| USS Liberty incident | |
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The heavily damaged USS Liberty the day after the attack. |
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| Date: | June 8, 1967 |
| Place: | Mediterranean Sea near Sinai Peninsula[1] |
| Result: | Liberty heavily damaged, 34 crewmen killed, 171 crewmen wounded |
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The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy torpedo boats, on June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War.[2] The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two Marines, and one civilian), wounded 170 crew members, and severely damaged the ship.[3] At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, about 25.5 nmi (29.3 mi; 47.2 km) northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish.[1][4]
Both the Israeli and U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the identity of the USS Liberty.[5] Attack survivors contacted in 2007, by John M. Crewdson for a Chicago Tribune article about the attack, "to a man" rejected Israel's mistaken identity explanation.[6] Lt. Gen. Marshall Carter, the director of the NSA, told Congress that the attack "couldn't be anything else but deliberate."[6] The deputy director of the NSA, Louis Tordella, stated that the attack "might have been ordered by some senior [Israeli] commander on the Sinai Peninsula who wrongly suspected that the LIBERTY was monitoring his activities."[6] In May 1968, the Israeli government paid US$3,323,500 (US$21 million in 2012) as full payment to the families of the 34 men killed in the attack. In March 1969, Israel paid a further $3,566,457 in compensation to the men who had been wounded. On 18 December 1980, it agreed to pay $6 million as settlement for the U.S. claim of $7,644,146 for material damage to the Liberty itself.[7]
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USS Liberty was originally the 7,725 long tons (7,849 t) (light) civilian cargo vessel Simmons Victory, a mass-produced, standard-design Victory Ship, the follow-on series to the famous Liberty Ships, which supplied the United Kingdom and Allied troops with cargo. She was acquired by the United States Navy, converted to an Auxiliary Technical Research Ship (AGTR), and began her first deployment in 1965, to waters off the west coast of Africa. She carried out several more operations during the next two years.
During the Six-Day War between Israel and several Arab nations, the United States of America maintained a neutral country status.[8] Shortly before the war began, the USS Liberty was ordered to proceed to the eastern Mediterranean to perform an electronic intelligence collection mission.[9] After the war erupted, due to concerns about her safety as she approached her patrol area, several messages were sent to Liberty to increase her allowable closest point of approach (CPA) to Egypt's and Israel's coasts from 12.5 nmi (14.4 mi; 23.2 km) and 6.5 nmi (7.5 mi; 12.0 km), respectively, to 20 nmi (23 mi; 37 km) and 15 nmi (17 mi; 28 km), and then later to 100 nmi (120 mi; 190 km) for both countries.[10] Unfortunately, due to ineffective message handling and routing, the CPA change messages were not received until after the attack.[10]
According to Israeli sources, at the start of the war on June 5, General Yitzhak Rabin (then IDF Chief of Staff) informed Commander Ernest Carl Castle, the American Naval Attaché in Tel Aviv, that Israel would defend its coast with every means at its disposal, including sinking unidentified ships. Also, he asked the U.S. to keep its ships away from the shore or at least inform Israel of their exact position.[11][12] With the Liberty in international waters and gathering intelligence, the United States did not provide any information about its location.
American sources said that no inquiry about ships in the area was made until after the Liberty attack ended. In a message sent from U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk to U.S. Ambassador Walworth Barbour, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Rusk asked for "urgent confirmation" of Israel's claim. Barbour responded: "No request for info on U.S. ships operating off Sinai was made until after Liberty incident." Further, Barbour stated: "Had Israelis made such an inquiry it would have been forwarded immediately to the chief of naval operations and other high naval commands and repeated to dept [Department of State]."[13]
With the outbreak of war, Captain William L. McGonagle of the Liberty immediately asked Vice Admiral William I. Martin at the U.S. 6th Fleet headquarters to send a destroyer to accompany the Liberty and serve as its armed escort and as an auxiliary communications center. The following day, June 6, Admiral Martin replied: “Liberty is a clearly marked United States ship in international waters, not a participant in the conflict and not a reasonable subject for attack by any nation. Request denied.”[14] He promised, however, that in the unlikely event of an inadvertent attack, jet fighters from the Sixth Fleet could be overhead in ten minutes.
Meanwhile, at the United Nations, and in response to Arab complaints that the U.S. and British were supporting Israel in the conflict, United States Ambassador Arthur Goldberg announced that the U.S. forces were hundreds of miles from the conflict.[10] At the time the statement was made, this was the case, since the Liberty was just entering the Mediterranean Sea[15] but would ultimately steam to within a few miles of the Sinai Peninsula.
