The Liberty Incident Revealed Read online

  Dozens of theories speculate on what exactly happened that day. Both the United States and Israel classified much of the data concerning the incident for more than ten years, which only fueled the fires of the intrigue, conspiracy, and cover-up theories. However, significant portions of most of the official investigations have now been declassified or are readily obtainable.

  To evaluate and understand what happened on that day in June 1967, it is necessary to understand the state of world affairs at that time. The USS Liberty operated during the height of the Cold War. The Soviet Union had been publicly humiliated five years earlier during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when it had backed down in the face of superior U.S. nuclear and naval power. This embarrassment prompted Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (in office 1953–64) to accelerate the construction of a “blue water” navy, a fleet of major warships that could project Soviet power on the high seas.

  Soviet and U.S. warships began confronting each other on the high seas, particularly in the Mediterranean. Typically the Soviets would trail U.S. ships and intentionally interfere with their operations, in part to test American response. A Soviet ship, such as a destroyer, would steer a collision course with a U.S. destroyer; the two captains would wait as long as they dared to see who “chickened out” and changed course first to avoid collision. Incidents occurred where neither side gave way and ships “bumped,” inflicting and suffering varying degrees of damage. Significantly, the Soviets were not always the initiators of these dangerous games. Eventually, the progressive escalation of such incidents led to the Incidents at Sea Agreement signed by the U.S. Navy and the Soviet Navy on May 25, 1972.5

  In June 1967, however, the “incidents at sea” still occurred with regularity. For instance, the morning of June 7, 1967, one day prior to the Liberty attack, began with one such incident. Vice Adm. William I. Martin, the commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet (COMSIXTHFLT) in the Mediterranean, operating about five hundred miles from the Sinai war zone, sent the following message to the Soviet guided missile frigate DLG 383,6 which was shadowing the U.S. task group centered on the aircraft carrier America:

  Your actions for the past five days have interfered with our operations. By positioning your ship in the midst of our formation and shadowing our every move you are denying us the freedom of maneuver on the high seas that has been traditionally recognized by seafaring nations for centuries.

  In a few minutes the task force will commence maneuvering at high speeds and various courses. Your present position will be dangerous to your ship, as well as the ships of this force.

  I request you clear our formation without delay and discontinue your interference and unsafe practices.

  Martin sent the message both by flashing light and voice radio in English and Russian. The Soviets did not acknowledge receipt of the message.7

  One of the lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis brought about the setting up by the United States and the Soviet Union of a teletype hotline between Washington and Moscow under a memorandum of understanding signed on June 20, 1963. Both parties realized that they had come closer than either had intended to a nuclear exchange. The hotline provided direct and nearly immediate, or “real time,” communication, with the hope that a communication failure would not cause nuclear war. After its installation, however, the hotline was not used except for the formal exchange of New Year’s greetings each year. This nonusage changed dramatically following the start of the 1967 Six Day War.

  In June 1967, thousands of miles east of and away from the Sinai, a major armed conflict raged in Vietnam. By June 1967, some four hundred thousand American troops were already deployed in South Vietnam, and their number, as well as the number of casualties, increased almost daily. The situation in Vietnam, badly managed and poorly understood, was beginning to generate significant public discontent within the United States. In simplistic terms, the United States backed the “anticommunist” forces in South Vietnam, while the Soviets backed the “communists” in North Vietnam, all part of a more comprehensive Southeast Asian or, indeed, global competition. A serious potential existed that a specific confrontation would escalate from a “cold war” to a shooting war between U.S. and Soviet forces.

