USS LIBERTY: ISRAEL’S DELIBERATE ATTACK ON AMERICA

USS LIBERTY: ISRAEL’S DELIBERATE ATTACK ON AMERICA

 

 

Conversation between the IDF War Room and an Israeli pilot before the attack on USS Liberty:

        Israeli pilot to IDF war room: This is an American ship. Do you still want us to attack?

        IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Yes, follow orders.

        Israeli pilot to IDF war room: But sir, it’s an American ship – I can see the flag!

        IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Never mind; hit it.

From The USS Liberty Veterans Association:

“The Liberty Veterans Association offers a $10,000 reward to anyone who can establish the truth of A. Jay Cristol’s claim:

“After ten official US investigations (including five congressional investigations), there was never any evidence that the attack was made with knowledge that the target was a US ship.”

The LVA has disputed the truth of this statement for years. We know it is untrue. The claim that there have been any official Congressional investigations into the culpability for the Israeli attack on USS Liberty is patently false. There have been NO official Congressional investigations on this subject. We believe that the best way to prove that the above statement is untrue is to offer a reward to anyone (including Mr. Cristol) who can prove that it is true.”

 
 
 
From the USS Liberty Inquiry:

“That there is compelling evidence that Israel’s attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew; evidence of such intent is supported by statements from Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Undersecretary of State George Ball, former CIA director Richard Helms, former NSA directors Lieutenant General William Odom, USA (Ret.), Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, USN (Ret.), and Marshal Carter; former NSA deputy directors Oliver Kirby and Major General John Morrison, USAF (Ret.); and former Ambassador Dwight Porter, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon in 1967”
 
“That in attacking USS Liberty, Israel committed acts of murder against American servicemen and an act of war against the United States”
 
“That fearing conflict with Israel, the White House deliberately prevented the U.S. Navy from coming to the defense of USS Liberty by recalling Sixth Fleet military rescue support while the ship was under attack; evidence of the recall of rescue aircraft is supported by statements of Captain Joe Tully, Commanding Officer of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, and Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis, the Sixth Fleet carrier division commander, at the time of the attack; never before in American naval history has a rescue mission been cancelled when an American ship was under attack”
 

“New evidence of intercepted radio communications between attacking Israeli pilots and the Israeli War Room, recorded by a U.S. Navy EC-121 spy plane, in which the Israeli pilots report seeing Liberty’s American flag flying, has been collected by investigative author James Bamford – for 9 years the Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings (and author of Body of Secrets, which includes a chapter entitled Blood about the attack on USS Liberty). A similar radio message was intercepted by the EC-121 from the Israeli motor torpedo boats. This corroborates statements by surviving crewmembers, by Ambassador Dwight Porter, and by senior National Security Agency officials concerning NSA intercepts of Israeli pilot communications identifying the ship as American.”

 
 
 
From the USS Liberty Memorial:

“On June 8, 1967, US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty was suddenly and brutally attacked on the high seas in international waters by the air and naval forces of Israel. The Israeli forces attacked with full knowledge that this was an American ship and lied about it. Survivors have been forbidden for 40 years to tell their story under oath to the American public. The USS Liberty Memorial web site tells their story and is dedicated to the memory of the 34 brave men who died.”
 
“Despite a near-universal consensus that the Israeli attack was made with full knowledge that USS Liberty was a US Navy ship, the Johnson administration began an immediate cover-up of this fact. Though administration officers continued individually to characterize the attack as deliberate, the Johnson administration never sought the prosecution of the guilty parties or otherwise attempted to seek justice for the victims. They concealed and altered evidence in their effort to downplay the attack. Though they never formally accepted the Israeli explanation that it was an accident, they never pressed for a full investigation either. They simply allowed those responsible literally to get away with murder.

In an ongoing effort to reveal the truth about the attack, the USS Liberty Veterans Association has filed with the Secretary of the Army in the manner prescribed by law a detailed, fully documented Report of War Crimes describing the circumstances of the attack on our ship and evidence that it was a crime under international law. In accordance with international law and treaties, the United States is obligated to investigate the allegations. So far, the United States has declined even to acknowledge that the report has been filed. The full text of the report can be found at http://www.gtr5.com/evidence/warcrimes.pdf
 
 
 
From Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State at the time of the incident:

“I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. Their sustained attack to disable and sink Liberty precluded an assault by accident or some trigger-happy local commander. Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn’t believe them then, and I don’t believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous.”
 
