Death and Destruction - Why the story of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 has been suppressed
On June 8, 1967 during the Six Day War between Israel and the Arab States, the American intelligence ship USS Liberty was attacked for 75 minutes in international waters by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats. Thirty-four men died and 171 were wounded.
Winning essay in the 1987 National Contest sponsored by the USS Liberty Veterans Association
By Sandra L. Sullivan. 

George Washington, in his Farewell Address of 1796, warned the American people against diplomatic relationships that might lead to the betrayal and sacrifice of the interests of one's own country. The relationship between the United States and the state of Israel his historically been one in which America provides Israel with virtually unlimited economic, diplomatic, military, and psychological support. This relationship has frequently caused the United States to sacrifice its own principles in favor of Israel's interests. One of the most dramatic illustrations of the danger of such a relationship is the tragic story of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, and the reaction of the United States government to that attack.

It cannot be denied that the attack of June 8th, 1967, was calculated and deliberate. Thirty-four American men died, and 171 others were wounded. Despite the glaring evidence of recently declassified documents and eye-witness testimony, the American and Israeli governments still stubbornly cling to the official excuse that the attack was an accident. In 1967, the U.S. Government classified all evidence that disagreed with the Israeli version of the story as "Top Secret," and then proceeded to inform the American people that the attack was a "miscalculation that could take place any place in the world." Such a miscalculation--one that results in an afternoon of cannon and rocket fire, napalm, and torpedoes directed against the virtually unarmed vessel of a close ally--is inconceivable. The reaction of the U.S. government to this "miscalculation"-- a reaction that is the invariable result of the United States' unhealthy relationship with Israel--is unjustifiable. In the words of James M. Ennes, Jr., an officer aboard the Liberty who survived the attack and has written a book exposing the cover-up, "it's one thing to be attacked by another nation, but to have your own government smile at it and say oh well, it's really an understandable error of war . . . that's very difficult to accept."

The USS Liberty was a World War II victory ship that was converted, in 1963, to a "Technical Research Ship." The in-house Pentagon mission statement says specifically that the Liberty's purpose was to "provide shipborne COMINT (communications intelligence) and ELINT (electronic intelligence) platforms to intercept and exploit foreign electromagnetic radiations in those areas of the world where suitable shore based intercept stations do not exist.

James Ennes, in his book Assault on the Liberty, colorfully describes the vessel as a "spook ship." Israel was quite aware of the "spook" capabilities of the U.S. Navy's electronic intelligence ships, for Israeli military intelligence had a close working relationship with the C.I.A. and Defense Department. Despite America's supportive posture toward Israel during the Six Day War it is understandable, in light of Lyndon Johnson's policy statement of late May, 1967, that Israel might not have wanted the United States to intercept its military communications.

In said statement, Johnson insisted that the United States was "committed to the support of the political independence and territorial integrity of all the nations in the area." In other words, the United States evidently would refuse to help or defense Israel if she were an aggressor. After war broke out, Israel claimed that she was simply waiting for the Arabs to stop fighting first. However, when Jordan accepted the U.N. cease-fire on June 7th Israel continued her assault. On June 8th the entire United Arab Republic, badly defeated, accepted the cease-fire. Syria accepted it that night, and it went into effect at 5:20 a.m. on June 9th. Israel, flagrantly violating the cease-fire, invaded Syria at 11:30 that morning. The National Security Agency in Washington had the technology to insure clear information regarding who might be planning to violate a U.N. cease-fire; the present cornerstone of its complex communication interception network was none other than the USS Liberty. It is only logical that Israel would want to prevent U.S. detection of her plans to invade the Golan Heights. Indeed, in the late afternoon or early evening of June 7th, Israel warned the Pentagon, via the U.S. Defense Attach'e in Tel Aviv, that it was planning to attack the Liberty if the ship's course was not changed. The Defense Department ordered the Liberty to move 100 miles off the coast, but this command, like numerous other communications, got tangled in red tape and never reached the ship.