On the night of June 7 Washington time, early morning on June 8, 01:10Z or 3:10 AM local time, the Pentagon issued an order to 6th Fleet headquarters to tell the Liberty to come no closer than 100 nmi (120 mi; 190 km) to Israel, Syria, or the Sinai coast (Oren, p. 263).[16] (pages 5 and Exhibit N, page 58).
According to the Naval Court of Inquiry[17] (p. 23 ff, p. 111 ff) and National Security Agency official history,[18] the order to withdraw was not sent on the radio frequency that USS Liberty monitored for her orders until 15:25 Zulu, several hours after the attack, due to a long series of administrative and message routing problems. The Navy said a large volume of unrelated high-precedence traffic, including intelligence intercepts related to the conflict, was being handled at the time and it also faulted a shortage of qualified radio men as a contributing factor to the failure to send the withdrawal message to Liberty in time.[17] (p. 111 ff)
During the morning of the attack, early June 8, the ship was overflown by Israeli Air Force (IAF) aircraft including a Nord Noratlas "flying boxcar" and Mirage III jet fighters eight times.[19][20] At least some of those flybys were from a close range.[21] Many Liberty crewmen gave testimony that one of the aircraft flew so close to Liberty that its propellers rattled the deck plating of the ship, and the pilots waved to the crew of Liberty, and the crewmen waved back.[22] The aircraft were hunting for Egyptian submarines, which had been spotted near the coast.[23] At about 5:45 a.m. Sinai time (GMT +2), reports were first received at Israeli Central Coastal Command (CCC) about the Liberty, identified by pilots as a destroyer and the vessel was placed on the plot board using a red marker, indicating an unknown vessel. At 6:03 a.m. that morning, the Nord identified the ship as a U.S. supply ship, though the marker was only changed from the red 'unknown ship' to a green 'neutral ship' at 9 a.m., when CCC was ordered to do so after naval command inquired as to the marker's status. Also around 9 a.m. an Israeli pilot reported that a ship north of Arish had fired at his jet after he tried to identify the vessel, and naval command dispatched two destroyers to investigate. These destroyers returned to previous positions at 9:40 a.m. after doubts emerged during debriefing over the pilot's claim of receiving fire. When the Nord landed and its naval observer was debriefed, the ship was further identified as the USS Liberty based on its "GTR-5" markings.[24] The ship was removed from CCC's plot board at 11 am, due to its positional information being considered stale.[25]
At 11:24 a.m., IDF General Staff Headquarters received the first of several reports that Arish on the Sinai coast was being shelled from the sea. Israeli troops in the city had seen a massive explosion and noticed two unidentified ships offshore. Though the explosion was probably the result of a burning ammunition dump, the Israelis were unaware of the fact, and both Israeli and Egyptian sources had reported shelling of the area by Egyptian warships the previous day. Minutes after the explosion, the Liberty reached the eastern limit of its patrol and turned back in the direction of Port Said.[23] Investigative journalist James Bamford points out that Liberty had only four .50 caliber machine guns mounted on her decks and, thus, could not have shelled the coast.[26]
Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin was concerned that the supposed Egyptian shelling was the prelude to an amphibious landing that could outflank Israeli forces. Rabin reiterated the standing order to sink any unidentified ships in the area, but advised caution, as Soviet vessels were reportedly operating nearby. No fighter jets were available, and the navy was asked to intercede, with the assumption that air cover would be provided later. Naval headquarters did not react to the request in any way, and more than half an hour later, the General Staff issued a rebuke: "The coast is being shelled and you have done nothing". At 20:05 p.m., naval command dispatched three torpedo boats to find and destroy the enemy warship thought to be shelling Arish.[23] The torpedo boats were T-203, T-204 and T-206, and were from the 914th Squadron, codenamed "Pagoda".
