The FReeper Foxhole Remembers Attack on the USS LIBERTY - Part II (6/8/1967) - Sep. 9th, 2003

http://www.logogo.net/liberty.htm ^ | John E. Borne, PhD

[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

God Bless America
...................................................................................... ...........................................

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Attack on the USS LIBERTY - Part II

Link to Attack on the USS LIBERTY - Part I

On June 8, 1967, during the Six Day War, Israeli forces attacked the USS Liberty, a U.S. Navy intelligence-gathering ship off the coast of Gaza, killing 35 men and wounding 171. Israeli apologized and called the attack an accident. The U.S. government accepted the apology and did not openly challenge the explanation For almost three decades the crewmen of the Liberty have waged a campaign to have the attack investigated. Indeed, they claim that not only was the attack was intentional, but also that Johnson recalled the Sixth Fleet rescue flights to avoid a clash between the U.S. and Israel.

The Rescue Flights

In the view of the LIBERTY crewmen, there are two major questions relating to the attack on their ship. First, was the attack accidental or deliberate? Secondly, did President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara delay rescue flights from the Sixth Fleet so that US forces would not clash with Israel?



These are two separate questions, and it would be possible for any observer to conclude that the attack was accidental, and also that the White House delayed the rescue flights. In fact, the crewmen are convinced that the answer is positive in both cases; the attack was deliberate, and LBJ delayed the rescue flights.

When Ennes wrote his book ASSAULT in 1980, he made an effort to find out about the recall of the rescue flights. The investigation is difficult because the US Government has provided almost no information concerning these flights. It has said only that the planes were recalled because Israel had announced that it had attacked the ship.

The US has never admitted that there was more than one flight of planes. There has been no investigation of any kind in this matter, as there was a Naval Court to explore some aspects of the attack. There have been no questions on the matter from Congress or the press; the issue was lost in the flurry of statements in the days after the attack.

Ennes found in 1980, after talking to crewmen and pilots of the Sixth Fleet that there were many confusing and erratic reports concerning the rescue flights , and that there were serious discrepancies between official documents and records on the one hand, and the testimony of reliable witnesses on the other. He concluded, tenatatively, that there had been two rescue flights. The first, at 1450 on June 8, was recalled almost immediately because the planes were carrying nuclear weapons. The second, at 1630 on that same afternoon, was recalled at 1715 because Israel had notified the US at 1700 that it had accidentally attacked the ship.



After Ennes wrote this in 1980, he learned more on the subject from two men who contacted him. The first was Captain Joe Tully, commander of the carrier SARATOGA , which was part of the Sixth Fleet stationed near Crete on June 8, 1967. Tully said that the radio message from LIBERTY, saying that the ship was under attack, was heard by SARATOGA at 1432. Tully notified his superior officer, RADM Geis, who was on a cruiser nearby, that he was turning into the wind and launching his ready group of planes to go to LIBERTY, unless he was given orders to the contrary. Geis approved and told Tully that he (Geis) was also ordering AMERICA, the other carrier in the unit of the Sixth Fleet at the time, to launch rescue planes. (The fleet unit, off Crete on that day, consisted of two carriers with a total of 160 planes, a command cruiser and eight destroyers. LIBERTY was only an hour's flight away at top speed of the planes).

Tully launched his ready group of planes. He noticed that AMERICA had launched no planes, and he signaled "WTH" ("what the hell?") to AMERICA but received no answer. (He did not know then that AMERICA was in the midst of complicated weapons exercises, and was not capable for some time of launching planes).

A moment later, with SARATOGA planes still not over the horizon, Tully received word from Geis that the planes should be recalled. Either VADM Martin, commander of the Sixth Fleet, or Geis, (Tully's memory is not exact) then sent a message to both carriers that a rescue flight should leave in 90 minutes. Tully protested that his planes were ready to leave at once, but he received no reply.

At 1630 planes were launched from both carriers. From this point on there are two confllicting stories. As Tully remembers it, the planes were once again recalled before they had cleared the horizon. However, another account (related in A.Jay Cristol's LIBERTY INCIDENT, and backed by other evidence) says that the planes were not recalled until 1715, after the Israelis had stated that they had accidentally attacked the ship.

Ennes also received new information from LCDR David Lewis, an officer on the ship, who told the following story: Lewis, wounded in the torpedo attack, was transferred to the hospital of AMERICA and RADM Geis sent for him. Geis told him that the first rescue flight had been cancelled on direct orders from Secretary McNamara, who ordered a 90 minute delay before further flights. When the second flight took off at 1630, Geis notified McNamara, who again ordered the recall of the flight. Any officer who doubts the wisdom of an order has the prerogative to go over the head of the officer giving the order, and in this case the only officer superior to McNamara was President Johnson. LBJ came on the phone, and told Geis "I don't care if the ship sinks and every man on board drowns; we are not going to fight against our allies (Israel)."

Geis made Lewis promise not to tell about this conversation as long as he, Geis, was alive. After Geis's death, Lewis revealed this.



This is an astounding and shocking statement by President Johnson. The accuracy of Tully's account and of Geis's account, as related by Lewis, are questions to be explored at greater length.

Recall of the Flights

The accounts of the rescue flights and their recall rely upon minimal and inadequate documentation, possible flawed memories, and unanswered questions. As a result, the story is one of loose ends, unresolved problems and partisan charges. Yet the issues are of such importance that the debate cannot be avoided.

There are two issues of the greatest importance.

