The USS LIBERTY Incident

[Mark Stapleton]

Sorry about the problem with the Cockburn link, this one should work.

http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1067

Yes both Cockburn and Marcetti push the notion that Angleton put Israeli’s interests ahead of the US’s which makes their claims about his “memorial” all that more credible. They don’t cite any specifics or evidence. Anybody can claim anything they want. Cockburn is of course openly anti-Israeli and Marchetti had a few axes to grind with the CIA neither are neutral sources.

As for using the IHR website I googled about ‘Jesus’ and ‘his fabulous technicolor plaque by the garbage dump’ and that’s what came up.

Mark if you want to come up with evidence to back your claims and/or start a new thread go right ahead.

No “intellectual acrobatics” on my part, just trying to get you two to document your claims and citing evidence to back mine. Are there any famous contortionists from “down under”?

Hey, I found a few!

http://members.iinet.com.au/~strov/contort.iiNet.html

Len, thanks for that link to the Cockburn article.

It damages your credibility almost as much as the Marchetti piece. What about all that stuff about the weapons industry being the driving force behind the Israeli economy? A bit embarrassing if you are a loyal supporter of Israel. Don't worry, I already knew about that anyway.

It's a shame you shot yourself down with your own links. Then again, most gunslingers get shot down eventually. (although usually not by their own gun )

I understand your reluctance to start debates about LBJ's links to Israel and Israel's influence within the US decision making process. Who knows where they could lead?

Edited May 7, 2007 by Mark Stapleton

[Evan Burton]

Question for Evan could a combination of the angle, distance, fire and smoke made identification of the ship difficult? Is it reasonable to assume they would have stopped trying to identify ship after being fired upon?

It certainly can, but I noted in the transcript that one of the bridge Officers on the LIBERTY, was able to get the pennant number of the Israeli MTB and so I assume that the MTB should have likewise been able to see the pennant number of the LIBERTY.

I think that as soon as the bullets started flying they would have concentrated on protecting themselves and trying to disable the attacking force, so yes I think it would be reasonable to assume that they stop trying to identify the vessels as a priority.

And might use of captured MiG’s have been a better choice? Some had already been flown by Israeli pilots.

Yes, but they may not have had the required weapons / rounds to re-arm the MiGs to an effective capability.

According to the Israelis this information was “scrubbed from the board” after an 11:00 AM shift change. Question for Evan (or others) Does this sound reasonable to you? Perhaps you could check with some “old timers” I imagine such a practice would have been abandoned worldwide after June 1967.

I don't know how the Israelis operated, but this seems strange to me. Let me explain (I'll limit this to surface or sub-surface contacts; the air war is a little different due to its dynamic nature).

When you gain a contact, it is assigned a 'track number'. As long as you have valid tracking information on it, the position of that particular track is updated. If you are able to identify it, its status would change from an 'unknown' to either a 'friendly', 'neutral', or 'hostile'.

How long the tracks remain on your tote depends upon your area of operations (AO). If you are concerned with a small AO, then you would probably 'drop track' after it has probably left your AO (based on your best estimates or confirmed sighting). When you are concerned with larger scale operations, you keep the track on your tote for longer because it might re-appear.

For the Israelis to 'drop track' on a large-ish, relatively slow-moving contact because of a shift-change is questionable. It is not inconceivable due to the nature of their operations, but I find it strange.

Slight correction the “official story” was that these orders only reached the Liberty AFTER the attack due to misrouting. The captain said that he took the dangers of being so close to a combat zone into consideration but decided stay close to shore to improve intelligence gathering. Might the location have added to the confusion? Is it common for neutral ships to be so close to combat area? Since the canal was closed I doubt any active shipping lanes would have been in the area.

Yes, I read about the routing problem after your post. Believe it or not, that still happens today in our computerised age. I don't find that strange, though with hindsight Command should have required an 'acknowledge' from the action addressees because they were proceeding towards a war zone.

Whether neutral ships enter a war zone is dependent on the vessels operators, the conditions, etc. A merchant vessel might decide to transit the area if deemed necessary because of financial concerns, though they would consider a lot of factors. Having an intelligence gather in the area is debatable but certainly conceivable. Closer means better intercepts. How likely is action from an unfriendly force? Is the vessel likely to provoke interest (warship versus merchant)?

Don’t forget that at this point the Egyptians (and Jordanians) had been vanquished and the Syrians (and Iraqis) had their air forces wiped out. The only assistance that would have been useful to the Israelis was ground troops against the Syrians, I don’t see how and “Egyptian” attack on an American ship could have used to justify deploy US ground forces against Syria especially during the Vietnam War. Even if it could I doubt they could have been deployed fast enough to be useful, the Israelis achieved their objective (capturing the Golan Heights) in two days.

This is one of the factors that sway me towards accident rather than deliberate action, albeit there are things which still don't quite make sense.

[Len Colby]

As for using the IHR website I googled about ‘Jesus’ and ‘his fabulous technicolor plaque by the garbage dump’ and that’s what came up.

Try telling that to an Austrian judge in proceedings where truth is no defense, Len.

So simply citing a page from Holocaust denial site that makes no reference to the Holocaust would be a violation of Austrian law?

Incidentally, isn't Brazil as 'down-under' as Australia?

Not quite, "Oz" is quite a bit further south though ther is a lot of latitude overlap and I've never heard anyone so refer to this country.

[Len Colby]

Len, thanks for that link to the Cockburn article.

It damages your credibility almost as much as the Marchetti piece. What about all that stuff about the weapons industry being the driving force behind the Israeli economy? A bit embarrassing if you are a loyal supporter of Israel. Don't worry, I already knew about that anyway.

It's a shame you shot yourself down with your own links. Then again, most gunslingers get shot down eventually. (although usually not by their own gun )

A bit of a strawman Mark since I never claimed that Israel was a "prince among nations" or anything of the sort, so the link damages neither my case nor my credibility. As previously noted the fact that Cockburn is such a critic of Israel makes his description of Angleton’s “memorial” more credible, if I had cited someone from AIPAC (for example) you could have questioned whether the claim should be believed.

I understand your reluctance to start debates about LBJ's links to Israel and Israel's influence within the US decision making process. Who knows where they could lead?

No reluctance on my part, I even encouraged you to “come up with evidence to back your claims and/or start a new thread” regarding this issue.

You should try to stop spouting misrepresenting my position it’s damaging to your credibility.