At 1:41 p.m., the torpedo boats detected an unknown vessel 20 miles northwest of Arish and 14 miles off the coast of Bardawil. The ship's speed was estimated [1] on their radar.[27] The Combat Information Center officer on T-204, Ensign Aharon Yifrah, reported to the boat's captain, Commodore Moshe Oren, that the target had been detected at a range of 22 miles, that her speed had been tracked for a few minutes, after which he had determined that the target was moving westward at a speed of 30 knots. These data were forwarded to the Fleet Operations Control Center.[27]
The speed of the target was significant because it indicated that the target was a combat vessel.[27] Moreover, Israeli forces had standing orders to fire on any unknown vessels sailing in the area at over 20 knots, a speed which, at the time, could only be attained by warships. The Chief of Naval Operations asked the torpedo boats to double-check their calculations. Yifrah twice recalculated and confirmed his assessment.[23][27] A few minutes later, Commodore Oren reported that the target, now 17 miles from his position, was moving at a speed of 28 knots on a different heading.[28] Bamford, however, points out that the Liberty's top speed was far below 28 knots. His sources say that at the time of the attack the Liberty was following its signal-intercept mission course along the northern Sinai coast, at about 5 knots speed.[26]
The data on the ship's speed, together with its direction, indicated that it was an Egyptian destroyer fleeing toward port after shelling Arish. The torpedo boats gave chase, but did not expect to overtake their target before it reached Egypt. Commodore Oren requested that the Israeli Air Force dispatch aircraft to intercept.[23][27] At 1:48 p.m., the Chief of Naval Operations requested dispatch of fighter aircraft to the ship's location.[29]
The IAF dispatched two Mirage III fighter jets, which arrived at the Liberty at about 2:00 p.m.[27] The formation leader, Captain Iftach Spector, made two reconnaisance passes at 3,000 feet. He reported the vessel appeared to be a "Z", or Hunt class destroyer, and saw that it lacked the deck markings present on Israeli warships.[23][27] The off-center fed parabolic antenna on the ship's forecastle was mistaken for a gun. At this point, Colonel Yeshyahu Barekat, the Chief of Air Force Intelligence, contacted US Naval attaché Castle in an attempt to ascertain whether the suspect ship was the Liberty. Castle reportedly professed no knowledge of the Liberty's schedule, a claim later denied by Castle but confirmed by McGonagle. A recorded exchange also took place between a command headquarters weapons systems officer, one of the air controllers, and the chief air controller questioning a possible American presence. At 1:57 p.m., immediately after the exchange, the chief air controller, Lieutenant-Colonel Shmuel Kislev, cleared the Mirages to attack.[23][30]
After being cleared to attack, the Mirages dived on the ship and attacked with cannon, rockets and bombs. The attack came while the crew was in "stand-down" mode, with helmets and life jackets removed, while several officers, including Captain McGonagle, were sunning themselves on the deck. The Mirages made a total of three attack runs.[23][31] Nine men were killed and several times that number wounded. Among the wounded was McGonagle, who was hit in both legs. During the attack, antennas were severed and oil drums caught fire, and the ship's flag was shredded. Chief air controller Kislev twice asked whether the ship was responding with anti-aircraft fire but received no reply, with the pilots seemingly too engaged to answer. McGonagle urgently cabled the Sixth Fleet, "Under attack by unidentified jet aircraft, require immediate assistance." The Mirages expended their ammunition three and a half minutes into the attack, and were replaced by two Dassault Mysteres armed with napalm bombs. The Mysteres released their payloads over the ship and strafed it with their cannons. The entire superstructure of the ship from the main deck to the bridge caught fire.[23][32] The Mysteres were readying to attack again when the navy, alerted by the absence of return fire, warned Kislev that the target could be Israeli. Kislev told the pilots not to attack if there was any doubt about identification, and the navy quickly contacted all of its vessels in the area. The navy found that none of its vessels were under fire, and the aircraft were cleared to attack. However, Kislev was still disturbed by a lack of return fire, and requested one last attempt to identify the ship. Captain Yossi Zuk, leader of the Mystere formation, made an attempt at identification while strafing the ship. He reported seeing no flag, but saw the ship's GTR-5 marking. Kislev immediately ordered the attack stopped. Kislev guessed that the ship was American.[23]
The fact that the ship had Latin markings led Chief of Staff Rabin to fear that the ship was Soviet. Though Egyptian warships were known to disguise their identities with Western markings, they usually displayed Arabic letters and numbers only. Rabin ordered the torpedo boats to remain at a safe distance from the ship, and sent in two Hornet helicopters to search for survivors. These radio communications were recorded by Israel. The order also was recorded in the torpedo boat's log, although Commodore Oren claimed not to have received it. The order to cease fire at was given at 2:20 p.m., 24 minutes before the torpedo boats arrived at the Libertys position.[33]
During the interval, crewmen aboard the Liberty hoisted a large American flag to be clearly identified, but the flag was obscured by the smoke. The ship's request for assistance reached the Sixth Fleet at this time, and the aircraft carrier USS America dispatched eight aircraft. The carrier had been in the middle of strategic exercises, and the aircraft were armed with nuclear bombs. Vice-Admiral William I. Martin recalled the aircraft minutes later. Martin feared that the Liberty's attackers were Soviet, and did not want to risk starting a nuclear war.[23]