  In fact, on June 2, 1967, U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers accidentally attacked the Turkestan, a Soviet merchant ship in Cam Pha harbor in North Vietnam. According to Phil G. Goulding, then Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, the pilots of the attacking planes reported the whole story to their commander when they returned to their base in Thailand. They claimed that while strafing a battery of antiaircraft guns, another battery began firing at them. In an effort to save themselves and each other, they had opened fire with everything they had to suppress the antiaircraft fire long enough to get away. The tactic had worked, but the Turkestan was accidentally in the way. A Soviet crew member was killed and several others were wounded. The U.S. pilots’ commander—a colonel who had been on many missions with his pilots and whose life had been saved twice by one of the pilots involved—“stuck by his men,” destroyed the gun camera film, and covered up the incident.8 With no verifiable report of the attack, the U.S. government formally denied the Soviet charge that American planes had strafed a Soviet ship. When the facts ultimately became known to the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. government, substantially embarrassed, retracted its denial of the attack but claimed that the attack had been an accident. Pravda quoted the master of the Soviet freighter Turkestan, Capt. Viktor Sokolov, as saying, “We were bearing all the markings of the Soviet government. A Soviet flag was flying from the stern mast. The stack was painted with a red stripe and a hammer and sickle. The Turkestan was about 400 meters from shore. The visibility was excellent. There is no possibility of talking about an accidental attack. The American pilots aimed their guns at the central superstructure where the crewmen live and work.”9

  In Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, a mob spat on American diplomat John Guthrie and his wife, and demonstrators marched outside an American exhibit there. Public meetings throughout the Soviet Union denounced the “pirate actions of the U.S. Military.”10 Tass, the official Soviet news agency, charged a U.S. cover-up of this “provocation against the Soviet Union.”11

  The Turkestan and the Liberty incidents occurred only days apart during a sequence of very sensitive international events, among them the outbreak of the Six Day War and the first detonation of a hydrogen bomb by China on June 17, 1967.12 The Turkestan incident caused great concern at the U.S. State Department, because Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin was about to arrive in the United States as the head of a delegation to speak at the United Nations General Assembly session on the Middle East. The U.S. government feared that Kosygin would attack the United States before the United Nations, resulting in a further deterioration of relations at a time when the United States hoped for a summit between Kosygin and President Lyndon Johnson to discuss nuclear de-escalation.13

  Focusing on the Cold War, the War on Poverty, and the Vietnam War, President Johnson anxiously hoped to avoid a conflagration in the highly sensitive Middle Eastern region, where U.S.-Soviet competition was at a high. Nevertheless, a rapidly deteriorating Middle Eastern situation became a shooting war on June 5, 1967.14 Early that morning, Israel sent off its entire air force in a surprise strike. The Israel Air Force completely destroyed the Egyptian air force in less than eighty minutes. By day’s end, Israel’s two hundred or so first-line combat aircraft had effectively eliminated the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian air forces. Flying their strikes, returning to base, rearming, and taking off to strike again with an on-ground turnaround time of six to eight minutes, Israeli aircraft achieved almost a thousand strikes on the first day. The Arab air forces, in many instances, could not turn an aircraft around on the same day.15 For this reason, many Arab military leaders charged that the United States and Britain supplied attacking aircraft to the Israel Air Force. They were very vocal with their charges, even after they became aware that the United States and Britain ha
d not been involved. In fact, the Israelis substantially embarrassed President Nasser and King Hussein by recording them fabricating a false press release on the subject.16

  In addition to an understanding of the international political-military climate as it existed in 1967, some knowledge of the structure of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), especially the relationship between its navy and the air force, is required in order to properly evaluate the Liberty incident. The IDF came into being officially with the establishment of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948.17 The air force initially looked to Great Britain for inspiration, and one of its important commanders, Gen. Ezer Weizman, had started as a British Royal Air Force–trained pilot.18 Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, came to the United States and recruited an American U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Lt. Cdr. Paul Shulman, as the first chief of the Israel Navy.

  From the Arab-Israeli War of 1948–49, known in Israel as the War of Independence, the Israel Air Force had taken control of the air and kept it. By 1967, Israel’s military buildup emphasized the air force (and the armored units), on the basis of lessons from the 1956 war (the Suez campaign) in the Sinai. The Israel Navy did not have any impressive accomplishments in the 1948–49 war. The only reported naval air action during that war involved two Israeli pilots, in a Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft, who attacked an Egyptian ship. The attack failed, and the plane crashed during the attack, killing both fliers; the Egyptian ship remained unharmed.