[Len Colby]

Question for Evan could a combination of the angle, distance, fire and smoke made identification of the ship difficult? Is it reasonable to assume they would have stopped trying to identify ship after being fired upon?

It certainly can, but I noted in the transcript that one of the bridge Officers on the LIBERTY, was able to get the pennant number of the Israeli MTB and so I assume that the MTB should have likewise been able to see the pennant number of the LIBERTY.

But that was after the torpedo attack when the boats were a lot closer and at right angles to each other. Both Ensign Lucas (the person quoted below) and Captain McGonagle estimated the MTB to have been around 500 yards from the Liberty. It was around this time that according to the captain the Israelis offered assistance to his ship. The passage you referred to can be read below.

The torpedo hit

and it seemed like within a matter of seconds we had a ten degree starboard list.

Shortly after that

the Commanding Officer called me to the starboard wing, asked me to get some glasses to try to help him identify the patrol craft…I was able to read the hull number on one patrol craft as it passed abeam to starboard, going in exactly the opposite direction that we were going, and it was at this time I told the Commanding Officer what the number was. He said, "log it". Which I did, in the quartermasters notebook.

<snip>

At this time, the Counsel for the Court offers the quartermasters logbook into evidence, A true copy thereof will be substituted in its place.

Q. Will you please read this first entry?

A. "1446, one gunboat tentatively identified as number 206-17." And this was seen by both the Commanding Officer and myself from the. starboard wing. I mentioned earlier, the patrol craft was going exactly the opposite direction that we were. This number was read when it was abeam to starboard at approximately 500 yards.

http://www.ussliberty.org/ncitext.htm

And might use of captured MiG’s have been a better choice? Some had already been flown by Israeli pilots.

Yes, but they may not have had the required weapons / rounds to re-arm the MiGs to an effective capability.

Since they supposedly had captured over a dozen wouldn’t they probably had enough ammo to sufficiently arm 2 or 3 MiG’s?

Previously I questioned why the Liberty website didn’t include the full 1997 Captain McGonagle quote from Arlington Cemetery on their main page or the page the quote is linked to. Though the full quote appears on a page on their site I’ve don’t see any evidence that the page is linked to any other pages on the site. Now that I’ve found it I know why, it undermines their case the omitted portion is in bold.

"For many years I have wanted to believe that the attack on the Liberty was pure error, it appears to me that it, was not a pure case of mistaken identity. It was, on the other hand, gross incompetence and aggravated dereliction of duty on the part of many officers and men of the state of Israel."

http://www.ussliberty.org/latimes.htm and http://www.mishalov.com/McGonagle.html

So they took his quote, like they did with Clark Clifford's, out of context. They did to their credit provide a link to the full Clifford report but only a perseverant reader would find it and read it. They would have to follow a link from the main page to a 2nd page and from there to the report. Due to a formatting problem on the page with the report the lines don't wrap properly and are several times wider than the screen. It's the only page on the site I've seen with this problem, I wonder if this is accidental.

Edited May 7, 2007 by Len Colby

[Len Colby]

Regarding the supposed Mirage pilot who supposedly IDed the Liberty as American. I mistakenly said he was anonymous. A. Jay Cristol wrote the following in his book The Liberty Incident (2002)

Adrian Pennink's research for the Thames TV production Attack on the Liberty" unearthed an additional story. Pennink interviewed former congressman Paul N. "Pete" McCloskey, who told Pennink that he had visited an Israeli in a federal prison in Springfield, Missouri. McCloskey claimed that the prisoner, a certain Amnon Tavni, told him that he was an Israeli pilot who flew against the Liberty and that he had a clear identification of the Liberty as a U.S. ship when he made the attack.

Pennink called Tavni in prison, but Tavni told Pennink that he had never made such a statement to Congressman McCloskey. Pennink learned the name of Tavni's former girlfriend in New York and interviewed her. She stated to Pennink that Tavni had told her he served in the IDF but never mentioned being a pilot. The IDF spokesman could not find a record of Tavni as a pilot in the Israel Air Force nor as a member of any branch of the IDF.

The Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Missouri, confirmed to this author that Amnon Tavni, prisoner number 05818-054, was convicted in Federal Court for the Southern District of New York of robbery and conspiracy to rob a bank. He was sentenced to ten years in prison by U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Griesa.22 Records indicate that Tavni entered prison on April 26, 1984, and served thirty months and twenty-five days. He was paroled on November 19, 1986, and returned to New York where parole office records indicate he was deported to Israel in December 1986. Recent efforts by this author to locate Tavni in Israel have not been successful. This author has learned that after Tavni was deported to Israel in 1986, he changed his name and cannot be located.

Four Israel Air Force pilots were involved in the air attacks on the Liberty. Yaacov Hamermish, the pilot who flew as wingman in Royal Flight, died in a plane crash prior to 1979 while practicing for an air show. The three surviving pilots, who live in Israel, flew as Kursa Wing, Kursa Flight Leader, and Royal Flight Leader. No Israel Air Force record identifies a pilot who participated in the air attack named Amnon Tavni. Either Tavni or Pennink or McCloskey told a tall tale, or it is also possible, of course, that Tavni told two different stories, one to McCloskey and another to Pennink. All things considered, the Pennink story is most believable, because Pennink "had no dog in this fight," while McCloskey has had a well-known aversion/opposition to Israel.

From the Liberty forum

http://www.usslibertyinquiry.com/forums/sh...age=1&pp=10 - see post # 6

The quote can be confirmed here as well as the author’s footnotes

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1574885367...v=search-inside

Cristol’s version isn’t that different from one given by James Ennes on the next page of the same thread in March 2005:

In 1982 shortly after my book was published I received a call from a man in jail in NYC who identified himself as Evan Tov AKA Tovni (not Toni) who said he had been arrested on some kind of wire fraud charge and expected to be sentenced to five years in federal prison. He told me he was the lead pilot who attacked the Liberty. He recognized the ship as American on the first pass and notified his HQ who told him to ignore the flag and continue the attack. He refused and returned to base where he was arrested and given a BCD. His wingmate(s) continued the attack.

He said he had recording of his conversation with Abba Eban that would prove his claim and offered to provide them to a Member of Congress who would take his story AND put him under the witness protection program.

I spent several days on the telephone and no Member of staffer was willing to talk to him.

There is the obvious suspicion that he invented the whole story to try to stay out of jail. The man's claim has never been verified, documented or refuted.