McGonagle testified at the naval court of inquiry that during "the latter moments of the air attack, it was noted that three high speed boats were approaching the ship from the northeast on a relative bearing of approximately 135 [degrees] at a distance of about 15 [nautical] miles. The ship at the time was still on [westward] course 283 [degrees] true, speed unknown, but believed to be in excess of five knots."[17] McGonagle testified that he "believed that the time of initial sighting of the torpedo boats ... was about 1420" (2:20 PM local time), and that the "boats appeared to be in a wedge type formation with the center boat the lead point of the wedge. Estimated speed of the boats was about 27 to 30 knots (56 km/h)," and that it "appeared that they were approaching the ship in a torpedo launch attitude."[17]
When the torpedo boats arrived, Commodore Oren could see that the ship could not be the destroyer that had supposedly shelled Arish or any ship capable of 30 knots (56 km/h) speed. Oren believed it was a slower-moving vessel that had either serviced the destroyer or evacuated enemy soldiers from the beach. He ordered the squadron not to attack pending better identification "although this was difficult due to the billowing clouds of smoke that enveloped the vessel; only her bow, part of her bridge and the tip of her mast could be discerned." At 6,000 meters, T-204 paused and signalled "AA" - "identify yourself." Due to damaged equipment, McGonagle could only reply with "AA" using a handheld Aldis lamp. Oren recalled receiving a similar response from the Ibrahim el Awal, an Egyptian destroyer captured by Israel during the Suez Crisis, and was convinced that he was facing an enemy ship. He consulted an Israeli identification guide to Arab fleets and concluded the ship was the Egyptian supply ship El Quseir, based on observing its deckline, midship bridge and smokestack. The captains of the two other boats reached the same conclusion independently. The boats organized into battle formation, but did not attack.[33][34] McGonagle had initially ordered a sailor to proceed to machine gun Mount 51 and open fire. However, Captain McGonagle noticed that the boats appeared to be flying an Israeli flag, and "realized that there was a possibility of the aircraft having been Israeli and the attack had been conducted in error."
Upon realizing that the attackers could have been Israeli and acting in error, Captain McGonagle ordered the sailor in Mount 51 not to fire, but he fired a short burst at the torpedo boats before he was able to understand. At this same time, machine gun Mount 53 began firing at the center boat, and Captain McGonagle observed that its fire was "extremely effective and blanketed the area and the center torpedo boat." Machine gun mount 53 was located on the starboard amidships side, behind the pilot house. McGonagle could not see or "get to mount 53 from the starboard wing of the bridge." So, he "sent Mr. Lucas around the port side of the bridge, around to the skylights, to see if he could tell [Seaman] Quintero, whom [he] believed to be the gunner on Machine gun 53, to hold fire." Lucas "reported back in a few minutes in effect that he saw no one at mount 53." Ensign Lucas speculated that the machine gun was triggered by ammunition cooking off.[23][17]
After coming under fire, Commodore Oren repeatedly requested permission from naval headquarters to return fire, and chief naval controller Izzy Rahav finally approved. The torpedo boats then launched five torpedoes at the Liberty.[35] One hit Liberty on the starboard side forward of the superstructure, creating a 40 ft (12 m) wide hole in what had been a former cargo hold converted to the ship's research spaces and killing 25 servicemen, almost all of them from the intelligence section, and wounding dozens.[23][36] It has been said that the torpedo hit a major hull frame that absorbed much of the energy; crew members reported that if the torpedo had missed the frame the Liberty would have split in two. Russian linguist and Marine Staff Sergeant Bryce Lockwood later commented: "I would never deny that it was God that kept the Liberty afloat!".[6] The other four torpedoes missed the ship.
The torpedo boats then closed in and strafed the ship's hull with their cannons and machine guns. According to some crewmen, the torpedo boats fired at damage control parties and sailors preparing life rafts for launch. (See disputed details below.) A life raft which floated from the ship was picked up by T-203 and found to bear US Navy markings. T-204 then circled the Liberty, and Oren spotted the designation GTR-5, but saw no flag. It took until 3:30 p.m. to establish the ship's identity. Shorlty before the Liberty's identity was confirmed, the USS Saratoga launched eight warplanes armed with conventional weapons towards the Liberty. After the ship's identity was confirmed, the General Staff was notified and an apology was sent to naval attatché Castle. The aircraft approaching the Liberty were recalled to the Saratoga.[23]
Shortly after the ship's identity was confirmed, two IAF Hornet helicopters dispatched by Rabin arrived at the Liberty's location and offered assistance, which was refused. At about 4 pm, two hours after the attack began, Israel informed the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv about the incident and later provided a helicopter to fly naval attaché Castle to the ship.[15] (pp. 32,34) When the ship was "confirmed to be American" the torpedo boats returned at about 4:40 pm to offer help;[37] it was refused by the Liberty.
