Posted on 06/08/2007 8:33:53 PM PDT by Dajjal
U.S.S. Liberty
What’s new?
On 08 June 2007, the National Security Agency (NSA) finalized the review of all material relative to the 08 June 1967 attack on the USS Liberty. This additional release adds to the collection of documents and audio recordings and transcripts previously posted to the site on 02 July 2003.
The attack on the USS Liberty, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. It is not NSA's intention to prove or disprove any one set of conclusions, many of which can be drawn from a thorough review of this material. Instead, through these public releases, we intend to make as much information as possible available for the many scholars, historians, academia, and members of the general public who find interest in analyzing the information and forming their own conclusions.
Please Note: These historical documents are PDF images of formerly classified carbon paper and reports that have been declassified. Due to the age and poor quality of some of the PDF images, a screen reader may not be able to process the images into word documents. In accordance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, individuals may request that the government provide auxiliary aids or services to ensure effective communication of the substance of the documents. For such requests, please contact the Public Affairs Office at 301-688-6524.
According to this blog entry:
http://jacksonville.typepad.com/patum_peperium/2007/06/updatebreaking_.html
"The NSA web site does not distinguish in terms of how documents are grouped, between documents that were released in 2003 vs. documents released today. However, individual documents that are new have, at least on the first page, a stamp indicating a 2007 or 2006 date of the governmental authorization to declassify." [emphasis mine]
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I used to work with a guy who was a young sailor serving onboard the USS Liberty that day.. Thanks for passing this on..
What do you think of this?
I met two of them when they came to our base after Liberty was attacked. I don’t remember a lot about them now, one was a Chief and one about the same rank as I was I think, E4. Anyway, he did not think this was an accident!
I was 13 when this happened but did not even know about it, or at least had forgotten all about it, till today when I saw someone carrying a sign downtown to commerate the 40th anniversay.
For all those who think this was deliberate....any speculation as to why the Israeli’s would deliberately attack a staunch ally?
I too was 13 when this happened. I stumbled on a book in our library by one of the survivors of the attack. He made it pretty clear that no one on the ship thought it was an accident.
Cue the Israel haters
James Kelly is the guy’s name.. he passed when I was in 7th or 8th grade.
why would Israel attack an ally? What possible benefit would there be to such an act?
I’ve always wondered that myself.
I’m no Israel hater but I believe the attack was deliberate. They were worried LIBERTY was going to hear something they didn’t want it to. And with their national survival at risk, they weren’t too worried about who they took out to eliminate that possibility.
The only explanation for an accidental attack is total and absolute incompetency in ship recognition in broad daylight by both Israeli naval and air forces. I can’t buy that.
I keep reading this but I still have not seen one bit of thought as to why. I can understand fully any sailor on that ship believing the worst about the attack, its pretty hard to go through all that and lose your buddies just on an oops....but s&&t happens.......
The U.S. accidentally shot down an Iranian airliner in 1988. I absolutely do NOT believe that was intentional, but Iran certainly does, and I am sure the loved ones of the victims do too.
If I remember correctly, it was a looong time ago his son and I talked about it, he believed they were trying to make the US think it was the Egyptians that attacked the Liberty so that we’d help Israel against Egypt... but I am not sure I am remembering the country correctly, it could’ve been some other nation. I wish Jim hadn’t passed so I could’ve talked to him about it. I got interested a couple years after he passed away. His brother (Fred, I think) was also on the Liberty, he never talked about it.
An ally doesn’t park an intelligence collection vessel next to your country.
Let remember this...the navy and NSA got together and thought it would be neat to build two vessels for the purpose of intelligence collection. They had lots of money and congress would not meddle into this if it was a NSA project. Neither boat had a single bit of defensive ability. You may remember the second boat...which today...sits in North Korean waters...on permanent display.
Both vessels had to be within a certain range of the coastline...and thus ventured too close. Neither vessel had any US navy protection...nor would it have been approved anyway.
As for the argument that the Israel government had no reason to attack. Why would I allow such a vessel to collect a huge amount of intelligence on me...and who would they provide it to? This is the fascinating thing about this whole attack. No one in the US government has ever fully explained why we parked the vessel there in the first place.
Others have already suggested that they were worried that the Liberty would overhear something they didn’t want heard. A darker theory would be that they were hoping to destroy the ship and pin the blame on the Egyptians.
The Liberty was not able to clearly identify either the planes or the ships as Israeli at the time of the attack. The Israelis confessed only when the carriers started launching.
If you read through the newly released material, there is support for the understanding that the aircraft identified the ship as American on the first pass.
I personally have not concluded whether it was intentional or not, and this material doesn’t shed a whole lot of new light.
PUEBLO's cover was blown long before she arrived off shore it's quite obvious. Sending a ship with classified material into hostile waters without so much as an E.D. capability raises questions in my mind what were they thinking.
Two possibilities come to my mind with LIBERTY. One has been stated there was something going on Israel did not want leaked or transmitted even by accident. Remember they were in the middle of a war with several nations. The second possibility is they thought the U.S. was going to alert Syria or another nation to their movements. I think if it had been anyone else in the White House but LBJ then LIBERTY likely would have never happened even with it that close. I don't think Israel trusted LBJ.
Third possibility as well is Israel intercepted and misread a shore based communication from a covert operation and assumed PUEBLO was involved. The LIBERTY crew would not have picked up on it and would have been clueless.
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