middle East. By blaming the attack on the Arab world, retaliation on a grand scale would be justified."
John E Borne	"The USS Liberty: dissenting history vs. official history" 1993. Reconsideration Press (as Ph.D 1995 excerpts).	Cited by 5	Borne examines the "making" of history and says that the arguments of survivors and the USG have been consistent, while "The Israelis and their American supporters have been far less consistent". In "Realpolitik gone Haywire" 1995 by Richard D. Lee, Jr., LCDR, USN p.25 cites Borne as having said "The USDAO in Tel Aviv apparently sent a message warning that USS LIBERTY would be attacked if the ship patrolled off the Gaza."
Alan Hart	Zionism The Real Enemy of the Jews v.2. WorldFocus, 2007. ITN reporter on 1967 war.	Cited by 4. This ME specialist author has been cited 61 times and 35 times for 2 biographies of Yassir Arafat.	p.138 "At about 2200 hours ... Israeli jets were homing their rockets ... The Office of the U.S. Defence Attache in Tel Aviv .... telegramme in code the message was that the IDF was planning to attack the 'Liberty' if the ship continued to move closer to the Israeli coast!"
Fishel, Reverdy S	"The attack on the Liberty: an 'accident'?" International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 8, no. 3 (Fall 1995): 345-352.	Cited by 3 in Scholar (despite only being an article!).	Fishel calls Loftus and Aarons' book, "a collection of preposterous and demonstrably false theories and allegations. With regard to the Liberty attack, the only significant detail they get right is that it was deliberate."[1] Fishel also quoted by JVL with 1995 "... trend towards acceptance of Israeli guilt ..."
James Scott	"The Attack on the Liberty" 2009 - Simon & Schuster. James is a South Carolina investigative reporter, son of survivor John Scott	Cited by 1	"Even President Lyndon Johnson believed it was a deliberate attack ... Israel's inquiry showed that a positive identification of the ship was made hours before the attack. This information, allegedly because of a miscommunication, was not relayed to the Israeli fighter jets and torpedo boat." Seattle Times and "pilot reports from the attack scene made clear to key individuals at command HQ that the ship was likely American and probably USS Liberty. Nonetheless, the attack continued."
Rowland Evans and Robert Novak.	"Remembering the Liberty" November 6, 1991, Washington Post. There is no accessible record of the original, only the authors defending it.	Cited by 2, Oren and Cristol. As a strawman argument that none of the other evidence stacks up either? Critics of Israel may have treated it as being uncertain and never referenced it.	Much of this article by two well respected US journalists is based on the testimony of Seth Mintz, who, despite being American, claims to have been inside the Israeli war room during the attack. The same day, Mints told Haaretz of his grave anxiety over the media interest in him ... Everyone is after me now, and that is what I'm afraid of. I don't need the Mossad and Shin Bet knocking on my door. and on the 9th of Nov he retracted what he'd said in a letter to the Washington Post. (Israelis who have condemned Israel have done similar before eg Goldstone - though in his case, the retraction was quite slight).
Moorer Report, independent investigation of 2003.	Admiral Thomas H. Moorer former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Raymond G. Davis, former Assistant Commandant of The Marine Corps. Rear Admiral Merlin Staring, former Judge Advocate General of US Navy. Ambassador James Akins former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.	Barely recognised by Scholar, 0 citations.	"... after eight hours of aerial surveillance, Israel launched a two-hour air and naval attack against USS Liberty ... there is compelling evidence that Israel's attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew ... there has been an official cover-up ... to the present day and is a national disgrace".Moorer Report.
Joseph Daichman	"History of the Mossad" (Russian)	Not in Scholar and perhaps never will be.	Russian book alleged by Russian submariner Captain Nikolay Charkashin to state "Israel was justified in attacking the Liberty." UnitedStatesGovernment.Net
EM Hammel	"Six days in June: how Israel won the 1967 Arab-Israeli war" 1992 Scribner	Cited by 37	Shown here because it was previously on this list and is pro-Israel. However, it doesn't in fact mention the USS Liberty affair and can be removed.