In Washington, President Lyndon B. Johnson had received word from the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the Liberty had been torpedoed by an unknown vessel at 9:50 a.m. eastern time. Johnson assumed that the Soviets were involved, and hotlined Moscow with news of the attack and the dispatch of jets from the Saratoga. Shortly afterward, the Israelis confirmed that they had mistakenly attacked the ship. Though "strong dismay" was conveyed to Israeli ambassador Avraham Harman, so too was the speed of Israel's notification. Apologies were soon sent by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, Foreign Minister Abba Eban, and chargé d'affaires Efraim Evron. Within 48 hours, Israel offered to compensate the victims and their families.[33]
Though the Liberty was severely damaged, with a 39 ft (12 m) wide by 24 ft (7.3 m) high hole and a twisted keel, her crew kept her afloat, and she was able to leave the area under her own power. The Liberty was later met by the destroyers USS Davis and USS Massey, and the cruiser USS Little Rock. Medical personnel were transferred to the Liberty, and it was escorted to Malta, where it was given interim repairs. After these were completed in July 1967, Liberty returned to the U.S. She was decommissioned in June 1968 and struck from the Naval Vessel Register. Liberty was transferred to United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) in December 1970 and sold for scrap in 1973.
From the start, the response to Israeli claims of mistaken identity ranged between frank disbelief and unquestioning acceptance within the administration in Washington. A communication to the Israeli Ambassador on June 10, by Secretary Rusk stated, among other things: “At the time of the attack, the USS Liberty was flying the American flag and its identification was clearly indicated in large white letters and numerals on its hull. … Experience demonstrates that both the flag and the identification number of the vessel were readily visible from the air…. Accordingly, there is every reason to believe that the USS Liberty was identified, or at least her nationality determined, by Israeli aircraft approximately one hour before the attack. … The subsequent attack by the torpedo boats, substantially after the vessel was or should have been identified by Israeli military forces, manifests the same reckless disregard for human life.”[38]
George Lenczowski notes: “It was significant that, in contrast to his secretary of state, President Johnson fully accepted the Israeli version of the tragic incident.” He notes that Johnson himself only included one small paragraph about the Liberty in his autobiography,[39] in which he accepted the Israeli explanation of “error”, but also minimized the whole affair and distorted the actual number of dead and wounded, by lowering them from 34 to 10 and 171 to 100, respectively. Lenczowski further states: “It seems Johnson was more interested in avoiding a possible confrontation with the Soviet Union, …than in restraining Israel.”[40]
McGonagle received the Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. medal, for his actions.[41][42] The Medal of Honor is generally presented by the President of the United States in the White House,[42][43] but this time it was awarded at the Washington Navy Yard by the Secretary of the Navy in an unpublicized ceremony, breaking with established tradition.[42]
Other Liberty sailors received decorations for their actions during and after the attack, but most of the award citations omitted mention of Israel as the perpetrator. In 2009, however, a Silver Star awarded to crewmember Terry Halbardier, who braved machine-gun and cannon fire to repair a damaged antenna that restored the ship's communications, in the award citation named Israel as the attacker.[44]
American inquiries, memoranda, records of testimony, and various reports involving or mentioning the Liberty attack include, but are not limited to, the following:
The U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry record contains testimony by fourteen Liberty crew members and five subject matter experts; exhibits of attack damage photographs, various messages and memorandums; and findings of fact. The testimony record reveals "a shallow investigation, plagued by myriad disagreements between the captain and his crew."[45] As to culpability, "It was not the responsibility of the court to rule on the culpability of the attackers, and no evidence was heard from the attacking nation", the court concluded that "available evidence combines to indicate ... (that the attack was) a case of mistaken identity." Additionally, the Court found that "heroism displayed by the Commanding Officer, officers and men of the Liberty was exceptional."
The Joint Chief of Staff's Report contains findings of fact related only to communication system failures associated with the Liberty attack. It was not concerned with matters of culpability, nor does it contain statements thereof.
The CIA Memorandums consist of two documents: one dated June 13, 1967, and the other dated June 21, 1967. The June 13 memorandum is an "account of circumstances of the attack ... compiled from all available sources." The June 21 memorandum is a point-by-point analysis of Israeli inquiry findings of fact. It concludes: "The attack was not made in malice toward the U.S. and was by mistake, but the failure of the IDF Headquarters and the attacking aircraft to identify the Liberty and the subsequent attack by torpedo boats were both incongruous and indicative of gross negligence."
The Clark Clifford Report consists of a review of "all available information on the subject" and "deals with the question of Israeli culpability", according to its transmittal memorandum. The report concludes: "The unprovoked attack on the Liberty constitutes a flagrant act of gross negligence for which the Israeli Government should be held completely responsible, and the Israeli military personnel involved should be punished."
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony contains, as an aside matter during hearings concerning a foreign aid authorization bill, questions and statements from several senators and responses from then Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, about the Liberty attack. For the most part, the senators were dismayed about the attack, as expressed by Senator Bourke B. Hickenlooper: "From what I have read I can't tolerate for 1 minute that this [attack] was an accident." Also, there was concern about obtaining more information about the attack, as expressed by Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright: "We asked for [the attack investigation report] about 2 weeks ago and have not received it yet from Secretary Rusk. ... By the time we get to it we will be on some other subject." Secretary McNamara promised fast delivery of the investigation report ("... you will have it in 4 hours."), and concluded his remarks by saying: "I simply want to emphasize that the investigative report does not show any evidence of a conscious intent to attack a U.S. vessel." Since the hearings concerned a foreign aid bill, the committee's report omitted any mention of the Liberty incident.
