Upon landing, the Israeli naval observer reported the ship sighting to Lt. Cdr. Uri Meretz, the Israel Naval Intelligence liaison officer assigned to debrief the returning aircrews at Lod Airport.44
From its beginning, the Israel Navy has not had any organic naval aviation and has always depended on the air force to provide it with aircraft. During the 1967 war, the Israel Air Force provided two naval reconnaissance flights a day, one at first light and one at sunset.45 On June 8, the early morning flight, a Nord 2501 flew south to near Port Said and then flew an arc to the north to near the coast of Syria. The Liberty was observed and identified by her bow marks. The naval observer on board the flight apparently also saw a freighter hull and identified it as a U.S. Navy supply-type ship. How he concluded that the ship was a U.S. vessel at this early morning point in time is not known.46 The flight engineer on the aircraft told Thames TV, “It was a grey colour and—uhm—no cannons on it and—uhm—not too big, not too small, like a cargo ship. There was no flag on that ship—that’s something I’m sure about. . . . What we could see was the letters that was written on that ship. and we gave this letter—letters—to the ground control.”47
The flight engineer said the plane got down to three thousand to five thousand feet in height and about a half mile “close to the ship [the Liberty].” This essentially corroborates the testimony of Ensign Scott.
In fact, when the Nord landed at about 0700 upon the completion of its patrol, the naval observer described the ship and its bow letters and number, GTR 5, to Lt. Cdr. Uri Meretz, who looked in Jane’s Fighting Ships and specifically identified the ship as the USS Liberty.48 He passed the information by telephone to the naval intelligence headquarters at Stella Maris in Haifa.49 Uri Meretz commented that the Liberty was similar in appearance to the Egyptian ship El-Quseir and cautioned naval intelligence in Haifa not to mix up the two ships. Approximately an hour later, at about 0800, his twenty-four-hour watch over, Meretz went off duty and was relieved by Lt. Cdr. Moshe Tabak.
The naval liaison officer to air force headquarters in the Kirya—the Kirya (“city”), the equivalent of the Pentagon, is the Tel Aviv neighborhood where the Ministry of Defense and IDF general headquarters are located—Lt. Cdr. Pinchas Pinchasy, also reported the presence of the U.S. ship to the naval command center, and as a result of these reports the Liberty was marked by a “wedge” on the navy’s plotting table and designated a “skunk,” or unknown. Admiral Erell observed the wedge and inquired about it. He ordered it changed from “skunk” to “neutral.”50
June 8, 0640: Attack Minus Seven Hours, Eighteen Minutes
The Liberty’s copy of the hundred-nautical-mile second stand-off message arrived at the U.S. naval communications station (NCS) in the Philippines as a result of misdirection and was rerouted.51
June 8, 0655: Attack Minus Seven Hours, Three Minutes
Commander in Chief, Naval Forces Europe, sent a wire note (the third stand-off message) to Commander Sixth Fleet directing the withdrawal of the Liberty to no closer than one hundred nautical miles from the combat zone.52
June 8, 0825: Attack Minus Five Hours, Thirty-Three Minutes
Commander in Chief, European Command, sent fourth stand-off message to Commander in Chief, Naval Forces Europe.
June 8, 0849: Attack Minus Five Hours, Nine Minutes
The Liberty arrived at Point Alpha and began patrol.
June 8, 1100: Attack Minus Two Hours, Fifty-Eight Minutes
Just before 1100 Sinai time, the Liberty wedge was ordered removed from the Israel Navy plotting table. In the words of the command duty officer, Avraham Lunz:
I got on—on—er—duty in the morning about 8 o’clock. The situation was very calm. I had some old information. One of them was about an AGI—intelligence gathering ship, American Type, in the southern part of the arena. The information was quite old, it was dated six hour this morning. Around 11 o’clock, checking the situation and knowing that no ship would stay on its place, and five hours old information would be quite old, we took off without knowing where it went. . . .
COMMENTARY: It was standard procedure to remove out of date information from the battle control board.53
From that moment on, the existence of the Liberty was no longer marked on the plotting table at the Israel Naval Command Center.