I told Pete McCloskey the story. McCloskey sent an investigator to the jail to interview him. The investigator was a former NYC policeman/investigator and trained interviewer. He felt that the man was telling the truth.

He subsequently went to prison where McCloskey also visited him a couple of times and believed his story.

Eventually he was released and was deported to Israel in the mid or late 1980s.

I've tried to track him down since, and so did Thames, Ltd., for the 1980s video, but he was not found. Someone with a similar name was found in Israel recently, but we don't know if it was the same person and no attempt was made to contact him.

I found a few things odd about Ennes’ account 1) He wrote “In 1982 shortly after my book was published I received a call from a man in jail” but according to Amazon his book came out “December 12, 1979”

http://www.amazon.com/Assault-Liberty-Isra...8806623-3267851

The publication date can be confirmed on the Net

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navc...m+house%22+1979

So perhaps Ennes was confused and Tovni/Tov/ Tavni contacted him in 1980 but he also wrote:

“I spent several days on the telephone and no Member of staffer was willing to talk to him”

The odd thing about that is that McCloskey who every one agrees was involved served in congress till January 3, 1983

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodi...l?index=M000343

So perhaps Ennes was confused and Tovni/Tov/ Tavni contacted him in 1983 but I wouldn’t consider 3 plus years later “shortly after” his book was published.

But perhaps I’m just nitpicking worse is that in the Addendum to 2004 Edition (June 2004) he wrote:

Shortly after Assault on the Liberty was first published, I was contacted by an Israeli pilot named Evan Tovni who called from New York to say that he flew the first attacking Mirage. On his first pass, he said, he saw the American flag and asked his headquarters for instructions. “Attack,” he was told. He refused to do so and returned to headquarters, where he was arrested. His wingmen followed orders and continued the attack.

http://www.ussliberty.org/addendum.htm

He stated as fact that Tavni was a pilot even though he knew it was unconfirmed and disputed, omitted that he was in prison on fraud (or robbery) charges which of course reduces his credibility and omitted that there was “obvious suspicion that he invented the whole story to try to stay out of jail”.

Ennes was deceptive in his description of Stevenson’s unsuccessful run for governor omitting that he lost by the narrowest margin in state history to very popular incumbent who 4 years earlier won by the biggest margin in a century. Perhaps he didn't know the details but he should have known that the ex-Senator was running against an incumbent and lost by a very narrow margin.

On Ennes’ website his ex-C.O. Captain McGonagle and Clark Clifford were quoted out of context. The editing of McGonagle’s quote was especially deceptive and though a page with the full quote is housed on his site there is no link to that page. The full Clifford report is also housed on his site but is formatted in a way that makes it difficult to read and isn’t linked to the main page.

AKAICT unless one reads the transcript of the Court of Inquiry Proceedings there doesn’t seem to be any indication on his site that the captain of the ship, who was one of the few people on deck when the MTB’s arrived, testified that the Israelis only fired on the American ship after the Liberty fired on them, had previously tried to signal them and offered assistance immediately after the attack.

He seems willing to bend the truth like a fishing pole to fit his theory.

Edited May 8, 2007 by Len Colby

[Len Colby]

Could and should the Israelis on the MTB’s been able to read the Liberty’s hull number? Proponents of the theory that they knew or should have known the ship was Americans insist they should have but the evidence indicates otherwise. As noted earlier

1) According to the sworn testimony of the ship’s captain the Liberty fired on them when they were about 2000 yards (i.e. 6000 feet or 1800 meters away). It is reasonable to assume (as even Capt. McGoongle indicated) that efforts to identify the ship would have halted at that point and it would have been presumed to have been hostile.

2) The ‘5’ on the ship’s hull was 8 feet (2.4 meters) tall and the three letters (GRT) half that.

The apparent size of objects is directly proportional to their distance, if you look at two identical objects and one is twice as far away from you as the other it will appear to have half the height, width and depth of the closer one. Thus the 8 foot tall ‘5’ would have the same apparent height as a 0.32 inch (*1) (0.82 cm) tall ‘5’ 20 feet (6 meters) feet away. Some one is considered to have perfect vision if they can correctly identify 3/8 inch (*2) (0.375 inch, 95 cm) tall symbols on an eye chart {the famous 20/20 or (6/6 in metric) line}. Thus the 5 would have appeared smaller to the commander of the Israeli MTB’s when the Liberty started firing at his ships than the letters on the 20/20 line of an eye chart and thus he would not be expected to be able to make it out.

Let’s not forget that in his optometrist’s office he would have been seated on a stationary stool or chair looking at a stationary black on white eye chart perfectly parallel to his field of view; that afternoon he would have been on the bow of a light weight MTB traveling at about 25 knots (30 mph, 45 kph) and presumably bouncing up and down a bit and looking at a smoking ship a) turned 60 degrees back from his field of view traveling towards him at 18 knots (21 mph, 34 kph) c) also presumably bobbing up and down a bit and d) with lower contrast white on gray symbols. Presumably he would have had a pair of binoculars typically 7x which would have magnified the ‘5’ to about 6x taller and the letters to about 3x taller than the letters the 20/20 line but it still would have been under the adverse conditions mentioned in the previous sentence exacerbated by hand shake and a 7x magnification of the movement of both ships.

Even if he could have made out the ‘5’ this would not have told him that the ship was western as opposed to Arab because the Egyptian navy used western style numbers before, during and after the 6-Day War “In 1996, Ingalls prepared two U.S. Navy frigates for transfer to international fleets. The former USS GALLERY (FFG 26) is now serving in the Egyptian Navy as ENS TABA (F 916)” [*3]. The Taba as can be seen below uses western style “Hindu-Arabic” as opposed to contemporary Arabic numbers. According to the English language Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram Weekly “Some three months after the humiliating debacle of June 1967, Egyptian missile boat Assiut sunk the Israeli destroyer, Eilat” [*4]. The hull number of the Assiut as pictured in the article (see photo below) appears to be 613. According to a page on the Egyptian navy’s website this took place Oct. 21 1967. On the same page we are told that in 1956 “During the night of Nov.3rd…torpedo boats no. 227…and torpedo boat no. 220…sailed from Alexandria…to attack the enemy concentrations” [*5]

Pictured below is the ENS (Egyptian Navy Ship) Taba (bottom) hull number 916 on a join operation with the HMS Lancaster (top)

Source http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/server?show=C...putFormat=print

ENS Assuit

Source see footnote 4]

Mark and Sid’s silence surprises me, I thought they wanted to argue the “facts”.