The House Armed Services Committee Investigation report is entitled, "Review of Department of Defense Worldwide Communications". It was not an investigation focused on the Liberty attack; although, the committee's report contains a section that describes communications flow involved with the Liberty incident.
The NSA History Report is, as its name connotes, a historical report that cited the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry record, various military and government messages and memorandum, and personal interviews for its content. The report ends with a section entitled, "Unanswered Questions", and provides no conclusion regarding culpability.
The Liberty Veterans Association (composed of veterans from the ship) states that U.S. congressional investigations and other U.S. investigations were not actually investigations into the attack; but, rather, reports using evidence only from the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, or investigations unrelated to culpability that involved issues such as communications. In their view, the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry is the only actual investigation on the incident to date. They claim it was hastily conducted, in only 10 days, even though the court’s president, Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, said that it would take 6 months to conduct properly. The inquiry's terms of reference were limited to whether any shortcomings on the part of the Liberty's crew had contributed to the injuries and deaths that resulted from the attack.[46] According to the Navy Court of Inquiry's record of proceedings, four days were spent hearing testimony: two days for fourteen survivors of the attack and several U.S. Navy expert witnesses, and two partial days for two expert U.S. Navy witnesses. No testimony was heard from Israeli personnel involved.
The National Archives in College Park, Md., includes in its files on casualties from the Liberty copies of the original telegrams the Navy sent out to family members. The telegrams called the attack accidental. The telegrams were sent out June 9, the day before the Navy court of inquiry convened.
Two subsequent Israeli inquiry reports and an historical report concluded the attack was conducted because Liberty was confused with an Egyptian vessel and because of failures in communications between Israel and the U.S. The three Israeli reports were:
In the historical report, it was acknowledged that IDF naval headquarters knew at least three hours before the attack that the ship was "an electromagnetic audio-surveillance ship of the U.S. Navy" but concluded that this information had simply "gotten lost, never passed along to the ground controllers who directed the air attack nor to the crews of the three Israeli torpedo boats."
The Israeli government said that three crucial errors were made: the refreshing of the status board (removing the ship's classification as American, so that the later shift did not see it identified), the erroneous identification of the ship as an Egyptian vessel, and the lack of notification from the returning aircraft informing Israeli headquarters of markings on the front of the hull (markings that would not be found on an Egyptian ship). As a common root of these problems, Israel blamed the combination of alarm and fatigue experienced by the Israeli forces at that point of the war when pilots were severely overworked.
After conducting his own fact-finding inquiry and reviewing evidence, Judge Yerushalmi's decision was: "I have not discovered any deviation from the standard of reasonable conduct which would justify committal of anyone for trial." In other words, he found no negligence by any IDF member associated with the attack.
Many intelligence and military officials dispute Israel's explanation.[50]
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.[51]
Retired naval Lieutenant Commander James Ennes, a junior officer (and off-going Officer of the Deck) on Liberty's bridge at the time of the attack, authored a book titled Assault on the Liberty [52] describing the incident during the Six Day War in June 1967 and claiming, among other things, it was deliberate. Ennes and Joe Meadors, also survivors of the attack, run a website[53] about the incident. Meadors states that the classification of the attack as deliberate is the official policy of the USS Liberty Veterans Association,[54] to which survivors and other former crew members belong. Other survivors run several additional websites. Citing Ennes's book, Lenczowski notes: Liberty's personnel received firm orders not to say anything to anybody about the attack, and the naval inquiry was conducted in such a way as to earn it the name of "coverup".[40]
In 2002, Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, U.S. Navy, senior counsel for the Court of Inquiry, claimed that the Court of Inquiry's findings were intended to cover up what was a deliberate attack by Israel on a ship it knew to be American. In 2004, in response to the publication of Jay Cristol’s book The Liberty Incident, which Boston claimed was an "insidious attempt to whitewash the facts" he prepared and signed an affidavit[55] in which he claimed that Admiral Kidd had told him that the government ordered Kidd to falsely report that the attack was a mistake, and that he and Kidd both believed the attack was deliberate. On the issue Boston wrote, in part:
The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack, which killed 34 American sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. Each evening, after hearing testimony all day, we often spoke our private thoughts concerning what we had seen and heard. I recall Admiral Kidd repeatedly referring to the Israeli forces responsible for the attack as 'murderous bastards.' 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.
