On June 8, 1967, an Israeli torpedo tore through the side of the unarmed American naval vessel USS Liberty, approximately a dozen miles off the Sinai coast. The ship, whose crew was under command of the National Security Agency, was intercepting communications at the height of the Six-Day War when it came under direct Israeli aerial and naval assault.
Reverberations from the torpedo blast sent crewman Ernie Gallo flying across the radio research room where he was stationed. Gallo, a communications technician aboard the Liberty, found himself and his fellow shipmates in the midst of an attack that would leave 34 Americans dead and 171 wounded.
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the assault on the USS Liberty, and though it was among the worst attacks in history against a noncombatant U.S. naval vessel, the tragedy remains shrouded in secrecy. The question of if and when Israeli forces became aware they were killing Americans has proved a point of particular contention in the on-again, off-again public debate that has simmered over the last half a century. The Navy Court of Inquiry’s investigation proceedings following the incident were held in closed sessions, and the survivors who had been on board received gag orders forbidding them to ever talk about what they endured that day.
Now, half a century later, The Intercept is publishing two classified documents provided in the cache of files leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden related to the attack and its aftermath. They reveal previously unknown involvement by Government Communications Headquarters, the U.K. signals intelligence agency; internal NSA communications that seem to bolster a signals intelligence analyst’s account of the incident, which framed it as an accident; as well as a Hebrew transliteration system unique to the NSA that was in use at least as recently as 2006.
The first document, a formerly unreleased NSA classification guide, details which elements of the incident the agency still regarded as secret as of 2006. The second lists a series of unauthorized signals intelligence disclosures that “have had a detrimental effect on our ability to produce intelligence against terrorist targets and other targets of national concern.” Remarkably, information relevant to the attack on the Liberty falls within this highly secret category.
Though neither document reveals conclusive information about the causes of the assault, both highlight that at the time of their publication — approximately four decades after the incident — the NSA was determined to keep even seemingly minor details about the attack classified. The agency declined to comment for this article.
The classification guide, dated November 8, 2006, indicates previously unknown GCHQ involvement in the ship’s intelligence gathering. The specifics of this involvement remain classified, and it is therefore unclear if involvement was of a material nature on board the ship or through other means. GCHQ declined to comment.
The guide also reveals NSA’s own classified Hebrew transliteration system, the existence of which underlines that the agency has historically counted Israel as an intelligence target even as the nation acted as a key partner in signals collection. This inherent tension in the U.S.-Israeli relationship was also manifest on the Liberty, where the Hebrew translators brought aboard the ship were referred to as “special Arabic” linguists, according to journalist James Bamford, in order to conceal their surveillance of Israeli communications.
The Six-Day War between Israel and its neighbors Jordan, Syria, and Egypt was a conflict that the United States chose to stay out of, despite Israel’s entreaties for military support. Egypt and Syria were Soviet allies at odds with American-aligned Israel. The local conflict could easily have turned into a direct conflict between the superpowers, which neither the United States nor the USSR wanted. The countries directly involved were left to fend for themselves in what proved to be an overwhelming military and territorial victory for Israel — one that doubled the fledgling country’s size in less than a week.
Though the United States refused to intervene on behalf of its ally, it was nevertheless eavesdropping on Israeli military communications during war. There, according to Bamford, lies the rub: Over the course of Israel’s remarkable territorial acquisition and military victory, it allegedly committed a war crime by slaughtering Egyptian prisoners of war in the city of El Arish in the northern Sinai. Bamford argued in his 2001 book, “Body of Secrets,” that the USS Liberty’s proximity to the Sinai, and its ability to intercept Israel’s motives and activities during the Six-Day War, might have prompted Israel’s attack on the vessel. Other national security experts, including Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, disputed Bamford’s analysis, however. According to Aftergood, who directs the FAS Project on Government Secrecy, the killing of Egyptian POWs never happened. “[There] appears to be no verifiable evidence that such a massacre ever took place, and Bamford’s description of events at El Arish doesn’t hold up,” Aftergood wrote in 2001 following the publication of “Body of Secrets.”
Ultimately, both the United States’ and Israel’s investigations deemed the attack on the Liberty an accident that resulted when Israel mistook the American spy ship for an Egyptian freighter. Bamford considers that conclusion a cover-up, however, citing the gag order issued to survivors, as well as the fact that NSA’s deputy director at the time, Louis Tordella, referred to the Israeli Defense Forces preliminary inquiry into the attack “a nice whitewash.” Still, other sources assert that any notion of cover-up is mere paranoia. According to a spokesperson at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign affairs, the Liberty assault was “a tragic accident … that was settled between the parties involved years ago,” and that, “as is the case with many of these matters, there are always enough conspiracy theories to go around, but they never hold water.”
The USS Liberty’s legacy indeed fed conspiracy theories, and Bamford is not alone in asserting a cover-up. The Liberty Veterans Association, an organization comprised of survivors of the 1967 attack, has called for a robust and transparent investigation into the incident for decades, to no avail.
In a statement to The Intercept, Ernie Gallo, who currently serves as the president of the Liberty Veterans Association, said, “We now know that the Navy Court of Inquiry was merely for show, as the officers were told to come to the conclusion the Liberty did [its] job and the attack was accidental.” Bamford also references the magnitude and length of the attack as proof of its deliberateness: The ship was hit repeatedly, first by planes dropping thousand-pound bombs and napalm, and then by torpedo boats. Israeli forces also jammed the Liberty’s antennas and communication channels, took out the four .50-caliber machine guns on board, and reportedly shot at life rafts and crew members as they attempted to evacuate the vessel. “It was an attack in broad daylight,” said Bamford. “They were flying a large U.S. flag. [The ship] said USS Liberty on the back. … I mean, what do you need?”
The incident and its aftermath took a significant psychological toll on survivors, many of whom were reported to suffer from PTSD. One survivor and member of the Liberty Veterans Association, James Ennes, was shot in the femur during the attack, and was then instructed never to discuss it. Ernie Gallo had a fellow crewmate die in his arms. It was decades before survivors began sharing their experiences, and they were sometimes criticized for being anti-Semitic or slanderous of Israel for doing so.
Not all veterans involved believe in a cover-up, however. Former Navy Chief Petty Officer Marvin Nowicki, the chief Hebrew-language analyst aboard a U.S. Navy EC-121 spy plane that was intercepting Israeli aircraft communications as they were assaulting the Liberty, believed the attack was an accident. He stated in a letter to the Wall Street Journal in 2001 that though he heard and recorded Israeli pilots’ and captains’ references to the U.S. flag flying on the deck of the Liberty, these remarks were made only after the attack was underway, and not before. It was when aircraft and motor torpedo boat operators moved closer to the Liberty, recalled Nowicki, that they were able to recognize and therefore reference the American flag.
“The last time I spoke publicly, I was visited by NCIS agents.”
Unbeknownst to Nowicki at the time, his letter to the editor sparked concerns at NSA that he had revealed classified information on the Liberty. The second Snowden document, dated 2002, referenced several disclosures in his letter “surrounding National Security Agency sources and methods or NSA’s ability to successfully exploit a foreign target.” Though the document does not specify which details in Nowicki’s article constituted such disclosures, it does reference materials related to the investigation. Nowicki, in a statement that would stir apparent concern at both the NSA and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, called the accident a “gross error.” “How can I prove it?” he wrote. “I can’t unless the transcripts/tapes are found and released to the public. I last saw them in a desk drawer at NSA in the late 1970s before I left the service.” After several unsuccessful attempts to reach Nowicki by phone and email, he ultimately responded to a mailed request for comment. He returned The Intercept’s original posted letter, on which he had hastily scrawled: “I cannot comply w[ith] your request. The last time I spoke publicly, I was visited by NCIS agents.” (NCIS stated that it had no records related to Nowicki’s claim.)