1] You don’t have to “take my word for it”

1) Go to the “Angle Size Calculator” linked here http://www.1728.com/angsize.htm

2) Set to “solve for:” “Angle”

3) Enter ‘6000’ for “Distance” and ‘8’ for “Size”

4) Copy the result “ 0.076394 Degrees”

5) Set to “solve for:” “Size”

6) Enter ‘20’ for “Distance” and copy ‘0.076394’ into the “Angle (Degrees)” box, delete the word “Degrees”

7) Multiply the result 0.026667 (feet) times 12 for inches, the final result should be 0.32

2] http://www.ucsfhealth.org/adult/adam/data/003844.html

3] http://www.ss.northropgrumman.com/company/international.html

4] http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1998/380/fo3.htm

5] http://www.mmc.gov.eg/branches/Navy/t4.htm

[Len Colby]

In May 1941 Churchill gave his famous order to “Sink the Bismark”. “A total of four battleships, two battle-cruisers, two aircraft-carriers, twelve cruisers and dozens of destroyers” from the Royal Navy were dedicated to that mission including the aircraft-carrier HMS Ark Royal and the cruiser HMS Sheffield both from Battle Group H commanded by Admiral James Sommerville

“Somerville detached the cruiser HMS Sheffield to shadow Bismarck and ordered HMS Ark Royal to launch a Swordfish strike armed with torpedoes. After almost an hour of flight, the first aircraft moved in for the kill. One after another, torpedoes fell away from the bellies of the Swordfish. It was only after eleven had been dropped that the pilots began to realise something had gone horribly wrong. Their target was not firing back at them. It was the wrong ship. Lady Luck, however, was smiling on HMS Sheffield that day. A new design of magnetic detonator was being used that day. Six of the eleven torpedoes exploded on impact with the sea., and HMS Sheffield manoeuvred to avoid the remainder. Unfortunately the signal, transmitted by light, detaching HMS Sheffield had not been repeated to HMS Ark Royal, so she was unaware that the cruiser was shadowing Bismarck.”

http://www.adhb30.dsl.pipex.com/ww2026.htm

“Following an abortive air strike that afternoon in which fourteen Swordfish mistakenly attacked (but missed) Sheffield, a second strike of fifteen Swordfish took off from Ark Royal at 1910 that evening….low clouds, strong winds, and fading daylight, the aircraft released thirteen torpedoes in a series of attacks against the German battleship. While the poor weather made these attacks difficult, it also threw off the aim of the German antiaircraft gunners, and no planes were lost.”

http://web.archive.org/web/20060420220842/...qs/faq118-1.htm

“The Swordfish pilots obtained radar contact with what they thought was Bismarck (Sheffield) at 1540 and pressed their attack against the ship shortly after. Fortunately, the Sheffield was not hit by any of the 11 torpedoes that were launched against her. All of the Swordfish aircraft returned safely to Ark Royal at about 1700.”

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/bismarck/hist...torpedohit.html (text above and diagram below)

The Sheffield was one of five nearly identical Southampton class light cruisers in the Royal Navy. So in an afternoon of possibly marginal weather over a dozen pilots from the Royal Navy after a year and a half of warfare (mostly at sea) mistook a cruiser from their own battle group very similar to 4 other ships in their navy for their intended target a very different looking battleship about 40% longer and 5 times bigger with almost twice as many guns

The Bismarck

Length 820ft. Beam 118ft. Maximum displacement: 50900 tons.

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection...ase/?irn=249434

Displacement: ·Full load: 50,900 metric tons

Overall length: · 251 meters36 meters

Armament: · Main:8 x 38cm/L47 ·

Secondary: · 12 x 15cm/L55 16 x 10.5cm/L65

Anti-aircraft: 16 x 3.7cm/L8318 x 2cm

http://www.kbismarck.com/genedata.html

See also http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq118-2.htm

Citing Source: Office of Naval Intelligence. ON.I. Weekly. 14 (29 Apr. 1942): 54-59.

HMS Sheffield

Displacement9100 BRT Length591 feet (oa) Complement700 men Armament12 x 6" guns (4x3) 8x 4" AA guns (4x2) 8x 2pdr AA (2x4) 8x .5" MG AA (2x4) 6 21" torpedo tubes (2x3) 3 aircraft 1 catapult 36 guns

http://uboat.net/allies/warships/class.html?ID=70

Bismarck image http://www.chuckhawks.com/bismark.jpg

from page http://www.chuckhawks.com/warship_pictures.htm

HMS Sheffield image http://home.swipnet.se/~w-11578/ship_photo...d/sheffield.jpg (NOTE - image flipped and resized to match orientation and be proportional in size to the Bismarck photo.

from page http://home.swipnet.se/~w-11578/hms_liverpool.htm

[Sid Walker]

A good job well done Len.

You can add 'USS Liberty Rebuttal Competency' to your cv.

I for one have little enthusiasm for debating these obscure points with you. No offence intended. I think it's fairly cear what happened and others visiting this thread will also make up their own minds, hopefully pointed to a to few of the most important references on this topic.

As the 40th anniversay of the USS Liberty attack is coming up in a few days time, a small crop of articles can be expected.

Here's Justin Raimondo wrap in antiwar.com: Remember the Liberty!

Tim Fischer, former leader of the Australian Nationals, writes a fascinating poiece published in the Melbourne Age: Six days of war, 40 years of secrecy

I reproduce it in full, partly because the old fox appears to have come to a similar conclusion (emphases added):

Was the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty deliberate? The US is morally bound to find out.

Tim Fischer

May 27, 2007

FORTY years ago in a quiet corner of the Mediterranean off the Sinai Desert, an extraordinary attack was launched by Israeli jet fighters and torpedo boats on the USS Liberty.

It was the fourth day of the Six-Day War. The large intelligence-gathering ship was in international waters, proudly flying the US flag and clearly marked as the USS Liberty. Conditions were calm and clear, but by day's end 34 American sailors were killed and 172 injured.

The USS Liberty struggled back to Malta with several gaping holes and a US Navy Court of Inquiry team on board. The president of this inquiry was Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, and Captain Ward Boston jnr was counsel assisting, but under Pentagon orders the court was not permitted to travel to Israel to complete its investigations.

