May 14: Attack Minus Twenty-Five Days
Egyptian Field Marshal Abd al-Hakim Amer (sometimes spelled “Amr”) ordered Egyptian troops into the Sinai and put the Egyptian armed forces on full alert.8
Egyptian troops moved ostentatiously through Cairo on May 14, on their way toward the Sinai, and at least one armored division crossed the Suez Canal on the fifteenth. On May 14, Under Secretary of the United Nations Ralph Bunche met with Israel’s UN representative, Gideon Raphael, who stated that he “wished to emphasize that there had been no concentration of Israeli troops on the Syrian border.” He added that there was “no reason for anyone to be concerned about military action by Israel as long as the other side took none.”9
May 16: Attack Minus Twenty-Three Days
Egyptian general Muhammad Fawzi sent a letter to Indian major general Rikhye, the Commander of the UN Emergency Force (UNEF), and asked for the removal of the UN force that had been deployed in the Gaza Strip following the Sinai campaign. The letter was passed to U Thant, secretary-general of the United Nations, who asked for clarification.
May 17: Attack Minus Twenty-Two Days
Egyptian forces reached El Sabha and El Amr, the UNEF posts near the Sinai-Israel border. U Thant informed the Egyptian representative to the United Nations, Muhammad Awad al-Kony, in writing, that there were no recent indications of Israeli troop movements or concentrations that should give Egypt cause for concern.10
May 18: Attack Minus Twenty-One Days
At noon, Egypt advised the secretary-general of the United Nations that it had decided to “terminate the presence of United Nations Emergency Force from the territory of the UAR and the Gaza Strip.”11
May 19: Attack Minus Twenty Days
Israel’s Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, informed the Soviet Ambassador that “there will be no war if the Egyptians do not attack and do not interfere with Israel’s right of navigation” [through the Strait of Tiran].12 U Thant cabled Cairo that UNEF would be withdrawn. Israel was advised of the withdrawal order and began a large-scale mobilization of its massive reserve forces.13 On the same day, the UNEF contingent of Yugoslav troops withdrew from Sharm al-Shaykh, and Egyptian forces began to move in.14
May 20: Attack Minus Nineteen Days
The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff issued orders restricting the movements of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, positioning the fleet more than three hundred miles from the potential combat zone.15 The Syrian defense minister, Hafez Assad, spoke of a disciplinary blow to Israel.
May 21: Attack Minus Eighteen Days
In the morning President Nasser addressed Egyptian air force officers at the Bir Gafgafa air base in the Sinai. He told them he was closing the Strait of Tiran in the Gulf of Aqaba. (Al Arham carried this story on page 1 of its May 22 edition.) A key element of the 1957 agreement for Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai, brokered by the U.S. government and the secretary-general of the United Nations, secured Israel’s freedom of navigation to and from its only southern port, Eilat. Little was put in writing. There was a private written memorandum between UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold and President Nasser that memorialized some of the agreements and understandings, but it did not include all the agreements.16 Sensitive to its ability to trade by sea with African and Southeast and Far East Asian countries without having to circumnavigate the whole African continent, Israel stood firm during the negotiations on the Strait of Tiran issue, and it was made clear to President Nasser that Israel considered a future closing of the Strait as a casus belli. Abba Eban had made public reference to that only two days before Nasser closed the strait.