1967 Cover-up

USS Liberty / El Quisar and US / Egyptian flag comparisons

At the behest of the Secretary of Defense and the White House almost everyone involved is ordered not to discuss the incident with anyone eg Ken Ecker Immediately following the attack I was threatened with court-martial if I discussed the incident with the press or anyone else. and the Liberty crewmen are transferred to stations far apart from one another, no two at the same place. Several sources identify Admiral Kidd as the officer who threatened them "Kidd told the crew, ‘You are never, repeat never, to discuss this with anyone, not even your wives. If you do, you will be court-martialed and will end your lives in prison or worse.’"

The surviving crewmembers were dispersed to other ships and told not to discuss the incident with anyone, including their own families. Many never said anything for at least 20 years, for fear of reprisal. Phil Tourney's book "What I saw that day" pulls no punches when he describes how the crew was treated by Admiral Isaac Kidd, with threats of court-martial and imprisonment "or worse" if they told anyone what they saw. "From a first-hand account the author brings forth the viciousness of the attack on a ship that had a large American flag displayed, the carnage inflicted on her crew and the tremendous damage done, which included over 820 bullet and shrapnel holes and areas burned by napalm and a torpedo hole the size of a house."

Israel claims the attack was the result of a string of innocent errors and they mistook the USS Liberty for an Egyptian horse carrier - the El Quisar. This ship, also shown in Jane's Fighting Ships is barely a quarter the size of the Liberty and has a strikingly different outline/appearance.

1982 Survivors start to speak out

File:H97478t.jpg

Amidships starboard hull and superstructure attack damage.

Despite the threats (still being uttered in 2010) and their complete isolation from each other, former Liberty crew began to speak out publicly and they held a reunion in 1982, discovering that everyone of them believed the same thing, the attack could not have been a genuine "Friendly Fire".

Other voices came to be heard, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Thomas Moorer summed up the Liberty incident concisely in 2001:

"It’s ridiculous to say this was an accident. There was good weather, she was flying the U.S. flag and the planes and torpedo boats attacked over a long period of time."

2002 flurry of interest and accusations

In 2002, for the first time, a book was published that defended the Israeli version of the incident (as seems to be the official position of the US government), "The Liberty Incident" by Jay Cristol.

This infuriated one of the military lawyers at the original Court of Inquiry, Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, U.S. Navy, senior counsel for the Court of Inquiry, broke his silence of 30 years to swear a declaration and condemn Israel for what happened, and the cover-up of which he was a central part. The reference "attempts to rewrite history" is to Jay Cristol pro-Israeli book. (Some paragraphs joined in the following):

"For more than 30 years, I have remained silent on the topic of USS Liberty. I am a military man and when orders come in from the Secretary of Defense and President of the United States, I follow them. However, recent attempts to rewrite history compel me to share the truth.

"In June of 1967, while serving as a Captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps, Department of the Navy, I was assigned as senior legal counsel for the Navy’s Court of Inquiry into the ... attack on USS Liberty, which had occurred on June 8th."

... "The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack ... was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. ... It was our shared belief, based on the documentary evidence and testimony we received first hand, that the Israeli attack was planned and deliberate, and could not possibly have been an accident. I am certain that the Israeli pilots that undertook the attack, as well as their superiors, who had ordered the attack, were well aware that the ship was American."

... "I am outraged at the efforts of the apologists for Israel in this country to claim that this attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity.’ In particular, the recent publication of Jay Cristol’s book, The Liberty Incident, twists the facts and misrepresents the views of those of us who investigated the attack. It is Cristol’s ... attempt to whitewash the facts that has pushed me to speak out.

This was something of a blow to Cristol and his exoneration of Israel, since he'd written of Boston's "professional qualifications and integrity" on page 149 of his book:

Boston brought two special assets in addition to his skill as a Navy lawyer. He had been a naval aviator in World War II and therefore had insight beyond that of one qualified only in the law. Also, Kidd knew him as a man of integrity. On an earlier matter Boston had been willing to bump heads with Kidd when Boston felt it was more important to do the right thing than to curry favor with the senior who would write his fitness report.

Cristol hastily skulled back and claims not to believe Boston about Kidd's views and any pressure from the U.S. government. Cristol produced a handwritten 1991 letter from Admiral Kidd that, according to Cristol, "suggest that Ward Boston has either a faulty memory or a vivid imagination". Cristol's position is backed by the ADL, which said that "according to his own account, Boston's evidence of a cover-up derives not from his own part in the investigation but solely on alleged conversations with Admiral Kidd" The ADL says that Cristol argues that the 'documentary record' strongly indicated that Kidd 'supported the validity of the findings of the Court of Inquiry to his dying day.