1. We are dealing with the problem of the 90 minute delay, and final cancellation, in sending rescue flights to LIBERTY, when as far as the White House and the Sixth Fleet knew the ship was under constant attack and in danger of sinking. It would seem that only the most serious reasons could justify the recall of the flights. Yet if Dave Lewis is correct, LBJ stopped these flights in order to avoid any clash with Israel. As serious as this matter is, no Congressman or journalist asked LBJ or McNamara a single question about it in the 34 years since the attack.
   
2. There is a problem concerning the timing of events. ADM Geis, speaking through Dave Lewis, says that McNamara ordered the cancellation of the first rescue flight at 0900 White House time. Yet the official history (such as President's Daily Diary) states that LBJ (and McNamara) were first notified of the attack on LIBERTY at 0949 White House time, nearly an hour later. If Geis is correct, then the White House documents are false and part of a cover-up.

The LIBERTY crewmen's account of the flights and recalls:

1. Tully and Geis: flight from SARATOGA at 1450. Planes recalled at once by radiotelephone call from McNamara; planes returned to carrier at 1500. Tully ordered to wait for 90 minutes before a new flight. He said that his planes were ready to fly at once but he got no answer. Geis claimed that he protested McNamara's order for recall and spoke to LBJ but this availed nothing. (No official record of this flight and recall; no record of calls from LBJ or McNamara). Carrier AMERICA was not able to send planes on this flight because the carrier was in the midst of training exercises and had no ready group of planes available for an hour.
   
2. Tully, Ennes and Cristol: At 1630 flights were launched from both carriers, but meanwhile events were moving to cancel need for flights. At 1610 Israel notified US attaché Castle that it had accidentally attacked LIBERTY. Castle's message on this reached White House at 1704 and went to Situation Room where LBJ met with advisers. McNamara contacted 6th fleet by radiotelephone; flights ordered at 1715 to return to carriers.

Cristol strongly attacks the above account of the 1450 flight on these grounds:

1. It was not possible in 1967 to speak from Washington to a ship in the Mediterranean by radiotelephone.
   
2. There was a well established chain of command from Geis to McNamara; Geis was not likely to shortcut this.
   
3. McNamara in an interview with Cristol denies that he spoke to anyone in the Sixth Fleet on that day, and in particular did not speak to Geis.

Crewmen response to Cristol criticism:

1. There was standard equipment for radiotelephone calls from White House to ships in Mediterranean in 1967. In fact, in another interview with Cristol, contradicting the one described above, McNamara says that he used radiotelephone to Sixth Fleet to recall the flight at 1715.
   
2. Engen, although he generally praises Cristol and backs his version of events, nevertheless backs the LIBERTY men in detailed accounts and says that McNamara spoke directly to Geis by radiotelephone.
   
3. Although a chain of command existed, the crewmen claim that LBJ and McNamara ignored it when speed of contact was an urgent matter.
   
4. Call from McNamara to Geis was relayed through a US Naval communications station in Morocco and overheard by CPO Julian Hart, who later contacted Ennes to provide this evidence.

The discussion above concerns the 1450 flight from SARATOGA, and the1630 flight from both carriers. There are two other accounts of flights which provide uncertain information or false data. These are:

1. (From Cristol): Flights from both carriers at 1516 by order of ADM Martin; called back at 1609 after 55 minute flight. We do not know why flights were recalled. They were only a few miles from LIBERTY at the time.
   
2. (From Engen): A flight took off from AMERICA at 1600 but was called back at once by RADM Geis. Engen says that LBJ had told Geis that Israel had admitted it accidentally attacked LIBERTY. However, the Israelis did not make this admission until 1700, an hour later, so this account makes no sense.

It is difficult to understand the two accounts above. Among other things, if both accounts were true, at about 1600-1609 we would have a situation where one flight was headed for LIBERTY while another flight, much nearer, was turning back in order and NOT to contact the ship.



The story of the rescue flights is poorly documented and largely still unknown. Tully was not able to find out why the 90 minute delay in the rescue flights was ordered. In a similar way, ADM Thomas Moorer says that later in his capacity as member of the JCS and as CNO, he was never able to find out the reason for the delay. It was considered a closely guarded secret.

Because this is still an area of unexplored history, the LIBERTY men hope to eventually have a Congressional hearing on the issue.

[SAMWolf]

The Naval Hearing

After the attack ended, THE LIBERTY sailed northward through the night of June 8/9. At dawn it sighted destroyers of the Sixth Fleet, and by midmorning helicopters were taking the severely wounded from the ship to the carrier hospitals. The ship then received orders to continue its journey to Malta, where a Naval Court would be convened to consider the attack. (Despite its name, a Naval Court is not a court, but an investigative body).

RADM Isaac Kidd, who had been named to head the Court, came on board the ship with his fellow court members, three captains, on June 9. During the next few days he spoke informally to crew members to prepare for questions and testimony. He warned the crewmen that they could speak to no one about the attack until after the hearing, and then could speak only in the exact terms stated by the Court. The crewmen said that he threatened "court martial or worse" to those who might disobey.

The Naval Court convened on board the ship in Malta on June 16. The hearing lasted for two days. Captain McGonagle was the main witness, testifying for six hours. The other 12 crewmen who spoke testified for brief periods. James Ennes sent a statement from a hospital in Naples, which, he later learned, was read in court but not entered into the record.