Even 50 years after the attack, and in a radically different geopolitical climate than that of the Six-Day War, extremely limited information is available about the assault and its subsequent investigations. Inquiries by the media and by the survivors have yielded profoundly limited results, despite considerable attempts; ABC’s Nightline interviewed survivors decades after the attack, the results of which never aired. And while James Bamford presumes this is because interested parties didn’t want unsavory information about Israel broadcast on mainstream American television, Nightline’s then-host Ted Koppel said otherwise: “At the risk of contributing to the veneer of ‘cover-up’ that surrounds any discussion of the USS Liberty story, my only recollection is that we did nothing because we found nothing new or substantive.” Neither, it seems, has anyone else.
Top photo: A victim of the Israeli assault on the American communications ship USS Liberty is carried from a helicopter aboard the aircraft carrier USS America somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean on June 9, 1967.
I have been practicing law for the past 35 years, and have had friends in both American and Israeli intelligence. The story I have been told about what really happened with the Liberty is the only one I know of that explains the wall of silence over the past 50 years.
There is a famous Sherlock Holmes quote: “When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
In 1967 the US was mired in the Vietnam War (the “War”). The War was still considered winnable until after the Tet Offensive in January, 1968. The chief supplier of military hardware and related aid to the North Vietnamese was the USSR. The shipments all originated from their only warm water port in the Black Sea.
The Soviets shipped from the Black Sea through the Mediterranean, and on through the Suez Canal. The US wanted the shipments to stop, but could not do so because, at the time the Egyptians were a Soviet client state.
I am told that the NSA, under Walt Rostow, with LBJ’s approval, decided to run, and ran an off-the-books operation. The goal of the operation was to ultimately close the Canal, forcing the Soviets to ship through the Mediterranean, going west, then south around the horn of Africa, there greatly delaying shipments of armaments and adding considerable expense as well.
In order to facilitate the operation, the NSA retasked satellites to give the Israelis real time data on the placement of Egyptian and Syrian forces, as well as the placement of their aircraft. Utilizing this data, the Israelis were able to deal a death-blow to the Arab air forces in the very early part of the war, giving the Israelis unchallenged dominance over the skies.
Because the information was coded, and because the NSA was not going to give the codes to the Israelis, there were NSA “advisors” on the ground with the Israeli command.
The Liberty was a CIA vessel. The operation was not known to the CIA. The CIA intercepted NSA communications with the Israelis, but had not yet decripted them. The NSA realized the intercept had occurred. In order to protect the operation, the order was given to attack the Liberty. That order came from the NSA with the reluctant approval of LBJ. The fear was that if the CIA found out about the operation, the Soviets would as well, and would be drawn into the conflict, turning the operation into a major power confrontation.
The Soviets may have eventually discovered the operation, which explains why Soviet pilots flew most of the sorties during the Yom Kippur War just over 6 years later.
This scenario explains why all of the investigations were very short and all closed. Most investigations were finished in June 1967, and the rest by July 1967.
Moreover, LBJ readily accepted the apology and official Israeli position that the attack was due to the mistaken identity of the Liberty with an Egyptian freighter half the Liberty’s size.
While this explanation may seem improbable, it explains many things that don’t make sense.
Lest you think I am a wild conspiracy theorist, let me say that Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed JFK.
I generally don’t believe in conspiracies, but this one explains things that otherwise make no sense at all.
No. Not even close. I know.
Sorry.
This matter remains unresolved. Clearly NEITHER the Israelis NOR the Americans – THEN or NOW – want this incident investigated, or the full story made known to their citizens or any interested observer. THE VERY FACT that TAPES, TRANSCRIPTS & other records of the incident have been “DISAPPEARED”, and crewmen ORDERED never to speak publicly about this attack, shows deliberate, sustained, official efforts to conceal FACTS & TRUTH. There remains a LOT of VERY TOXIC shrapnel in this festering wound. Both sides have earned my un-cordial CONTEMPT.
Well Daumn! Then mosey on over to YouTube. There are some excellent videos about the USS Liberty. The best ones have the interviews with the survivors and actual tape recording of the pilots to and from the control tower. And believe it or not, the best compilation (IMO) was done by Al Jazeera. There are other videos of course that you can chose from. IMO there’s little doubt, actually, none what-so-ever the Liberty was deliberately attacked.
Keep fighting The Good Fight, Survivors, Crew (RIP), and Families of the USS Liberty. Those “Holiday Colors” remain!
This article is blatantly designed to muddy some transparently clear waters. I’m astonished that such a wildly skewed article was given space on The Intercept.
No pilot worth his helmet could have interpreted the Liberty’s GTR-5 on bow and stern, and the American flag as being anything but an American ship. The countries that Israel was attacking during the Six-Day War all paint their ships in Arabic script.
No single pilot could be so blind as to have failed to note the ship’s identification, let alone 12 of them.
Over and above the clearly American markings on the ship, all US emergency radio channels were being jammed — making the truth of the matter OBVIOUS: Israel knew EXACTLY who it was attacking.
Writer Miriam Pensack has outed herself as a Zionist/Hasbara operative. No serious journalist would skew the facts so badly to whitewash yet another merciless attack by Israel against US interests. The writer, to her discredit, positions dubious sources of information above well established insiders and authors. #Shameful Miriam Pensack has just sunk her own ship. I
Astonishingly, the article omits any mention of President Johnson’s involvement – it was he who recalled the American rescue fighters — twice — exposing his preference of treason over damaging Israel’s reputation.
Wikipedia has a very sad footnote about the ultimate fate of the ship after Israel’s punishing assault: “Damaged beyond economical repair by Israeli attack in June 1967 and subsequently sold for scrap 1973″
#KeepFightingForTruth #USSLiberty
It is inconceivable that a number of military fighters would coordinate an attack on a US naval vessel in broad daylight by “accident” when it is flying the colors and is plainly marked. Any pilot that blind wouldn’t be allowed to get in the cockpit. Certainly not a whole squadron of them, and all at the same time.
There is a tale that the famously honorable LBJ ordered back the aircraft dispatched to defend the Liberty saying “what do you want to do, start a war?” (OWTTE)
If there’s any merit to that story, it raises the pregnant question about who would dare go to war with the US for defending one of its own naval vessels under attack at sea? Martians? Zulus?
The known facts simply do not support any suggestion this vicious attack was accidental. That the full facts remain a closely held secret after half a century is evidence, alone, that something very dirty lies under the very thin tissue of official lies and gag-orders which continue to smother the truth in service to — who?
At this particular point in time Israel felt that it had no friends. The first instinct was to terminate anything that might be a threat and virtually everything in the area could well have been hostile. I guess the real question, the bottom line is this, did some high level government type sanction the attack knowing full well that the ship was an American vessel or was it a “fog of war” attack? The dead don’t much care, the survivors certainly have a personal interest, and the rest of us would just like an honest answer.
if it wasn’t for the zioinists in britain, there would be no israel, and there would have never even been an irgun. if it wasn’t for the ridiculous amount of american investment in that country, there would be no israel. what, do you think its armed forces just magically fell out of the sky onto desert sand after 20 years of existence?
