[jmp702]

Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency Another incident that clearly did take place was the 1967 Israeli military destruction of the USS Liberty during the six-day war. The USS Liberty was a U.S. spy ship that had eavesdropped on an Israeli massacre of surrendered Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula. The ship's intercepts were destroyed, but a NSA spy plane was also eavesdropping. The details, including President Johnson's cover-up to save the Jewish vote in the next election, were in a box in the back of the NSA Museum.

Body of Secrets : Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency by James Bamford

03/14/2002

Body of Secrets : Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency by James Bamford

Book Review

Body of Secrets/ Evidence of Deliberate Israeli Attack on USS Liberty Beyond Circumstantial at Last

By Andrew I. Killgore

On June 8, 1967, Israeli planes and warships attacked the USS Liberty, a U.S. Navy intelligence-gathering ship off the coast of the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula, killing 34 Americans and injuring 171. Israel has insisted ever since that the attack was “a tragic accident”—in spite of overwhelming circumstantial evidence to the contrary.

June 8 was a clear day, the American flag was flying, while the name of the ship (USS Liberty) and its identifying markings (GTR-5) were clearly visible. Israeli planes circled or flew near the Liberty for an hour or two before the attack began, so there could have been no chance that the Israelis mistook the Liberty, as they claimed, for the El Quseir, an Egyptian vessel configured quite differently and only one-third the Liberty’s size.

The surviving crewmen of the Liberty have been frustrated over the ensuing 34 years in their demands for a real investigation of the Israeli attack. They have borne personal witness that attacking Israeli planes and motor torpedo boats tried to sink the Liberty and kill all of the Americans aboard her. But an Israel-leaning American media and U.S. Congress have continued to cover up for Israel.

Two major books, Assault on the Liberty (1980) by Jim Ennes, a lieutenant on the Liberty who was badly injured during the attack, and the scholarly The USS Liberty by John E. Borne, carefully examine the Liberty attack, leaving in tatters Israel’s “tragic accident” claim. Through the years Israel has fabricated ever more claims in an effort to refute new evidence about the Liberty as it has emerged. It has adamantly rejected any investigation into the attack which, if Israel really had attacked the ship by mistake, would clear its name.

Now—finally—comes James Bamford’s vast new book (720 pages) on the National Security Agency, Body of Secrets—including 60 pages dealing with the Liberty. Its reports of Hebrew-language recordings of communications by attacking Israeli planes and ships demolish the continuing series of lies constructed by Israel to conceal its crime against the United States. Some representative excerpts of those conversations follow in the paragraphs below.

The Middle East had been heating up for several months before Israel attacked Egypt on June 5, 1967, claiming in a barrage of lies that Egypt was attacking it. The Liberty had been sent at top speed from West Africa to within 12 miles of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to follow what was going on. At the same time, NSA electronic listening posts were airborne between the military side of Athens airport and the Israeli-Egyptian coast. On June 8 these planes flew high overhead, picking up voices in Hebrew of the Israeli attackers.

“What we could see was the GTR-5 written on that ship. And we gave those letters to the ground control.” (Israeli pilot on June 8, 1967, identifying the USS Liberty.)

“It had a big Star of David on it and it was flying just a little bit above our mast of the ship….they [Israeli pilots] had seen the ships’ markings and the American flag.” (USS Liberty crewman describing an Israeli reconnaissance plane circling the Liberty.)

“Oil is spilling into the water.” (Israeli Mirage pilot reporting back to base during the attack on the Liberty.)

“Great, wonderful, she’s burning.” (Israeli pilot as the USS Liberty was being attacked.)

“He’s hit her [the Liberty] a lot…There’s black smoke, there’s an oil slick in the water.” (Israeli army commander at just-occupied El Arish, Egypt, reporting on the results of the Israeli attack.)

“Hey, Chief, I’ve got really odd activity on UHF [ultra-high frequency employed by Israel]. They mentioned an American flag. I don’t know what’s going on.” (U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Marvin Nowicki, fluent in Hebrew and Russian, relating a conversation with another Hebrew-speaking linguist during the attack on the Liberty. Nowicki was aboard an NSA surveillance plane, not, repeat not, on the Liberty.)

