http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAJ7QL94MD.html Oct 22, 2003 Former Chief Navy Counsel Alleges Cover-Up by LBJ of 1967 Israeli Attack on U.S. Ship By Jennifer C. Kerr Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - A former Navy attorney who helped lead the military investigation of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American servicemen says former President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, ordered that the inquiry conclude the incident was an accident. In a signed affidavit released at a Capitol Hill news conference, retired Capt. Ward Boston said Johnson and McNamara told those heading the Navy's inquiry to "conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary." Boston was senior legal counsel to the Navy's original 1967 review of the attack. He said in the sworn statement that he stayed silent for years because he's a military man, and "when orders come ... I follow them." He said he felt compelled to "share the truth" following the publication of a recent book, "The Liberty Incident," which concluded the attack was unintentional. The USS Liberty was an electronic intelligence-gathering ship that was cruising international waters off the Egyptian coast on June 8, 1967. Israeli planes and torpedo boats opened fire on the Liberty in the midst of what became known as the Israeli-Arab Six-Day War. In addition to the 34 Americans killed, more than 170 were wounded. Israel has long maintained that the attack was a case of mistaken identity, an explanation that the Johnson administration did not formally challenge. Israel claimed its forces thought the ship was an Egyptian vessel and apologized to the United States. After the attack, a Navy court of inquiry concluded there was insufficient information to make a judgment about why Israel attacked the ship, stopping short of assigning blame or determining whether it was an accident. It was "one of the classic all-American cover-ups," said Ret. Adm. Thomas Moorer, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who spent a year investigating the attack as part of an independent panel he formed with other former military officials. The panel also included a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins. "Why in the world would our government put Israel's interest ahead of our own?" Moorer asked from his wheelchair at the news conference. He was chief of naval operations at the time of the attack. Moorer, who has long held that the attack was a deliberate act, wants Congress to investigate. Israeli Embassy spokesman Mark Regev disputed any notion that Israel knowingly went after American sailors. "I can say unequivocally that the Liberty tragedy was a terrible accident, that the Israeli pilots involved believed they were attacking an enemy ship," Regev said. "This was in the middle of a war. This is something that we are not proud of." Calls to the Navy seeking comment were not immediately returned. David Lewis of Lemington, Vt., was on the Liberty when it was attacked. In an interview, he said Israel had to know it was targeting an American ship. He said a U.S. flag was flying that day and Israel shot it full of holes. The sailors on the ship, he said, quickly hoisted another American flag, a much bigger one, to show Israel it was a U.S. vessel. "No trained individual could be that inept," said Lewis of the Israeli forces. In Capt. Boston's statement, he does not say why Johnson would have ordered a cover-up. Later in a phone interview from his home in Coronado, Calif., Boston said Johnson may have worried the inquiry would hurt him politically with Jewish voters. Moorer's panel suggested several possible reasons Israel might have wanted to attack a U.S. ship. Among them: Israel intended to sink the ship and blame Egypt because it might have brought the United States into the 1967 war. --- On the Net: USS Liberty Memorial Web site: http://www.ussliberty.org AP-ES-10-22-03 2355EDT This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAJ7QL94MD.html Go Back To The Story18 responses total.
Actually, the attack was _before_ the Six Day War. Only one day before, and I saw something suggesting the Israelis delayed the start of the war for 24 hours, to figure out what to do in the aftermath of the attack on the Liberty. Still, it wasn't quite "in the middle of a war."
Somehow, I find it much more plausible that Israeli pilots would have fired on a ship off the coast of Egypt even if it was flying an American flag because they'd have believed it was an Egyptian ship trying to pass itself off as American, than that the firing was an attempt to sink the ship so the Egyptians could be blamed in order to get the U.S. into the war. If the latter is the best motivation anyone can come up with for Israel firing on an American ship when the US had been the first and best friend of Israel in its modern history, then good luck selling it to anyone with a brain.
Didn't we have this argument a couple years ago?
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IIRC, the Liberty was in the eastern Mediterranean, not far from Israel, but outside its territorial waters. Of course, Israel and Egypt are close enough that being "off the coast" of one is likely to result in being "off the coast" of the other, too.
