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On June 6 1967 Israeli Air Force Fighters attacked Egyptian air bases destroying 80
percent of their air assets. By June 7th the air forces of Jordan and Syria were
also destroyed mostly on the ground but the war was being monitored.
The United States and other nations had a vested interest in what was transpiring in the Middle
East and gathering intelligence was critical for both political and strategic military planning.
What was the USS Liberty? Why was it in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea during the Six-Day
War? Why did Israeli air and naval forces attack an American ship? Why was so much effort put into
the cover-up after the event? Hello I'm Colin Heaton a veteran of the United States Army and
Marine Corps former history professor book author and welcome to this episode of Forgotten history
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thank you
foreign
The USS Liberty was a floating CIA intelligence gathering platform monitoring all transmissions
from all sources involved in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israeli progress was followed as well
as the Arab coalition of Egypt Syria and Jordan known as the United Arab Republic.
As a result Israel secured Sinai all of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights but Israeli intelligence had
reported to chief of Israeli Naval operations Admiral Issi Rahar that a ship had fired upon
El Arish in Sinai. This was proven to be a ruse. The only ship in that area was the USS Liberty
which flew the U.S flag and was in international waters. In what was described by both President
Lyndon B. Johnson and the Israeli government as a case of mistaken identity Israeli air and naval
assets attacked the USS Liberty on June 8 killing 34 Americans and wounding 172 of the 294-man crew.
Previously the United States had announced that it had no naval forces within hundreds
of miles of the battlefront on the floor of the United Nations a few days earlier.
However the USS Liberty was assigned to monitor the fighting. As a result of a series of United
States communication failures whereby messages directing the ship not to approach within 100
miles were not received by the Liberty the ship sailed to within 14 miles off the Sinai Coast.
Also notified of the supposed attack upon El Arish where Colonel Shmuel Kislev head of Israeli Air
Force operations and General yes Yeshayahu Baneket the head of Israeli Air Force intelligence.
Kislev told his pilots that quote; "if they could confirm that it was a military ship they could hit
it," end quote. The naval contingent was also on the alert. Baneket wanted to have positive
identification of the ship that may have been involved. Israeli Dassault Mirage fighters passed
by and gave their report. The flight leader confirmed that it was an American ship. More
Israeli fighters attacked at 1405 hours for 20 minutes firing cannons machine guns and rockets
and one report from the first pilot who hit the ship stated that oil was leaking. During that time
on board Liberty radiomen Terry Halbardier and Glen Oliphant followed the captain's order and
broadcasted in the clear that they were under attack by unknown forces and needed assistance
but their communications antenna were then damaged. They performed a manual repair and began
transmitting in the open as their secure channel was being jammed. The Sixth Fleet received the SOS
and informed the commander of the carrier task force on board the USS Saratoga Captain Joseph
Tully who called and launched 12 F-4 Phantom fighters to assist Liberty and the hotline between
Washington D.C. and Moscow was activated. Moscow was informed that American aircraft were being
launched only to surmise the situation regarding the Liberty not to get involved in the war but as
the Phantoms were enroute just minutes away from saving the Liberty it was reported that Secretary
of Defense Robert Strange McNamara mysteriously had them recalled. The only way a Sec Def could
do that was by presidential authority. Johnson knew the truth and he was part of the problem.
The next wave of Israeli aircraft arrived after the Phantoms returned to the Saratoga and these
were Dassault Super Mysteres with napalm and canister bombs. One pilot called out the ship's
identification as "charlie tango Romeo 5" and that "there is no flag on her." This was a strange
report as the previous recon flight clearly stated that there was an American flag and the ship was
identified as such. It is believed that this call was made as a ruse to cover the Israelis should
these attacks be recorded by third parties. When that transmission was made Colonel Kislev ordered
all aircraft to stop the attack as he believed that the ship was in fact American from the call
sign, but the Israeli commander of the torpedo boat squadron Moshe Oren stated that he was not
informed that there was a recall from an attack and was informed in fact that it was the Egyptian
freighter the El Qusir. Therefore he launched three motor torpedo boats. The order to halt all
attacks which followed the second wave of fighters were supposedly not received by the naval assets
whose three torpedo boats launched six torpedoes at the Liberty with five failing to hit target but
the one that did contact killed 25 men and wounded many more. This account is in great dispute.