“He’s going down low with the napalm all the time.” (Shouted in Hebrew from El Arish during the attack on the Liberty.)

“It would be a mitzvah [blessing] if we can get a flight with iron bombs. Otherwise, the Navy’s going to get here and they’re going to do the shooting.” (Israeli pilot during the attack.) Author Bamford points out that three Japanese aircraft carriers were sunk with such bombs at the World War II naval battle of Midway, explaining that the pilot was hoping for the coup de grâce, to sink the Liberty before the Navy arrived to finish her off.

“Pay attention. The ship’s markings are Charlie Tango Romeo-5.” (Israeli pilot to his headquarters.) The Liberty was actually GTR-5, the pilot having misread the “G”.

“He told me about the activity and the American flag as being mentioned again…I heard a couple of references to the flag during an apparent attack. The attackers weren’t aircraft; they had to be surface units [we later found out at USA-512] it was the Israeli motor torpedo boats attacking the Liberty. Neither [the other Hebrew linguist] nor I had ever heard MTB attacks in voice before, so we had no idea what was below us. I advised the evaluator; he was mystified as we were.” (Nowicki, in the NSA EC-121 aircraft above, relating a conversation with another Hebrew linguist.)

“I watched in horror as the floating life rafts were riddled with holes. No survivors were planned for that day. When the ‘prepare to abandon ship’ was announced, what was left of our lifeboats were released overboard; they were immediately machine-gunned by the torpedo boats. It was obvious that no one was meant to survive this assault.” (Stan White, top American enlisted man on the Liberty.)

“Israel chose to honor Motor Torpedo Boat 203, which fired the deadly torpedo at the Liberty. The ship’s wheel and bell were placed on prominent display in the [Israeli] naval museum, among the maritime artifacts of which the Israeli navy was most proud.” (Author Bamford.)

“As I recall we recorded most, if not all, of the attack. I heard a couple of references to the [American] flag during an apparent attack.” (NSA Chief Petty Officer Marvin Nowicki, described by author Bamford as an enthusiastic supporter of Israel who originally thought his information would help clear Israel. Instead, as Bamford writes in Body, “It convicts the government. If the Israelis did see the flag, then the attack was cold-blooded murder…”)

“After many years I finally believe the attack was deliberate.” (Liberty Captain William McGonagle, dying of cancer after maintaining a silence of more than 30 years.)

“To speculate on the motives of an attack group that uses unmarked planes and deprives helpless survivors of life rafts raises disturbing possibilities, including the one that the Liberty crew was not meant to survive the attack, and would not have, but for the incorrect 6th Fleet radio broadcast that help was on the way—which had the effect of chasing off the MTBs [motor torpedo boats].” (From an article by Navy Lt. Commander Walter J. Jacobsen for the U.S. Navy’s Naval Law Review.

The USS Liberty’s desperate call for help saved the ship and the survivors. The promised help from the 6th Fleet never arrived, but it did drive off the Israeli attackers.

As long known, and reported in Body, President Lyndon Johnson ordered the 6th Fleet rescue flights to return to their carriers. This shameful act is “explained” by LBJ’s stated determination not to embarrass Israel, an “ally” in Johnson’s words.

Johnson is long dead and there is no way to get any clarification from him. But Israel is very much here and still sticking by its compound lies about the Liberty which it has been able to sustain—sort of, and in a pathetically shameless way—because the overwhelming evidence of its guilt was circumstantial.

But not any more.

The immense importance of Body of Secrets is its direct evidence, from NSA’s Hebrew-language recordings of the Israeli attackers, that the attack was deliberate. Even the Israeli mantra that “we never saw a flag” is shown in Body to be just another part of the old compound lie.

What will Israel do now? A recent New York Times book review of Body tries to dodge the basic theme of Israeli guilt. Instead it dwells on Bamford’s stated view that Israel sought to cover up its execution at El Arish of several hundred Egyptian prisioners-of-war.