June 8, 1117: Attack Minus Two Hours, Forty-One Minutes
The Commander Sixth Fleet sent the fifth stand-off message to the Liberty ordering her to stand off one hundred nautical miles from the combat zone.54 The fifth stand-off message to the Liberty was transmitted from the Sixth Fleet flagship, Little Rock, to Naval Communications Station, Morocco. NCS Morocco sent it to the Army defense major relay communications station (DCS) in San Pablo, Spain. DCS Spain sent it to Army Defense Communications Station, Asmara. DCS Asmara sent it to Naval Communications Station, Greece. NCS Greece was apparently aware that the Liberty was not monitoring NCS Greece and sent the message back to DCS Asmara, which then passed the message to Naval Communications Station Asmara, where it was placed on fleet broadcast at 081525Z, approximately two and one-half hours after the attack.55
Chapter 3
WHY WAS THE LIBERTY IN HARM’S WAY?
On May 15, 1967, large numbers of Egyptian troops started crossing the Suez Canal and taking up positions in the Sinai Peninsula. Under the U.S.-brokered 1957 agreement concluding the British, French, and Israeli 1956 Suez campaign, the Sinai-Israel border was being monitored by the UN Emergency Force (UNEF), as a confidence-building force, on the Egyptian side of the Israel-Egypt border.1 There was continuous consultation between Israel and the United States on the crisis.2 The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv was in daily communication with the Israel foreign ministry and was aware of the Israeli side of the situation.3 In Cairo, Ambassador Richard Nolte had arrived at the U.S. embassy but had not yet presented his credentials; therefore the United States had no direct line of communication with President Nasser.4
It is useful to consider the intelligence situation in Washington in late May and early June 1967. There was wide-open exchange of information between Israel and the United States.5 President Johnson was being advised daily about the situation by Israel, and corroboration was available through the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, as well as through the CIA. But President Johnson did not know the details of the situation on the ground in Syria and in Egypt. The Egyptians had publicly announced the imminent withdrawal of UNEF and the entry of Egyptian forces into the Sinai. The U.S. intelligence community had little or no real-time access to events in the Sinai. Some photography was available from the U.S. Corona satellite, but it was imagery only and not real-time. Therefore the United States had no way of verifying Egyptian activity in the Sinai.6 Consequently President Johnson did not know, in real time, what, or how many, Arab forces were being introduced into the Sinai in the area from which the UN forces had been withdrawn.
The Liberty had the U.S. Navy hull designation AGTR 5: AG indicated a miscellaneous auxiliary, and TR stood for “technical research,” the ship’s “cover.” The 5 indicated that she was the fifth AGTR. (As was done on many auxiliary-ship types, the A was not included in the hull marks; the Navy considered it obvious and simply painted “GTR 5” on her hull.) The most visible technical features of the ship were her forty-five antennas. She was armed with four .50-caliber machine guns, located in two forward gun tubs and two amidships tubs. Several rifles and pistols were also on board.
The Liberty was fitted with a Technical Research Ship Special Communications System (TRSSCOMM). TRSSCOMM could bounce a ten-thousand-watt microwave signal off the moon to an antenna at Cheltenham, Maryland, from where it was sent to National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland. The system could work only in the very limited periods when the moon was visible to both the ship and the receiving antenna at NSA.7 This limitation on its usage made it unreliable for real-time capability. It rarely worked at all, and the system was ultimately junked when more capable satellites became operational s
hortly after the Liberty incident.