Boston describes a phone call he received from Jay Cristol in 1990 requesting an interview. He refers him to Admiral Kidd (ret.), still alive at the time.

"Shortly after my conversation with Cristol, I received a telephone call from Admiral Kidd, inquiring about Cristol and what he was up to. ...

"At no time did I ever hear Admiral Kidd speak of Cristol other than in highly disparaging terms. I find Cristol’s claims of a ‘close friendship’ with Admiral Kidd to be utterly incredible. I also find it impossible to believe the statements he attributes to Admiral Kidd, concerning the attack on USS Liberty."

Israel’s defenders reply to this literature with a snowstorm of details, making much of tiny flaws while ignoring the essential points. In many cases there are outright fabrications.

According to James Ennes, Admiral Kidd urged him and his group to keep pressing for an open congressional probe.

2007 Chicago Tribune summary

For many people new to this supposed "controversy", a turning point may be the article in the Chicago Tribune of 2nd Oct 2007 which, as the Wikipedia says contains "numerous previously unreported quotes from former military personnel with first-hand knowledge of the incident. Many of these quotes directly contradict the US National Security Agency's position that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots, claiming that not only did transcripts of those communications exist, but also that it showed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American naval vessel."

Typical of the quotes in the Tribune is one from the late Dwight Porter, American ambassador to Lebanon during the Six-Day War, who told friends and family members that he had been shown English-language transcripts of Israeli pilots talking to their controllers. Close friend, William Chandler, former head of the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line Co., said Porter recalled one of the pilots protesting, "But sir, it's an American ship - I can see the flag!" To which the ground control responded, "Never mind; hit it!".

2012 Denial continues

A doctoral thesis and an article by Israeli Orna Katz-Atar in Haaretz blames President Lyndon B. Johnson himself and a number of top officials in his administration for spreading a version of events that condemns Israel. Apparently, Arab countries needed to be persuaded that the United States was not a partner to Israel's victory in the Six-Day War and to neutralize the pressure American Jews were applying on the White House.

Katz-Atar's conclusion: "The conduct of the White House in this incident could have been a transient episode had it not served top people in the American administration, [who were] anti-Israeli and even anti-Semitic. However, since the plot concocted by the administration served the interests of all of these - it has grown to this day."

Large numbers of US officials accuse Israel

Numerous US intelligence and military officials now dispute Israel's explanation.

Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State at the time of the incident, wrote:

I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. Their sustained attack to disable and sink Liberty precluded an assault by accident or some trigger-happy local commander. Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous.

Lieutenant General Marshall S. Carter, director of the National Security Agency at the time: "There was no other answer than it was deliberate." Dr. Louis Tordella, the deputy director of NSA at the time: "I believed the attack might have been ordered by some senior commander on the Sinai Peninsula [where the massacres were taking place] who wrongly suspected that the Liberty was monitoring his activities." Tordella also scrawled across the top page of the formal Israeli "mistake" report, "A nice whitewash." Major General John Morrison, NSA deputy director of Operations at the time: "Nobody believes that explanation. The only conjecture that we ever made that made any near sense is that the Israelis did not want us to intercept their communications at that time." Walter Deeley, the senior NSA official who conducted an internal NSA investigation of the incident: "There is no way that they didn't know that the Liberty was American." Captain William L. McGonnagle, the Liberty's commander: "After many years I finally believe that the attack was deliberate." Richard Helms, Director of Central Intelligence at the time: "Your chapter on the Liberty was exactly right." George Christian, press secretary to President Johnson at the time: "I became convinced that an accident of this magnitude was too much to swallow." Paul C. Warnke, Under Secretary of the Navy at the time: "I found it hard to believe that it was, in fact, an honest mistake on the part of the Israeli air force units.... I suspect that in the heat of battle they figured that the presence of this American ship was inimical to their interests." Dean Rusk, Secretary of State at the time: "The Liberty was flying an American flag. It was not all that difficult to identify, and my judgment was that somewhere along the line some fairly senior Israeli official gave the go-ahead for these attacks." David G. Nes, the deputy head of the American mission in Cairo at the time: "I don't think that there's any doubt that it was deliberate.... [It is] one of the great cover-ups of our military history." George Ball, Under Secretary of State at the time: "American leaders did not have the courage to punish Israel for the blatant murder of its citizens."