  During the 1956 Suez campaign, on October 31 the Egyptian destroyer Ibrahim al-Awwal shelled the port city of Haifa.19 To the Egyptians’ surprise, the French destroyer Kersaint, which happened to be in the Haifa harbor at the time, returned fire.20 The Ibrahim al-Awwal withdrew. Shortly thereafter, two Israel Air Force Ouragan jet aircraft strafed the Egyptian destroyer. She was then confronted by an Israel destroyer flotilla consisting of two old British-built Z-class destroyers, the Eilat and the Jaffa. The Israel destroyers signaled by flashing light the code “A-A,” which in international maritime code means “What ship?” or “Identify yourself!”21 Lt. (jg) Moshe Oren, gunnery officer on the destroyer Jaffa, observed the Egyptian ship signal back “A-A.”22 Thereupon the Israeli destroyers opened fire on the Egyptian ship and disabled it. The damaged ship was then boarded and captured.23 After extensive repair she became the third destroyer in the Israel Navy, renamed the Haifa.

  Moshe Oren’s personal and the Israelis’ general experience with the Egyptian destroyer and its signaling “A-A” in 1956 would prove fatal eleven years later with the Liberty. For years, the Israel Air Force and the Israel Navy disagreed over the capture of the Ibrahim al-Awwal. The air force claimed that the Ouragan fighters’ strafing attack had precipitated the surrender of the ship, while the navy claimed that naval gunfire had disabled the destroyer’s rudder and made its capture possible.24 By 1967, the Israel Air Force was known as an elite, highly sophisticated, and advanced force in the fore-front of Israel’s defense lines, while the Israel Navy was, in the words of its then commander, Rear Adm. Shlomo Erell, “at its lowest ebb.”25

  When the war broke out, the Israel Air Force had seventy-six state-of-the-art Mirage IIICJ aircraft, plus Super-Mystère B-2s and Mystère IVs, as well as a cadre of well-trained pilots. The Israel Navy, on the other hand, possessed only three obsolete destroyers, nine motor torpedo boats (three of which were deployed in the Red Sea), some obsolete submarines, and some miscellaneous small craft.26 The navy was poised for a great leap forward into modern naval warfare, but that leap would be taken only in 1968, with the acquisition of modern missile boats.27

  High-strung competition between various arms of the military is not a phenomenon peculiar to Israel. The tension between Israel’s navy and air force in 1967 is evident from some of the conversation between Royal Flight leader and air control during the air attack on the Liberty. At 1409, about eleven minutes into the air attack and about three minutes before the chief air controller ordered Royal Flight to “leave her,” Royal Flight leader says to air control, “if you had a two plane formation with bombs, in ten minutes before the navy arrives, it will be a mitzvah (good or worthwhile deed). Otherwise the navy is on its way here.”28 Evidently, Royal Flight leader wanted the attack completed by the air force, suggesting prompt assignment of properly armed aircraft to the mission to allow its effective completion before the navy’s arrival. A few minutes later the navy’s motor torpedo boats (MTBs) arrived. The same Moshe Oren who participated in the capture of the Ibrahim al-Awwal commanded MTB Division 914.

  Aharon Yifrach, a twenty-year-old combat information center officer on the division commander’s MTB, probably best expressed the feelings of the Israeli MTB sailors.