In fact, Israel’s motives hardly count. The killing and wounding of Americans constitute the crime. Jim Ennes speculated that Israel sought to prevent the U.S. from learning of its forthcoming attack on Syria’s Golan Heights. This writer’s guess is that Israel sought to sink the Liberty, kill all of its crew and blame the Egyptians.

The hope is that Body and the publicity surrounding it will stir the U.S. Congress to carry out a real investigation; or that Israel will stop lying and finally admit the truth. A congressional investigation does not seem an unreasonable hope. An Israeli confession seems wildly improbable.

If neither of these happens, a lawsuit against Israel by the surviving crewmen and relatives of those killed would now have a greater chance of success.

Andrew I. Killgore is the publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

To Order Body of Secrets Please Call 1.800.368.5788

[PA Engineer]

Why now? And why by our resident Einsatzgruppen Amen Choir? For anyone who wants to know the truth, the following link is to a 3meg pdf lecture by Jay Cristol at Harvard. He has also published a recent book that is making the Einsatzgruppen foam at the mouth. Sorry, I don’t have that link handy. The link to his lecture is at (beware this is 3megs and aprx. 26 pages):

What Really Happened

For those who want to know something about our extreme leftest friend "Bamford" please read the following.

Return of the USS Liberty

Return of the USS Liberty by HonestReporting.com

Courtesy of HonestReporting.com

April 30, 2001

Major newspapers and media outlets are reporting on the release of a new book, "Body of Secrets" by James Bamford. The book contains a number of unfounded and far-fetched accusations against Israel. In media interviews, Bamford has at times gone beyond the charges in his book. Let's put these accusations to rest.

In June 1967, an American ship manned by U.S. sailors and National Security Agency (NSA) personnel ventured close to the shores of the Sinai Peninsula. Too close. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations declared that no American ships were within 400 miles of the conflict. The NSA issued orders to pull the ship away from the shore, but because of communications snafus, the orders arrived days later. Too late for the USS Liberty.

On June 8, Israeli planes and torpedo boats attacked the ship, leaving 34 crewmen dead and 177 wounded. The Liberty limped into port in Malta, and the controversy began almost immediately: Did Israel deliberately attack the USS Liberty?

Ten official U.S. inquiries and three Israeli inquiries concluded that the attack was a tragic case of mistaken identity. No American ships were supposed to be there. Egyptian warships were believed to be in the area. Large explosions were taking place along the Sinai shore, and Israeli troops believed they were under naval bombardment. Israeli pilots and sailors, in the midst of the '67 war swirling on three fronts, raced to attack what they believed to be an Egyptian ship.

For 25 years Israel's detractors have attempted to use the tragic incident as a wedge between the United States and Israel. Other than some of the embittered Liberty crew and die-hard conspiracy theorists, the charge that Israel deliberately attacked a ship of its most important ally found few takers. Now with the release of "Body of Secrets," author James Bamford reveals secrets about the National Security Agency -- and in doing so charges that Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty.

Why would Israel do such a thing?

Bramford claims that on the day prior to the Liberty incident, Israeli troops were massacring hundreds of Egyptian POWs and civilians in El Arish. Bamford concludes: "Israel's commanders would not have wanted tape recordings of evidence of the slaughters to wind up on desks at the White House, the UN or the Washington Post."

Since the book's release last week, Bamford has been interviewed by National Public Radio, Salon.com, CNN and others.

The New York Times review found the section on the USS Liberty the "weakest" part of the book. "It hardly seems plausible," writes reviewer Joseph Finder, "that Israel would deliberately attack an American ship, killing dozens of sailors, risking a confrontation with a superpower and its only ally -- in short, perpetrating one massacre in order to cover up another. Perhaps Bamford's analysis has been skewed by his palpable distaste for the Israeli state."