On the same day, Richard Nolte, the U.S. ambassador-designate to Egypt, who had replaced Ambassador Lucius Battle but had not yet presented his credentials in Cairo, received a telegram drafted by Eugene Rostow, Under Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, relaying a message from President Lyndon Johnson to President Nasser. In view of Nasser’s speech at Bir Gafgafa, Ambassador Nolte suggested delaying the delivery of the message. He was told to deliver it at once, and he delivered it that morning. Johnson’s message was most conciliatory and suggested that Vice President Hubert Humphrey would be sent to the Middle East to talk to Arab and Israeli leaders after the tension subsided. President Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk were still optimistic that the crisis could be resolved by diplomacy. U.S. intelligence analysis indicated that Egypt was not ready for a war, and Israel had offered assurances that there would be no war if its navigation rights were not disturbed. On this same day the Soviet government gave notice required under the Montreaux Convention that ten warships would transit from the Black Sea through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean.17
May 23: Attack Minus Sixteen Days
The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff to move the Liberty to a position off Port Said, Egypt.18 It was standard operating procedure for NSA-controlled intelligence-gathering ships like the Liberty to sail off the coasts of various nations listening to and recording various types of signal emissions and charting the locations of their sources. They also listened for anything else that might be of political or military value in the Cold War, such as recording commercial radio broadcasts that would be passed to the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS).19 Frank Raven, a civilian employee of NSA, protested sending the Liberty into an area where war might break out at any time. He was overruled, and the Liberty was given her fateful orders.20
May 24: Attack Minus Fifteen Days
At 0530Z the Liberty departed Abidjan21 on the Ivory Coast on orders to traverse at her best speed the three thousand nautical miles to Rota, Spain, just outside the entrance to the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar. The Cairo newspapers reported that Egypt had mined the Strait of Tiran.
May 25: Attack Minus Fourteen Days
U.S. diplomatic dependents began leaving Israel and Egypt. Egyptian minister of war Shams Badran flew to Moscow and conferred with Premier Aleksei Kosygin, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, and the newly appointed minister of defense, Marshal Andrei Grechko. There is no record that Party Secretary Leonid Brezhnev was consulted. The Soviets sent a mixed message of caution and support to Nasser.
May 26: Attack Minus Thirteen Days
Egypt assailed the United States as the number-one protector of Israel. Foreign Minister Abba Eban of Israel arrived in Washington after visiting President Charles de Gaulle in Paris and Prime Minister Harold Wilson in London. He was not publicly invited to the White House but was brought in through a side door in the evening and taken to President Johnson’s living quarters. He met there with the president, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Eugene V. Rostow, the third-ranking man in the State Department.22 Johnson was seeking more time and looking for means to solve the crisis without Israel responding militarily. Eban was looking to impress upon the United States the seriousness of the crisis and to judge what diplomatic support there would be should Israel end up taking military action. When the meeting ended, Johnson, McNamara, and Rostow all walked Eban to the elevator. After Eban got in the elevator and the elevator door closed Rostow said to Johnson, “Do you think they’ll go?” Johnson said, “They’ll go.”23
May 27: Attack Minus Twelve Days
While the Israeli cabinet was meeting, Abba Eban arrived at Lod Airport from Washington and rushed to Jerusalem to report on his meetings with De Gaulle, Wilson, and Johnson. There was much discussion about attacking at once.24 The cabinet met past midnight and again the next day. It was decided to allow up to two or three more weeks for the United States to find a solution.
On the same day Vice Adm. William I. Martin, commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet, was instructed by Adm. John S. McCain Jr., Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR), not to operate aircraft within one hundred nautical miles of the coast of Egypt.25
May 28: Attack Minus Eleven Days
Syria and Ir
aq signed a military agreement for cooperation of their armies against Israel.26
May 29: Attack Minus Ten Days
President Nasser told the Egyptian National Assembly, “We are now ready to confront Israel,” and, in a press conference that same day, he said he was ready to restore the situation to what it had been before 1948—before the creation of Israel.
May 30: Attack Minus Nine Days
In a move that Western governments did not expect, King Hussein Ibn Talal of Jordan flew to Cairo and signed a military pact with Egypt that placed the Jordanian armed forces under Egyptian command. Israeli officials felt the ring around them was closed: Egypt to the south, Syria and Iraq to the north, and now Jordan to the east.
June 1: Attack Minus Seven Days
The Liberty arrived at the U.S. naval base at Rota, Spain.27 Additional linguists, trained in Arabic and Russian, reported on board.28 There were no Hebrew linguists assigned to the ship.29
The Israeli cabinet met and formed a national unity government. Moshe Dayan was appointed minister of defense, a portfolio that previously had been held by Prime Minister Levy Eshkol. “Minister without portfolio” positions were given to Menachem Begin of the Herut Party and Joseph Sappir of the Liberal Party.