There is still a fierce debate over the question of whether the attack by Israeli forces was deliberate, allegedly mounted to disrupt US intelligence collection and provide cover for the day-five invasion of Syria and capture of the Golan Heights. Against this serious accusation, a book by retired US judge A. Jay Cristol, The Liberty Incident, contends that the attack was undertaken by Israeli jet fighters and Israeli torpedo boats, but was accidental.

As Donald Rumsfeld says, "stuff happens in war", and as Shimon Peres said about the cluster bombs into Southern Lebanon last year, "mistakes occur in war". However, as a reaction to the Cristol book, many key US intelligence officials and Boston himself have broken their strict orders under the Official Secrets Act to speak up and detail the chilling truth.

Boston signed an affidavit saying: "The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack … was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. It was our shared belief, based on the documentary evidence and testimony we received first-hand, that the Israeli attack was planned and deliberate."

The affidavit is readily available through Google, along with key statements debunking some official transcripts released to fudge the truth that involved helicopter pilots who arrived on the scene well after the first attacks.

This statement by Stephen Forslund (US Air Force intelligence analyst) is clear enough: "The transcripts made specific reference to the efforts to direct the jets to the target, which was identified as American numerous times by the ground controller. The ground control began asking about the status of the target and whether it was sinking. They stressed that the target must be sunk and leave no trace."

The reader can research the subject and reach a conclusion on deliberate or accidental. For my part, I now believe the evidence all points to it being a deliberate attack by Israel.

The two key issues arising from this are still relevant today. If Israel did deliberately attack the most powerful nation on Earth, it knows it can do so and get away with murder. Worse still, US military personnel now know that if the truth is politically inconvenient, they and their legacy are expendable.

The White House and Pentagon of the day, more so the US Congress, still need to get to the bottom of this saga.

Why is this important 40 years on? Because Israel needs to know that it will be exposed and held accountable for its actions and incidents, likewise Syria and the Palestinians, the latter of whom might contend the Liberty saga was one factor in delaying the creation of the nation state of Palestine.

We now know it is from this period that Israel cheerfully began building its own atomic bomb. We know Israel will push over the edge whenever it suits, because recent history shows that it can get away with such actions. Remember the thousands of cluster bombs that went into southern Lebanon last August after the ceasefire had been agreed but before its actual commencement?

But it is the US that has most to answer for in not dealing honestly with the attack on the USS Liberty, in turning its back on the families of the victims.

The Pentagon has ugly spin form — just ask the family of Pat Tillman killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan but initially reported otherwise. In relation to the 34 sailors killed by Israeli forces in 1967, it is corrosive in the extreme that the Pentagon did not fiercely fight to uncover the truth.

To the thousands of US and Allied forces, this is the really ugly part — the cause of their death will be airbrushed out if it is politically inconvenient for it to be revealed.

There are further allegations that US defence secretary of the time Robert McNamara and president Lyndon Johnson ordered US fighters, launched from a nearby US aircraft carrier, to turn back and not go to the defence of the USS Liberty. Again, the world is entitled to know whether this is true or not.

It is a sad fact that on June 8, 1967, the USS Liberty was attacked by Israeli jet fighters and Israeli torpedo boats; it is a sad fact that 34 US sailors were killed in the attack. It is true that Israel has paid some reparations to the families involved, and full marks to Israel in this regard. It remains for the real truth to come out.

A former attorney-general of Israel, Michael Ben-Yair, once made a famous observation: "The Six-Day War was forced upon us, the seventh day continues to this day and is our choice."

[Len Colby]

A good job well done Len.

You can add 'USS Liberty Rebuttal Competency' to your cv.

I for one have little enthusiasm for debating these obscure points with you. No offence intended. I think it's fairly cear what happened and others visiting this thread will also make up their own minds, hopefully pointed to a to few of the most important references on this topic.

Let’s see I -

Rebutted your claim an Israeli pilot had confirmed the attack was intentional and cast doubt on the straight forwardness of the main proponent of the intentional attack theory in the process.

Showed that the Liberty’s hull markings would not have been visible to the naked eye and unlikely to be visible with binoculars from the distance the Liberty’s captain said the Israeli’s were when HIS ship started firing on them. This is not an obscure point the “intentional attack” proponents insist the Israelis should have been able to see them, it is one of their main arguments.

The ‘Sheffield incident’ is very relevant because is shows that even pilots far more experienced than the Israelis who attacked the Liberty could mistake a ship from their own battle group for a very different much larger enemy ship.

Tim Fischer, former leader of the Australian Nationals, writes a fascinating poiece published in the Melbourne Age: Six days of war, 40 years of secrecy

I reproduce it in full, partly because the old fox appears to have come to a similar conclusion (emphases added):

Was the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty deliberate? The US is morally bound to find out.

Boston signed an affidavit saying: "The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack … was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. It was our shared belief, based on the documentary evidence and testimony we received first-hand, that the Israeli attack was planned and deliberate."

The affidavit is readily available through Google, along with key statements debunking some official transcripts released to fudge the truth that involved helicopter pilots who arrived on the scene well after the first attacks.

Yes, yes Mr. Boston. Years after the fact signed an affidavit claim he and Admiral Kidd knew all along the attack was intentional. He of course only said this years after the admiral was dead and unable to contradict him. Back in 1967 he signed the findings of the court of inquiry (COI) which concluded the attack was accidental. So he either perjured himself back then or perjured himself later. Not a very compelling witness, note that he sites no evidence to back his claim about Kidd nor any evidence that the attack was intentional. As even Ennes acknowledged, “ADMIRAL KIDD, who died in 1999, defended his work to the end”. Ennes went on to claim:

“In several letters and long telephone conversations with me, Admiral Kidd never disputed my conclusions and encouraged me to persist in my effort to tell the story. Yet when I challenged his official findings, he insisted that the evidence I point to was not available to him during the proceeding, and that in any case I have not had access to the “full picture.” Asked if the “full picture” includes information withheld from the record, he denied that anything was excluded, yet he was unable or unwilling to clarify the many inconsistencies and contradictions in the record or to explain why weather logs, pertinent deck logs, my sworn testimony and other vital records are missing.”

http://www.ussliberty.org/addendum.htm

But Ennes never said that Kidd said he though in 1967 or at the time of their communications that the attack was intentional.

