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New revelations in attack on American spy ship
Chicago Tribune ^ | June 8, 2008 | John Crewdson

Posted on 06/07/2008 2:49:49 PM PDT by Jonah Johansen

Bryce Lockwood, Marine staff sergeant, Russian-language expert, recipient of the Silver Star for heroism, ordained Baptist minister, is shouting into the phone.

"I'm angry! I'm seething with anger! Forty years, and I'm seething with anger!"

Lockwood was aboard the USS Liberty, a super-secret spy ship on station in the eastern Mediterranean, when four Israeli fighter jets flew out of the afternoon sun to strafe and bomb the virtually defenseless vessel on June 8, 1967, the fourth day of what would become known as the Six-Day War..........

.....Their anger has been stoked by the declassification of government documents and the recollections of former military personnel, including some quoted in this article for the first time, which strengthen doubts about the U.S. National Security Agency's position that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots -- communications, according to those who remember seeing them, that showed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American naval vessel.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Israel; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 1967; 40years; 40yearsago; antisemitism; antizionists; attack; conspiracy; hatredofisrael; hatredofjews; holocaustdenial; israel; june81967; lbj; liberty; samefecesdiffday; usn; ussliberty
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To: Oztrich Boy
There is a world of difference between pilots bombing and shooting at the front lines where from the air it is hard to tell where our troop stop and the enemy begins than a lone ship flying the stars and stripes in a body of water. AND the efficiency of the Israeli intelligence services which as I said is probably better than ours.
21 posted on 06/07/2008 3:39:29 PM PDT by fish hawk (Silence is often misinterpreted but never misquoted.)
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To: kabar
It's pretty obvious this was a cold-blooded murder of American servicemen ,meant to silence and discourage American monitoring of Israeli military communications.Whoever ordered it had to be very high in the Israeli government.

Apparently the IDF wasn't really up to the task if they couldn't sink the Liberty with 5 torpedos and all that cannon fire.Or should be believe the IDF airmen and sailors tried to minimize casualties by mostly firing high?

22 posted on 06/07/2008 3:43:54 PM PDT by hoosierham (Waddaya mean Freedom isn't free ?;will you take a creditcard?)
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To: vetvetdoug

I have no way of learning the truth of this matter,but have believed for some time this was a deliberate attack on a vessel that was reporting Israeli movements to the Russians,who were passing the info along to the Arabs.

The whole attack seemed designed to end any further communications.

Ir reminds me of our “accidental” bombing of a Chinese communication facility during the Kosovo campaign.


23 posted on 06/07/2008 3:45:16 PM PDT by genefromjersey (So much to flame;so little time !)
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To: zeestephen
Has anyone ever come up with a VERIFIABLE explanation as to why the Israelis would deliberately attack a USA ship?

They must have known the mariners on the US Ship were Democrats.

24 posted on 06/07/2008 3:45:40 PM PDT by Doe Eyes
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To: bobby.223
If you read on in the story, the embarrassed and franctic Israeli ground controllers were frustrated that the Liberty was withstanding everything the IAF was throwing at her. Since the senior Israeli commanders did not want any USN witnesses to live to tell about their screw-up, they ordered the attack boats to move in and torpedo her and to machine gun the lifeboats to achive that end, even though the pilots had already identified the ship as American. If the Liberty could be sunk with no survivors, the Israelis could conceivably blame the Egyptians for the attack, and cover their own butts.

What they apparently did not anticipate was the capability of the NSA to listen in on their military frequencies and record every word that passed between the IAF pilots and their ground controllers.

It now makes perfect sense as to why NO ONE om the Johnson Administration believed the Israeli excuses for the attack, since NSA and senior U.S. government officials (like Rusk and Clifford) actually had the transcripts from the attack as it happened.

BTW, the USS Liberty was a converted World War II Liberty cargo ship, which might explain why is was so tough.

Someone ought to make a movie about the attack since it is a very compelling and disturbign story.

25 posted on 06/07/2008 3:46:22 PM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner ("We must not forget that there is a war on and our troops are in the thick of it!"--Duncan Hunter)
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To: Doctor Don

Just because the post portrays Isreal in a bad light doesn’t mean anyone is anti-semitic.

Hell I NEVER believed it was an accident, I also support the Jewish state.


26 posted on 06/07/2008 3:46:55 PM PDT by stockpirate (McCain betrayed his conservative roots, conservatives, his party and America.)
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To: Jonah Johansen
1. I always thought it was deliberate.

2. Shame on our side for leaving them out of 20 minute air cover.

27 posted on 06/07/2008 3:47:09 PM PDT by mad_as_he$$ (Will this thread be jacked by a Mormon?)
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To: mad_as_he$$
From the article...

J.Q. "Tony" Hart, then a chief petty officer assigned to a U.S. Navy relay station in Morocco that handled communications between Washington and the 6th Fleet, remembered listening as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, in Washington, ordered Rear Adm. Lawrence Geis, commander of the America's carrier battle group, to bring the jets home.

When Geis protested that the Liberty was under attack and needed help, Hart said, McNamara retorted that "President [Lyndon] Johnson is not going to go to war or embarrass an American ally over a few sailors."

I despise McNamara.

28 posted on 06/07/2008 3:51:54 PM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner ("We must not forget that there is a war on and our troops are in the thick of it!"--Duncan Hunter)
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To: Virginia Ridgerunner
If the Liberty could be sunk with no survivors, the Israelis could conceivably blame the Egyptians for the attack, and cover their own butts.