However the Israeli argument of misidentification fails for several reasons. One being that if they
believed it was an Egyptian ship why did they specifically jam the secure American
radio frequencies which were specifically narrow bands? Another problem was the identification
issue and that the Liberty at 10,150 tons was five times larger than the ship they claimed to have
mistaken for the Liberty. Both ships had totally different profiles. In addition if the attack was
a simple error why were the Israeli jets unmarked bearing no Israeli symbols carrying no national
identification in violation of international law? Had the F-4 Phantoms from the Saratoga
not been recalled the torpedo boats would not have been able to engage and the majority of
the men would not have been killed and wounded. The official American position was that Israel
called and said that they had recognized their mistake and the attack was over so therefore in
response McNamara recalled the jets. However the attacks were then renewed for another 80 minutes.
This was a strange development since the U.S embassy in Tel Aviv reported that the Israelis
had attacked a ship but the nationality of the ship was yet undetermined by Israel.
If this was true how would McNamara know to recall the Phantoms and that it was in fact the Liberty?
The SOS was resent after the damaged antenna was repaired again and it was picked up this time by
the aircraft carrier USS America and two ships were dispatched. Three life drafts were deployed
so men could get off the burning ship but the torpedo boats focused their fire destroying two of
the life rafts and sweeping the decks to kill as many men as they could to prevent an evacuation.
That act alone is a violation of the Geneva Convention not to mention attacking a ship from
a non-belligerent nation in international waters. Another strange development was when after the
two-hour attack the ship and crew headed to Malta. The Sixth Fleet commander Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd
ordered the survivors to remove the ship's name from their uniforms. In fact Admiral Kidd even
ordered them to go ashore in civilian clothes which the men were not supposed to have anyway.
They were also told to grant no interviews and do not discuss the situation even among each other
otherwise they would face court-martial and prison or even worse for violating National Security.
Both the Israelis and Americans involved had their opinions on what happened and why.
One voice was that of Navy Captain Dr. Richard Kiepfer who was wounded badly himself but worked
for 28 hours straight saving lives when he could. He received the Silver Star.
Captain William McGonagale received the Medal of Honor for his efforts following the 13
repetitious attacks after his bridge crew were killed himself badly wounded. His recollection
was that the aircraft hit the ship from every direction in multiple waves. Since the attack
involved the Israeli Air Force and the Navy that made it a combined arms attack meaning that it
was coordinated which also meant that command authority came from the seat of government.
The military did not simply attack an unknown ship in international waters let alone an American ship
without orders. All the crew believed the ship was clearly identified as American as there were
reconnaissance aircraft that passed by close enough for the crew to look into the cockpits.
Several high-ranking American military and political persons knew at that time that the
attack was deliberate. The question was why? The cover-up was incredible. For example the
press was given limited information to downplay the event. The men were sworn to secrecy and the
Judge Advocate General of the Navy Admiral Merlin Starling was given only 24 hours to review the 600
page court of inquiry investigation report. He had great reservations about the veracity
of the report. In fact the Navy inquiry did not allow any testimony or evidence regarding
the unmarked Israeli aircraft no information was included about the life rafts that were shot up
or the electronics transmission jamming or even McNamara's recall of the American fighters. This
was the first and only time in U.S history that a board of inquiry refused to accept testimony from
American service members who survived an attack and only accepted the statements of the forces
that had attacked them. Bill Lemay a crewman was given the name tag "Smith", removed from
a hospital ward with a dozen other patients and placed into a single room. A naval officer soon
entered and told him that his name was now Smith that he was never on the Liberty and he was never
to discuss the matter. In another completely absurd and totally insane turn of events the
Senate records as well as the Medal of Honor Society recorded that Captain McGonagale's Medal
of Honor was earned in Vietnam not off the Sinai Peninsula. His Medal of Honor citation mentions no
specific geographic location and does not mention who the enemy was. Also the ship's log was also
altered to fit the Israeli timeline supporting that only after 20 minutes of engagement the
ship was attacked for a total of 50 minutes and not two hours breaking up contact after
they realized their error. This was obviously not true but why the cover-up? Why the attack?