Not only did Boston sign the ’67 COI report, he seems to have told Judge A. Jay Cristol, who wrote a book ‘debunking’ Ennes. he stood by it during two telephone interviews in 1990 and 1996. According to the judge’s notes:

1990 interview -

WB said the Court of Inquiry did the best possible job under the circumstances.

He stated that they worked as fast as possible because Washington wanted to know what had happened.

He indicated that the only persons that they didn’t put on the witness stand were people

who were below decks.

He said he was aware of the other side of the coin in regards to claims of whitewash and

that he was offended by the allegations of coverup. He said “we put all the evidence we had available into that record.”

WB also said that the government fully supported the crew and saw to it that they were

decorated.

WB said he read “Assault on the Liberty,” and that there were many errors in the book

and that it misstated his name as Ward M. Boston, Jr.

[…]

WB said that he told Admiral McCain that his JAG, Merwin Staring, did not think the

record was smooth enough, although he, WB, thought all the facts were there.

1996 interview –

He told me he knows how emotional Liberty people get about the incident, even in 1996,

but that the guy (Jim Ennes) who wrote the book didn’t get it right.

http://www.thelibertyincident.com/docs/boston-comments.pdf pgs. 5 -7

In the above document Cristol indicated Kidd made coments to suggesting he still backed the COI’s conclusions “The documentary record is even stronger that Admiral Kidd fully supported the validity of the findings of the Court of Inquiry to his dying day. As a close friend of “Ike” Kidd, I could also repeat statements made by “Ike” to me, but those statements would be equally in violation of the dead man statute.” Unlike Boston however he has documentary evidence to back his claim. In a 1991 handwritten letter to Cristol Admiral Kidd endorsed the judge’s findings and reaffirmed his confidence in the COI’s findings.

http://www.thelibertyincident.com/docs/Kidd.pdf

Cristol’s and Ennes’ recollections and notes of their communications with Boston and Kidd are consistent with the ex-officers standing by the COI investigation and report uptil the time of the latter’s death. Boston’s sudden about face in 2002 when he must have been in his 80’s * contradicts them and amounted to an admission of perjury and thus isn’t credible.

* He told Cristol he had been an aviator in WW2 and served on the USS Midway which sunk in 1944. Carrier pilots receive highly specialized training presumably he was at least 22 at the time.

This statement by Stephen Forslund (US Air Force intelligence analyst) is clear enough: "The transcripts made specific reference to the efforts to direct the jets to the target, which was identified as American numerous times by the ground controller. The ground control began asking about the status of the target and whether it was sinking. They stressed that the target must be sunk and leave no trace."

He is contradicted by two of the three NSA Hebrew linguists who we actually know heard the Israelis (live or on tape).

Richard W. Hickman was an NSA linguist who served aboard the USNS Jose Valdez and was friends with people on the Liberty. He translated the NSA intercepts and had briefed the Director of the National Security Agency Lieutenant General Marshal S. Carter on them at NSA headquarters in June 1967. He told Judge Cristol the following:

So, because of the fact that I lost a good friend in Al and of course NAVSECGRU shipmates and other wounded civilians - I was ready to blame the Israelis, along with everyone else who was angry. But, based on what I heard, both from eyewitnesses and the tapes, my conclusion has always been that it was a case of mistaken identity

.

In 1980 he was interviewed by William Gerhart, Henry Millington, Hank Schorreck and Robert Farley for a NSA 1981 report on the incident and had said basically the same thing based on what he head the Israelis were confused. He said he had read “Attack on the Liberty” and “There are a lot, and the guy who wrote it was there, Ennes, and he had a couple of blatant errors in there about some of facts”

http://www.libertyincident.com/docs/Hickman.pdf (pg. 17)

Dr. Marvin Nowicki (a friend of Hickman’s) was the US Navy supervisor on the EC-121 aircraft who heard the actual Israel Air Force radio transmissions, in Hebrew, on 8 June 1967 and thereafter listened to the tapes in Hebrew (Nowicki was an NSA/Navy trained Hebrew linguist). He also concluded based on what he heard the attack was accidental. He told James Bamford

“As you know, Jim Ennes and members of the Liberty crew are on record stating the ship was deliberately attacked by the Israelis. I think otherwise. I have first hand information, which I am sharing with you. I was present on that day, along with members of an aircrew in a COMFAIRAIRRECONRON TWO (VQ-2) EC-121M aircraft flying some 15,000 feet above the incident. As I recall, we recorded most, if not all, of the attack. Further, our intercepts, never before made public, showed the attack to be an accident on the part of the Israelis.”

http://www.libertyincident.com/nowicki-email.html

More from Norwiki - http://www.libertyincident.com/nowicki.html

He is also contradicted by the transcripts released by the NSA which Bamford accepted as authentic.

http://www.libertyincident.com/nsa2003.html

Also available from an archived page from the NSA site but Cristol’s page works better.

http://web.archive.org/web/20030714115611/...ed/liberty.html

He is also contradicted by the known facts

- The Israeli fighters didn’t use ordinance like to have been able to sink the Liberty

- The Israeli MTB’s didn’t fire on the Liberty till they had signaled the American ship and it fired on them, though presumably at 2000 yards the Liberty was already in torpedo range.

- The Israeli MTB’s offered assistance to the Liberty minutes after the torpedo attack.

- Though they could easily have sunk the ship they didn’t

Does this guy really exist? Was he really in a position to have heard what he claimed or is he making it up like the supposed Israeli pilot. I could find any reference to the guy other than the above statement. Why would the NSA be sharing this with USAF intelligence?

[Douglas Caddy]

You've done a fine job as moderator, as usual, Evan. Thanks.

It seems to me the matter to dispense with initially is whether anyone on the forum wishes to argue that the attack on the USS Liberty was an accident.

If so, that should be discussed.

If not, I suggest we move to speculation about motive...

I also have a personal theory about great courage that has yet to be acknowledged which relates to the Liberty incident. I'll roll it out when we come to discuss possible motives for a deliberate attack.

If there is to be a detailed debate about what happened and whether the Israeli attack could have been an accidental mistake, perhaps people with first hand recollections of the event (notably USS Liberty survivors) could be asked to participate?

Why did Israel attack USS Liberty?

By Raffi Berg

BBC News

June 8, 2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6690425.stm

For former US seaman Gary Brummett, the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Middle East war has stirred painful memories.