The attack was not an “accident”.
Hear the testimonies from the ship’s survivors. Watch these documentaries:
>Dead in the Water
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOH1XMAwZA
>The Day Israel Attacked America
https://vimeo.com/130021667
Read these articles:
>Israeli communications said to prove IAF knew Liberty was U.S. ship
>Chicago Tribune: Transcripts of IAF communications show pilots who attacked Liberty in Six-Day War saw a U.S. flag.
https://archive.is/Mjql3
>New revelations in attack on American spy ship
https://archive.is/oLpX5
>Ernie Gallo: The U.S.S Liberty: what really happened? What did not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLr9fjg6cmM
>McCain and Israel’s Bombing of the U.S.S. Liberty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q7yEnMjQ6U
>Ray MacGovern On Israel attacking USS Liberty the truth must come out !!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0Pc6-vwq_o
>Ex-Australian Prime Minister Confirms Israel Deliberately Attacked America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs1L4nVRWXM
>Israeli Terrorism Against America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvItZ2GS88A
>There is detailed evidence from Liberty crewmen and other military and intelligence personnel that the Israeli attack was intentional. Numerous extremely high US military, intelligence, and diplomatic officials have espoused this view. Among them are:
>Dean Rusk, Secretary of State under LBJ;
>Richard Helms, Director of the CIA;
>Rufus Taylor, Deputy Director of the CIA;
>Clark Clifford, special assistant to the President;
>Louis W. Tordella, National Security Agency (NSA) Deputy Director;
>General Marshall Carter, former director, NSA;
>Lucius Battle, former presidential advisor;
>Major General John Morrison, US Air Force, Deputy Chief NSA Operations;
>Oliver Kirby, former deputy director for operations/production, NSA;
>Lieutenant General William E. Odom, former director, NSA;
>Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, USN, Director NSA 1977-1981;
>Paul C. Warnke, Undersecretary of the Navy and later general legal counsel to the Department of Defense;
>Rear Admiral Merlin Staring, Staff Legal Office for Commander in Chief US Naval Forces Europe and later Chief Judge Advocate General of the Navy;
>George Ball, under secretary of state;
>Dwight Porter, US Ambassador to Lebanon;
>Lloyd M. “Pete” Bucher, US Navy, Commanding Officer USS Pueblo;
>Captain Ward Boston, senior legal counsel for the Naval Court of Inquiry;
>Rear Admiral Clarence “Mark” Hill, co-founder of the Naval Aviation Foundation;
>Admiral David McDonald, Chief of Naval Operations; and
>Vice Admiral Jerome King, Jr., Deputy Chief of Naval Operations.
>In 2003 the Moorer Commission, an independent commission headed by Admiral Moorer, reported on Capitol Hill: “There is compelling evidence that Israel’s attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew.”
>The Moorer report went on to state, “In attacking the USS Liberty, Israel committed acts of murder against U.S. servicemen and an act of war against the United States.”
https://archive.fo/95aQd
1) It’s an old truth that, “Nations have interests, not friends.”
2) There are accidents, and “accidents.” The attack on the Liberty was the latter.
Biased, deceptive, and apologetic reporting of an unprovoked attack by the Israelis which was no accident. It’s totally preposterous to still claim it was an accident and those that disagree are spouting “conspiracy theories”. You ethnocentric chauvinists disgust me!
The Chief of Naval of Operation Thomas Moorer did not buy the excuse that it was an accident.
Try spouting logic and facts then maybe your unsupported claims wont be considered conspiracy.
The unsupported claim is that this was an accident.
Bad captions: your photo captions wrongly call the USS Liberty a “U.S. Navy research ship” or alternatively an “American communications ship”, both of which are at best misleading euphemisms. The article text correctly describes the Liberty as a “spy ship”.
Thanks for the article, though.
Thank you for this. I guess we’ll have to wait 34 years for an honest accounting of the 911/anthrax attacks from you guys.
These survivors are all anti-semites for having the fortitude to tell the truth and the audacity to survive.
Methinks the source of ISIS, ISIL, IS terror, the Syrian “civil war” and war in the middle east is the Zionist state of Israel.
I concur
A foreign country with a lobby that successfully resists complying with the Foreign Agents Registration Act and successfully gets the United States to annually underwrite 25% of its military Occupation costs while creating and expanding illegal ethnic settlements is also a foreign country capable of launching a sneak attack upon a well marked American naval vessel & then successfully claim the attack was nothing more than an unfortunate accident of mistaken identity.
quote” The Navy Court of Inquiry’s investigation proceedings following the incident were held in closed sessions, and the survivors who had been on board received gag orders forbidding them to ever talk about what they endured that day.”
but.. but..gosh, it was an *accident*!!
The mere fact the survivors were told STFU for life under the threat of arrest…. says volumes,. and anyone with one single neuron of cognitive dissonance knows EXACTLY what is at stake here. Meanwhile.. move on along.. nothing to see here.
Insert two rolling eyes smiley here.
The Intercept has nothing on the Daily Stormer. Neo-Nazism and ChristiaNAZIS lives and breathes – unfortunately.
Karen, did you mean to post this on a different article? By he way, since you brought up NAZIs, have you read the Transfer Agreement?
I’m a founding associate member of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, and I invite Intercept readers to peruse my own analysis of the attack, The USS Liberty Incident: The Missing Piece of the Middle East Peace Puzzle, on my website at http://www.show-the-house.com/id5.html. Also, the just cause of the USS Liberty survivors almost tunneled through to the annual Judicial Conference, the first ever to be canceled, when, on the morning of 11 September 2001, US Marshals evacuated Chief Justice Rehnquist and 28 senior chief judges from all the circuits around the nation out a side door of the Supreme Court Building in Washington. Again, I invite Intercept readers to learn more at http://www.show-the-house.com/id18.html.
Interesting when those who claim to be anti-Zionist trade in classic anti-Semitism . Thanks for the link Stephen, I love it when those claiming to be about justice drop the mask and reveal their real agenda.
No one ever writes about the JDL either.
What is the JDL connection to this Dave? I will be very interested to hear.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2014/10/day-israel-attacked-america-20141028144946266462.html
Watch this. It tells you exactly what happened. No zionist hasbara trolls can deny the simple truth.
It’s also available on YouTube.
Search… al jazeera, the day israel attacked America.
There is also a BBC documentary “The USS Liberty: Dead in the Water” circa 2002.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOH1XMAwZA
I believe this to be an attempted false flag incident intended to bolster political will for US military support for Israel in the conflict. The Liberty survived however despite the fact that Johnson recalled a rescue mission after the attack had begun.
1) There was no attempt by anyone concerned to blame it on Egypt. How do you account for that?
2)By all accounts Israel took responsibility right away.
3) Egypt had virtually no air power left at that point in the war. Their entire air force was wiped out on day 1 and this information was know by the US.
Seriously do you conspiracy guys ever read any actual history of the war or do you just parrot what you see other conspiracy guys saying. So far no one has been able to provide any of the evidence they claimed existed which proves their theory. My every request is met by crickets.
GilG, do your homework on this event. You are embarrassing yourself.
If you say so Dan. Interestingly none of you guys have been able to refute any thing I have written, or answer any of my questions. You all are good at name calling though.