James Ennes, who was in charge of the ship's division of electronic maintenance technicians, was Officer of the Deck on the morning of June 8th. He witnesses almost seven hours of reconnaissance by Israeli aircraft. The surveillance was so low that the Liberty sailors and the Israeli pilots waved to one another. It was a beautiful, clear, morning, and the ship was in international waters, and a new, unsoiled flag stood out in eight knots of relative wind. At 2:00 p.m., the attack began: mirage jets bombarded the deck with rockets, and ten to fifteen minutes later slower myst'ere jets began dropping canisters of napalm. After a half-hour of this activity, torpedo boats arrived and fired five torpedoes, one of which blew a forty foot hole in the Liberty's side and killed twenty-five men. Ten minutes after the air attack began the Liberty has been promised help by Sixth Fleet aircraft carriers, but at the Pentagon's precise instructions the rescue effort was recalled. The torpedo boats circled the Liberty at 3:15, firing on anythingthat moved, including empty life-rafts. At this time Israel stopped the attack and the Israeli government apologized; the second rescue effort had been launched, but then was recalled as "unnecessary." At 4:30 p.m. the torpedo boats returned and, incredibly enough, offered assistance. Their offer was rather firmly rejected. The Liberty waited--alone, burning, sinking, with men wounded and dying--until help finally arrived on the morning of June 9th.

The following statement appeared in the New York Times on June 10th:

Dear Mr. President: I was deeply grieved by the tragic loss of life in the United States naval ship Liberty. Please accept my deep condolences, and convey my sympathy to all the bereaved families.

May all bloodshed come to an end, and may our God grant us peace evermore.

So apologized Israeli Premier Levi Eshkol to President Johnson. The White House usually does not make public communications between heads of state, let alone messages from other governments. But in this case, the American government was quick to publicly back the Israeli claims of "accident." Privately, however, the initial U.S. reaction was quite different. Secretary of State Dean Rusk hotly responded to a similar statement of apology from the Israeli ambassador with the assertion that Israeli had every chance to identify the ship, and thus "(At) a minimum, the attack must be condemned as an act of military recklessness reflecting a wanton disregard for human life." Yet when the Naval Court of Inquiry into the attack was convened in Malta on June 14th, any accounts that conflicted with Captain William McGonagle's report were dismissed, ignored, or classified "Top Secret" (notably, the evidence of napalm use). McGonagle, who earned the Medal of Honor for his valor during the attack, had been losing consciousness at the time he dictated his first report of the incident for Washington; his report was highly inaccurate, simplifying and downplaying the whole event. Ennes notes that McGonagle was apparently worried that he was somehow responsible for the suffering, a concern which may have been what caused him to adhere so firmly to his initial version of the story, despite other officers' attempts to remind him of what really happened. The official American press release of the attack supported the Israeli claim that Israel mistook the Liberty for an Egyptian freighter, that the U.S. flag was not visible (this assertion regardless of McGonagle's testimony that it was very visible), that the air attack lasted a mere five to six minutes, and that as soon as the torpedo hit the ship Israel realized her mistake and apologized.

Even the most skeptical reporters had no solid evidence to support their speculations that the attack was not an accident after all. The U.S. government ordered a news black-out until after the Court made its report. The Liberty crew members were reminded daily to "Refer all questions to the commanding officer or executive officer or Admiral Kidd. Answer no questions. If somehow you are backed into a corner you may say that it was an accident and Israel has apologized. You may say nothing else."

In Assault on the Liberty, James Ennes discusses the recently declassified Court of Inquiry documents and testimonies, and demonstrates repeatedly the literal and technical impossibilities, contradictions, and omissions that ledto the official "conclusions." As Ennes stated in a radio interview in 1982, the Court obviously had other influences upon it, and thus reached a conclusion totally contrary to the evidence. Thus, the attack was excused as brief and accidental. Yet for some reason, when the news black-out was officially lifted, the Liberty crew members' freedom of speech was defined in the following terms:

"Interviews and statements to news media . . . are not to be given by individuals . . . . The only information that ship's company is allowed to discuss is that already made available to the press. Therefore, there is nothing new that we would be able to tell them in an interview."