As a 21-year-old third class petty officer, Mr Brummett was serving on board the USS Liberty off the coast of Egypt on 8 June, when, without warning, the vessel came under fire, first from fighter planes, then torpedo boats.

The attack, which lasted at least 40 minutes, resulted in the deaths of 34 of Mr Brummett's fellow crewmen, at least 170 injured and catastrophic damage to the ship.

Alarmingly, the assault had been carried out not by enemy forces, but by the US' closest regional ally, Israel.

Israel insists it mistook the Liberty for a hostile Egyptian ship, the El Quseir, and numerous US and Israeli inquiries have concluded the attack was accidental.

But for Mr Brummett and a growing body of conspiracy theorists, the authorities are guilty of a cover-up.

"I have more trouble with it today than when it happened because I know more of the facts about what was going on," said Mr Brummett.

"There's been an egregious wrong done here, there's been an extreme number of lies told to the American people and the American people do not know the truth about what happened."

'Sitting duck'

The attack on the Liberty - the gravest incident in the history of US-Israeli relations - has been a source of controversy for the past four decades.

Claim and counter-claim as to what happened have been fought out in every corner of the media, with the advent of the internet helping to reinvigorate the debate.

Israel's supporters say the incident is merely being used as a tool by critics to malign the Jewish state, while accusers say the attack was a war crime which has never come to light.

According to Israel, the incident was a tragic case of friendly fire occurring in the fog of war.

It says it believed the ship had been bombarding Israeli forces fighting in the Sinai, and that its pilots did not see any US flags (survivors say there were three) on the vessel before they opened fire.

Sceptics however claim the attack was premeditated and that the truth has been suppressed. The assertion of a cover-up was lent weight by a 2003 independent commission of inquiry which reported that the attack on the Liberty "remains the only serious naval incident that has never been thoroughly investigated by Congress".

Among the most popular theories as to why Israel would take such drastic action against its superpower ally is that the Liberty, a $40m state-of-the-art surveillance ship, was eavesdropping on an Israeli massacre of Egyptian prisoners of war.

Israel strongly denies its troops executed Egyptian POWs, saying those who died in an incident at that time were 250 armed Palestinian fighters killed in action.

Another is that the ship had learnt of secret Israeli plans to invade Syria's Golan Heights two days later and had to be destroyed.

'US collusion' theory

Perhaps the most sinister motive is that put forward by journalist Peter Hounam in his 2003 book "Operation Cyanide". The attack on the Liberty was pre-planned, perhaps from at least a year beforehand

Mr Hounam claims secret elements within the US and Israeli governments colluded to bomb the ship and blame the attack on Egypt and their superpower ally, the Soviet Union, triggering massive retaliation which would ensure Israeli victory.

"The attack on the Liberty was pre-planned, perhaps from at least a year beforehand," Mr Hounam says.

"The Liberty was sent into a very dangerous situation, where it was, in my view, placed in a position to be attacked."

Mr Hounam says the intention was to sink the ship and kill everyone on board, but as the Liberty remained afloat the plan was aborted and has been hushed up ever since.

'Presidential order'

Successive US and Israeli inquiries, and the declassification of thousands of pieces of information, have done little to dampen suspicions.

One of the most powerful claims of a cover-up has come from retired US Navy lawyer Capt Ward Boston, counsel to the Navy Court of Inquiry into the incident conducted just days after the event.

Capt Boston says the court's original findings, which he signed, were changed afterwards by government lawyers.

He also claims the president of the court, Rear Adm Isaac Kidd, told him he was ordered by US President Lyndon Johnson and Defence Secretary Robert McNamara to conclude the attack was a case of mistaken identity.

However, Capt Boston's version of events - and the notion that what happened was anything more than a tragic accident - are disputed by numerous academics and authors who have investigated the incident.

"It was a series of blunders by both the United States and Israel that resulted in a terrible tragedy and nothing more," says Jay Cristol, a federal judge and author of the book The Liberty Incident.

"All the official reports came to the same conclusion.

"Unfortunately there are a number of people who are on the other side of the Arab-Israeli conflict who think this is a way to attack the otherwise very strong relationship between the US and Israel, and they keep stirring the pot.

'No evidence'

It is a view with which historian Michael B Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem academic research institute, concurs.

"Many thousands of documents related to the Liberty have been declassified and in none of these documents will you find a scintilla of evidence to suggest any of these conspiracy theories are true," he says.

"The Golan one is the easiest to disprove because of where the Liberty was, not off the coast of Israel, but Egypt. Its listening devices weren't that powerful that they could listen in on communications in Tel Aviv.

"Moreover the Israelis were very upfront in telling the US that they planned to capture the Golan Heights and the Americans agreed to it.

"Regarding a massacre of Egyptian POWs, there's no evidence of that. And why would the Israelis try to cover up one atrocity by committing another?

He says the attack has remained a source of controversy because "it has all the ingredients of a good spy scandal. It involves espionage and it involves the Israelis, who are forever a focus of conspiracy theories.

"If I could prove the Liberty was attacked in a premeditated fashion, I would write it - it would be a great historical scoop - but the truth is far more mundane."

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/midd...ast/6690425.stm

Published: 2007/06/08 11:19:19 GMT

[Mark Stapleton]

You've done a fine job as moderator, as usual, Evan. Thanks.

It seems to me the matter to dispense with initially is whether anyone on the forum wishes to argue that the attack on the USS Liberty was an accident.

If so, that should be discussed.

If not, I suggest we move to speculation about motive...

I also have a personal theory about great courage that has yet to be acknowledged which relates to the Liberty incident. I'll roll it out when we come to discuss possible motives for a deliberate attack.

If there is to be a detailed debate about what happened and whether the Israeli attack could have been an accidental mistake, perhaps people with first hand recollections of the event (notably USS Liberty survivors) could be asked to participate?

Why did Israel attack USS Liberty?

By Raffi Berg

BBC News

June 8, 2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6690425.stm

For former US seaman Gary Brummett, the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Middle East war has stirred painful memories.

As a 21-year-old third class petty officer, Mr Brummett was serving on board the USS Liberty off the coast of Egypt on 8 June, when, without warning, the vessel came under fire, first from fighter planes, then torpedo boats.

The attack, which lasted at least 40 minutes, resulted in the deaths of 34 of Mr Brummett's fellow crewmen, at least 170 injured and catastrophic damage to the ship.

Alarmingly, the assault had been carried out not by enemy forces, but by the US' closest regional ally, Israel.