That’s because (USS) Liberty is unsinkable. False flag blamed on Egypt is a pretty reasonable speculation if they had been able to sink her before continuing to try became a greater liability than the actual outcome.
Don’t you COINCIDENCE GUYS ever do any critical thinking? All you ever do is parrot what FOX and/or CNN and/or MSNBC and/or the current US (ZOG puppet) regime programs you to.
“That’s because (USS) Liberty is unsinkable. ”
Huh? Wow you really are an expert!!!! too funny.
The Israelis did not blame the attack on Egypt due to not having succeeded in sinking the ship & all its crew. Not that it didn’t try. I read there was an Israeli Admiral to thank for the failure. He refused to carry out his pernicious orders. An Israeli pilot reported a similar experience. The ship was also hit by torpedoes, which could have easily been blamed on Egypt, had the ship sunk. Moreover, Israel pulled such tricks before, getting caught in Egypt & Iraq. Your arguments amount to nothing, and you really need to do some research yourself before going off on others. If the US-Israeli narrative is true, then the documents & evidence should be released, and the gag orders ended. After all it is 50 years since the event. There can’t be any methods & sources still needing protection. You can hardly demand that the “conspiracy guys” produce this evidence. The eye-witness testimonies of the ship’s survivors is certainly evidence that can’t just be dismissed, even if the governments are trying to do just that. Even worse, they smear the victims. Since you consider yourself an expert, please refute the numerous claims in this article: https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/02/infamy-at-sea-israels-attack-on-the-uss-liberty-50-years-later/
I have done research. The Liberty’s flag was destroyed by the time the torpedo boats approached and the Liberty fired at the boats first. Something your article doesn’t mention but something that was in the testimony of Commander McGonagle. Of course you wouldn’t know that because rather than read the actual NSA report you would rather just read a propagandist.
Here is the NSA report you should read it.
https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/uss-liberty/assets/files/chronology-events/attack-sigint.pdf
And now that I refuted a claim your article made with actual evidence. tell me where the evidence you claim is.
And you have done nothing to provide any evidence that a an Israeli Admiral failed to carry out an order that prevented the Liberty from being sunk.
This article also includes testimony from a USS Liberty survivor and one that would be in the best position to know the intention of the attack.
” Former Navy Chief Petty Officer Marvin Nowicki, the chief Hebrew-language analyst aboard a U.S. Navy EC-121 spy plane that was intercepting Israeli aircraft communications as they were assaulting the Liberty, believed the attack was an accident. He stated in a letter to the Wall Street Journal in 2001 that though he heard and recorded Israeli pilots’ and captains’ references to the U.S. flag flying on the deck of the Liberty, these remarks were made only after the attack was underway, and not before. It was when aircraft and motor torpedo boat operators moved closer to the Liberty, recalled Nowicki, that they were able to recognize and therefore reference the American flag.”
Let’s see you refute that. Then produce any evidence that supports your claim that actually involves something more substantial then your claims with no support about some unnamed an Israeli Admiral.
The eye witness testimony isn’t being dismissed but it in no way provides evidence that Israel attacked the Liberty knowing it was a US ship. On the other hand you are dismissing the evidence of the one crew member who was in a position to know what the Israelis knew.
I’ll take the version of Lt. James Ennes, since, you know, he was ACTUALLY THERE when it happened. He was on the deck of the ship. I’ll let his words of that day and the following 50 years do the talking. CASE CLOSED.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF_6k1c_0ds
He did not present any evidence of a deliberate attack. He just repeat charges. You take his version because he says what you want to hear.
Hmmm, wonder why there was a meeting that day to determine if it was Egypt or the Russians?
Then why would the Israeli Air Force believe a supposed “Egyptian freighter” posed such a clear and present danger as to invite annihilation?
Sorry, but that simply stinks as a believable excuse for this “accident”. And that explanation simply does not account for the USG holding this matter as a deep secret so grave in its consequences (even 50 years later) that it would pose a danger to the US to simply come clean about it.
A conspiracy theory offers a speculative explanations of events. That is entirely different to the logical conclusion that a conspiracy is afoot when a footlocker of facts have been persistently withheld which would provide the actual explanation of those events.
Yeah, the Israelis were trying to sink the USS Liberty and then the Israelis plan would be to blame Egypt for sinking the USS Liberty. The presumption is it was those evil Egyptians, and so unlike the American loving Israelis who would never kill unsuspecting American sailors, eh? But even worse than that, Israelis perpetrated a premeditated murder of the young, unarmed American, Rachel Corrie, by running over her with bulldozer. A common example of Israeli bravery. The Zionist Israelis are the evil of the middle east.
http://ifamericaknew.org/us_ints/ul-boston.html
Israel wanted the US to think Egypt sank the Liberty, therefore drawing the US into Israel’s war on Arabs. It took until 911 for that to happen.
Fuck Israel.
Thank you for sharing this about Admiral Kidd.
“a war crime”
Obviously. And it doesn’t matter whether or not the attack was an “accident” to reach that conclusion. It was murder on the high seas of a crew abandoning ship.
Someday, hopefully, the US will re-frame its entire foreign policy. And first on the agenda for re-thinking should be our enduring Stockholm-syndrome captivity by the frenemy State of Israel.
The gist I am getting here is that Israelis can do whatever they like unto others, without recourse, no matter where the others are from. Moreover, Israelis are not subject to any form accountability. Nice.
The US and Zionists must have had a mid battle disagreement and allies became enemies. Obviously all investigations were squashed in lieu of future political/financial considerations. It just shows how many other factors can complicate the road to WWIII.
I’m curious if jamming the communications of a target ship or vehicle is standard operating procedure during an attack.
In a word, no. Jamming is ordinarily directed against the target’s fire control radars, to suppress its ability to defend itself. As the Liberty had no radar directed weapons that would have been superfluous. The intention was to prevent the Liberty from communicating its identity and that it was under attack.
Say the expert in naval warfare? The answer is yes jamming/destroying communications is standard procedures when attacking the enemy. The goal is to prevent the enemy from calling for back up, or to send any information regarding how it’s being attacked. Modern navy ships have sophisticated back up communication channels because they expect their antennas to be the first target in any attacks.
You guys are changing facts, history and even well known combat procedures just to prove yourselves that Israel is always wrong.
The author missed the most damning point, though he mentions it. The Israelis shot at the life rafts; that alone is a war crime. So, we needn’t wonder if any were committed. It doesn’t matter if it’s your bitter war enemy who just returned from raping and killing one’s entire family; there’s no justification for shooting out life-rafts. So, I’d go with Bamford; all others have a country, religion, race to protect; not Bamford and the survivors.
“The author missed the most damning point, though he mentions it.”
“he”???
Of course the Israelis knew they were attacking a U.S. ship. all during the attack, they jammed U.S. Navy radio frequencies.
Damn, Intercept. It’s getting real anti-Israel in your editing room lately. I appreciate so much of the editorial work that you do. This article, like the previous one about the Six Day War, wreak of bias and prejudice.
Israel acted in defense of its existence during the Six Day War. It’s a very curious situation with the USS Liberty and I’m glad to be reading more about it, but frankly the article itself smacks of an attempt to sour Israel/US relations — and we can fairly well guarantee that will never happen — because of regional US interests more than Israeli.
Blaming the Jews — never gets old, huh?