The Liberty sailors liked to call themselves “spooks” and to refer to the Liberty as a “spook ship.”8 In fact, the Liberty was a warship and met the standard of a warship under international law as well as the criteria established by the U.S. Navy.9 She was painted gray, the same shade (haze gray) as all U.S. Navy warships. She was armed, albeit inadequately. She was commanded by a naval officer and registered as a warship of the United States. As long as she plied the high seas and did not enter the territorial waters of a neutral or belligerent nation, she had every right under international law to innocent passage or, as the French translate it, “inoffensive passage,” including the right to listen to every communication she could intercept. While the high seas are open to all, however, entry into a combat zone is not without risk, and any vessel that sails into a combat zone places herself in harm’s way.10 Under U.S. naval doctrine, a neutral ship may be destroyed if she is aiding the enemy. This would include passing radio intercepts to the enemy.11
The primary job of the Liberty was gathering signals intelligence from the electromagnetic spectrum, an activity unequivocally permitted under international law. Nevertheless, there was a policy of shrouding the Liberty and her sister ships in secrecy, because the United States had made a technological breakthrough that permitted electronic eavesdropping to an extent never before imagined possible. Since the Liberty’s specific capabilities were not known outside the U.S. intelligence community, little was done by countries whose coasts she traversed to interfere with her passage or to prevent her from listening to and intercepting communications and radar transmissions.12 The Liberty also listened to and recorded routine commercial and government radio broadcasts. Most of the Liberty’s mass of electronic gear permitted eavesdropping on a varied spectrum of electronic transmissions—such as low-, medium-, high-, very-high, and ultra-high-frequency radio transmissions—and also gave her the ability to intercept telephone-line and microwave transmissions. This technology was the state of the art in 1967, and this capability was unknown to most of the world. Despite the U.S. technological eavesdropping advances, however, the Liberty’s radio capability in the very-high-frequency/ultra-high-frequency spectrum did not permit her to monitor Israeli VHF/UHF message traffic.
VHF and UHF radio waves travel in straight lines.13 High-, medium-, and low-frequency radio waves bend with the curvature of the earth. In contrast, very-high and ultra-high-frequency waves can be heard only out to the horizon, a distance of nineteen statute miles, or 16.5 nautical miles, under normal conditions;14 at that point they continue straight out into space. Such communications can be heard and intercepted only by a listener within the line of sight of the transmitter. As soon as the listener goes over the horizon, the VHF and UHF radio waves can no longer be heard or intercepted. Liberty’s operational area was adjacent to the withdrawal route of the UN emergency force, along the Sinai coastal road, through El Arish to Port Said. The coast of Israel, as well as the nearest point of Israel within Liberty’s listening range, across the Gaza Strip (which prior to the 1967 war was controlled by Egypt), was over the horizon from the deck of the Liberty. Therefore, Liberty’s mission could not have been to intercept Israeli VHF/UHF message traffic.
According to James Ennes, who served as an officer on the Liberty, Lt. Cdr. David Lewis, the head of the NSA cryptologic detachment, advised the Liberty’s commanding officer, Cdr. William McGonagle, on the eve of Liberty’s arrival at its assigned operating area, that withdrawal over the horizon would degrade the ship’s mission by 80 percent.15 The Liberty had been given her orders for patrol along the coastal road only a few days after UNEF had been ordered to pullout and Egyptian forces began to move into the desert. It may be logically concluded that the original mission of the Liberty was to monitor Egyptian communications in the Sinai. The Liberty could have listened to and recorded lower-frequency broadcasts from Israel, but because she did not have any Hebrew linguists on board, she could not provide real-time information on those intercepts, and very few if any military transmissions were on other than VHF/UHF.
Situation Map: The projected track of the Liberty on the day of the attack and her VHF/UHF listening range
Note: FM comdesron one two to Ruqkrq / Cincusnaveur
SECRET
For Admiral McMan from Kidd, deliver at breakfast.