Major problems with the "accident" theory

• Visibility of American flag: The survivors insist that the US flag was flying and clearly visible. Israel denies this.

• Distinctiveness of USS Liberty's appearance: Admiral Tom Moorer calls the Liberty the most identifiable ship in the U.S. Navy and it was absurd that the the IDF couldn't identify the ship.

• Identification markings: Liberty bore an eight-foot-high "5" and a four-foot-high "GTR" along either bow, clearly indicating her hull (or "pendant") number (AGTR-5), and had 18in-high letters spelling the vessel's name across the stern.

• Ship's identification known during attack: Numerous sources state that the US was monitoring the attacking aircrafts transmissions, the transcripts were widely circulated around the world and seen by many people. The copies were all collected and destroyed 10 days later.

• Effort for identification: The American crew claims the attacking aircraft did not make identification runs over Liberty, but rather began to strafe immediately. Israel claims several identification passes were made.

• Speed of the vessel: According to Israeli accounts, the torpedo boat made measurements indicated the ship was steaming at 30knots. In fact, it could make 17.5knots at most, and US accounts, including the Court of Enquiry findings state that the ship was steaming at 5knots.

• Jamming: The survivors, including Wayne L. Smith, Radioman Chief, testified that there was extensive jamming of the (US specific) frequencies used for communication. None of the Israeli Defense Forces' investigations or reports confirm or deny radio frequency jamming was performed during or following the attack.

• Visual communications: Joe Meadors, the signalman on bridge, states that "Immediately prior to the torpedo attack, he was on the Signal Bridge repeatedly sending 'USS Liberty U.S. Navy Ship' by flashing light to the torpedo boats." It is not clear if Israel confirms or denies this.

• Machine-gunning of the life-rafts: Officers and men of Liberty claim that after the torpedo attack and the abandon ship order, motor torpedo boats strafed the ship's topside with automatic gunfire preventing men from escaping from below, and machine-gunned the life rafts. The IDF claims that Liberty was not fired upon after the torpedo attack and that a rescue raft was fished from the water while searching for survivors. Captain Ward Boston claims that much was excised from the US report after it left his hands including the testimony of Lt. Painter concerning the deliberate machine gunning of the life rafts by the Israeli torpedo boat crews, which Boston distinctly recalls being given at the Court of Inquiry and included in the original transcript.

• U.S. rescue attempts: At least two rescue attempts were launched from U.S. aircraft carriers nearby but were recalled, no explanation has been provided.

Arguments supporting an "accident"

These arguments are very well covered at the Wikipedia and there is no advantage in duplicating them here.

Wikipedia also carries much interesting but essentially irrelevant material, such as that in 1981 Russell Warren Howe asserted in a book Weapons that Liberty was accompanied by the Polaris armed Lafayette-class submarine Andrew Jackson which filmed the entire episode through its periscope but was unable to provide assistance. Several Liberty crew members testified that they had briefly seen a periscope during the attack. Naturally, if there were to be photographs, they would immediately demonstrate whether or not US flag was flying on the Liberty, as the survivors claim and Israel denies.

Possible motives

It is important to be aware that Israel has a reputation for attacking its allies in order that Egypt gets the blame. Just 13 years previously (1954), Israeli agents (Egyptian Jews acting as fifth-columnists) had attacked assets of the US and the UK in the Lavon Affair, apparently in order that Egypt be blamed (or at least, appear to be racked by extremism and incompetence). It was 51 years (2005) before the real culprits of the Lavon Affair were officially acknowledged by Israel. The much bigger scandal of the attack on the Liberty, as at this writing, has been covered up for 45 years.

Since defenders of Israel have sometimes questioned what motive there could have been for them to have attacked a US ship, it is important to note that crimes are not normally solved by looking for motives, they are solved by looking at the evidence. It's not motive but an investigation that is missing from this case.