Cristol wrote about 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 believes that Boston is not telling the truth about Kidd's views and any pressure from the U.S. government.[56] A. Jay Cristol, who also served as an officer of the U.S. Navy's Judge Advocate General, suggests that Boston was responsible in part for the original conclusions of the Court of Inquiry, and that by later declaring that they were false he has admitted to "lying under oath." Cristol also notes that Boston's claims about pressure on Kidd were hearsay, and that Kidd was not alive to confirm or deny them. He also notes that Boston did not maintain prior to his affidavit and comments related to it that Kidd spoke of such instructions to him or to others. Finally, he provides a handwritten 1991 letter from Admiral Kidd[57] that, according to Cristol, "suggest that Ward Boston has either a faulty memory or a vivid imagination".
The Anti-Defamation League supports Cristol's opinion:
... 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, who purportedly told him he was forced to find that the attack was unintentional. Kidd died in 1999 and there is no way to verify Boston's allegations. However, 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.'[58]
However, according to James Ennes, Admiral Kidd urged him and his group to keep pressing for an open congressional probe.[59]
The following arguments, found in official reports or other sources, were published to support that the attack was due to mistaken identity:
Several books and the BBC documentary USS Liberty: Dead in the Water argued that Liberty was attacked in order to prevent the U.S. from knowing about the forthcoming attack in the Golan Heights, which apparently would violate a cease-fire to which Israel's government had agreed.[62] Russian author Joseph Daichman, in his book "History of the Mossad" states Israel was justified in attacking the Liberty.[63] 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.[64]
Lenczowski notes that while the Israeli decision to “attack and destroy” the ship “may appear puzzling”, the explanation seems to be found in Liberty's nature and its task to monitor communications on both sides in the war zone. He writes, “Israel clearly did not want the U.S. government to know too much about its dispositions for attacking Syria, initially planned for June 8, but postponed for 24 hours. It should be pointed out that the attack on the Liberty occurred on June 8, whereas on June 9 at 3 AM, Syria announced its acceptance of the cease-fire. Despite this, at 7 AM, that is, four hours later, Israel’s minister of defense, Moshe Dayan, “gave the order to go into action against Syria.”[65] He 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.”[66]
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."[67]
The 1981 book Weapons by Russell Warren Howe asserts that Liberty was accompanied by the Polaris armed Lafayette-class submarine USS Andrew Jackson, which filmed the entire episode through its periscope but was unable to provide assistance. According to Howe: "Two hundred feet below the ship, on a parallel course, was its 'shadow'—the Polaris strategic submarine Andrew Jackson, whose job was to take out all the Israeli long-range missile sites in the Negev if Tel Aviv decided to attack Cairo, Damascus or Baghdad. This was in order that Moscow would not have to perform this task itself and thus trigger World War Three."[68]
James Bamford, a former ABC News producer, in his 2001 book Body of Secrets,[69] proposes a different possible motive for a deliberate attack: to prevent the discovery of a massacre by the IDF of Egyptian prisoners of war that was allegedly taking place at the same time in the nearby town of El-Arish.[70] In 1995, mass graves of Egyptian soldiers were discovered outside of El-Arish, and IDF veterans have admitted that prisoners of war were murdered in the 1967 War.[71][72] According to Alexander Cockburn, Israeli reporter Gabriel Bron, a former IDF soldier allegedly witnessed the massacre, "The Egyptian POWs were ordered to dig pits, then army police shot them to death".[73] A mass grave of 30 Egyptian soldiers was found in the Sinai peninsula in 2008. Forensic experts reported that the bodies likely dated to the 1967 war, though further examination would be necessary to determine if the soldiers were killed in combat or were executed. [74] Michael Oren, in a review of Bamford's book, wrote that Bron told him "The one hundred and fifty POWs were not shot, and there were no mass murders" but that the 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."[75] "Deputy Foreign Minister, Eli Dayan offered compensation to the victims families in 1995, but explained that Israel was unable to pursue those responsible due to the statute of limitations.[76]
The press release for the BBC documentary film Dead in the Water states that new recorded and other evidence 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 of the United States 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.[77] The video also provides hearsay evidence of a covert alliance of U.S. and Israel intelligence agencies.[78]
Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a critic of the official United States Government version of events, chaired a non-governmental investigation into the attack on the USS Liberty in 2003. The committee, which included former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia James E. Akins, held Israel to be culpable and suggested several theories for Israel's possible motives, including the desire to blame Egypt and bring the U.S. into the Six Day War.[79]
Within an hour of learning that the Liberty had been torpedoed the director of NSA, LTG Marshall S. Carter, sent a message to all intercept sites requesting a special search of all communications that might reflect the attack or reaction. No communications were available. However, one of the airborne platforms, a U.S. Navy EC-121 aircraft that flew near the attacks from 2:30 p.m. to 3:27 p.m., Sinai time (1230 to 1327 Z), had collected voice conversations between two Israeli helicopter pilots and the control tower at Hazor Airfield following the attack on the Liberty.[80]