Wounded arriving USS America

There was a split between the captain and the crew over the testimony. To the dismay of the crewmen, McGonagle wanted to minimize the attack, perhaps feeling that he was partly responsible for the deaths and injuries because he had not withdrawn the ship from dangerous waters. He and the crew differed over the extent and closeness of Israeli aerial surveillance, duration of air attack and torpedo boat attack, and the time when the offer of help came from the torpedo boats.

In addition, the Court did not seem to be interested in much of the testimony of the crew. Some crewmen talked about the jamming of the ship's radios, but the court did not follow up or ask questions. Other crewmen who claimed that the ship's flag stood out clearly in the wind were insistently asked "Are you sure? Could you be mistaken?"

In the end the Court issued a series of "findings", some of which were in direct conflict with the testimony. Most importantly, all crewmen stated that the ship's flag could be easily seen by Israeli planes and boats, while the final finding on this issue stated (falsely) that "witnesses testified that the flag may have hung limp".

The Israelis during this time were issuing a series of reports on the attack, claiming that the ship had no flag, so the findings of the court reinforced the Israeli claims. The final report of the Court made no mention of jamming of the radios or the crewmen's claims that the torpedo boats had fired on the ship's liferafts. The Court record and summary thus gave no hint of the conflicting testimony which had actually been heard in the Court, or of the frequently rebellious atmosphere in the hearing. The crewmen reacted to all this with anger and dismay, later describing the hearing in letters to Ennes as a "hoax" and "whitewash".

The transcript and proceedings, totaling 707 pages, was sent to the London headquarters of CINCUSNAVEUR (Commander in Chief of US Naval Forces in Europe). There it was assigned for review to ADM Melvin Staring, Navy flag officer for the Judge Advocate General. As it turned out, unknown to the crewmen until many years later, Staring would agree with much of their view.


USS Davis arriving

Staring began his review, but it quickly became apparent that the survey would be difficult and time consuming. Early review produced pages of notes and questions which Staring felt he must resolve or comment upon before passing the record on.

Staring later told how he had worked on this transcript for two days and nights when he received word from ADM McCain, commander of CINCUSNAVEUR, that the work must be finished at once. When he replied that this was impossible, he was told he would be relieved of his assignment and endorsement would be prepared elsewhere in the staff. He ceased work and delivered the record to McCain's office. He therefore never completed his study or analysis.

Staring later saw a copy of the endorsement which CINCUSNAVEUR had signed and sent on to Washington. He says that those who replaced him had not dealt with the numerous problems, questions and inconsistencies which he had found so prevalent in the record. Their work, in his opinion, was low caliber.

Since Staring was the senior Navy lawyer on CINCUSNAVEUR staff, he knew that his superiors in Washington would assume that he was responsible for the report. Considering his professional reputation and integrity to be at risk, he immediately communicated personally and informally with the Judge Advocate General of the Navy, apprising him of the facts, and making it clear that he had neither prepared the endorsement nor been given an opportunity to conduct a complete review.


Burned gun tub with USS Davis in the background

The Naval Court record, then, failed to pass muster with the legal officer assigned to first review it. However, the court record, minimizing the attack, remains as the "evidence" to which the defenders of the Johnson White House, and the Israeli Government, point in making their case and opposing the LIBERTY claims. We should note how A. Jay Cristol, the chief defender of the official history, deals with this record. He never interviewed Staring on the issue but instead claimed that Staring was a "perfectionist" who was disturbed by "typos" in the record and therefore could not complete his review. Staring, who was concerned with substance and not "typos", was enraged by this falsehood, and so should be all who read about the incident.

Washington View

Both President Johnson and Secretary McNamara claimed that they believed, when they first learned that THE LIBERTY had been attacked, that the USSR was the attacker. The LIBERTY men doubt this and believe that they have evidence that both men knew from the first hour that Israel was the attacker. The final resolution of this question must await fuller investigation.

Most members of the National Security Council Special Committee did not believe that the attack could be accidental, given the renowned excellence of Israeli intelligence, but they were uncertain about the motive. However, the anger of the Special Committee members toward Israel was irrelevant; it was Johnson and McNamara who were controlling events and making policy. They ordered LIBERTY to sail to Malta for a Naval Court hearing, with RADM Isaac Kidd presiding. Kidd went on board the ship on June 10 while it was still en route and at once began to gather information from crew members. He also told them that if they were questioned by the press that they must refer to the attack as accidental. So, from the first days, before the hearing began, the assault was "an accident".

As Press Secretary George Christian wrote later, the matter of what caused Israel to attack was not pursued because it was dwarfed by other events. The major consideration for LBJ at this time was whether the war could be stopped before there was a confrontation with the USSR. In these circumstances, and with the sudden prospect of an alliance with a victorious Israel, the matter of the attack on the ship faded into insignificance, and the Administration set out to promote the idea that the attack was accidental.


Burial of six sailors from USS Liberty off Newport RI near bouy #3

Those critical of Israel kept their doubts to themselves and accepted the Administration view. The only brief rebellion against this consensus occurred when Dean Rusk spoke to NATO ministers in Luxembourg on June 17 and told them that the attack was deliberate. He was apparently reprimanded and silenced for this, and never spoke publicly on the issue again until 1980 when he was contacted by the LIBERTY crewmen.

LBJ also took steps to control the intelligence community for his own ends. COL Ralph Hoppe, then an army intelligence officer based in Florida, has told how in the aftermath of the attack dozens of messages came from Middle East sources, all describing the attack as deliberate. Orders came from the Pentagon to lock all this data away and keep it sealed. Contacts with other intelligence agencies revealed that they had received the same orders to close down their investigations.