Israel insists it mistook the Liberty for a hostile Egyptian ship, the El Quseir, and numerous US and Israeli inquiries have concluded the attack was accidental.

But for Mr Brummett and a growing body of conspiracy theorists, the authorities are guilty of a cover-up.

"I have more trouble with it today than when it happened because I know more of the facts about what was going on," said Mr Brummett.

"There's been an egregious wrong done here, there's been an extreme number of lies told to the American people and the American people do not know the truth about what happened."

'Sitting duck'

The attack on the Liberty - the gravest incident in the history of US-Israeli relations - has been a source of controversy for the past four decades.

Claim and counter-claim as to what happened have been fought out in every corner of the media, with the advent of the internet helping to reinvigorate the debate.

Israel's supporters say the incident is merely being used as a tool by critics to malign the Jewish state, while accusers say the attack was a war crime which has never come to light.

According to Israel, the incident was a tragic case of friendly fire occurring in the fog of war.

It says it believed the ship had been bombarding Israeli forces fighting in the Sinai, and that its pilots did not see any US flags (survivors say there were three) on the vessel before they opened fire.

Sceptics however claim the attack was premeditated and that the truth has been suppressed. The assertion of a cover-up was lent weight by a 2003 independent commission of inquiry which reported that the attack on the Liberty "remains the only serious naval incident that has never been thoroughly investigated by Congress".

Among the most popular theories as to why Israel would take such drastic action against its superpower ally is that the Liberty, a $40m state-of-the-art surveillance ship, was eavesdropping on an Israeli massacre of Egyptian prisoners of war.

Israel strongly denies its troops executed Egyptian POWs, saying those who died in an incident at that time were 250 armed Palestinian fighters killed in action.

Another is that the ship had learnt of secret Israeli plans to invade Syria's Golan Heights two days later and had to be destroyed.

'US collusion' theory

Perhaps the most sinister motive is that put forward by journalist Peter Hounam in his 2003 book "Operation Cyanide". The attack on the Liberty was pre-planned, perhaps from at least a year beforehand

Mr Hounam claims secret elements within the US and Israeli governments colluded to bomb the ship and blame the attack on Egypt and their superpower ally, the Soviet Union, triggering massive retaliation which would ensure Israeli victory.

"The attack on the Liberty was pre-planned, perhaps from at least a year beforehand," Mr Hounam says.

"The Liberty was sent into a very dangerous situation, where it was, in my view, placed in a position to be attacked."

Mr Hounam says the intention was to sink the ship and kill everyone on board, but as the Liberty remained afloat the plan was aborted and has been hushed up ever since.

'Presidential order'

Successive US and Israeli inquiries, and the declassification of thousands of pieces of information, have done little to dampen suspicions.

One of the most powerful claims of a cover-up has come from retired US Navy lawyer Capt Ward Boston, counsel to the Navy Court of Inquiry into the incident conducted just days after the event.

Capt Boston says the court's original findings, which he signed, were changed afterwards by government lawyers.

He also claims the president of the court, Rear Adm Isaac Kidd, told him he was ordered by US President Lyndon Johnson and Defence Secretary Robert McNamara to conclude the attack was a case of mistaken identity.

However, Capt Boston's version of events - and the notion that what happened was anything more than a tragic accident - are disputed by numerous academics and authors who have investigated the incident.

"It was a series of blunders by both the United States and Israel that resulted in a terrible tragedy and nothing more," says Jay Cristol, a federal judge and author of the book The Liberty Incident.

"All the official reports came to the same conclusion.

"Unfortunately there are a number of people who are on the other side of the Arab-Israeli conflict who think this is a way to attack the otherwise very strong relationship between the US and Israel, and they keep stirring the pot.

'No evidence'

It is a view with which historian Michael B Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem academic research institute, concurs.

"Many thousands of documents related to the Liberty have been declassified and in none of these documents will you find a scintilla of evidence to suggest any of these conspiracy theories are true," he says.

"The Golan one is the easiest to disprove because of where the Liberty was, not off the coast of Israel, but Egypt. Its listening devices weren't that powerful that they could listen in on communications in Tel Aviv.

"Moreover the Israelis were very upfront in telling the US that they planned to capture the Golan Heights and the Americans agreed to it.

"Regarding a massacre of Egyptian POWs, there's no evidence of that. And why would the Israelis try to cover up one atrocity by committing another?

He says the attack has remained a source of controversy because "it has all the ingredients of a good spy scandal. It involves espionage and it involves the Israelis, who are forever a focus of conspiracy theories.

"If I could prove the Liberty was attacked in a premeditated fashion, I would write it - it would be a great historical scoop - but the truth is far more mundane."

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/midd...ast/6690425.stm

Published: 2007/06/08 11:19:19 GMT

That's one point of view but I think the jury is still out. I still tend to think it was deliberate as the Israeli's seem to have positively identified the vessel prior to the attack. I also believe LBJ put pressure on senior officers not to contradict the Government's line that the attack was a tragic mistake.

This thread has also been useful insofar as the question of James Jesus Angleton's loyalties is concerned. The suspicion that JJA's loyalties lay primarily with the state of Israel has been further strengthened by links posted by Len Colby. Good work Len.

[Sid Walker]

Why did Israel attack USS Liberty?

By Raffi Berg

BBC News

June 8, 2007

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6690425.stm

Nice of the BBC to assign an unbiased correspondent to report on the USS Liberty anniversary - but surely it would be cheaper and easier for the Beeb to subcontract the entire article to Haaretz or the Jerusalem Post?

Having said that, the reference to Peter Hounam's book on the USS Liberty is very useful. I wasn't aware of it before.

Edited June 9, 2007 by Sid Walker

[Evan Burton]

Thanks Doug. I had completely forgotten that it was the anniversary of the incident.

I'm still not convinced that coverups of massacres or intention to move into the Golan Heights are viable reasons. I can certainly understand mistaken identity - up to a point.

If it was a deliberate act, I'm sure the pro-Israeli lobby in the US will ensure that we don't know the real reasons for the incident for a long time.

[Len Colby]

This thread has also been useful insofar as the question of James Jesus Angleton's loyalties is concerned. The suspicion that JJA's loyalties lay primarily with the state of Israel has been further strengthened by links posted by Len Colby.

Nice try Mark but unsupported claims by anyone, let alone people with "axes to grind" proves nothing.