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Posted on 07/18/2003 1:48:06 PM PDT by swampfx
On June 8, 1967, Israeli warplanes and gunboats almost destroyed but did not sink the USS Liberty.
Even after 35 years, it seems nothing can douse the smoldering dispute about that attack on the nearly defenseless U.S. intelligence-gathering vessel. In fact, The Liberty Incident, by A. Jay Cristol, will probably fan the flames of controversy.
Thirty-four Americans were killed and 172 wounded in the attack. At 69 percent of the crew, it was one of the highest casualty rates ever suffered by a U.S. Navy vessel.
The focus of the dispute is: Was the attack accidental or intentional? Israel claimed its forces had mistaken the Liberty for an Egyptian horse-transport a few miles off the Egyptian coast during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and apologized. The Johnson administration accepted the apology and did not formally challenge the explanation.
However, knowledgeable contemporaries have long claimed the attack was deliberate. They include, among others, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk; former CIA Director Richard Helms; former National Security Agency Director Marshall Carter; one-time presidential advisers George Ball and Lucius Battle; the Liberty's captain, Cmdr. William McGonagle; and surviving crew members.
More recently, Capt. Ward Boston, legal counsel to the 1967 naval court of inquiry presided over by Rear Adm. Isaac Kidd, has spoken up. On June 26, Boston told a Navy Times reporter he and Kidd believed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American ship. The court itself, an internal naval review, did not address the matter of Israeli responsibility.
Curiously, Cristol, whose book is devoted wholeheartedly to the "clear conclusion" the attack was accidental, there being "no competent evidence to the contrary," has dedicated his work to Kidd. And he says Kidd told him he always believed the Israeli attack was accidental. Kidd died in 1999, so the discrepancy with Boston's statement remains unresolved.
Lt. Cmdr. James Ennes, the Liberty's deck officer during the attack and author of the book Assault on the Liberty, says Kidd repeatedly encouraged him to challenge claims of an accident. Cristol apparently interviewed very few Liberty crew members. He cites no interviews with a dozen who say the Liberty's life rafts were machine-gunned by the Israeli gunboats, nor with others who say the Liberty was overflown by an Israeli helicopter filled with armed men.
Cristol says he was given liberal access to Israeli officials and records, thanks to Israeli navy friends. He reports an Israeli reconnaissance plane identified the Liberty as an American ship eight hours before the attack and Lt. Cmdr. Uri Meretz then specifically identified it as the Liberty. A marker representing the ship was placed on the plotting table in the war room.
Five hours later - three hours before the attack - the marker was removed, and this, it is alleged, led to the mistaken assault.
Cristol dismisses various possible motives for an intentional Israeli attack. One was Israel's need to prevent American foreknowledge of its impending invasion of Syria's Golan Heights, a move opposed by U.S. policy. Another was the desire to cover up a massacre of Egyptian prisoners at El Arish, a few miles from the Liberty.
Members of the Liberty Veterans Association have long complained none of the U.S. investigations was ever convened to discover whether the attack was deliberate. They note that even the initial Navy Court of Inquiry took no testimony from the crew about possible Israeli culpability, leaving that issue to Congress and the State Department, which ignored the question.
John Borne, in an academic study of the Liberty incident, points out that this is the only peacetime attack on a U.S. Navy vessel that did not have a formal congressional investigation.
According to the Navy Times, a number of U.S. naval officers are requesting a congressional inquiry. Until this demand is met, and until all secret U.S. government files are released, the Liberty question will probably remain unanswered.
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My eye. Intercepted communications from both sides tell the same story. That's physical evidence - not the usual brainless spin from the AP wire.
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