In the Mediterranean, public affairs officers kept a close watch on the press and the crewmen. LIBERTY men were forbidden to talk to reporters without PA officers present. Crewmen later told Ennes how they were briefed and rehearsed for press conferences, to make sure that the attack was portrayed as an accident.

With the men so closely controlled, the Naval Court went ahead, producing a report which the crewmen considered rigged and false. The faults of this hearing were recognized by RADM Staring of the Judge Advocate General's office in London, as previously described, but the matter was taken out of his hands.


Burial of six sailors from USS Liberty off Newport RI near bouy #3

Meanwhile, what of Congress? Most members were outraged and angry toward Israel. Dean Rusk on June 8 found members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee "enraged". Rep. Thomas Abernathy (D, Miss) later told Ennes that members of both houses felt that facts about the attack were being hidden, and that there was intense and ceaseless private discussion of the issue. "There was constant talk in the cloak room, dining room, standing behind the rails". He also said that the State Department on June 9 had officials meeting with members in a committee room and assuring them that the attack was an accident. This was a completely political judgment; the Naval Court to determine the facts would not start for another week. (Since Rusk was at this time insisting that the attack was deliberate, it would seem that Rusk was not in control of his own department).

Despite the views of Congressmen, there were no attempts to have an investigation of the issue. Later, on July 22, when McNamara testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, there was still much anger among the Senators and McNamara was challenged by Sen. Bourke Hickenlooper (R, Iowa). However, the senator was ill prepared (for instance, he knew nothing about the recall of the rescue flights) and McNamara came through the hearing with no serious challenge. The sum total of Congressional questioning, then, was very little: the questions to the Department of State men on June 9, and the questions to McNamara.

The Administration paid attention to small details in this matter. Letters of condolence from the White House to relatives of dead seamen avoided any mention of Israel as the attacker; they simply said that the seamen died in the cause of freedom.

Similarly, when a Medal of Honor was given to Captain McGonagle in June 1968, it was presented in a manner which the crew considered grudging and demeaning. It was presented at the Navy Yard by the Secretary of the Navy, rather than in the White House by the President, as is customary. The citation accompanying the award referred not to Israel but to nameless and faceless foreign "adversaries" who attacked the ship.

[SAMWolf]

Press Control

The Administration was successful in its attempts to muffle and hide the questions surrounding the attack. The public was unaware of any issue, and the men were completely silenced.


Burial of six sailors from USS Liberty off Newport RI near bouy #3

The administration moved at once to isolate the men and to control news stories about the attack through CHINFO (Chief Information Office) and its PAs (public affairs officers).

1. News was coordinated and centralized in the Pentagon.
   
2. The LIBERTY crewmen were forbidden to talk to reporters except under conditions arranged by the PA officers. Control of the men came in two phases. From June 8 to 28, when the summary of the Naval Court was completed, the men were told that they could not speak at all. After June 2l they were told that they could speak only by repeating the exact words of the Summary.
   
3. The crewmen were forbidden to speak of the matter even to members of their families. There were threats of demotion, dishonorable discharge loss of pensions and even possible imprisonment for those who might disobey.
   
4. The crewmen were kept from the press by every possible means. Armed guards were stationed near the wounded men in the hospitals on the carriers, in Naples, and in Landshut, Germany. The crewmen on shore in Malta were under constant watch and were given daily orders to avoid the press.
   
5. Only one newsman, Irving R. Levine of NBC News, tried to break through this wall of isolation. He came from Rome to interview Captain McGonagle but instead was given an interview with Admiral Kidd.
   
6. The men were not allowed to merely remain silent. On the carrier AMERICA, in Malta, and later in Norfolk, they were ordered to take part in press conferences and told what to say. PA officers rehearsed the men and were present during the interviews.
   
7. The Departments of State and Defense kept a close watch to see how "favorable" and "unfavorable" stories were reported.
   
8. The crewmen were desperate to break out of their isolation and tell their story to the world. In the single case where a crewman managed to speak to a reporter the PA apparatus immediately put out a "counter story" through Reuters.
   
9. The Naval Court and its Summary were themselves exercises in press control. The Summary presented the LIBERTY attack as the Pentagon wished it to be seen, leaving out all dissenting evidence from the crewmen.

The press was blithely unaware of the wall of censorship which the administration had built around the men and the incident, and made no attempt to break through. Instead the papers and journals contented themselves with comments upon the press releases from the US and Israeli governments, while awaiting the Naval Court summary.

In general, the Israelis, in official statements and in unofficial press releases, told three different stories of the attack. (1) They said that the ship had no flag or identification mark. (2) They said that the ship seemed to be an Egyptian ship disguised as American. In this version, the flag and identification were visible, part of the "disguise". (3) They presented the story of Micha Limor, identified as witness and participant, who told of a mysterious silent ship with no one on deck, which would not respond to signals or gunfire or pause for identification.

The press emphasized now one and now another of these inconsistent stories. No paper tried to analyze or summarize the stories, but instead one story was added to another. The press was mildly critical of Israel in the weeks after the attack, but there was no serious analysis. If there had been serious consideration, there would have been a question of the absurdity of the claim that the ship had no flag or identification. What possible purpose could be served by such insane behavior? Furthermore the ID number could be clearly seen on photos of the ship immediately after the attack, thus giving the lie to Israeli claims.

The complete lack of curiosity on the part of the press was illustrated on June 18, when the Naval Court was still in session. On that date two stories appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES, side by side on the same page, given opposite accounts of the attack and of the hearings.

