The U.S.S. Liberty for One Last Time was a mistake!

The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was a grievous error, largely attributable to the fact that it occurred in the midst of the confusion of a full-scale war in 1967. Ten official United States investigations and three official Israeli inquiries have all conclusively established the attack was a tragic mistake.

Investigation - Date - Conclusion

1)U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry June 10-18, 1967 The attack was a case of mistaken identity. Calm conditions and slow ship speed may have made American flag difficult to identify. No indication the attack was intended against U.S. ship.

2)CIA Report June 13, 1967 The attack was not made in malice and was a mistake.

3)Joint Chiefs of Staff Fact Finding Team (Russ Report) June 9-20, 1967 Outlined "findings of fact," bud did not make any findings about the actual attack.

4)Clifford Report July 18, 1967 No premeditation, but "inexcusable failures" by Israeli forces constituing "gross negligence."

5)Senate Committee on Foreign Relations 1967 Secretary of Defense McNamara testified he supported conclusion that the attack was not intentional.

6)Senate Armed Services Committee Feb. 1, 1968 No conclusion. Secretary McNamara makes comparison of attack on Liberty to that on Pueblo with regard to uncertainty about what was happening at the time of the incident.

7)House Appropriations Committee April-May 1968 Navy communications "foulup" and no conclusion regarding Israeli actions. Much of report remains classified.

8)House Armed Services Committee May 10, 1971 Critical of Navy communications, no conclusion regarding Israeli actions.

9)Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 1979 Responding to critical book by Liberty crewman James Ennes, Senate investigation found no merit to his claim attack was intentional.

10)National Security Agency 1981 Liberty was mistaken for an Egyptian ship as a result of miscalculations and egregious errors.

11)House Armed Services Committee June 1991 Responding to request from Liberty Veterans Association, Subcommitte on Investigations launched probe that concluded there was no evidence to support allegations made by the Association and no reason for further investigation.

Israeli Investigations

Investigation - Date - Conclusion

1)Ram Ron Commission June 12, 1967 The attack was made "neither maliciously nor in gross negligence, but as the result of a bona fide mistake. Also notes that the Liberty made a mistake as well by carelessly approaching a war area.

2)Preliminary Inquiry July 1967 There was no malicious intent and no deviation from the standard of reasonable conduct that would justify a court-martial.

3)IDF History 1982 The attack was a result of an "innocent error."

On June 8, 1967, the fourth day of the Six-Day War, the Israeli high command received reports that Israeli troops in El Arish were being fired upon from the sea, presumably by an Egyptian vessel, as they had a day before. The United States had announced that it had no Naval forces within hundreds of miles of the battle front on the floor of the United Nations a few days earlier; however, the USS Liberty, an American intelligence ship assigned to monitor the fighting, arrived in the area, 14 miles off the Sinai coast, as a result of a series of United States communication failures, whereby messages directing the ship not to approach within 100 miles were not received by the Liberty. The Israelis mistakenly thought this was the ship doing the shelling and war planes and torpedo boats attacked, killing 34 members of the Liberty's crew and wounding 171.

Numerous mistakes were made by both the United States and Israel. For example, the Liberty was first reported — incorrectly, as it turned out — to be cruising at 30 knots (it was later recalculated to be 28 knots). Under Israeli (and U.S.) naval doctrine at the time, a ship proceeding at that speed was presumed to be a warship. The day fighting began, Israel had asked that American ships be removed from its coast or that it be notified of the precise location of U.S. vessels. The Sixth Fleet was moved because President Johnson feared being drawn into a confrontation with the Soviet Union. He also ordered that no aircraft be sent near Sinai.

According to Israeli Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin's memoirs, there were standing orders to attack any unidentified vessel near the shore. The sea was calm and the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry found that the Liberty's flag was very likely drooped and not discernible; moreover, members of the crew, including the Captain, Commander William McGonagle, testified that the flag was knocked down after the first or second assault.