Bamford's anti-Israel attitude goes well beyond the USS Liberty attack. He charges Israel with decades of human rights violations and war crimes. Of the 1967 war, he writes, "The extensive war crimes were just one of the deep secrets Israel had sought to conceal since the start of the conflict... to hide much of the war behind a carefully constructed curtain of lies. Lies about the Egyptian threat, lies about who started the war, lies to the American president, lies to the UN Security Council, lies to the press, lies to the public... Into this sea of lies, deception, and slaughter sailed the USS Liberty." (page 203)

Incredibly, while accusing Israel of all those lies, Bamford ignores the calls for Israel's eradication issued by Arab leaders, Egyptian President Nasser's precipitous expulsion of UN peacekeepers along the border, and the closing of the Straits of Tiran which was a clear casus belli. In the words of President Johnson, "If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Strait of Tiran would be closed."

Bamford's charge of Israeli atrocities is actually a recap of an article written by a USS Liberty officer in a 1996 edition of the virulently anti-Israel "Washington Report on Middle East Affairs."

In an interview on NPR's "Fresh Air" program, Bamford related that at the moment of the alleged massacre, "the Liberty, which was an enormous United States eavesdropping factory, was sitting only about 13 miles off the coast, fully capable of eavesdropping on what was going on on the shore." And on page 236, Bamford writes that "on the morning of June 7, the Israeli military command received a report" that the Liberty was "secretly listening" while the war crime was taking place.

According to USS Liberty logs, however, as of midnight between June 7 and June 8, the ship was still 150 miles from the nearest coastal point of Israel and 50 miles north of the coast of Egypt. It did not reach its "Point Alpha" (18 miles east of the Sinai town of El Arish) until 8:38 a.m. on June 8.

Another gross inconsistency is Bamford's claim that National Security Agency officials provided him with secret documents which concur that the attack was deliberate. As reported on CNN, Bamford says that a secret NSA plane was overhead listening to Israel's attack on the Liberty, confirming the attack was deliberate.

No such fact has ever been published. No alleged transcript has ever been produced. Indeed, if an official U.S. aircraft was overhead, why didn't Israeli radars looking for enemy aircraft pick it up? Moreover, wouldn't an American NSA aircraft witnessing an attack on one of its ships attempt to seek assistance? No such distress calls were noted in any of the official inquiries.

According to a Baltimore Sun review of the book, an NSA spokesman uncharacteristically spoke out against Branford's slander. "We do not comment on operational matters, alleged or otherwise; however, Mr. Bamford's claim that the NSA leadership was 'virtually unanimous in their belief that the attack was deliberate' is simply not true," the spokesperson said.

In fact, contrary to Bamford's sensationalistic work, a variety of exhaustive research concludes that Israel made a mistake that was by no means deliberate.

One important top-secret NSA document in the U.S. National Archives is entitled "Attack on the USS Liberty" (SRH-256). The 77-page brief, declassified in 1983, concludes: "Reexamination of Israel's explanation of why its air and naval forces attacked the Liberty reveals egregious errors in both command judgments and operational procedures."

Egregious errors, yes. Deliberate murder, no!

This document is the subject of a doctoral thesis by A. Jay Cristol, who happens to be Chief Judge of the U.S. federal bankruptcy court in Florida. A former U.S. Navy flyer in the wars in Korea and Viet Nam, he knows ships and planes inside and out. Plus, as a former navy lawyer who served in the Pentagon, he is well-versed in the ways and command structure of the U.S. Navy. He served a total of 38 years in the U.S. Navy and Naval Reserve. Cristol reviews the gamut of conspiracy theories, and after exhaustive research, including more than 220 interviews, concludes: "This research project supports the validity of the conclusions of the official investigations, that the incident was the result of a series of tragic mistakes."

More important information on the Liberty appears in this month's edition of "Azure." The article, "USS Liberty: Case Closed" by Michael B. Oren, is online at: http://www.shalem.org.il/azure/9-Oren.htm

Bamford's interviews and reviews can be found at:

NPR

CNN

The New York Times

Salon.com

The Baltimore Sun

Join the fight against media bias.

HonestReporting.com