Retired U.S. ambassador Charles Yost arrived in Egypt. Ambassador Yost had been a colleague of Egyptian foreign minister Mahmoud Riad when the latter served as ambassador at both the United Nations and Damascus. The Yost mission was to obtain some access to President Nasser through Foreign Minister Riad. President Nasser had scheduled a June 5, 1967, date for Ambassador-designate Nolte to present his credentials. In the interim the United States did not have an accredited ambassador in Cairo.30 Nasser also would not receive or speak to a deputy chief of mission, so the United States was out of direct contact with the person calling the shots in Egypt. There was an Egyptian ambassador in the United States, but he did not seem to enjoy access to President Nasser.
June 2: Attack Minus Six Days
Ambassador Yost urgently contacted Egyptian foreign minister Mahmoud Riad and told him that the U.S. government was ready to receive Vice President Zakaria Muhieddin of Egypt in Washington. Riad telephoned Nasser, and a June 7 meeting was set.
The Liberty departed Rota for the eastern Mediterranean, bound for Point Alpha, a designated point for the start of her patrol pattern located at 31-27.2 north and 34-00 east, about thirteen nautical miles off the coast of Egyptian-controlled Sinai and about thirty-eight nautical miles from the coast of Israel.31 On that day, in North Vietnam, U.S. Air Force F-105D fighter-bombers accidentally attacked the Soviet merchant ship Turkestan in Cam Pha harbor.
June 3: Attack Minus Five Days
Prime Minister Eshkol and his advisers heard from Gen. Meir Amit (Ret.), the head of Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency. He had just returned to Israel from Washington and reported that U.S. efforts to open the Strait of Tiran were not making any progress and that the U.S. government apparently was resigned to Israeli military action against Egypt. Eshkol and his advisers decided to put the issue before the full cabinet on the following day.
June 4: Attack Minus Four Days
Iraq signed a pact in Cairo placing Iraqi troops under Egyptian command. The Israeli cabinet met and voted to go to war.
June 5: Attack Minus Three Days
In the early morning hours, the Israel Air Force launched nearly all of its combat aircraft.32 At 0745, Israeli aircraft simultaneously struck all Egyptian air bases, catching almost the entire Egyptian air force on the ground. In particular, the Israelis were concerned about concentrations of Soviet-built Tu-16 Badger bombers, which had the capability of bombing population centers in Israel. The bombers were totally wiped out.
Shortly after the start of the war, at 1240 local time (0640 Washington time, eastern daylight time [EDT]), the first hotline message was sent from Premier Kosygin to President Johnson asking that the United States cooperate with the Soviet Union in halting the conflict. The UN Security Council assembled in New York. The Israelis also sent a back-channel message to King Hussein of Jordan, requesting him to stay out of the war.33 Hussein disregarded the message, the Jordanians attacked Israel on the central front, and the Israelis reacted accordingly.
An Israeli destroyer and several motor torpedo boats engaged Egyptian Osa missile boats off Port Said. The Osa missile boats retreated to Port Said. No missiles were launched. The commanding officer of one of the Israeli motor torpedo boats was quite distressed that the destroyer commander allowed them to disengage and withdraw.34
June 6: Attack Minus Two Days
The Israelis destroyed more than 150 Egyptian tanks in the Sinai and captured the West Bank of the Jordan River and East Jerusalem from Jordan. President Nasser of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan announced that the United States and Great Britain had sent aircraft that had attacked Egypt.
President Nasser broke diplomatic relations with the United States and closed the Suez Canal. The UN Security Council in New York voted unanimously for a cease-fire. The only warring country to accept this resolution was Jordan.35 Israel, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq ignored this call and persisted in the fighting.36
Six Israeli underwater demolition team swimmers were captured in the port of Alexandria.37
Syrian troops attacked and shelled a number of northern Israel border settlements. (The shelling continued throughout the war but the attacks were driven off.)