One dispatch was from Colin Frost of AP. He got his story from Lt. George Golden in a Malta bar. Golden denied regulations to speak to him. The story said in part:

A responsible source said today that senior crewmen of the LIBERTY were convinced that Israel's air and boat attack....was deliberate....They have testified to that effect before the navy inquiry court now in closed session...."We were flying the stars and stripes, and its absolutely impossible that they didn't know who we were", a survivor said. "This was a deliberate and planned attack."

The other story was an unsigned dispatch from Reuters:

Officers from the LIBERTY today rejected the idea that the attack was deliberate. One of the officers said that anybody who said the attack was deliberate was "out of his mind."

The Reuters story is a false and planted story, hastily rranged for the administration to counter the Frost story.No officer of crewmen of the LIBERTY, including Captain McGonagle, EVER said that the attack was accidental, and no crewmen on Malta spoke to a Reuters reporter or to any other reporter except Frost.

These two contrasting stories should have signaled to any interested observer that a public relations war was underway. However, there was no resonance to this event. No US paper picked up the Frost story (except for the Rome Daily News) and CHINFO noted with satisfaction that the story produced no echoes and no curiosity.

Press Reaction

The American press was often critical of Israel and skeptical about Israeli claims in the first few weeks after the attack on the Liberty. However, this original critical view did not result in any follow up by journalists. No paper or magazine sent a reporter to contact the crew, and the press criticism remained speculative and unverified.

From June 10 to 28, while the Navy worked to organize the Naval Court report, there was much journalistic speculation. On June 16 Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson wrote in their syndicated column that the attack had been planned in advance and was too well coordinated to have been accidental.


Burial of six sailors from USS Liberty off Newport RI near bouy #3

On June 19 NEWSWEEK'S "Periscope" stated that "some high Washington officials" suspected that the attack was deliberate; the ship had been attacked because it had evidence that Israel had begun the fighting.

On June 26 US NEWS said that US officials did not believe that the attack was accidental. The reason for the attack was not clear, however, and the magazine said that "the full story may never be told". (Here was an odd instance of surrendering before the battle was begun; a magazine which sends no reporters to contact the crew complains that the full story may never be told).

On June 27 William Buckley in NATIONAL REVIEW issued to most emphatic and angry statement of all the commentators: "Is the LIBERTY episode being erased from history? So it would seem.... What has happened to our prying journalistic corps and our editors, normally so indignant at suppression of the news?....We believe that a joint select committee of Congress should investigate the strange case of the USS LIBERTY....It remains logically possible that the Israeli command ordered the attack"....

On June 28 the Naval Court Summary was published, and it was criticized in most papers and magazines for failing to answer important questions. However, after this date the press began to increasingly favor the Israelis in their comments, for reasons which are not clear. For instance, the journals accepted the Israeli claims that the LIBERTY had no flag or other signs of identification, despite the testimony of the crew and the statements in the Summary. The stories which at first seemed to promise vigorous investigation fizzled out without results. Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson never followed up on their original claim that the attack was planned in advance, and in fact never referred again to the topic. (Years later, when LIBERTY crewmen asked him for more information on the topic, Anderson claimed to have no memory of the issue and could provide no information.)

Similarly, NATIONAL REVIEW did not follow up on Buckley's original claims. There were no more articles on the subject in NATIONAL REVIEW until September 5, when James Kilpatrick wrote "June 8 at 1400 Hours". Although Buckley had called for aggressive reporting, Kilpatrick was bland and hesitant. He reviewed some of the questions concerning the attack, without reaching any conclusion, and decided that "the questions beg for answers" but provided no answers. (Several years later I wrote to Buckley to ask why the magazine had changed its view so radically, but I received only a frivolous answer that "NATIONAL REVIEW chooses its battles".)

There were no more stories on the issue in 1967, and only two in 1968, both closing the books on the case. US NEWS and NEWSWEEK in their final articles ignored any previous skepticism and accepted as fact the Israeli claims that LIBERTY showed no flag or other signs of identification.


Torpedo hole as seen from drydock in Malta

We should note also the record of the NEW YORK TIMES on the LIBERTY issue. First, there is the TIMES editorial of June 10, 1967, declaring that the attack was accidental. At this time the ship was beginning its journey to Malta for an investigation. The editors knew nothing except that the ship had been attacked; Israel had claimed the attack was accidental; and wounded seamen (quoted in the TIMES of June 10, in fact) had declared that the attack was intentional. Nevertheless the TIMES never hesitated to declare the attack an accident, prior to all investigation, and has never wavered in this stand. The TIMES on June 18 printed contradictory stories side by side but did not investigate to see which story was true, and did not show much interest. On July 7, 1967 it printed the account by Micha Limor, which conflicted with all accounts to date, but did not seem to be concerned about the conflict.

THE TIMES for over three decades has had a policy of avoiding any mention of THE LIBERTY insofar as possible, as is illustrated by the following Orwellian account. In late August 1967 the American Legion met in Boston for its annual convention. The Legion passed a dozen resolutions, most of them relating to the Vietnam War. However, Resolution No. 508 dealt with THE LIBERTY and demanded an official inquiry into the attack. THE TIMES covered the convention in detail and wrote about the various resolutions debated and adopted. There was no mention, however, of No. 508, the LIBERTY resolution.