To conceal planned attacks on Jordan/Syria

The highly respected Admiral Thomas Moorer (after whom the F-14 is known as the Tomcat) describes the most likely motive as follows:

"I am confident that Israel knew the Liberty could intercept radio messages from all parties ... to the ongoing [Arab-Israel, or Six-day] war, then in its fourth day, and that Israel was preparing to seize the Golan Heights from Syria [while pretending, as they later did, that Syria had attacked them] ...

"And I believe Moshe Dayan [commander of Israeli forces] concluded that he could prevent Washington from becoming aware of what Israel was up to by destroying the primary source [means] of acquiring that information[,] the USS Liberty."

Several books and the BBC documentary USS Liberty: Dead in the Water (according to the Wikipedia, not checked) argue that the USS Liberty was attacked in order to prevent the U.S. from knowing about the forthcoming attack in the Golan Heights, which would violate the mandatory UNSC cease-fire which the US had blocked until the attack on Egypt was completed. The attack on the Liberty occurred on June 8 before Syria announced its acceptance of the cease-fire (June 9 at 3 AM). Nevertheless, at 7 AM that day, Israel’s minister of defense, Moshe Dayan, "gave the order to go into action against Syria." Lenczowski further writes that timely knowledge of this decision and preparatory moves toward it "might have frustrated Israeli designs for the conquest of Syria’s Golan Heights" and, in the sense of Ennes’s accusations, provides "a plausible thesis that Israel deliberately decided to incapacitate the signals-collecting American ship and leave no one alive to tell the story of the attack."

U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Barbour, had reported on the day of the Liberty attack that he "would not be surprised" by an Israeli attack on Syria, and the IDF Intelligence chief told a White House aide then in Israel that "there still remained the Syria problem and perhaps it would be necessary to give Syria a blow."

According to a Russian book by Joseph Daichman "History of the Mossad" referenced by the Wikipedia article (but now a dead link), Israel knew that American radio signals were intercepted by the Soviet Union and that the Soviets would certainly inform Egypt of the fact that, by moving troops to the Golan Heights, Israel had left the Egyptian border undefended. (Note - all this information copied from the Wikipedia article)

Provide excuse for US to nuke Cairo

The press release for the BBC documentary film Dead in the Water suggests the attack was a "daring ploy by Israel to fake an Egyptian attack" to give America a reason to enter the war against Egypt. Convinced that that attack was real, President Lyndon B. Johnson launched nuclear-armed planes targeted against Cairo from a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. The planes were recalled only just in time, when it was clear the Liberty had not sunk and that Israel had carried out the attack. An information source for the aircraft being nuclear-armed, James Ennes, later stated that he was probably wrong in his original book. According to Ennes, the planes were not nuclear-armed, but most likely armed with Bullpup missiles. The video also provides hearsay evidence of a covert alliance of U.S. and Israel intelligence agencies.

This explanation probably best explains why Israel made such efforts to stop any distress call getting out (by destruction of aerials and jamming) and why they machine-gunned the life-boats in the water (a war-crime the US should have loudly protested whatever the circumstances). The intention of the attack appears to be that all 294 Americans on board were killed with nobody knowing who'd done it. The argument from Jay Cristol "The attacking aircraft were not armed to attack a ship" is scarcely credible. For nearly two hours, Israel made every attempt to sink the USS Liberty leaving no survivors. The fact that they failed is most certainly not evidence they were not trying.

A straw-man motive for attack

In 1995 the mass graves of up to 1,000 unarmed Egyptian civilians and prisoners of war were discovered outside El-Arish and the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Jewish Telegraph Agency, and many other respected press organs both in the U.S. and Israel reported that IDF veterans had admitted that there had been mass-murders during the 1967 War. Deputy Foreign Minister, Eli Dayan even offered compensation to the victims families in 1995, but explained that Israel was unable to pursue those responsible due to the statute of limitations. (A further mass grave of 30 Egyptian soldiers from the 1967 war was found in the Sinai peninsula in 2008, though it not known if they were murdered POWs or not.)

Unfortunately, the following year (1996) the survivor who had been fighting hardest for the truth to come out, James M. Ennes, Jr. (author of the 1979 The True Story of the Israeli Attack on an American Intelligence Ship[2]) handed the Israel-firsters an opportunity to raise a strawman argument. Questioned about war-crimes (Ennes having a particular interest in those he believes were committed against him and his ship) Ennes asked: "Recent reports in the Israeli and Egyptian press suggest another powerful possibility. ... How would [senior Israeli officers] have reacted to the knowledge that USS Liberty was nearby and might have heard incriminating radio traffic?". Zionists have seized on this argument as a straw-man theory to knock down - surely, they say, Israel would never have set out to murder over 200 of the most highly qualified American sailors and intelligence operatives and deprive the US of its spy ship in order to conceal the unpunished (and likely unpunishable) killing of 1000 or so Egyptian POWs.