Actions having such dire consequences rarely, if ever, are an accidental purity-
Truth here is daylight flag plus structured ID label on attacked boat that suffered murderous fatalities that ignorant mind bound people claim this truth plus all else is an anti Semite plot
Phun to laugh at fear in human emotional thought for the error inherent which is rarely, if ever an action taken by accident , butt rest assured, always has universal consequence for the truth revealed under one eye-
Israel is not “the Jews”. There are many Jews — some in Israel — who oppose and condemn Zionism as an unwelcome curse. Blaming the Zionist State for actions they actually commit and admit isn’t anti-Semitic. It’s simply stating a matter of established fact. For some people, apparently, that’s a bridge too far. It is reasonable to wonder why.
The Liberty incident is the paradigm of nonsensical conspiracy theories.
Could Israel have knowingly attacked its most important supporter? The motives imputed to Israel make no sense. The theory quoted here is that they didn’t want the US to know they were massacring Egyptian soldiers. So they massacre Americans instead? Which do you think would be a bigger political problem for Israel?
Could it have been an accident? Friendly fire incidents happen all the time. I believe Israeli military command also had reports of shelling from an Egyptian naval ship in the area. Once you are looking for a particular thing it is easy to believe by mistake that you have found it. The Israelis thought they were attacking an Egyptian ship and when they realized their mistake they called off the attack.
I can assist in the present
Israel word form is n o w felt as Fear in action; a consequence of falseness
Acceptance of falseness is required v a perception and attempted CNTRL outcome stance-
Submit and forgive transgressions in human emotion evolution
This article: “a nice whitewash…”
Yes, and the article is written by someone with absolutely no credentials or past experience which justifies having given her the assignment. What is up with The Intercept? Outing a source and now this?
Israel started the war with Egypt. Israeli military was aware they were attacking a US ship because they flew low over the ship several times before attacking. The USS Liberty even switched her US flag to a much larger size flag.
Israel attacked her most generous ally and lied about it because that is how Israel rolls.
Israel and the States were not “allies” at the time.
US was against Israel, UK and France in the ’56 war.
If Israel attacked an American ship listening to Hebrew military communications off the coast of Sinai, the most obvious answer for the attack was Israel thought the US was helping Egypt.
Duh.
Anti-semites, dumb as bricks.
Have you ever seen a quote from the President of the United States Johnson refer to Israel as one of the us allies? Or are you just lying for another reason. Please do not lie
“Bamford argued in his 2001 book, “Body of Secrets,” that the USS Liberty’s proximity to the Sinai, and its ability to intercept Israel’s motives and activities during the Six-Day War, might have prompted Israel’s attack on the vessel. Other national security experts, including Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, disputed Bamford’s analysis, however. According to Aftergood, who directs the FAS Project on Government Secrecy, the killing of Egyptian POWs never happened. “[There] appears to be no verifiable evidence that such a massacre ever took place, and Bamford’s description of events at El Arish doesn’t hold up,”
this says it all. the conspiracy theorists made up a story about a massacre that never happened to create a motive, which they didn’t have, because Israel never for a moment denied attacking the ship. the only question would be motive and since there was no Sinai massacre to cover up and no one blamed the Egyptians you have no motive. in other words you got bubkis .
That was one of 4 possible motives Bamford and others have suggested. Mass graves consistent with the story were discovered in the area in 1995 (http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/21/world/egypt-says-israelis-killed-pow-s-in-67-war.html). An unlikely hypothesis is that Johnson and Dayan collaborated in a false flag attack to justify US attack on Egypt to eliminate Nasser as a Cold War soviet ally. Most likely hypotheses are that the Liberty collected data exposing Israel as the aggressor, destroying its myth of victimhood, and/or the Liberty would detect Israeli troop movements against Jordan and Syria that the US opposed, especially Syria which was a Soviet ally.
Egypt was already beaten by the time of the Liberty attack, so that hypothesis is bs also Jack. The fact of the matter is that the Israel was could have easily sunk the Liberty had that been the intent. They had just destroyed the entire Egyptian air force do you really think it would have been a problem to sin k a small ship like the Liberty? None of the reasons you ascribe to it make any sense in that context. What is certain is that once Israel knew for certain it was a US ship it stopped the attack. It never tried to blame Egypt and it took responsibility for the attack right away. What we don’t know is why the US Navy never told Israel the Liberty was in the waters of a war zone. Does Bamford address that?
Jack Dresser: In short, the Liberty was evesdropping on communications the Israel high command didn’t want listened to, and they decided to stop it. And maybe some other motives as well — people often do things for multiple reasons. Otherwise, the Israel pilots and PT boat captains mistook an American antenna-festooned spy ship for an Egyptian horse transport half the size.
that’s not true; we know from NSA intercepts that those massacres occurred. When Indian Blue Helmeted UN observers were heading north a phalanx of Israeli tanks was heading south. The Blue Helmets pulled off the road to allow the tanks to pass; but they stopped. One tank commander used the cannon to lift and crush one UN Jeep, another turned the turret to blow the head off one of the observers. Also, the Israeli accounts of their war crimes, their boasting of pouring out canteens of water in front of prone, begging Egyptian soldiers, who were made to dig holes, and were shot. The next line of soldiers were forced to cover their comrades with a bit of sand, and were them selves executed. Your opinion is based on bubkis but bigotry
If your opinion is based on facts present them. Quote the NSA intercepts that contained what you said they said and provide the source. Provide documentation that details what you claim and the source of that documentation. If you can not do that then your opinion is based on bubkis.
Israel continues to be a pariah state – and, apparently, epistemology is not your strong suit. Obviously, based on your smug tone, no amount of evidence will convince you because you blindly support Israel regardless of it’s violations of international law, human and civil rights.
But, whatever: you wish to troll for Israel because you are biased in its favor, that’s your mistake, but let’s not ignore the truth for the sake of your delicate sensibilities, Snowflake!
Really couldn’t have stated it better myself. So frustrating, that blind support for israel.
So that would be a no then, you can not provide the evidence.
Btw, i love when someone who goes ito a rant over merely being asked to back up a claim calls someone else a snowflake. Too funny.
The Six Day War and the USS Liberty event was over Israeli development and possession of a nuke weapon which they planned and threatened to use.
Egypt and NSA knew this but few others had any idea. Israel knew Liberty knew and it had to go.
http://judymorrisreport.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-most-incredible-story-never-told.html
not sure about your account, but it is true that their reactor at Diamona had just been put on-line. The land grab excuse alone is enough
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/06/fifty-years-later-nsa-keeps-details-of-israels-uss-liberty-attack-secret/?comments=1#comment-410648
wallstreet is occupied by the zionista club since 1913 when the whores of the US congress and whore president gave them a monopoly on a fraudulent scheme by which to place all US property and assets into hock by a criminal print-loan-scheme whcih ultimately relies on the forbiddence of bankruptcy and debtor’s prisons.
There is a good design for a democratic currency system which is NOT debt oriented and which is compatible with a real democracy but this system is also forbidden by the thieves of wallstreet who continue to pay the whores that occupy the congress.
President Trump is doing his best to get the US out of this crap without getting JFK’d.
“President Trump is doing his best to get the US out of this crap without getting JFK’d”
I don’t enjoy breaking your optimism but he’s not, he’s just not. He hasn’t put forth any policy about the Federal Reserve or made any hint at doing so. He seemed to particularly enjoy rubbing shoulders with Netanyahu and the Saudi King.