Over the years logic mandates that the Israelis knew that the Liberty was a communications
gathering spy ship and would be listening in on all communications Arab and Israeli.
Their push into the Golan Heights as well as their attack in the Sinai would have been recorded in
real time by the Liberty. In fact the director of the National Security Agency Marshall Carter
stated that he believed the attack was deliberate so that Israel could maintain the secrecy of their
operations. Sinking the ship and killing all on board was the only way for Israel to have
accomplished that mission. The CIA transcripts were handed to the American ambassador in Lebanon
at that time. The transcripts clearly show that the pilots upon reaching Liberty reported that it
was an American ship. Their war room ordered them to attack again. The flight commander repeated
his warning that the ship was American. Again he was told "you have your orders,"
and the attack started. These reports were also supported by an EC-121 airborne surveillance
aircraft operated by the National Security Agency which also recorded these transmissions confirming
that Israel knew the ship was American. They even stated in their own radio transmissions
that they saw the flag and this was true for both the air and naval assets involved in the attack
contradicting their official statements. What came to light later was the justification for sinking
the Liberty and killing the crew. Moshe Dyan the commander-in-chief of Israeli forces had ordered
the attack. This was due to the fact that Israeli commanders in the field were authorized to execute
Egyptian prisoners of war rather than lose time transporting and securing them. Israeli military
historian Uri Milstein claimed that there were many incidents in the 1967 war in which Egyptian
soldiers were killed by Israeli troops after they had raised their hands and surrender. "It was not
an official policy but there was an atmosphere that it was okay to do it." Milstein said,
"Some commanders decided to do it, others refused but everyone knew about it." Declassified Israeli
Defense Force documents show that on June 11, 1967 the Operations Branch of the general staff
felt it necessary to issue new orders concerning the treatment of prisoners. The order read that
because existing orders were contradictory thus: 1-Soldiers and civilians who surrendered were not
to be hurt by any means. 2- Soldiers and civilians who possessed a weapon and failed to surrender
would be killed however soldiers caught disobeying the order by killing prisoners would be severely
punished. Now this appears to be damage control and could only have been issued from Dyan due to
the Israeli knowledge that they did not destroy the Liberty and that intercept transmissions
could prove these criminal actions. This appears to be a classic case of covering their collective
rear ends. If this information were to have gotten out it would prove that Israel was committing war
crimes and the Liberty was a known intelligence gathering source. Israel's legitimacy was already
in question since they launched the preemptive strike on Arab airfields as their intelligence
supposedly had information that the Arab forces were preparing to launch attacks against Israel.
American officials at the highest level would have known this including President Johnson and
Robert McNamara. It does not take a great stretch of logic to understand why the cover-up took place
and from where it originated. The United States could not afford to have its great ally Israel
accused of war crimes. The USA and NATO also had great interest in seeing the Israelis win because
a victory would reduce the effectiveness of the influence the Soviet Union had with the United
Arab Republic which was the coalition of Jordan Syria and Egypt. It would also hopefully reduce
the interest of Saudi Arabia in funding the United Arab Republic triumvirate if their efforts seemed
to be a lost cause and Israeli Victory would have also ensured that the Suez Canal would
remain open which benefited the USA and NATO. The U.S had good reasons for a cover-up. There
are contradictory reports available where U.S officials claimed to have debunked the
murders of Egyptian POWs as the reason for the attack supporting the Israeli attack as mistaken
identity. That is also part of the cover-up because later murdered Egyptian soldiers were
found in shallow graves and the Israeli government offered reparations to the families of the men
who were identified. In May 1968 the Israeli government paid 3.32 million US Dollars the
equivalent of 28 million dollars in 2022 to the U.S government in compensation for the families
of the 34 men killed in the attack. In March 1969 Israel paid a further 3.57 million dollars or 28.5
million dollars in 2022 to the men who had been wounded. In December 1980 it agreed to pay 6
million dollars or 21.3 million dollars in 2022 money as the final settlement for material damage
to Liberty itself plus 13 years of interest. Several prominent Americans generals admirals
and even Medal of Honor recipients as well as the surviving crew have asked for a full Congressional
investigation into the attack on the cover-up for decades. Personally I doubt that will ever happen.
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