In 2001, James Bamford published a book on the National Security Agency called "Body of Secrets" and in one chapter discusses the USS Liberty Incident (which this famous and highly regarded author treats as a deliberate attack, see above). In an excerpt of the book available at History News Network he says "This and other war crimes were just some of the secrets Israel had sought to conceal since the start of the conflict. An essential element ... to hide much of the war behind a carefully constructed curtain of lies ... Into this sea of deception and slaughter sailed the USS Liberty".

Bamford's book resulted in a new storm of denial - but much of it ignored the detailed specifics and criticism of Israel for the attack on the USS Liberty. Instead, Israeli-firsters turned the words above into an easily demolished "straw-man" argument that Bamford had explained the attack on the Liberty as a means to cover up these massacres. The claim there had been massacres was then refuted, often in unconvincing ways. Michael Oren argued that one of the witnesses (Israeli reporter Gabriel Bron, a former IDF soldier) had subsequently told him "The one hundred and fifty POWs were not shot, and there were no mass murders" but that they were helped by the Israeli soldiers who "gave them water, and in most cases just sent them in the direction of the Suez Canal." Oren had more to say about the character and integrity of Bamford including "there are a lot of reasons to question Bamford's credibility, starting with his rather curious reading of Middle Eastern history. For example, Bamford says Israel initiated hostilities against Syria and Jordan, when it happened the other way around."

Retaliation, possible sinking of the Dakar

Readers will have to make up their own minds about this theory, propounded by Wayne Madsen. He suggests that the attack on the Liberty was followed by the U.S. Navy sinking the Israeli submarine, the INS Dakar, in the Meditteranean in January 1968, with the loss of 68 crewmen.

Various less reputable web-sites mention that by September of that year, Johnson had decided against running for re-election and claim that this changed the picture dramatically. The top echelon of the Navy and CIA, which knew of Israel’s premeditated attack on the Liberty decided the time was ripe for a counter-attack.

Did President Johnson know?

According to Wayne Madsen (the "retaliation theory" above), five days after the Israel attack, on June 13, 1967, Johnson was asked about the Liberty at a White House press conference. "Q: Mr. President, do you have any more facts that you can release on the attack on the USS Liberty?" Quite incredibly, Johnson answered "No. I think you know about as much about it as we do." At this time, June 1967, President Lyndon Johnson was planning on running for re-election. Making an issue of the Israeli attack on the Liberty would severely damage his standing among certain deep-pocketed contributors to the Democratic Party, so Johnson buried the incident.

Madsen goes further:

Johnson continued to cover up the Liberty attack in his memoirs, "The Vantage Point: Perspectives on the Presidency 1963-1969," published in 1971. ... at 11 o’clock we learned that the ship had been attacked in error [emphasis added] by Israeli gunboats and planes. Ten men of the Liberty crew were killed and a hundred were wounded [emphasis added, Johnson was in error on both counts, 34 men were killed and 173 were wounded]. ... to avoid further confusion and tragedy that I sent a message to Chairman Kosygin on the hot line. I told him exactly what had happened and advised him that carrier aircraft were on their way to the scene to investigate. I wanted him to know, I said, that investigation was the sole purpose of these flights, and I hoped he would inform the proper parties. Kosygin replied that our message had been received and the information had been relayed immediately to the Egyptians."

The fact that Johnson used the hot line to contact the Soviets was an indication that they were aware of the Israeli attack on the Liberty and that what Johnson said "exactly what happened" was a lie and the Soviets, who had a massive naval and intelligence presence in the eastern Mediterranean saw through Johnson’s big lie.

Other accounts say similar things - J.Q. ‘Tony’ Hart was a chief petty officer assigned to a U.S. Navy relay station in Morocco that handled communications between Washington and the 6th Fleet. He remembers listening as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, in Washington, ordered Rear Adm. Lawrence Geis, commander of the America’s carrier battle group, to recall the jets racing to protect the Liberty. When Geis protested that the Liberty was under attack and needed help, Hart said, McNamara retorted that "President [Lyndon] Johnson is not going to go to war or embarrass an American ally over a few sailors."