A CIA report on the incident issued June 13, 1967, also found that an overzealous pilot could mistake the Liberty for an Egyptian ship, the El Quseir. After the air raid, Israeli torpedo boats identified the Liberty as an Egyptian naval vessel. When the Liberty began shooting at the Israelis, they responded with the torpedo attack, which killed 28 of the sailors.

The argument that the attack was a tragic mistake is further reinforced by a new biography of Yitzhak Rabin (Dan Kurzman, Soldier of Peace: The Life of Yitzhak Rabin. NY: HarperCollins, 1998), who was Israel's Chief of Staff during the war, which says the Israelis initially were terrified that they had attacked a Soviet ship and might have provoked the Soviets to join the fighting. The Israelis were relieved when they learned it was an American ship, though Rabin remained concerned the mistake might jeopardize American support for Israel.

Once the Israelis were sure what had happened, they reported the incident to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and offered to provide a helicopter for the Americans to fly out to the ship and any help they required to evacuate the injured and salvage the ship. The offer was accepted and a U.S. naval attaché was flown to the Liberty.

Many of the survivors of the Liberty remain bitter, and are convinced the attack was deliberate as they make clear on their web site. In 1991, columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak trumpeted their discovery of an American who said he had been in the Israeli war room when the decision was made to knowingly attack the American ship. In fact, that individual, Seth Mintz, wrote a letter to the Washington Post on November 9, 1991, in which he said he was misquoted by Evans and Novak and that the attack, was, in fact, a "case of mistaken identity." Moreover, the man who Mintz originally said had been with him, a Gen. Benni Matti, does not exist.

Also, contrary to claims that an Israeli pilot identified the ship as American on a radio tape, no one has ever produced this tape. In fact, the only tape in existence is the official Israeli Air Force tape, which clearly established that no such identification of the ship was made by the Israeli pilots prior to the attack. It also indicates that once the pilots became concerned about the identity of the ship, by virtue of reading its hull number, they terminated the attack. The tapes do not contain any statement suggesting the pilots saw a U.S. flag before the attack.

None of Israel's accusers can explain why Israel would deliberately attack an American ship at a time when the United States was Israel's only friend and supporter in the world. Confusion in a long line of communications, which occurred in a tense atmosphere on both the American and Israeli sides (five messages from the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the ship to remain at least 25 miles — the last four said 100 miles — off the Egyptian coast arrived after the attack was over) is a more probable explanation.

Accidents caused by “friendly fire” are common in wartime. In 1988, the U.S. Navy mistakenly downed an Iranian passenger plane, killing 290 civilians. During the Gulf War, 35 of the 148 Americans who died in battle were killed by “friendly fire.” In April 1994, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters with large U.S. flags painted on each side were shot down by U.S. Air Force F-15s on a clear day in the “no fly” zone of Iraq, killing 26 people. In fact, the day before the Liberty was attacked, Israeli pilots accidentally bombed one of their own armored columns south of Jenin on the West Bank.

Retired Admiral, Shlomo Erell, who was Chief of the Navy in Israel in June 1967, told the Associated Press (June 5, 1977): “No one would ever have dreamt that an American ship would be there. Even the United States didn't know where its ship was. We were advised by the proper authorities that there was no American ship within 100 miles.”

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told Congress on July 26, 1967: “It was the conclusion of the investigatory body, headed by an admiral of the Navy in whom we have great confidence, that the attack was not intentional.”

In 1987, McNamara repeated his belief that the attack was a mistake, telling a caller on the “Larry King Show” that he had seen nothing in the 20 years since to change his mind that there had been no “coverup.”

Israel apologized for the tragedy and paid nearly $13 million in humanitarian reparations to the United States and to the families of the victims in amounts established by the U.S. State Department. The matter was officially closed between the two governments by an exchange of diplomatic notes on December 17, 1987.

See here.

USSLiberty.org

to be fair....

The hours just before the attack

The USS Liberty, with 294 men aboard, arrived near the Gaza Strip in the Eastern Mediterranean at 9:00 on the morning of June 8, 1967. This was the fourth day of the Arab-Israeli war later to be known as "The Six Day War."