During the summer of 1967 there was much discontent in the State Department and the National Security Council over the LIBERTY matter. Secretary Rusk and Congressman Abernathy said that the Congress was enraged and absorbed in the issue, and that there was much hostility toward the official story. Rusk told his colleagues in Luxembourg that the attack was deliberate, and Hickenlooper and other senators were still angry in July when confronting McNamara. None of this discontent or political current was reported in the TIMES at the time, but was only discovered and reported later by the LIBERTY men and their newsletter.

The record of the press on the LIBERTY issue is an odd one, with silences, unexplained reversals of view, and especially failure to investigate by contacting the crew. The case presented by the US and Israeli governments was a flimsy one, and one crusading journal determined to find the truth could have destroyed the entire official history.

Additional Sources:

www.history.navy.mil
ussliberty.org
thewebfairy.com
www.usswitek.org

[SAMWolf]

The Johnson administration's control of the press and the silencing of the crewmen was deliberate, thorough and successful. A good indication of this success was the fact that the issue died out and was all but forgotten by the autumn of 1967. The promotion of an official history, and the suppression of a dissenting history, was unnoticed in the press at the time and by historians and scholars later. It would require the efforts of the men themselves to raise the question as to whether a false history of an event in 1967 had been created and accepted without much protest by the world at large, or even much awareness of what had happened. By 1968 the attack on the ship had become a mere footnote to history.

[SAMWolf]

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[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on September 09:
1585 Cardinal A Jean de Plessicide de Richelieu Louis XIII chief minister
1754 William Bligh nasty ship's captain (HMS Bounty)
1828 Leo Tolstoy Russia, novelist (War & Peace, Anna Karenina)
1850 Harishchandra India, poet/dramatist/father of modern Hindi
1853 Frederick R Spofforth Australia, cricketer (Demon)
1868 Mary Austin Ill, feminist/nature writer (Land of Little Rain)
1877 Frank Chance baseball player/manager, Tinkers to Evers to Chance
1880 Viking Eggeling Sweden, artist/film maker (Diagonal Symphony)
1887 Alfred Landon (R-Ks) pres candidate (1932, 1936)
1890 Harland Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken founder/colonel
1898 Frank (Fordham Flash) Frisch NYC, baseball player (NL MVP 1931)
1899 Neil Hamilton Lynn Mass, actor (Commisioner Gordon-Batman)
1900 James Hilton hotel magnate (Hilton Hotels)
1907 Pinky Tomlin Eureka Springs Ark, singer/actor (Tip-Waterfront)
1908 John Haeton US, bobsled (Olympic-silver-1928, 48)
1912 Kurt Sanderling Arys Germany, conductor (E Berlin Symph 1960-77)
1919 Jacques Marin Paris, actor (Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo)
1919 Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder gambler/sportscaster (lay you 5 to 1)
1924 Jane Greer Wash DC, actress (Prisoner of Zenda, Clown)
1924 Nino Bibbia Italy, bobsled (Olympic-gold-1948)
1925 Cliff Robertson La Jolla Calif, actor (Charly)/spokesman for AT&T
1932 Sylvia Miles NYC, actress (Midnight Cowboy, Farewell My Lovely)
1935 Chaim Topol Tel Aviv Israel, actor (Fiddler on the Roof)
1941 Les Braid England, bass (Swinging Blue Jeans-You're No Good)
1941 Otis Redding Georgia, rocker (Sitting on the Dock of the Bay)
1942 Inez Foxx Greensboro NC, rocker (Mockingbird, Hi Diddle Diddle)
1943 Roger Waters rocker (Pink Floyd-The Wall)
1946 Billy Preston singer/pianist, the 5th Beatle (David Brenner Show)
1947 Lynn Fitzgerald marathoner (ran 133 miles 939 yards in 24 hrs)
1949 Joe Theismann NFL QB (Redskins)
1949 John Curry England, figure skater (Olympic-gold-1976)
1950 Tom Wopat Lodi Wisc, actor (Luke Duke-Dukes of Hazzard)
1951 Michael Keaton Pitts Pa, actor (Gung Ho, Batman)
1951 Robert Desiderio Bronx NY, actor (Det Kennedy-Heart of the City)
1952 Angela Cartwright England (Make Room for Daddy, Lost in Space)
1952 Dave Stewart rocker (Eurythmics-Here Comes the Rain Again)
1966 David Bennent Lausanne, actor (Tin Drum, Legend)

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Deaths which occurred on September 09:
1087 William I The Conqueror, King of England, & Duke of Normandy, dies
1817 Paul Cuffe entrepreneur/ civil rights activist, dies at 58
1834 James Weddell Explorer, Navigator, English, Antarctic explorer
1851 Thomas H. Gallaudet Educator, Pioneer of educating the deaf
1901 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Painter
1962 Pat Rooney vaudevillian, dies at 82
1971 Billy Gilbert (Great Dictator, His Gal Friday), dies at 76
1975 John McGiver actor (Patty Duke Show, Jimmy Stewart Show), dies at 61
1976 Mao Tse-Tung Chinese communist party chairman (1949-76), dies at 82
1990 Samuel K Doe Liberian president, killed by rebels
1996 Bill Monroe Country Singer/Guitarist, Songwriter, Mandolin, Banjoist. Creator of Bluegrass
1997 Burgess Meredith Actor

---

Reported: MISSING in ACTION
1965 STOCKDALE JAMES B. ABINGDON IL. [02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1966 BLEVINS JOHN C. SAN ANTONIO TX.
[03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV,ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1966 FISCHER JOHN RICHARD PITTSBURGH PA.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