On July 2, 2003, the National Security Agency released copies of the recordings made by the EC-121 and the resultant translations and summaries.[81] These revelations were elicited as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Florida bankruptcy judge and retired naval aviator Jay Cristol. Two linguists who were aboard the EC-121 when the recordings were made, however, have claimed separately that at least two additional tapes were made that have been excluded from the NSA releases up to and including a June 8, 2007, release.[6]
English transcripts of the released tapes indicate that Israel still believed it had hit an Egyptian supply ship even after the attack had stopped.[82][83] After the attack, the rescue helicopters are heard relaying several urgent requests that the rescuers ask the first survivor pulled out of the water what his nationality is, and discussing whether the survivors from the attacked ship will speak Arabic.[84]
A summary report of the NSA-translated tapes[85] indicates that at 1234Z Hatzor air control began directing two Israeli Air Force helicopters to an Egyptian warship, to rescue its crew: "This ship has now been identified as Egyptian." The helicopters arrived near the ship at about 1303Z: "I see a big vessel, near it are three small vessels..." At 1308Z, Hatzor air control indicated concern about the nationality of the ship's crew: "The first matter to clarify is to find out what their nationality is." At 1310Z, one of the helicopter pilots asked the nearby torpedo boats' Division Commander about the meaning of the ship's hull number: "GTR5 is written on it. Does this mean something?" The response was: "Negative, it doesn't mean anything." At 1312Z, one of the helicopter pilots was asked by air control: "Did you clearly identify an American flag?" No answer appears in the transcript, but the air controller then says: "We request that you make another pass and check once more if this is really an American flag." Again, no response appears in the transcript. At about 1314Z, the helicopters were directed to return home.
The NSA reported that there had been no radio intercepts of the attack made by the Liberty herself, nor had there been any radio intercepts made by the U.S. submarine Amberjack.
On October 10, 2003, The Jerusalem Post ran an interview with Yiftah Spector, one of the pilots who participated in the attack,[86] and thought to be the lead pilot of the first wave of planes. Spector said the ship was assumed to be Egyptian, stating that: "I circled it twice and it did not fire on me. My assumption was that it was likely to open fire at me and nevertheless I slowed down and I looked and there was positively no flag." The interview also contains the transcripts of the Israeli communications about the Liberty. The journalist who transcribed the tapes for that article, Arieh O'Sullivan, later confirmed that "the Israeli Air Force tapes he listened to contained blank spaces."[6]
The Liberty's survivors contradict Spector. According to subsequently declassified NSA documents: "Every official interview of numerous Liberty crewmen gave consistent evidence that indeed the Liberty was flying an American flag—and, further, the weather conditions were ideal to ensure its easy observance and identification."[87]
On June 8, 2005, the USS Liberty Veterans Association filed a "Report of War Crimes Committed Against the U.S. Military, June 8, 1967" with the Department of Defense (DoD). They say Department of Defense Directive 2311.01E requires the Department of Defense to conduct a thorough investigation of the allegations contained in their report. DoD has responded that a new investigation will not be conducted since a Navy Court of Inquiry already investigated the facts and circumstances surrounding the attack.
As of 2006, the National Security Agency (NSA) has yet to declassify "boxes and boxes" of Liberty documents. Numerous requests under both declassification directives and the Freedom of Information Act are pending in various agencies including the NSA, Central Intelligence Agency, and Defense Intelligence Agency.
"... On June 8, 2007, the National Security Agency released hundreds of additional declassified documents on the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, a communications interception vessel, on June 8, 1967."[88]
On October 2, 2007, The Chicago Tribune published a special report[6] into the attack, containing numerous previously unreported quotes from former military personnel with first-hand knowledge of the incident. Many of these quotes directly contradict the U.S. 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.
Documents of the Israeli General Staff meetings, declassified in October 2008, show no discussion of a planned attack on an American ship.[89]
Many of the events surrounding the attack are the subject of controversy:
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We learned that the ship had been attacked in error by Israeli gunboats and planes. Ten men of the Liberty crew were killed and a hundred were wounded. This heartbreaking episode grieved the Israelis deeply, as it did us.
I have examined the released version of the transcript and I did not see any pages that bore my hand corrections and initials. Also, the original did not have any deliberately blank pages, as the released version does. Finally, the testimony of Lt. Painter concerning the deliberate machine gunning of the life rafts by the Israeli torpedo boat crews, which I distinctly recall being given at the Court of Inquiry and included in the original transcript, is now missing and has been excised.
Survivors of the attack