This was discussed in Agora37 item 174 and Agora38 item 132. See also: http://www.tnr.com/072301/oren072301_print.html Joe, you're right about the USS Liberty being off the coast of essentially both countries, but it didn't arrive in the area until June 8th, the middle of the 6-Day War (and if you read on, you'll see why this is very relevant). It was 14 miles off El Arish, on the Sinai coast (by now under Israeli control). According to Chief Judge A. Jay Cristol (a retired US Naval Reserve officer with 38 years of service), the Liberty isn't just a case of mistaken identity but a series of errors (the lessons of which today are being learned by Naval cadets). The Liberty was first spotted by the Israeli Navy (which he points out was a small 5,000 man organization at the time -- which could all fit aboard just one US aircraft carrier) at 5:50am that morning. Israel conducted dawn and pre-dusk surveillance flights with a French Nord 2501 plane. According to the Liberty's logs, about 10 minutes before Israel's logs show that it discovered the boat it changed course. Evidently the Liberty had sighted the Nord first and decided to change course to fool it. Uri Meritz, of Israeli Naval intelligence in Tel Aviv, properly identified the boat using "Jane's Fighting Ships". He communicated this information, as well as a warning that the ship could easily be confused for the Egyptian El Quesir, to Naval intelligence in Haifa. And then at 8am he finished his shift and went home. Shortly after 2pm the boat was attacked by the Israeli air force which conducted straffing runs. Then Motor Torpedo Boats arrived and one torpedo hit the Liberty. Within minutes the error was recognized and Israel offered assistance to the ship -- which was refused. The Liberty's imperative was to preserve its codes (which had already been compromised by the Walkers who sold them to the KGB) and instead of heading for Ashdod, an Israeli port a couple hours away (or allowing the wounded to be airlifted) the Liberty set sail for Malta. But now let's go back and review some other critical errors. The Liberty was supposed to be sent 5 messages instructing it to leave the area and retreat 100 miles. Some weren't sent and none were received. The Liberty (and its sister ship the Pueblo) used a communication system that worked by bouncing signals off the moon, meaning the ship and the command center in Maryland had to both be able to see the moon at the same time. Seriously. Remember, there were few satellites available back then. The Liberty, despite having extremely sophisticated listening technology, was a island of information. The US did have a few "Steam Valves" (secure phones), but those were all deployed in Vietnam. As it entered the Med, the Liberty was "chopped" from JCS control to (nominally) being under the command of the 6th fleet (with which it could communicate more easily). Which brings up another point. This was a Navy vessel, but it was on an NSA mission. Even Captain McGonagle didn't know what it was. At one point, seeing the on-going war on land, he conferred with the operations officer about withdrawing past the horizon (well short of the 100 miles he had been ordered to withdraw). Told that this would reduce the ships listening capability by 80%, the Captain opted to stay put. Unaware of the ship's mission, and cut off from his real commanding officers, he was unable to correlate the importance of the mission with the safety of the ship. The Liberty had been ordered to withdraw because it's mission was to assess the situation in the Sinai, to see if a war was coming. By the time it arrived on the scene, its mission was overcome by events. The war had already begun. Having not received confirmation that the ship had pulled back, at the behest of an NSA operative (FR), Major B. at JCS requested that a plain language voice message be sent to the Liberty. The Deputy Chief of Staff at CINCUSNAVEUR (MJH) declined the order because he wanted a formal message with date-time group. Nonetheless Israel had been advised that there were no US warships in the area. Israel had its communication problems as well. As I said before, the Israel Navy was headquartered in Haifa. The Air Force and Army were in Tel Aviv. In the Navy war room, you'll recall that the ship had been properly identified at 6am. By 11am, under the assumption that the ship wasn't sitting still and its location was unknown, the ship was removed from the Navy's board. Early in the afternoon (as the Liberty itself witnessed), there was fighting in El Arish. The Israeli army could see a warship on the horizon and assumed that this was the source of attack -- as it had been the day before. So the Israeli army called in the air force for support. The air force alerted the Navy which dispatched the 3 MTBs to investigate. When they picked up the Liberty on radar, they saw that it was headed toward Port Said (in Egypt) at a speed of 28-30 knots (this was a calculation error. The Liberty was doing about 5 knots). Realizing that the MTBs could not acquire the target before it got away (and that such a speed definitely identified it as a warship), the Israeli Navy reluctantly called in the Air Force for support. Why reluctantly? Because there's competition between the branches and the Navy was running 3rd fiddle to the Air Force (which had already destroyed its Egyptian counterpart. They Army had liberated the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. The Navy had so far only succeeded in crashing 2 of its ships). If they thought they could have handled the situation themselves, the Navy would have done so (especially since the day before, due to radar echoes, the Navy had called the AF for support and almost ended up having its own ships bombed). Assured that this time they really had a target, the AF scrambled a couple Mirage planes with the authority to fire on any warships other than the 3 MTBs heading that way. Thus began the first straffing run. Then two Mystere planes arrived from the Sinai where they had been fighting tanks. They dropped napalm on the ship and fired 30mm guns. The AF was attempting to get a plane with iron bombs out there