 
 

CIA Report claims that Moshe Dayan, the Israeli Defense Minister, personally ordered the attack on the USS Liberty: “Dayan Personally Ordered the Attack”

From Richard Helms, CIA Director from 1966 to 1973:

“In other words everything possible was done to keep from the American public really the enormity of this attack on an American naval vessel. I know that various newspaper writers have attempted to get me to make statements about what I thought about the “Liberty” thing. But since this is for the Agency’s record, I don’t think there can be any doubt that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing. Why they wanted to attack the “Liberty,” whose bright idea this was, I can’t possibly know. But any statement to the effect that they didn’t know that it was an American ship and so forth is nonsense.”

 
 
 
From Lieutenant General Marshall S. Carter, Director of the NSA from 1965 to 1969:

“Couldn’t be anything else but deliberate. There’s just no way you could have a series of circumstances that would justify it being an accident”
 
 
 
From Captain Ward Boston, legal counsel for the 1967 Navy Court of Inquiry:

“I know from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd [president of the Court of Inquiry] that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity’ despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary”
 
 
 
From the findings, published in the Congressional Record, of the 2003 Independent Commission of Inquiry, chaired by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas H. Moorer: 
“There is compelling evidence that Israel’s attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew… the White House deliberately covered up the facts of this attack”
 
 
 

From Reverdy S. Fishel, associate member of the USS Liberty ­Veterans Association:

“Israel’s unprovoked and murderous attack on the USS Liberty was about as accidental as Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Forty-nine years later, the U.S. government—Congress and the White House alike—are too terrified of the Israel lobby to ever bring Israel to account, or even investigate the attack. This is an outrage and a national shame.”

 
 
 

From Ernie Gallo, President of the USS Liberty Veterans Association and author of the book Liberty Injustices: A Survivor’s Account of American Bigotry:

“The mission of the USS Liberty Veterans Association indicates we strive to have the truth told about the deliberate IDF attack.”

 
 
 

From Rear Admiral Merlin Staring, former Judge Advocate General of the Navy:

“I am of the firmest conviction that the Liberty survivors have suffered an unprecedented injustice at the hands of our very own Navy and government”

 
 
 
From Al Jazeera:

The veterans were extraordinary. One after another, they were generous with their time, uniformly eloquent and passionate and above all, honest in their recollections.They all felt betrayed by the American government… Their beef was simply with the senior Israeli officers in the control room and their superiors higher up the command chain who had ordered the attack.”
 
 
 