Doesn't this hint at a possible believable motive? Sink it completely, blame it on the Egyptians, and have us land on the Egyptians like a ton of bricks?

I don't like conspiracy theories, as a rule, but it seems more believable than the 'attack your best ally to stop the eavesdropping' idea.
29 posted on 06/07/2008 3:53:17 PM PDT by Mariebl
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To: Jonah Johansen
It is clear why the cover up on the Israeli side; but, Why the extraordinary cover up on our side. Even at this late date, 41 years after the fact, the false story, the cover up continues. Where is the gain for the United States, why do the Navy, the CIA and the NSA persist in maintaining what is such an obvious transparent lie.

Domestic politics.

I support Israel 100%, in its struggle with Hamas, Hezbolla, the PLO and Iran...that does not in any way effect my support for Israel. I am angry that they still do not take full responsibility, but one terrible mistake does not undo decades of courageous action.

The fact that you have to make that statement should be evidence enough as to why LBJ and others felt that a cover-up was necessary.

30 posted on 06/07/2008 3:55:12 PM PDT by kabar
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To: hoosierham
Or should be believe the IDF airmen and sailors tried to minimize casualties by mostly firing high?

You left off the sarcasm tag. "Following their torpedo attack, the torpedo boats moved up and down the length of the ship (both the port and starboard sides), continuing their attack, raking the ship with cannon and machine gun fire.[21] In Malta, crewmen were later assigned the task of counting all of the holes in the ship that were the size of a man’s hand or larger. They found a total of 861 such holes, in addition to "thousands" of .50 caliber machine gun holes.

31 posted on 06/07/2008 3:58:14 PM PDT by kabar
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To: Hacksaw
No, there isn't an excuse for Israel killing American sailors. They did it because they knew they could get away with it.

The one thing everyone forgets is that this occured during a war of survival. The Israelis literally had their backs to the sea. Wrong decisions were made, that happens in every war, but the Israelis were threatened with extinction. Read some history, some newspapers of those days - nobody expected the Israelis to win.

What disturbs me about all this is that somehow this one terrible incident is always used to bash Israel over the head.

32 posted on 06/07/2008 3:59:21 PM PDT by xJones
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To: Mariebl
Maybe.

It is entirely conceivable that the initial attack by the IAF was accidental by trigger happy fighter jocks in the middle of a war. But then after they realized they were bombing, strafing, and napalming an American ship, the Israeli high-command then ordered them to finish the job so that the U.S. would never really know what happened.

When the Liberty proved too tough a nut to crack from the air, the Israelis then sent the torpedo boats out to do the job that the fighters couldn't. But the Liberty took the torpedo too (but five missed, which surely would have destroyed her if they had struck). By then, the USN had been alerted that someone was attacking the Liberty and was on the way (at least it was believed), so the Israelis had to back off, and then play stupid.

Sounds plausible to me.

33 posted on 06/07/2008 4:00:18 PM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner ("We must not forget that there is a war on and our troops are in the thick of it!"--Duncan Hunter)
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To: Virginia Ridgerunner

You know, that sounds pretty plausible to me, and removes the conspiracy aspect of it, which was making me cringe, even as I posted it.


34 posted on 06/07/2008 4:03:27 PM PDT by Mariebl
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To: xJones; Hacksaw
What disturbs me about all this is that somehow this one terrible incident is always used to bash Israel over the head.

Using the Liberty incident against Israel is akin to using My Lai against the United States of America.

Or, in another sense, Kasserine Pass -- to prove the Ul.S. military is incompetent.

All were mistakes. Tragic ones. But mistakes, nonetheless.

35 posted on 06/07/2008 4:13:57 PM PDT by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance on Parade)
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To: xJones

No one is bashing Israel over the head, but this is a historical incident that really happened, and Israel has never really owned up to its responsbility for the attacks.


36 posted on 06/07/2008 4:15:26 PM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner ("We must not forget that there is a war on and our troops are in the thick of it!"--Duncan Hunter)
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To: vetvetdoug
A+Bert Ping

A+Bert must be about 90 now, if he's still kicking. He threw his own 83 birthday party on FR about 7 years ago. But the weird thing is, I caught up with him while reading Liberty Forum a few years ago and they had some real anti-semites. Bert wouldn't join them.

37 posted on 06/07/2008 4:16:21 PM PDT by xJones
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To: Jonah Johansen
but, Why the extraordinary cover up on our side. Even at this late date, 41 years after the fact, the false story, the cover up continues. Where is the gain for the United States, why do the Navy, the CIA and the NSA persist in maintaining what is such an obvious transparent lie.

The answer is on this thread. Anybody who puts out any information that is embarrassing to Israel will be attacked. The officials just didn't want to pull the pin on a political hand grenade

38 posted on 06/07/2008 4:24:22 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell)
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To: okie01
Using the Liberty incident against Israel is akin to using My Lai against the United States of America. My Lai was ordered by one Lieutenant. The order that had several jets plus Israeli naval vessals to attack a ship flying the US flag had to come from MUCH higher on the IDF chain of command
39 posted on 06/07/2008 4:28:45 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell)
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To: Virginia Ridgerunner
BTW, the USS Liberty was a converted World War II Liberty cargo ship, which might explain why is was so tough.

Unless my rubber ducky makes me an expert on seaworthiness, I ain't, but I alwaays understood that the Liberty Ships were cheap, replacable hulls. They were built to last only their life expectancy which was only a couple of years. I read somewhere that they were prone to buckling in the middle.

40 posted on 06/07/2008 4:31:02 PM PDT by MARTIAL MONK (I'm waiting for the POP!)
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