Try not to project your hopes onto him, you’ll just feel disappointed when he ends up doing the bidding of the military industrial complex and wall street
AGREED. Well Said, its reality.
Trump doesn’t know how to “get us out of this crap”. I don’t mean to troll or be a dick, but Trump is a shyster looking for any opportunity to get paid. He has not proven anything that would say otherwise.
Trump is in it up to his eyeballs…what are you smoking?
Enough of us know the truth; enough of us have cowered too long; enough of us don’t cotton to a zionist infiltrated US government resolution with the israeli terrorist & apartheid regime illegally occupying Palestine; enough dilly dallying…time for enough of us to honor our soldiers of the USS Liberty and do right by them ourselves….
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/02/infamy-at-sea-israels-attack-on-the-uss-liberty-50-years-later/
Koppel says that there’s nothing here? If he really believes that, he should be ashamed of himself. Both as a journalist and as a Jew.
Koppel shilled for Israel for years by sustaining the “two sides” fiction concealing the actual criminal/victim relationship. Under what system of justice is a crime victim expected to debate and negotiate with the criminal about how much stolen property must be returned or what compensation is owed for the murder of loved ones?
http://podbay.fm/show/283377936/e/1283799600?autostart=1 not sure if my first post went through. Mike bennett interviewed two of the survivors . Very informative
With “allies” like this, we don’t need enemies. Our Congress should develop some balls and quit letting the tail wag the dog. Three billion dollars a year foreign aid to a country with universal healthcare, lower unemployment and acting as an apartheid state is entirely inappropriate not to mention the two billion we give to Egypt every year “to play nice” with their apartheid neighbor.
I could not agree more with your statement.
Tko, there is no apartheid in Israel and saying so is just antisemitic propaganda promoted by BDS groups like SJP & JVP. As for foreign aid, American spends $35 billion in foreign aid every year. Of all the money spent the wisest expenditure is the 3 billion in military aid to Israel as Israel buys all their military equipment from America, requires no American boots on the ground as does Japan, North Korea, Germany etc. and gives America support in cyber security, terrorism strategies and in depth intelligence support
Fear has a price
Israel is expensive human emotional falseness baggage
Go to YouTube.
Search…….’ The day israel attacked America’
Al jazeera has a complete documentary on this war crime. Without a doubt, they knew they were attacking an ally. With friends like israel you don’t need enemies.
Al-Jazeera – the Arab version of Pravda. An Al-Thani corporation that also own Qatar.
Mike Bennett interviews 2 of the men in the ship who wrote a book on it . Trust the soldiers attacked or israeli intelligence? Not a tough choice to me. http://podbay.fm/show/283377936/e/1283799600?autostart=1
Whatever else is true, one thing’s for sure: Israel gets a benefit of the doubt no other country would.
Manufactured coerced doubt benefit-
Wait, let me see if I am understanding this right:
There’s an attack on USS Liberty, and any talking about it is silenced by the US gov? Somehow, GCHQ is involved? American and Israeli investigations all have either been censored or chalked up the attack as an accident?
I’m slightly surprised about Israel = target.
The US ship Liberty, the most sophisticated electronic surveillance ship of the time, was spying on Israeli troop movement from Sinai to the Syrian border for attack on the Golan Heights, and Liberty transmitted the data on field communications to a British station on Cyprus to transfer the data to the Arabs. The western democracies wanted to please the Arabs to keep the oil flowing from the Middle East. The US government knew of Liberty true mission with two Hebrew translators on board and ordered the US carrier based planes back in order not to get in a fight with the Israelis. Both US and Israeli governments decided to call this incident a mistake of identification and have maintained the cover until now. Learn the facts and then make noise about aggressive Israelis. What do you do to spy ships, you sink them. US learned a lesson about spying.
A question for anyone who follows this issue
Again, I just did a quick search of USS Liberty and found the wiki page and the web page of the support group of the survivors. There is a lot of material on that page including documents.
The question is the following: I have heard that there is extensive editing of wikipedia sites by partisans who want the story to be presented in the way they want.
The wikipedia entry looked OK. Has anyone followed the evolution of the edits to that page to see how it has changed?
All wikipedia sites have tabs entitled ‘talk’ and ‘view history’. You can see the list of all edits, coupled with previous/current versions of the page. It’s a bit to sort through, but shouldn’t take more than an hour or two if you are interested.
Took about 10 seconds;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:History/USS_Liberty_incident
You read and understood the evolution of the edits you linked to in about 10 seconds? Impressive.
Lol! No, I just gave Don a fish, instead of teaching him to fish…
the only problem is the NSA didn’t exist in 1967
You’re confusing NSA with something else..maybe?
Yes, In the late 1940’s, President Truman signed the National Security Act..creating the NSA
Fifteen years after the attack, an Israeli pilot approached Liberty survivors and then held extensive interviews with former Congressman Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey about his role. According to this senior Israeli lead pilot, he recognized the Liberty as American immediately, so informed his headquarters, and was told to ignore the American flag and continue his attack. He refused to do so and returned to base, where he was arrested.
Later, a dual-citizen Israeli major told survivors that he was in an Israeli war room where he heard that pilot’s radio report. The attacking pilots and everyone in the Israeli war room knew that they were attacking an American ship, the major said. He recanted the statement only after he received threatening phone calls from Israel.
The pilot’s protests also were heard by radio monitors in the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon. Then-U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter has confirmed this. Porter told his story to syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak and offered to submit to further questioning by authorities. Unfortunately, no one in the U.S. government has any interest in hearing these first-person accounts of Israeli treachery. [Washington Report]
See: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ussliberty.html
Here is the link where you can hear the authentic Mossad recording communications while they bombed the USA liberty full of non-Jewish people (where the Jewry’s culture and upbringing are instilled that any non-Jew is worst than a dog/animal. And if any of you is ignorant of this do your own research) Here is the title of the documentary where you can hear the unequivocal deliberate bombing proved by the recording g Mossad communications provided in the following documentary
Remembering USS Liberty: When Israel attacked America
https://youtu.be/tx72tAWVcoM
Thank you.
It is very comforting and convincing when Jewish Koppel tells us there was nothing new or substantive found in the interviews. Israel murdered 34 Americans that day, and their only regret is that the Liberty didn’t sink with all aboard.
Israel knows. Every other country in the world knows. Only Americans are being kept in the dark and lied to about what really happened.
It’s not a secret. It’s a conspiracy.
http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/remembering-the-u-s-s-liberty-2/
Very interesting read. Looking at the present day attitude of the right wing Israeli government I could definitely see this playing out back in June of 67.
This report never mentioned that there are recordings available provided by a documentary that is still ban from being shared in Jew-owned media.
The recordings are in Hebrew and are from the very Jews or Mossad communications of the rothschilds-Jewish airplanes communications.
Even a bbc documentary was ban also in USA media and rothschilds jewsrael concerning the bombing of the US liberty shipped full of non-Jewish people.
The Jewish radio communications exist and are available in a forbidden documentary with subtitles available in YouTube where one can hear the Jews verbally hating the USA non-Jewish Americans by bombing them yet in spite of the Jewish radio communications of those Jewish airplanes, the USA government and the rothschilds could not go any further in their machination of wickedness to blame the Egyptians because the Jewish airplanes were unmarked. And some how the clandestine false flag operation failed. The USA and rothschilds jewsrael are using the same tactics in Syria too so this tactic is use over and over again.