From Terence O’Keefe, deconstructing the 13 investigations by A. Jay Cristol that allegedly exonerates Israel:
  1. The U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry: The senior legal adviser to the Court of Inquiry reflected that, in his entire career, he has never seen court of inquiry appointing letters with such limited authority, or an investigation made in such haste. The court’s hearings began before the Liberty even arrived in Malta, and the report was completed just 10 days after the attack. The court commented on this haste in the official record: “The Court of Inquiry experienced no unusual difficulties incident to conducting the subject proceedings except for the necessity of investigating such a major naval disaster of international significance in an extremely abbreviated time frame.”
    Due in part to the required haste and the limitations imposed on the scope of the court’s inquiries (“It was not the responsibility of the court to rule on the culpability of the attackers, and no evidence was heard from the attacking nation”), the court concluded that “available evidence combines to indicate…[that the attack was] a case of mistaken identity.”
    How, one might ask, could one inquire into all of the circumstances without hearing from the attacking nation? In fact, the court did neither. According to Captain Ward Boston, chief legal counsel to the Court of Inquiry, the court found that the attack was deliberate, but reported falsely that it was not because they were directed by the president of the United States and the secretary of defense to report falsely. So the findings are fraudulent. Yet these fraudulent findings were the basis for several other reports that followed.
  2. Israeli government investigations: The Ram Ron and Yerushalmi reports of 1967 were not investigations. Both were elements of an Israeli process to determine whether anyone in Israel should be tried for a crime. That the attack itself was an accident was a given. Both hearings officers determined that no one in Israel did anything wrong, and that the USS Liberty was partly responsible, for a number of contrived reasons, such as “failure to fly a flag” and “trying to hide”—which the Navy Court of Inquiry found to be untrue.
  3. The Joint Chiefs of Staff Report of June 1967: This was an inquiry into the mishandling of several messages intended for the ship. It was not an investigation into the attack. It did not exonerate Israel, because it did not in any way consider the question of culpability.
  4. CIA report of June 13, 1967: This interim report, completed five days after the attack, reported “our best judgment [is] that the attack…was a mistake.” No investigation was conducted, and no first-hand evidence was collected. Then-CIA Director Richard Helms concluded and later reported in his autobiography that the attack was planned and deliberate—a fact ignored by Mr. Cristol.
  5. Clark Clifford report of July 18, 1967: Clark Clifford was directed by Lyndon Johnson to review the Court of Inquiry report and the interim CIA report and “not to make an independent inquiry.” His was merely a summary of other fallacious reports, not an “investigation” as alleged by Mr. Cristol. The report reached no conclusions and did not exonerate Israel, as Mr. Cristol also claimed. On the contrary, Clifford wrote later that he regarded the attack as deliberate—a fact ignored by Mr. Cristol.
  6. Two Senate Investigations: The Committee on Foreign Relations meeting of 1967 and
  7. Senate Armed Services Committee meeting of 1968 were hearings on unrelated matters which clearly skeptical members used to castigate representatives of the administration under oath before them. Typical questions were, “Why can’t we get the truth about this?” They were not “investigations” at all, but budget hearings, and reported no conclusions concerning the attack. They did not exonerate Israel, as claimed by Mr. Cristol.
  8. House Appropriations Committee meeting of April and May 1968: This was a budget committee meeting which explored the issue of lost messages intended for the ship. It was not an investigation and reported no conclusions concerning the attack, as alleged by Mr. Cristol.
  9. House Armed Services Committee Review of Communications, May 1971: Liberty communications were discussed along with other communications failures. The committee reported no conclusions concerning the attack, as alleged by Mr. Cristol.
  10. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1979/1981: Mr. Cristol claims that the committee investigated the attack and exonerated Israel, yet he has been unable to provide minutes, a report or other evidence of such an investigation. Rules of the select committee require that any committee investigation be followed by a report. There is no report of such an investigation; ergo, there was no such investigation.
  11. National Security Agency Report, 1981: Upon the publication in 1980 of Assault on the Liberty by James Ennes, the National Security Agency completed a detailed account of the attack. The report drew no conclusions, although its authors did note that the deputy director dismissed the Israeli excuse (the Yerushalmi report) as “a nice whitewash.” The report did not exonerate Israel, as claimed by Mr. Cristol.
  12. State of Israel/Israel Defense Force History Department report of June 1982: This Israeli government report was a reaction to a published report by Sen. Adlai Stevenson III that he believed the attack to be deliberate and hoped to provide a forum for survivors to tell their story. It was primarily a summary of the Ram Ron and Yerushalmi reports. The Stevenson forum, which was the impetus for the report, was never held. The report supports the official Israeli position that the attack was a tragic accident.
  13. House Armed Services Committee investigation of 1991/1992: Though cited by Mr. Cristol as an investigation which exonerates Israel, the U.S. government reports no record of such an investigation. Cristol claims that the investigation resulted from a letter to Rep. Nicholas Mavroules from Joe Meadors, then-president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, seeking Mavroules’ support. Instead of responding to Liberty veterans, however, Congressman Mavroules referred the matter to Mr. Cristol for advice. Survivors heard nothing further. Meadors’ letter was never answered. The U.S. government reports that there has been no such investigation.
From Ray McGovern, CIA analyst for 27 years:

“Israel deliberately attacked the intelligence collection ship USS Liberty, in full awareness it was a U.S. Navy ship, and did its best to sink it and leave no survivors”
 
 
From James Ennes, lieutenant on the bridge of the USS Liberty:

“The facts are simple and straightforward. Israeli forces reconnoitered the ship for hours in daylight with unlimited visibility, correctly reported the ship’s identity to their headquarters, then attacked the clearly marked and defenseless American ship by air and sea for more than 75 minutes, killing 34 men and wounding more than two-thirds of the 297-man crew.”
 
 
From Former Congressman Paul Findley (R-IL):

“The Liberty cover-up will someday be recognized as an historic but wrong turning point for America. It convinced Israeli leaders that they could get by with anything—even mass murder of U.S. sailors—with only a helpful reaction from Washington, because that is what actually happened.”

Source: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/uss-liberty-cia-report-dayan-personally-ordered-the-attack-39469/#file-139420

Source: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/11_8_oral.pdf

Source: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/investigate-the-attack-on-the-uss-liberty#

Source: https://www.wrmea.org/016-june/july/no-explanation-disproves-israels-guilt-in-1967-attack-on-uss-liberty.html

Source: https://www.wrmea.org/015-august/remarks-on-the-anniversary-of-israels-1967-attack-on-the-uss-liberty.html

Source: https://www.wrmea.org/013-september/in-memoriam-rear-admiral-merlin-staring-1919-2013-worked-to-expose-uss-liberty-cover-up.html

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/featured-documentaries/2014/10/30/the-day-israel-attacked-america

Source: https://www.wrmea.org/003-december/cristol-claim-of-13-investigations-into-israel-s-attack-on-uss-liberty-a-travesty.html

Source: https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2007/10/06/so-whos-afraid-of-the-israel-lobby/

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