1. Ref telecon, your 141740 Z not rcved as of 1423552; however requested 8 june chronology follows:
A. Approaching land from the west during the early morning hours of 8 June, projected operations of Liberty for the morning and afternoon of the day was to proceed to a Point 13 nautical miles from the coast of UAR at 31-27.2 N 34-00E (Point Alpha) thence to 31-22.3N 33-42E (Point Bravo) thence to 31-31N 33-00E, (Point Charlie) retracing this track until new orders received. Ship would operate north of this track line at all times. If fixes could not be accurately obtained as Point Charlie was approached it was intended to head due north until the 100 fathom curve was crossed and the track moved to the north to more or less move back and forth on the general average of the 100 fathom curve. (Excerpt U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry Ex. 27)
Cdr. Birchard Fosset, at the National Security Agency, was in charge of scheduling technical research ships. In late May 1967, he was instructed by his superiors in the Joint Reconnaissance Center of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to move a ship to the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Francis A. Raven, a civilian at NSA,16 argued that it was unwise to send the Liberty to the eastern Mediterranean. He is reported to have said: “If war breaks out, she’ll be alone and vulnerable. Either side might start shooting at her.”17 Such concerns were ignored by Raven’s military superiors at NSA.
A message was sent to the Liberty at Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on May 24, 1967. “Make immediate preparations to get underway. When ready for sea ASAP [as soon as possible] depart Port Abidjan and proceed best possible speed to Rota, Spain to load technical support material/personnel. When ready for sea proceed to operating area off Port Said. Specific areas will follow.”18 The operating area designated in this first message as “off Port Said” should be noted, for later the operating area of the Liberty was moved about a hundred miles farther east, to coordinates (known as Point Alpha) off the Sinai near Rafah. At this easternmost point, the Liberty was about thirty-six nautical miles from the coast of Israel.
Admiral Martin’s concern about the “unpredictability of UAR actions” following the outbreak of hostilities resulted in a message from the Sixth Fleet to the Liberty on June 6, 1967. The safety of the Liberty was an obvious concern. “In view of Arab/Israeli situation and unpredictability of UAR actions maintain a high state of vigilance against attack or threat of attack. Report by flash precedence any threatening or suspicious actions directed against you or any diversion from schedule necessitated by external threat.”19 For reasons that remain unknown, the Liberty did not receive this message.20
Owing to multiple human errors not only at the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff level but also at headquarters of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, and Commander Sixth Fleet, and various communications stations in the Mediterranean—the messages meant to direct the Liberty to remain at least one hundred nautical miles off the coasts of Egypt and Israel—either never reached her or were broadcast and received well after the attack.
At the time a serious flaw existed in U.S. military communications with regard to passing messages from the highest level of command, like the JCS, to an operating unit, like the Liberty. Such as message was always sent via the chain of command—JCS to USCINCEUR to CINCUSNAVEUR to COMSIXTIHFLT to the Liberty. The higher-level commands were equipped to receive and decode top-secret messages automatically. Lower-level, seagoing units like the Liberty were not so equipped. The normal procedure was to list commands and units with an interest as “information addressees” on messages to alert the ultimate recipient that a message was on its way. Thus a JCS confidential message with the Liberty as an information addressee would have been expected to
be received by the ship at almost the same time it reached the initial “action” addressee, in this case USCINCEUR. However, the JCS message 080110Z June 67, which directed Liberty to remain at least one hundred miles from the coast, was classified at too high a level for the Liberty to receive it via the on-line encryption method. Thus before the attack, when possibly there was still time for her to turn away and sail farther out to sea, when the Liberty received a USCINCEUR message to “take for action” a forthcoming JCS message, she had not received her information copy, either because it was misdirected or, even if there was no misrouting, because of its elevated security classification. The stand-off order itself arrived through the chain of command well after the incident.
The exact time that Admiral McCain’s headquarters in London could have received the USCINCEUR message intended to keep the Liberty away from the combat area and directing the admiral to “take for action” the orders that would have sent the Liberty out of harm’s way is not precisely known, but it was after 1117 Sinai time. Cdr. Maurice Bennett had the following comment on this issue:
The bungling of communications by the U.S. was a major contributing factor. Immediately prior to the attack the XO [executive officer], LCDR Lewis—the Research Officer and I were in research communications spaces puzzling over a FLASH precedence message from 6th Fleet (I think) telling us to take [a] JCS msg for action—we commented that we all presumed that we would get the JCS msg (telling Liberty to pull away from the coast) momentarily—when the first wave hit—we finally got the JCS message a day or two after the attack.21
The Liberty Incident Revealed Page 4