to sink the ship (lest the Navy get the job done), but started getting concerned that there was no anti-aircraft fire. As they came around to attack from the side, in an attempt to target the boilers and disable the ship, the pilot identified the ship as "CTR-5". Actually, it was "GTR-5". But the pilot saw "C"-- as in "CCCP", and thus the AF concluded that it had attacked a Soviet spy ship. The Israeli Navy, off in Haifa, was still in the dark and steaming toward the Liberty even as the AF was gloomy because they feared that now the Russians had an excuse to enter the war. So the MTBs signaled the ship to identify itself (as Liberty's Captain McGonagle testified) and then the commander of the MTB (a veteran of a 1956 battle with an Egyptian destroyer) thinks he sees similar signals. Without Jane's and only a copy of an Israeli issued booklet of only Arab vessels, the MTBs mis-identify the Liberty as the El Quesir. The Navy reports that it is engaging an Egyptian ship and there is a sigh of relief at AF/Army command center. Then the Navy says that it sees a red flag through the smoke. The gloom returns to the war room -- it's Russian. Finally, the Navy makes a definitive and correct identification. The Israeli AF breathes a sad sigh of relief. Ironically, back in Washington, the same thing happens in reverse. Reports come in that a US Navy ship was attacked and torpedoed. The top brass is meeting to discuss this with President Johnson on the way to join them. Was it the Egyptians -- or the Russians? It was a painful relief when the President walked in and announced that he had received word from Israel that it had mistakenly attacked the ship. Some have argued that the pilots who first attacked the ship should have seen the US Flag. Yet both US and Israeli pictures from the scene show that smoke from the burning ship rose straight up -- meaning there was no wind and the flag was drooping. Others have argued that it was a clear and sunny day. A perfect day, normally, for a picnic, except that on this particular day there happened to be a war raging. It should also be noted that even with much newer technology and communications, friendly fire between the same forces are still all too common today. In the first Gulf War, the US killed more British soldiers than Iraqi forces did -- and a US jet shot down a couple of US helicopters. On a clear and sunny day, with their (painted) flags and markings visible. Lacking in all the conspiracy theories is a credible motive for why Israel would attack a US ship. Some have posited that it was to keep secret the pending Israeli counter-attack on the then Syrian Golan Heights. Documents that have been declassified in recent years show that Israel had already informed the US of its plans and had no such secret to hide. Furthermore, if Israel had really wanted to destroy the vessel, it wouldn't have scrambled planes with napalm but with Iron bombs, or sent its Destroyers rather than MTBs. And it could have done so under cover of darkness. As all of the 14 investigations into the incident have concluded, it was a sad affair that resulted from many errors.
lk, I'm curious about an inconsistency in #6, reflected in the two statements below: "Then two Mystere planes arrived from the Sinai where they had been fighting tanks. They dropped napalm on the ship and fired 30mm guns. The AF was attempting to get a plane with iron bombs out there to sink the ship (lest the Navy get the job done), but started getting concerned that there was no anti-aircraft fire." "Furthermore, if Israel had really wanted to destroy the vessel, it wouldn't have scrambled planes with napalm but with Iron bombs, or sent its Destroyers rather than MTBs." By your account, Israel -- under the belief that the ship was an enemy warship -- WAS trying to destroy it, but the planes with napalm simply got there before ones with bombs could. Yet, you suggest at the end that Israel was NOT trying to destroy the ship, because they napalmed it instead of bombing it. Aside from the plain idiocy of that conclusion, why would you even be suggesting that Israel would NOT have wanted to destroy what they thought was an enemy warship? Or you just saying that they napalmed it instead of bombing it because they realized it was an ally?
I'm saying that if this had been a premeditated attack, as the various conspiracy theorists have argued over the years (not that they can provide a working motive), Israel would have done it right the first time and the ship would have been sunk in minutes. (Not to mention that such an attack could have been carried out at night and no one would have known who had attacked the ship.) But Israel had no reason to attack an American ship. The Army thought its forces were under attack from the sea (where they could see a warship). The Navy thought it couldn't catch the vessel before it escaped, and the Air Force attacked what was believed to be an enemy vessel with what it happened to have up in the air at that time. (Seemingly the Liberty's only "lucky" break was that these planes were ill-equipped to attack a ship.) In fact, Israel had just dispatched a sorte with iron bombs to take out SAM sites in Egypt shortly before the incident. A command decision was made not to divert the planes to attack the unknown ship -- because the SAMs were the more important military target. So again, if Israel wanted and planned to sink the ship (as the critics claim), it could have. So the question remains: why would it want to and if so why didn't it?
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So you're saying that there was some sort of diversion involved?
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Where did I say anything about a diversion, bhelliom?
I'm asking, Leeron, if that's what you meant. I'm not questioning what you've said.
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(But there was no wind, so it wouldn't have been visible. Except that a ship steaming at 5 knots generates its own wind.)
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yeh, wasn't an arab floater was it ....
Arab whores are the best, man. rock hard.
You have several choices: