Posted on 01/13/2004 6:29:49 AM PST by veronica
New documents released by the State Department relating to the period of the 1967 Six Day War include CIA memos that say Israel did not know it was striking an American vessel when it attacked the USS Liberty off the coast of the Gaza Strip on June 8, 1967, killing 34 American sailors and injuring 172. The memos say the attack was carried out "by mistake, representing gross negligence."
Along with the release of the documents, the historian for the top-secret National Security Agency said Monday he believed available evidence "strongly suggested" Israel did not know it was bombarding an American ship.
On Monday, the State Department hosted a conference on the 1967 war, including the Liberty incident, to mark the release of a new volume of historical papers from the Johnson Administration. The 542 declassified documents, roughly 1100 pages in length, were culled from the archives of the White House, State Department, Pentagon and various intelligence agencies. They cover May through November 1967.
Historians said the new documentation included little new on the Liberty incident itself. It is still not known, for example, why the USS Liberty, an intelligence-gathering ship, was allowed to linger so close to the war zone, or why Israel was not informed of its presence in the area. Analysts said however that while its original mission remains murky, it was now evident that the ship was not sent to spy on Israel since the bulk of linguists on board spoke Arabic or Russian and the ship had no Hebrew translators to monitor Israeli communications in real time.
The most significant documents, transcripts of tapes of communications between an Israeli air controller and helicopter pilots sent to rescue the wounded from the attack, were released last July.
Those intercepts showed that the Israeli rescue pilots first identified the ship as Egyptian and gradually realized, after spotting a US flag, that the ship was American.
"A CIA memo of June 13 reported they had no intercepts from the attacking planes and torpedo boats, but that the helicopter pilots' communication left little doubt that the Israelis had failed to identify the Liberty as a US ship," said Harriet Schwar, editor of the newly released volume.
"A follow-up CIA memo on June 21st noted that the Liberty had been identified prior to the attacks but concluded that the Israelis were not aware at the time of the attack that they were attacking a US ship. It concluded that the attack was not made in malice, but was by mistake, representing gross negligence. The Defense Intelligence Agency reached a similar conclusion," Schwar added.
David Hatch, the National Security Agency Historian, said of the intercepted communications of the rescue pilots: "While falling short of proof, the intercepts to me suggest strongly the Israeli attackers did not know they were aiming deadly fire at a vessel belonging to the United States. The intercepted communications between the air controller at Hatzor and helicopters dispatched in the wake of the attack show a progressive reversal of perception on their part."
Included on the panel was James Bamford, an investigative journalist, who has written that Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty spy ship. Jay Cristol, a Miami-based judge who has written a book arguing that the attack was a mistake was also present, as was Michel Oren, author of a book on the Six Day War.
Bamford stood by his assertion that Israel had deliberately attacked the ship and that the US and Israel had orchestrated a "big cover up."
He read from a recent declaration by Ward Boston, who served as senior legal counsel for the Navy's Court of Inquiry into the Liberty attack. That Court concluded there was insufficient information to make a judgment about why Israel attacked the ship.
In his affidavit, Boston says, he and the Court were given only one week to gather evidence for the Navy's investigation, and that both he and the Court's president, Admiral Isaac Kidd, "believed with certainty that this attack...was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew."
"I am outraged at the efforts of the apologists for Israel in this country to claim that this attack was a case of mistaken identity. In particular the recent publication of Jay Cristol's book, "The Liberty Incident," twists the facts and misrepresents the views of those of us who investigated the attack," Boston says.
Cristol's presentation for the Liberty panel was prepared in conjunction with Ernest Castle, the United States Naval Attache' at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in June 1967, who received the first report of the attack from Israel and advised the US, and John Hadden who was then the CIA Chief of Station in Tel Aviv. Both Castle and Hadden agree that the attack on the Liberty was a mistake.
Michael Oren, in his presentation, reviewed some of the mistakes Israel had made during the Liberty attack.
Earlier in the morning of June 8, the Israelis had surveyed and identified a ship in the area as the USS Liberty. A neutral green marker was placed on a model to represent the Liberty's position. Two hours later, the marker was removed since the ship's position would have changed by then and a new senior Israeli official came on duty who was not informed of the Liberty's presence in the area, Oren explained.
The removal of the marker, a miscalculation of the speed at which the Liberty was traveling that would have indicated it was not a warship, and a breakdown in communication between the Israeli Navy and Army were all Israeli errors that contributed to orders to attack the ship.
The former Naval attach , Castle, said after the panel that he knew personally the Israeli official who had removed the marker and that it had "ruined him" professionally and personally. The Israelis had no motive to attack the ship, he added.
The panel, which was open to the public, became raucous at times when survivors of the Liberty attack and a relative of a sailor killed in the incident yelled out to protest that the panel included two people who represented Israel's position, while survivors were not invited to participate.
One petty officer from the Liberty attempted to question Oren's credentials, saying someone who would have been "in diapers" at the time of the attack could not effectively analyze the incident. Others slammed Oren for being Israeli and suggested he could therefore not be impartial.
My theory is because the ship was picking up all sorts of traffic and relaying it raw, on open channels, back to US spooks.
Happens all the time.
The Chinese embassy was probably accidently bombed because they were feeding intercepts directly to the Serbs.
Released Stasi documents revealed France was intercepting and decoding US military traffic in Europe. The French
encryption and relay of that info was then intercepted by the East Germans, who couldn't crack the US ciphers, but
could the French.
IMO, the real crime is, yet again, not using military force to defend the ship.
