[rmlew]

Excuse me ? So this is reason for "our closest ally in the middle east" to attack Americans ? We should have counter- attacked the ungrateful bastards with our own air strike.
Why should the Israelis have thought it to be an American ship?
The ship was hailed but refused to identify itself. It was patrolling a warzone, near Soviet spy ships?
Why didn't our administration, Navy, or State Department inform Israel that there would be American ships covertly operating in a region we had promised Israel we would not be?
Why didn't we provide a Naval liason?

Either the we were spying on Israel, or this was a huge SNAFU.

[zchip]

Either the we were spying on Israel, or this was a huge SNAFU

Since you brought up the subject of SPYING, consider this.

At that time (1967) the US Navy was being severely compromised by the Walker spy ring. All US Naval communications were being read by Moscow as if they were in clear text.

If Israeli intelligence was aware of this then they really had no alternative other than to sink that ship. If the Liberty acquired any information about Israeli movements it would could have resulted in Israel loosing that war. If Liberty had been lost with all hands, then they would simply say that it was a mistake in identity.

The cover-up by LBJ simply means that he was afraid that if the truth of the matter became public, (whatever that truth may have been), it would have been a great embarassment for his administration.

[RaceBannon]

Ah, but it was flying the Stars and Stripes for the second strafing run, for sure, confirmed.

Also, the class of ship it was, it was an American ship, the Soviets did not have a class similar to it

Tragic, but I have read nothing to prove it to be pre-meditated as an attack on an American target, ust an attack on "some" target.