Glen what a load of propaganda you are allowing here to obfuscate the fact that the Jewish Mossad recordings of those airplanes that bombed the USA liberty have been shown in a documentary as unequivocal proof that the Rothschild bombed USA military with impunity. And worst things are going to happen within the USA government with this kind of kosher Jewish infiltrators who are not patriotic to non-Jewish governances or countries in the first degree. If that’s what happened fifty years ago what worst things are the corrupt kosher Jews concocting within the USA governance. Just look at the current central bank, in fake name only, a federal reserve system that has nothing of federal and is not a system but a central bank owned by Jews enslaving the USA population and the world with printing money out of thin air while cloaked in sheep’s clothing and with impunity. Disgusting is short.
Not a tad of anti-Semitism? You’re post sounds very rational.
Name the documentaries. Nothing can be banned with the Internet today. If they exist, I can find them.
NOT TRUE. The wallstreet theif network has been actively making efforts to pull things off. The BBC had a documentary of the USS Liberty and the zions moved into the BBC to gain control and took it down i believe a couple years back. The video is still findable but you have to look harder.
Here is an example of a link they would like to “kill and steal” like they do the palestinians and mainstreet property. (They are in the kill and still business like any other orgaised crime operation).
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/The%20Zionist%20Plan%20for%20the%20Middle%20East.pdf
It is also important to understand that jews and zions are not one in the same. Jewish persons are good people. Zions are members of a club who use jewishism as a human shield and are quite the opposite of jewish persons. For more information on this watch videos of Dr. Hajo Meyer, a holocaust survivor.
face it barb you already outed yourself with the zionists killed Jesus stuff and the zionists run the banks.
Here is the link where you can hear the authentic Mossad recording communications while they bombed the USA liberty full of non-Jewish people (where the Jewry’s culture and upbringing are instilled that any non-Jew is worst than a dog/animal) Here is the title of the documentary where you can hear the unequivocal deliberate bombing proved by the recording g Mossad communications provided in the following documentary
Remembering USS Liberty: When Israel attacked America
https://youtu.be/tx72tAWVcoM
Sure. Anti-Semite.
Oops…left out the link!!
http://www.ifamericaknew.org/us_ints/ul-4dec.html
Here is another good presentation of the facts on the 40th anniversary.
I have/had a link to a transcript of closed hearings, but not with me and it may now be a page that is “no longer available”.
I found it interesting that the Liberty Group was one WaPo accused of being a “fake news site” from the well “sourced” prop or not.
That’s when I realized there was no redeeming value in WaPo anymore, merely a tome of propaganda from the Ministry of Truth.
This is the kind of article one comes to expect from US media: inward looking, without reference to outside sources. Al Jazeera produced an excellent documentary, “The day Israel attacked America”, which provides much more detail about the cover up than the above article. Here is a link to it: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2014/10/day-israel-attacked-america-20141028144946266462.html
Two postscripts:
1. Note the date on the documentary: October 2014. Two and a half years later, and the US gets the news.
2. I would strongly encourage the posters below to watch the video. The gist is that the attack was deliberate, the ship was known to be US flag, and an intelligence gathering ship. It has long been speculated in Navy circles (at least the ones I was in) that the Israelis wanted to sink the ship and kill everyone on board so as to eliminate the possibility that the US would tell the world that they were the ones who started the war. How times have changed! Now the US is so subservient to Israel that there is no possibility of our government calling them out for their crimes.
No one argues whether or not the attack was deliberate. The argument is if the Israelis knew it was a US ship. There is zero evidence that the Israelis tried to blame anyone else for the attack and took responsibility almost immediately.
I’ll be happy to watch the part of the video that you think provides the evidence that proves the Israeli intentionally attacked the ship know full well it was a US ship, just give me the video time.
Do yourself a favor, watch it all. Pilots testify that they saw the US flag, reported same, and were ordered to attack anyway.
The pilots testified on this video?
If so please tell me where on the video this is?
If not tell me where and when this testimony was given.
I could find not confirming evidence anywhere that this testimony exists. If you have it provide it if not I will have to assume it is false.
Al Jazeera is always my favorite place to go for unbiased information on Israel
What a load of bullcrap — is this Honor Fake News Day or something?
We know from the information in Joan Mellen’s book, Faustian Bargain (which I was aware of prior to reading it), that it was a false flag op from start to finish, and not only have retired squid types (US Navy) come forward finally to tell the truth, but sometime back, at least one or more Israeli pilots on that day have come forward.
This author is either a complete joke or on the intelligence establishment’s payroll?
Go to 24:50 on this vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNRxzDTuOOc
I like this story (and the author’s photo but that’s an aside) speculation and all… it would make a great movie.
But here’s the key:
It was puzzling at first to read a gag order placed against the entire crew; what would they know unless everyone was listening in on comm from the attacking Hebs / understood Hebrew / special Arabic.
Taking Marvin at his word / honor and not wanting to end up in the gulag: it was an accident. Truly likely an accident. However, even if you see a friendly flag it doesnt and shouldnt mean it’s friendly. People dress in IDF unis all the time and IDF forces dress up like Arab women all the time. So, there’s that. Not trying to be an Israel apologist here either.
Still, Hollywood should make a movie, conspriacy theory and all.
I am having a hard time making sense out of this story, but I would recommend anyone checking out the Wikipedia article and its references before drawing conclusions from this story alone.
It is a good thing that this article does not indulge in a lot of speculation but does not (I assume intentionally) provide anything that could leave us with what motivation there could be for Israel to attack a U.S. vessel like that. Given the very immature and stressed state of the Israeli military at the time the theory that it was an erroneously designated target remains the only rational explanation.
Other than that this appears to be a good illustration about how obsessive secrecy was not only unnecessary but actively harmful. Back in that day however the NSA was so secret that most Americans had never even heard of it and the “No Such Agency” joke was probably not even widespread then. My guess is if the NSA was involved they wanted to hush it up for that reason and of course with all the shadowy activity going on people are going to conclude something is going on.
respectfully, Alan, i’m having a hard time making sense of your post. you seem to be saying something like – don’t jump to any conclusions . . . unless it’s this one that i’ve landed on.
Obviously, LBJ wanted to occupy Egypt and blaming the sinking of the USS Liberty on Egypt would pave the way for him to do so. The one major saving factor, beyond the brave actions by the Liberty’s crew, was the presence on the scene of a Soviet intel trawler, broadcasting the events of that sordid day!
http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/joan-mellen-lifts-the-veil-of-deceit-and-scandals-surrounding-lbj-in-faustian-bargains/
With a history of false flags to start wars, sgt_doom’s explanation seems like the most correct. The thought never occurred to me that the Liberty was struck on purpose, on orders of the administration of the time, to propel us into something new.
occupy Egypt? What are you guys smoking? LOL! If you’re going to be a conspiracy nut, at least come up with something half way plausible!
Except no one ever tried to blame Egypt and Israel took responsibility right away. Those are the facts.
Oh, sure, LBJ wanted to occupy Egypt. And it would be easy enough to do, except for the minor detail that at the time there were 500,000 US ground troops halfway around the world in a place called Vietnam, with better than half the Navy and Air Force tied up there as well. Give me a break!
Just remember the Bay of Pigs as a reminder about how LBJ “operated”.