Since Israel generously, with a hard poke from Jimmy Carter, returned the Sinai to Egypt I look forward to their eventual discovery of the remains.
No, they'd never do that.
Israel has acknowledged that her standing orders were to destroy any unidentified vessel near the shore.
A mistake, from the perspective of 4 decades, maybe, maybe not, I'd like to think our forces would do the same thins, though the USS Cole showed us we won't.
The first pilot on the scene has acknowledged that "unidentifed" meant look for Israeli markings, if none, attack. Foolish, with Russian ships in the vicinity, probably.
I won't know with certainty what happened, but how so many dismiss the possibility that this action on the third day of the six day war could have been an accident is beyond me.
We are talking about a US warship that was known to be in the area by the Israelis. It was attacked by Israel air (jet fighters) and Israel sea (torpedo boats).
The Vincennes and the Iranian airliner are totally different situations.
I solidly believe that the Israeli's knew who, what and why they attacked the USS Liberty. You and I may never know the answers to these questions.
By the way, I'm not a Jew hater or do I speak constant derision of Israel. Every government screws up once in a while. Being a former USN member I never could understand the possible "why" of this situation.
We are talking about a US warship that was known to be in the area by the Israelis. It was attacked by Israel air (jet fighters) and Israel sea (torpedo boats).
No, it was a barely armed intelligence ship, designed to look like a merchantman. Israel attacked a spy ship.
The Vincennes and the Iranian airliner are totally different situations.
Oh please. Context is always important.
I solidly believe that the Israeli's knew who, what and why they attacked the USS Liberty. You and I may never know the answers to these questions.
We were not there, we will not know.
I believe that the Israelis deliberately attacked a ship they misidentified.
By the way, I'm not a Jew hater or do I speak constant derision of Israel. Every government screws up once in a while. Being a former USN member I never could understand the possible "why" of this situation.
I see no reason why a country, invaded by virtually the entire Arab world (which was backed up by the USSR) would attack an American ship. It defies logic.
I suppose, I could understand hitting it with a few cluster bombs to silence the radio equipment, but the attempt to sink it with Torpedo boats is too bizare for anything but an error.
I don't beleive that all or even most people who care about the USS Lberty are anti-Semites. I care about the attack. I want the truth to come out. I want to know what the ship was doing there and why the US lied to Israel and failed to use a Naval liason. I want the officer who ordered the attack on the Liberty to be punished.
Bingo!
"This is what Israel says they thought they were attacking)" & "USS Liberty".
A horse hauler (freighter) cannot do 28 knots..period. No freighter of the time could.
I am quite sure that the Israeli reconnaissance airplane that circled the ship about an hour before the attack recognized this was a warship. I know our P-3 crews would. I am positive that the torpedo boat crew knew this also before attacking.
I think these facts show that your statement of "I think that the "takeaway" from this incident is that it was STUPID policy to send slow, barely armed spy-ships into hostile waters!!!"
"slow, barely armed spy-ships" are not slow, they are barely armed though.
I resent our gov't LYING to the American people and I resent the Israel officials who wish to continue the LIE.
The only thing I see as being the reason for continuing this LIE is that some of these people are still alive and would go to jail.
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES THAT MAKE? In the Battle of the Bulge, German commandoes wore AMERICAN UNIFORMS and drove jeeps with AMERICAN FLAG MARKINGS.
Did that make them Americans?????
How unbelievably naive you people are! I guess whem someone really wants to tear down their country, the facts really don’t matter.
In the middle of a war, do you honestly think that a ship attacking Israel might not be flying an American flag? How silly are we?
Nevertheless, the radio traffic among the fighter pilots clearly tells us THAT THEY SAW NO FLAG.
How do you not see a giant American flag? or USS Liberty painted on the side of the ship.
Not buying it.
HOW THE HELL would someone on board the ship — a surivivor — know what Isael’s INTENTIONS were in undertaking the attack?
This is the stupidest thing imaginable.
THe only way you could know WHY Israel’s jets attacked would be review evidence INSIDE Israel’s headquarters, intercepted radio traffic, and diplomatic cables with the USA.
From their perspective on board the ship, THEY COULD NOT POSSIBLY KNOW ANYTHING about Israels INTENTIONS.
What they COULD figure out is why the radio operator on the ship FAILED, LIED, and COVERED UP for his failure.
THE SURVIVORS SHOULD HAVE BEEN COURT-MARTIALED FOR DISOBEYING ORDERS, not coddled or treated like anything special.
The survivors are anti-American traitors who are intentionally tearing down the United States and the USA’s strategic relationships, RATHER THAN ADMIT THEIR OWN DERELICTION OF DUTY IN DISOBEYING ORDERS TO WITHDRAW FROM TEH REGION.
OH, BULLSHIT!
The United States bombed CANADIANS in Afghanistan. WAS THAT INTENTIONAL????
The United States bombed BRITISH TROOPS in Iraq. WAS THAT INTENTIONAL?
Your double standard shows that you are an anti-semitic, anti-American, racist.
If the USA bombs Canadian and British troops, HEY, that’s okay. So, sorry!
But if Israel makes a mistake in the middle of a war, you take a completely different approach. WHY? You’re a bigot.
And let’s not forget! The USS Liberty was ORDERED OUT OF THE AREA, AND VIOLATED ITS ORDERS. How could the USS Liberty make such a gigantic mistake? How could the greatest Navy in the world, make such a stupendous blunder?
Yet, you are unwilling to apply the same standard to Israel? WHY IS THAT?
Yes , lets let it go only 32 dead American servicemen. (sarc)
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