Initially we of the ship's crew were concerned about being relatively close to a shooting war, even though our position put us always more than 12-1/2 miles from shore, clearly in international waters and well away from any action. We had asked for a destroyer escort, but this request was rejected by the Sixth Fleet Commander who said that we did not need protection because we were on a peaceful mission in international waters. In any case, he said, in the unlikely event of an accidental attack, Sixth Fleet aircraft could be overhead in a few minutes.

By the time we arrived, however, Israel had destroyed nearly every aircraft belonging to any of her enemies. Now they were only mopping up, chasing the retreating Arab armies back across the desert. There seemed little reason for further concern.

We were assigned to patrol a dog-leg-shaped track perhaps 100 miles long near the Egyptian-owned Gaza Strip, roughly from Rafah to Port Said. We were to steam at our slowest possible speed, about five miles per hour.

Initially we had some concern for our safety, because the Arab countries were blaming the U.S. for the war. Many had broken diplomatic relations with America and some were claiming that the attacks on their airfields had been by American aircraft from the U.S. Sixth Fleet.

If we had any fears for our safety, however, these quickly vanished. Much of this coast area had been captured by Israel only hours before our arrival. Israel was our friend. Israeli aircraft had circled us throughout the night (identified by their radar characteristics), and now, with daylight, they came closer and we could see the Star of David markings. Often they came so close that we could see the pilots in their cockpits and exchanged friendly waves.

I was the officer-of-the-deck on the bridge during this period, and following each visit our leading intercept supervisor, Chief Melvin Smith, would come up to the bridge and ask if I had seen the aircraft's markings to confirm his own electronic observations: "Not to worry," he would say, "Each time they circle we can hear the pilot telling his headquarters that we are an American ship."

That was comforting to everyone on the bridge. Yet, taking no chances, I ordered the quartermaster to haul up a new flag, with bright and clear colors, and instructed signalmen and lookouts to assure that the flag never wrapped around the lines or mast making it difficult to see even for a few seconds. I was pleased to see that we had a steady breeze across the deck, always more than enough to hold the flag out so that it could be seen clearly by the Israeli pilots.

Below, our intercept operators worked at their task. Usually our orders are very clear. This time, apparently because of the limited time to prepare, our orders were unusually vague and general. We were to collect intelligence from electronic sources in the area. Little more than that.

During our brief stopover in Rota, Spain, however, we had taken aboard several technicians and linguists sent by the National Security Agency especially for this mission. These men had been specially briefed on their assignment. They were trained in Russian and Arab languages; not a Hebrew linguist among them. And while the assignment remained a vague and general one, their primary interest was not the Israelis or even the Arab side of this war. The primary concern of these men was to learn more about several Soviet TU-95 bombers that had been stationed in Egypt by the Soviet government. The assignment: find out whether the aircraft were controlled by Egypt, as both governments claimed, or were in reality merely Soviet long range bombers stationed on Arab soil and under Soviet control.

During the morning and early afternoon of June 8, these several technicians sat with our regular radio intercept operators, searching the radio spectrum, looking for Russian language broadcasts from within Egypt. Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft continued to circle us about every 40 minutes, a total of seven visits during daylight. These airplanes circled our ship 13 times. And on every occasion Chief Smith came back up to the bridge to tell me that he had identified them; they were Israeli, they knew we were friendly, and they had so informed their headquarters.

---00--- At 2:00, radar operators on the ship's bridge detected more approaching high speed aircraft, flying low, coming from the direction of Tel Aviv. Apparently these were more of the same aircraft that had been visiting us all day. At the same time our men detected three small surface craft, later determined to be Israeli torpedo boats, just as they came across the visible horizon 16 miles away.

In the radio intercept spaces, our intercept operators were getting lucky too. "We got em, We got em," one of the men yelled as he raced across the crowded room to tell Chief Smith that they had identified Soviet pilots talking to Moscow in the Russian language from the bombers that were supposedly owned and controlled by Egypt. Now there was proof that these were not Egyptian airplanes at all. That was a ruse. These were Soviet long range bombers stationed dangerously close to Europe, America, and the free world. An important part of Liberty's mission, perhaps the most important part, had been accomplished.

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