From a "Research Report" drawn up at the "Air Command And Staff College Air University" in 1999 comes another damning version of President Johnson's part in the incident:

The first rescue flight was canceled on direct orders by radio from Secretary of Defense McNamara, who ordered a 90-minute delay before any further flights. When the second flight took off at 1550[B] (having waited 90 minutes as ordered) Geis notified McNamara, who again ordered the recall of the flights. Any officer who doubts the wisdom of an order he has received has the prerogative to ask that the order be confirmed by a yet-higher officer, and Geis availed himself of that right. Since he was questioning the order of the Secretary of Defense, the only man superior to the Secretary was the President. President Johnson himself came on the radio and ordered Geis to recall the flights because ‘we are not going to embarrass an ally.’

Wikispooks Documents

• USS Liberty - Government Betrayal and Cover-up

Wikipedia bias

The Wikipedia article is rife with bias and distortions and some outright falsehoods. This should become obvious if you have the time and inclination to dig into the information presented here.

However, deep study is not necessary - there is also a Wikipedia article on "Friendly Fire", which does not mention this incident that, according to Israel, is the very most famous "Friendly Fire accident" of all.

Astonishing? even more so if you have a look, since the Wikipedia article is large and detailed. And it even includes an entry for the 1967 Six Day War. But the entry consists only of one strange and entirely unreferenced claim: "Israeli aircraft bombed an Israeli armored column in the Sinai after it was mistaken for an enemy column". (The main article USS Liberty article here also mentions this "incident" but in an entirely different location, the West Bank).

This claim about Israel having attacked it's own forces (which admittedly has repeated many times since in hasbara accounts) appears to have been invented by two Israeli journalists in 1984. This fact was known to the WP editors at least as far back as 2008, not least because the IDF keeps detailed notes of even "near-miss" friendly fire incidents, and they have no record of it. In Feb 2012, two editors pointed out that even the very Zionist source (JVL) referenced in the article has now deleted this claim about an attack on an armoured column. But 2 months after that (last checked 8th April 2012) and 4 years after they were first informed of the lie, the state of terror in the "community" is such that no honest editor is brave enough to remove the fraud. Exactly as if Wikipedia isn't about recording history but about deliberately collecting Zionist-friendly lies. The degree of obstruction and bias can be seen throughout the editing process, eg here where the top administrator (and personal friend of Jimbo Wales) defends an obvious sock-puppet of a banned user and insists that this quite obvious untruth remain in the article.

Needless to say, there is a very long history of other Zionist fabrications concerning the attack on the Liberty, Wikipedia (c. 2002/2005) by no means started it. The survivors reference a 1997 example and plead to be heard: "The survivors ask: LET US TESTIFY UNDER OATH! If Mr. Roth has knowledge of the attack, we would be pleased to hear his sworn testimony."

Further Reading

• Assault on the Liberty by Lieutenant Commander James Ennes, a junior officer (and off-going Officer of the Deck) on Libertys bridge at the time of the attack. 1987

• USS Liberty Memorial - the comprehensive website of the survivors, USS Liberty Veterans Association. James Ennes and Joe Meadors. Shadow site at http://www.gtr5.com.

• "The USS Liberty: Still Covered Up After 35 Years" by James M. Ennes, Jr., June 16, 2002

• Attack on the USS Liberty "Dissenting History VS Official History" By John Borne, Ph.D., doctoral dissertation published June 1995.

• "The Zionist Connection" 2nd Edition by Alfred Lilienthal Chapter 17. "The Attack on Liberty"

• They Dare to Speak Out, a chapter in Paul Findley’s book describes the Zionist reaction to Mr. Ennes’ book: "The Assault On Assault"

• "The USS Liberty: America’s Most Shameful Secret" Eric Margolis, April 2001.

• "Body of Secrets" by James Bamford Chapter 6: "Blood" comments that the Israeli rescue helicopter transmissions (in the NSA transcripts) reported seeing a flag. This confirms the testimony of the surviving Liberty crewmen and tends to dispute the official Israeli position.