June 7: Attack Minus One Day
At one minute after midnight Greenwich mean time (GMT) (0201 Sinai time, 2001 on June 6, Washington time) the Liberty “chopped”—that is, the operational control of the ship was transferred from Admiral McCain, Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, to Vice Admiral Martin, commander of the Sixth Fleet.38 This was accomplished by normal message procedure.39
Orders for ships in the Sixth Fleet normally came from the commander of the Sixth Fleet, not from the very top of the chain of command of the U.S. military. But the Liberty was not a normal warship, and though chopped to the Sixth Fleet, she was operating independently on orders from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This transfer merely added one more layer to her chain-of-command structure.
The U.S. naval communications system is structured so that an order to a warship travels down through the chain of command. The purpose of this system is to keep everyone informed. When the initial message is sent, the ultimate recipient of the message is usually sent a copy of the message as an information addressee; thus the ship being ordered is usually expecting the message containing the order from the senior commander before it is actually received through the chain of command. From June 7 forward, orders for the Liberty from the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington had to be sent first to the headquarters of Gen. Lyman D. Lemnitzer in Stuttgart, Germany (USCINCEUR), whence they were transmitted to the headquarters of Admiral McCain in London (CINCUSNAVEUR). From there they were transmitted to Admiral Martin on board the cruiser Little Rock (CLG 4), flagship of COMSIXTHFLT, whence they were transmitted to the Liberty.
On this same day, as mentioned previously, Admiral Martin warned a Soviet warship shadowing his ships to stay out of the vicinity of Sixth Fleet operations.
During the midafternoon in New York, the UN Security Council again voted unanimously for a cease-fire, to take effect at 1600 Washington time (EDT), which was 2200 Sinai time. Egypt rejected this resolution.40
At 1830 Washington time, 2230 London time (GMT), and already 0030 on June 8 off the coast of the Sinai, the Joint Chiefs of Staff began sending a number of orders directing the Liberty to remain clear of the combat zone. The Liberty was still about 120 nautical miles away from the Sinai coast when the first “stand off” message was sent. A total of five stand-off messages were sent from or through various commands, but as a result of mistakes, faulty protocols, and other problems with the U.S. military worldwide communications system, the flurry of messages that directed the Liberty to stand off were not received by the Liberty prior to the attack.41
The second message directing the Liberty to stand off one hundred miles was generated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and transmitted top secret/immediate. At this time, the Liberty was just slightly inside the hundred-mile limit.42
Plotting Map: The projected track of the Liberty
Note: This chart is not constructed with the precision of current navigation standards. The data used are from the Liberty deck logs. This map fairly demonstrates Liberty’s approach to Point Alpha.
Mediterranean Sea Map: The U.S. 6th Fleet and British warship deployment
Note: There were numerous Russian and Egyptian ships in the area whose routes and positions were not known. Though the Syrians had some ships in the area, it is believed that they did not leave port. Deployment of the Israeli vessels is not shown.
June 8, 0556: Attack Minus Eight Hours
At about 0558 Sinai time an Israeli air force reconnaissance aircraft with a naval observer on board spotted the Liberty, at a position about seventy miles west of Gaza. Ens. John D. Scott, USNR, testified about the aircraft:
A.Yes sir. On the morning of the 8th, I had the 4 to 8 officer of the deck watch on the bridge. It was a routine watch. The only thing out of the ordinary was we had one reconnaissance plane that flew by us and made a few circles off our port beam. He circled around about three or four times, then took off.
Q.About what time?
A.About 0515, I was not able to identify the aircraft. We looked at it with binoculars. Due to the distance we could not see any markings or insignia of any sort on it.
President: That was local time, Mr. Scott.
A.Yes sir. The plane circled around several times then took off in a true direction towards Tel Aviv. About 30 minutes later I got a call from coordination, sir, and Chief CT [Communications Technician] Smith was on the phone; wanted to know if I had an air contact that was fairly close in the last half hour. I told him I did and he wanted to know which direction it went after it left the vicinity of the ship. I told him, “Tel Aviv.” He said, “Fine, that’s all I want to know.” I did manage to take four pictures of the aircraft with the camera on the bridge.43
The Liberty Incident Revealed Page 3