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On this day...
337 Constantine's three sons, already Caesars, each take the title of Augustus. Constantine II and Constans share the west while Constantius II takes control of the east.
701 St Sergius I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1513 Battle of Flodden Fields; English defeat James IV of Scotland
1543 Mary, Queen of Scots is is crowned Queen of England (Mary, Mary quite contrary. How does your garden grow)
1556 Pope Paul IV refuses to crown Ferdinand of Austria emperor
1739 Slave revolt in Stono SC led by Jemmy (25 whites killed)
1776 Continental Congress renames "United Colonies," "United States"
1786 George Washington calls for the abolition of slavery.
1817 Alexander Lucius Twilight, probably 1st black to graduate from US college, receives BA degree at Middlebury College
1830 Charles Durant, 1st US aeronaut, flies a balloon from Castle Garden, NYC to Perth Amboy, NJ
1839 John Herschel takes the 1st glass plate photograph
1841 Great Lakes steamer "Erie" sinks off Silver Creek NY, kills 300
1850 California becomes 31st state
1850 Territories of New Mexico & Utah created
1862 Lee splits his army & sends Jackson to capture Harpers Ferry
1867 Luxembourg gains independence
1875 Lotta's Fountain (Kearny & Market) dedicated
1880 President Hayes visits SF
1892 Almalthea, 5th moon of Jupiter, discovered by EE Barnard at Lick
1895 The American Bowling Congress formed (NYC)
1899 French Capt Alfred Dreyfus sentenced to Devil's Island on trumped-up grounds
1904 Boston Herald again refers to NY baseball club as Yankees, when it reports "Yankees take 2," Yankee name not official till 1913
1908 Orville Wright makes 1st 1-hr airplane flight, Fort Myer, Va
1911 1st airmail service (British Post Office)
1912 J Verdrines becomes 1st to fly over 100 mph (107 mph/172 kph)
1913 Assn for Study of Negro Life & History organizes in Chicago
1914 Boston Brave George Davis no-hits Phila Phillies, 7-0
1919 Boston's police force goes on strike
1922 St Louis Brown Baby Doll Jacobson hits 3 triples beating Tigers 16-0
1926 National Broadcasting Co created by the Radio Corporation of America
1927 Tony Lazzeri Day at Yankee Stadium
1932 Frank Crosetti ties record, strikes out twice in 1 inning
1936 Yanks clinch 8th pennant
1942 1st bombing on continental US soil, Mount Emily Or (WW2)
1943 Italy surrenders to the Allies
1944 Allied forces liberate Luxembourg
1944 Bulgaria liberated from Nazi control (often referred to as the invasion of Bulgaria by Russia) (National Day)
1945 Japanese in S Korea, Taiwan, China, Indochina surrender to Allies
1945 1st "bug" in a computer program discovered by Grace Hopper, a moth was removed with tweasers from a relay & taped into the log
1945 Jimmie Foxx hits his 534th & final HR
1945 Phila A's Dick Fowler no-hits St Louis Browns, 1-0
1948 Bkln Dodger Rex Barney no-hits NY Giants, 2-0
1948 People's Democratic Republic of Korea proclaimed
1950 1st use of TV laugh track-Hank McCune
1956 Elvis Presley appears on national TV for 1st time (Ed Sullivan)
1957 Nashville's new Hattie Cotton Elementary School dynamited
1958 Pirate Roberto Clemente ties record of 3 triples in a game
1960 4th American Football League plays 1st game (Denver 13, Boston 10)
1963 Landslide into Vaiont Dam emptys lake, kills 3-4,000 (Italy)
1965 Sandy Koufax pitches his 4th no-hitter, a perfect game vs Cubs (1-0)
1965 French President Charles de Gaulle announced that France was withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in protest of U.S. domination of NATO
1965 Tibet is made an autonomous region of China
1966 John Lennon meets Yoko Ono at an avante-garde art exposition
1967 1st successful test flight of a Saturn V
1968 1st US Open, held as an "open" (Arthur Ashe-wins)
1968 Minn Tommy Krammer passes for 6 touchdowns vs Green Bay (42-7)
1969 Allegheny 853 collides with Piper Cherokee above Indiana, kills 82
1970 U.S. Marines launch Operation Dubois Square, a 10-day search for North Vietnamese troops near DaNang.
1971 1,000 convicts seize Attica, NY prison
1971 John Lennon & Yoko Ono appear on the Dick Cavett Show (ABC-TV)
1971 John Lennon releases the "Imagine" album
1971 NHL great Gordie Howe retires
1975 Viking 2 launched toward orbit around Mars, soft landing
1977 1st TRS-80 computer sold
1978 3rd game of the Boston Massacre; Yanks beat Red Sox 7-0
1978 Balt Orioles pull their 7th triple play (5-4-3 vs Toronto)
1978 Iraqi Ayatollah Khomeini calls for uprising in Irani army
1979 John McEnroe beats Vitas Gerulaitis, for the US Open Tennis title
1979 Sid Bernstein offers $« billion for a Beatle reunion
1979 Yusef Islam (Cat Stevens) weds Fouzia Ali at Kensington Mosque
1981 Vernon E Jordan resigns as president of National Urban League
1982 Columbia mated with SRBs & external tank in preparation for STS-5
1982 Conestoga 1, 1st private commercial rocket, makes suborbital flight
1983 Challenger returns to Kennedy Space Center via Sheppard AFB, Texas
1983 Radio Shack announces their color computer 2 (the Coco2)
1983 Vitas Gerulatis bets his house that Martina Navratilova can't beat the 100th ranked male tennis player
1984 Calif Angel Michael Witt is 11th to pitch a perfect baseball game
1984 John McEnroe beats Ivan Lendl, for the US Open Tennis title
1986 NYC jury indicts Gennadly Zakharov (Soviet UN employee) of spying
1987 Gary Hart admits to cheating on his wife on "Nightline"
1987 Larry Bird (Celtics), begins NBA free throw streak of 59
1987 Nolan Ryan strikes out his 4,500th batter
1988 US swamps New Zealand at 27th America`s Cup: NZ set to appeal
1989 Steffi Graf beats Martina Navratalova for the US Open championship
1990 Bush & Gorbachev meet in Helsinki & urge Iraq to leave Kuwait
1991 Only 1,695 fans watch Boston Red Sox play Clevland
1999 More than 90 people died in the bombing of a Moscow apartment building. The blast was blamed on terrorists from the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