The crew was thoroughly intimidated, for as Ennes recalls, it was made clear that "you won't even tell hour mother what happened--if you ever talk to the press or anyone else you will be tracked down and punished, and don't think the time limit will ever run out because it will never run out.

The "time limit," however, at last appears to be running out. Under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, documents have been made available that prove that the U.S. administration's official story was not the true story. Many of the people involved in the affair, from crewmen to government officials, are coming forward with their testimonials. Liberty Lieutenant Maury Bennett, who had been sworn to secrecy in 1967, informed Ennes in 1974 that he was told point-blank by Senator William Fulbright that Johnson "had ordered a cover-up to protect Israel and to avoid causing a ruckus." Others who have given their candid accounts of, and reactions to, the incident include Dean Rusk, former Secretary of State, Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Helms, former C.I.A. director, and Philip Goulding, former assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. Yet the American government continues to this day to protect Israel, and the American Zionist community tries desperately to prevent the public from learning the truth. As Adlai Stevenson told James Ennes and the press,

"The attack was clearly deliberate, (but) it was not investigated in Congress because of the heavy pressure from the Israeli lobby, the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee, which intimidates the American Congress."

Paul Findley, a former U.S. Congressman and senior member of the House Middle East Committee, includes in his book They Dare to Speak Out a chapter on the Liberty. This chapter is entitled "The Assault on 'Assault'," which is an accurate description of the public and political reaction to James Ennes' book. The book received high praise in reviews, but book orders regularly got lost, and wholesale listing disappeared. Retail bookstores were told by Random House that the book did not exist, had not been published, or was out of print. The Israeli Foreign Office charged that Ennes "allows his very evident rancor and subjectivity to override objective analysis," and that "his conclusions fly in the face of logic and military facts." Such criticism seemed to be coordinated on a national, perhaps international, scale, for many public rebuttals were almost identical with the document issued by the Israeli Foreign Office in Jerusalem. When Ennes was interviewed on San Francisco radio station KGO in 1980, public response was overwhelming-- including two phone calls threatening the talk-show host's life. Although the public reaction when Ennes lectured at universities in 1981 and 1982 was generally positive, hecklers accused him of being a liar and an anti-Semite. Flyers protesting Ennes' speeches used wording identical to that used by the Israeli Foreign Office and by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.

If a book that appears twelve years after the fact causes such panic, violence, and accusations, it is almost understandable why the Johnson administration chose to cover up the truth. Despite the insupportability and, in Dean Rusk's later words to Ennes, the "genuine outrage" of Israel's attack, America's deep alliance with that country caused U.S. government officials to first tolerate the murder of their fellow citizens, and then to justify such tolerance by lying to the American people. The U.S. government still refuses to ventilate the incident, for it knows that an objective inquiry would enrage the powerful Israeli lobby and injure diplomatic relations by exploding the myth that American and Israeli national interests are always and everywhere the same. Thus even today, a strong current in both American public opinion and government policy wants to deny all evidence that might lead to the "wrong" conclusion, and therefore dismiss the many disturbing facts and questions that have been brought to light in the quest for truth. George Washington knew well enough the dangers of such a national disposition, and the betrayals and sacrifices that result from such an alliance between nations:

". . . such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent Patriot, How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the Public Councils!

Sandra Sullivan was 2 years old in 1967 and living in Beirut where her father taught at the American University there. They were evacuated from the city and sent back to America because of the Six Day War.

Sandra submitted the winning essay as a college senior from Kenyon Ohio. Her essay was published in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in June, 1988.

Visit the USS Liberty Memorial site created by two survivors of the attack with support and encouragement from the USS Liberty Veterans Association