  On the first night of the 1967 War, the Israel Navy inserted six naval commando teams [known in Israel as “frogmen”] into various Arab ports. The team sent into Latakia, Syria, was unable to complete its mission, as was the situation with all the other teams. The Navy became concerned about their safety and sent MTB Division 914 to help extract them. They were withdrawn but in the milling around, one MTB collided with another, making a hole in its bow about the size of a dinner plate. The boat was taken back to [the] Ashdod [port] where, in a short time, the hole was repaired as good as new. It was now the fourth day of the war. The Air Force had destroyed all the Arab air forces and controlled the skies. The armor had conquered the Sinai and were dipping their feet in the Suez Canal. The paratroopers had captured the entire West Bank, East Jerusalem and Israeli troops were praying at the Western Wall. And the Navy—we had made a hole in one of our own boats. We were anxious to get into the action.29

  Abraham Rabinovich, author of Boats of Cherbourg, confirmed Yifrach’s analysis: “Frustrated at the Navy’s inactivity while the Army was overrunning Sinai and the West Bank and the Air Force was scoring its spectacular victories, the Navy command had been hoping to find an enemy ship that would enable it to get in on the war.”30

  Thus, the scene for a tragedy was set. The Liberty, following orders issued on June 1, 1967,31 sailed toward an active war zone without knowledge that on June 7 the U.S. National Security Agency, through the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had ordered her withdrawn from harm’s way.32 What followed was the worst disaster in fifty years of U.S.-Israeli relations.

  Chapter 2

  THE TWO-MONTH CRISIS

  The spring of 1967 was a period of escalating crisis in the Middle East. For months there had been unrest along the Syrian-Israeli border with at least fourteen terrorist incursions over that border from Syria into Israel. Retaliation and counterretaliation escalated from rifle fire to tank and artillery duels. Israel made some strong statements about further retaliations against Syria, which added to the concern.1

  April 7: Attack on the Liberty Minus Sixty-Two Days

  As had been done previously in the dispute between Israel and Syria over the right of Israel to farm in the demilitarized zones of the Syrian-Israeli border, an Israeli farmer drove a tractor into the zone. The Syrians responded with shell fire, which the IDF returned, first with ground fire and then by air force strikes against Syrian gun positions. Shortly thereafter Syrian MiGs were spotted heading toward the demilitarized zone. The Israel Air Force countered, and by the end of the afternoon, in two separate aerial battles, six MiG fighters were shot down. Several MiGs went down close to Damascus, to the humiliation of the Syrians. No Israeli aircraft were lost.2

  May 2: Attack Minus Thirty-Six Days

  The USS Liberty departed her home port of Norfolk, Virginia, for a scheduled four-month African deployment.3

  May 13: Attack Minus Twenty-Six Days

  The Soviets told the Syrian government that Israel was concentrating ten or eleven brigades along its border in preparation of an attack.4 In fact, there were only about 125 Israeli troops in the area. The Soviets also gave this false information to the Egyptians. The Israelis invited the Soviets, through their military attaché in Tel Aviv, to visit the Israeli-Syrian border area and check the situation for themselv
es. All such invitations were declined. Even today some scholars wonder if the Soviets really believed the story of the Israeli military buildup or if they knew it was false.

  Why the Soviets passed this disinformation remains a mystery. The Egyptian chief of staff, Gen. Muhammad Fawzi, did not believe it. U.S. officials told the Egyptians that the report was untrue, and there were numerous means of independent verification, but the Egyptians seemed uninterested in verification. This might prove what some historians have suggested: that Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser himself did not believe the report and that he was playing a game of brinkmanship.5 The unfortunate result for Egypt and the region of his misjudging the location of the brink was that he stumbled over it and into an unexpected and unwanted war.

  In May 1967, President Nasser had a plateful of his own problems. In addition to major domestic troubles, his best troops were engaged in a protracted civil war in faraway Yemen. Egyptian tanks were stationed in Baghdad to control the local population while the Iraqi military was in the field fighting the Kurds.6 As part of a war of words and subversion between “progressive” or revolutionary Arab countries, led by Egypt, and conservative or monarchical Arab countries, Jordan and Saudi Arabia attacked President Nasser every day in the Arab media, claiming that he was soft on fighting Israel and only contributed rhetoric to the struggle.7

  Regardless of who knew what and who believed what, the government of Egypt took the official position that there was a concentration of Israeli troops on or near the Syrian border and that Egypt was going to demonstrate its leadership of the Arab world and come to the rescue of its Syrian sister country.