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Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Bulgaria, Luxembourg : Liberation Day (1944)
California : Admission Day (1850)
Italy : Salerno Day-Allied landing (1943)
North Korea : National Day
US : National Grandparents' Day (Sunday)
Afgh nist n : National Assembly Foundation Day (1964) (Wednesday)
Scotland : Fisherman's Walk Day (Friday)
Fall Hat Week (Day 2)
Kiss a Bald Head Week (Day 3)
Hand-Craft Soap Month

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Religious Observances
Ang : Commemoration of Constance & her companions
Christian : St Gorgonius, martyr
RC-US : Memorial of Peter Claver, priest

---

Religious History
1561 The Colloquy of Poissy convened near Paris. Comprised of both French Catholic prelates and reformed Protestant theologians led by Theodore Beza, the council led to a 1562 edict offering a greater measure of freedom to French Protestants.
1598 A celebration was held for the newly completed Catholic church at San Juan de los Caballeros -- the first church erected in (what is today the state of) New Mexico. The town, founded this year by Juan de Onate, was a former Indian pueblo in the Chama River Valley.
1833 The first tracts of the Oxford Movement (which sought to purify the English Church) were released. The series was forced to close in 1841, however, when Tract 90 was published, because it interpreted Anglicanism's "Thirty-Nine Articles" in too strong of a Roman Catholic direction.
1863 Dwight Moody's future song evangelist, Ira D. Sankey, 23, married Fanny Edwards, daughter of a Pennsylvania State Senator. Their marriage of 45 years bore two sons, one of whom -- Ira H. Sankey -- became a songwriter like his father.
1952 The religious program 'This is the Life' premiered on Dumont (later ABC) television. This long-running series was produced under the auspices of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

---

Thought for the day :
"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday."

---

You might be a Trekkie if...
you go out looking for Star Wars fans to beat up.

---

Murphys Law of the day...(war laws)
A Purple Heart just proves that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.

---

Cliff Clavin says, it's a little known fact that...
The world’s 1st roller coaster opened in 1884 at Coney Island, New York. It was designed by Lemarcus Thompson, a former Sunday school teacher.

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone.

[snippy_about_it]

In addition, the Court did not seem to be interested in much of the testimony of the crew. Some crewmen talked about the jamming of the ship's radios, but the court did not follow up or ask questions. Other crewmen who claimed that the ship's flag stood out clearly in the wind were insistently asked "Are you sure? Could you be mistaken?"

Between the government and the press, it sure smells like a cover up doesn't it?

[jriemer]

Free Republic's 9-11 100 Hours of Remembrance
Click on the Link Above

[snippy_about_it]

Good morning feather.

[snippy_about_it]

Morning EGC. Things are going good.

One more day of catching up from vacation and I'll be good to go!

[snippy_about_it]

Torpedo hole, seen from drydock


We were in international waters, far from any fighting, and flew a bright, clean, new American flag. The flag we flew is on display at the National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, Maryland and can be seen there


LCDR Philip Armstrong, the ship's executive officer, shortly before the attack with chief petty officers Thompson, Benkert and Smith before the attack. Armstrong and Smith died.


Exit hole created by missiles that passed entirely through the ship.


Pre-attack reconnaissance. Israel claims that the only aircraft near us were high in the sky carrying troops to the front lines. Not so. This airplane is typical of eight separate daylight reconnaissance aircraft that circled us a total of thirteen times during the morning, often so low directly overhead that they rattled the deck plating


These are two of the men the pilots must have seen. In the foreground is our Executive Officer, Lieutenant Commander Philip Armstrong. He died soon after this photo was taken. In the background is Lieutenant George Golden, the ship's Engineering Officer.

[w_over_w]

Morning Glory Snip and Sam~

I may have been only 8yrs. old at the time of the attack, but reading this really p's me off. The more I learn about LBJ the more he becomes the Bill Clinton of the 60s. No wonder he committed legal suicide. Bastard.

[w_over_w]

[Correction]

1971 John Lennon & Yoko Ono and Forrest Gump appear on the Dick Cavett Show (ABC-TV)

[snippy_about_it]

The more I learn about LBJ the more he becomes the Bill Clinton of the 60s.

Me too. I'm learning more about LBJ from the Foxhole and feel the same way.

[SAMWolf]

Good Morning E.G.C.

We're finally getting some rain here.

[SAMWolf]

1977 1st TRS-80 computer sold

I think it was my Brother-in-law who bought it.

[SAMWolf]

Good Morning Feather.

[SAMWolf]

Good Morning Snippy.