I could easily believe a cover-up, but I think the claims don’t hold water in this case. Most of all there’s no apparent motive: even IF the El-Arish massacre took place and IF the Liberty intercepted pertinent comms or other evidence, surely attacking a U.S. Navy ship in broad daylight would be far more likely to trigger adverse diplomatic, political or military consequences.
Easiest explanation is teenagers hyped up on adrenaline bombing the wrong target – it happens frequently enough even today.
that’s a lot of teenagers.
Thank you, and . . .
http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-liberty_tuesoct02-story.html#page=1
The ship that led the attack has its bell in an Israeli naval museum. Make of it what you will.
The same motive Johnson had for occupying Vietnam — occupying Egypt! End of story, and the Israeli pilot who long ago came forward, and the individuals alive involved in the Navy cover-up who finally came forward, negate everything you have to say, dude!
I doubt he wanted to take over Egypt. But he did want to make a show of support for Israel to please potential donors. It’s said he had Begin pressure Ben Gurion to keep silent.
Yeah . . . right, nothing but teens in the Israeli Air Force, you douchetard!
You probably still believe all that Fake News Bullcrap about Bush being an officer and a pilot, even though I went through USAF enlisted basic training not long after Georgey Porgy and he was still a joke at Lackland: the corrupt politician’s son who made it through basic and miraculously became an officer!
Monumental screw ups on all sides is the best answer describe what happened.
I must make it quite clear that I do not condone the Israeli conduct in this affair; their performance was lacking even the earliest signs of competance and their professional negligence was profoundly culpable. They screwed up royally and deserve all the blame that can be ladled over their brainless heads. But they didn’t do it deliberately. 13 bad mistakes, errors of judgement and horrible coincidences. Its right to be enraged with the Israelis for their sloppy staffwork, lax procedures and inattention to detail caused them to launch an attack against a neutral ship. It is indeed with them that the ultimate blame lies for it is the Israeli disregard for careful procedure and their deliberate neglect of proper administration that caused the disaster. Their arrogant assumption that they alone had the secret of how to run a modern war and nobody else knew any part of it was largely to blame for the tragedy. Martin Van Creveld describes the Israeli attitude to proper procedure and to administrative advice as being arrogant bordering on boorish and frequently deliberately bullying, rude and offensive. The US Navy also has some share of the blame for there should have been a liaison officer to provide a direct point of contact. Even after she was hit, the Americans had difficulty locating the Liberty, the JCS placing it at “60-100 miles north of Egypt.” If neither the US Navy nor even the President of the United States could know where the Liberty was, it seems unreasonable to expect that the Israelis, in the thick of battle, should have been able to locate it. The NSA must carry its share for keeping the ship dangerously close to the enemy coast and ignoring navy advice.
Was there a conspiracy? There was certainly a cover-up but it was of incompetence and misjudgement rather than collusion. If the NSA had a hand in misrouting the movement orders, that also was covered up. The gaping hole in the whole Israeli deliberate attack/US cover-up hypothesis reamins unaddressed. Why? Attempts to provide a rationale behind any such deliberate attack have all been easily and comprehensively discredited. But, in truth, the Israeli culpability is so great that it doesn’t need a far-fetched conspiracy to increase it further. The incredibly amateurish behavior of their command structure (and their arrogant refusal to accept that they had things to learn) is explanation enough and damning enough. In a weird way, the Israelies could be considered less culpable if they had performed a deliberate attack; then, at least, they would have been acting in the interests of their state rather than through sheer blundering ineptitude.
A year later the destroyer Eilat was sunk by the same combination of blundering incompetence, stupidity and arrogance (three Egyptian missiles had something to do with it as well). . Indeed, for those investigating the attack on Liberty, the command disasters involved in the sinking of the Eilat should be required reading. The same factors of boorish arrogance, incompetence, inadequate command control, defective equipment and long-delayed communications make their miserable appearnace.
Six years after the Liberty incident, another Israeli Navy warship, the Miznak went into action. She was on her way to assist Hanit that had run aground on a sandbar off the Sinai coast. The captain (Captain Barkai) gave orders for the Miznak to keep out of a 45 kilometer circle around Port Said due to the danger of missile attack. He then went to his cabin and slept. The second in command (Udi Erell) was duty officer in the CIC. He was dozing in the CIC Ops Chair when he was struck by the silence in room. The Ops crew were asleep. Worse, the Miznak was heading on a straight line for Port said and was already well within the 45 kilometer danger zone. EW was off, the radar watch was asleep, helm was asleep. And the instruments were telling the crew that Egyptian missile craft were coming out of port. Commander Erell literally kicked the CIC crew into wakefulness as Captain Moshe Tabak, the group commander sent an in-clear radio warning of an impending attack (in clear because Miznak had not responded to coded radio signals – cypher room was asleep as well). Udi Erell slammed the throttles forward personally and swung the boat through 180 degrees. As he did so he saw the launch signature of P-15 missiles on the horizon. Four P-15s had been fired by two Project 183R (Komar) FAC-M and were already on their way. One went into the sea when its gyros tumbled, a second went into the sea far astern, the third overshot and landed in the sea three miles ahead of Miznak and the fourth exploded in the sea 100 meters aft of Miznak.
Why is this incident so significant? Note the name of the operations officer on Mizhak – Udi Erell. In 1967 he had commanded a squadron of three FAC. Six years later, in 1973, he had been demoted to the ops officer of one such craft. Yet Udi Erell is the son of Shlomo Erell, the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Navy. Despite being VIP’s son, the Israeli Navy really busted Udi Erell’s chops. If it was a conspiracy they’d have found somebody else less well-connected to be the scapegoat.
Politicians paid to continue the cover up
Go along to get along …..
Today, one can explain the democrats lack of response to the last several years as they are paid to loose
The goal is to continue the establishment, the deep state, the banks, etc., and the role of the politicians is to continue to pretend that they are legitimate because they are elected and the USA is the exceptional country
Those are high level themes that relate to the specific case of the cover up of the USS Liberty and the ongoing support of the Zionist project in Israel
I might have read too quickly, but I did not see that much new material in this article. The involvement of the British signals agency is something I had not seen before but makes sense because of their long term connection to the area.
Such a simple proposition: do you support the troops or the policy of support to Israel? This is but one example of the ongoing mistake of our foreign policy
Which is focused on maintaining the deep state and support for US corporations and banks …
And the story goes on
National security continues to trump the constitution and the people
The most plausible explanation I’ve ever read was that the USS Liberty was feeding Israel’s Order of Battle to GHCQ computers on Cyprus, which in turn was finding its way to the Egyptian High Command. No nation could let their Order of Battle be disclosed to an enemy during wartime. Make of it what you will.
Thanks. That is plausible.
And possible.
Why else would Israel sink a US ship?
That does not explain the cover up of the US, except, the almost universal reason, embarrassment
Look at the state dept correspondence from Manning
not at all plausible. Israel was lying to the US trying to curry our favor and we weren’t that close. However, the warcrimes Israel committed were indeed documented; the NSA also had a plane flying overhead that recorded the same transmissions as the Liberty (though that plane was unknown to Israel) the Jewish “special Arabic” translator transcribed the warcrimes in real time; evidently now, his Jewish identity has shaped his perspective. But, in real time, he recorded and translated Israeli atrocities, and more than that we must have recordings as well. Read James Bamford’s book, “Body of Secrets” In that, we find all the surveillance that we were don’t we’re doing now.