Confirming Commander Bennett’s conclusion, the House Armed Services Investigating Subcommittee stated in its report:
A garbled version of this message [USCINCEUR 080625Z June 67] was placed on Fleet Broadcast at 1059Z [1259 Sinai time], June 8th, and there was some question whether it had been received by U.S.S. Liberty. But as Rear Adm. Fitzpatrick testified “It is a moot point whether the ship received it or not for two reasons: If it did receive it, it was probably useless to them and number two, even if they had received it, it wouldn’t have made any sense to them because all it said was to take some other JCS message for action, some higher commander, and they wouldn’t have known what the other message was because, as we know, that other message from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which they had the information copy on, didn’t get to them.22
Another contributing factor was that the communications system in the Mediterranean was simply overwhelmed by the volume of messages generated in direct response to the Arab-Israeli War.23 The question has often been asked, Was there a direct back-channel circuit by which NSA could communicate directly with the crypto compartment on board the ship? This author has not discovered any such back channel and does not believe it existed, with the possible exception of the TRSSCOMM system, which, as noted, rarely worked and was dependent on the position of the moon.24 If sending a message from NSA over regular channels addressed only to the Liberty is considered back-channel communication, then, if it existed and was used, one would wonder why the crypto compartment receiving a stand-off message would not have passed it to the commanding officer of the ship. No Liberty crew member has ever claimed such a back-channel link existed. It should be remembered that U.S. intelligence ships like the Liberty were not first-line naval combatants but rather platforms for gathering routine FBIS material and tediously collecting huge amounts of data on radar and voice transmissions for further analysis later. There was no perceived need for real-time or back-channel communication. If such a back channel existed, there is no evidence that it was used in any way related to the Liberty incident.
The U.S. government has never released a formal statement accurately describing the overall mission and assigned tasks of the Liberty in the eastern Mediterranean on June 8, 1967. Phil G. Goulding, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, wanted to “take the public affairs initiative, leveling with our people from the beginning.”25 Goulding proposed saying, “This ship collects intelligence.”26 Numerous arguments were made in opposition. There was concern that if it was disclosed that the Liberty was gathering intelligence, other intelligence-gathering ships would not be welcome in ports where U.S. “research ships” had been quite welcome. Another argument was that Middle East countries might be offended by the United States sending a ship to eavesdrop on them. Secretary of Defense McNamara listened to all the arguments, and though he personally favored Goulding’s suggestion, he ultimately yielded to the security and diplomatic arguments and authorized reference to the Liberty only as “a U.S. Navy technical research ship.”27 The official statement on technical research ships was, “The mission of this ship is to conduct technical research operations in support of U.S. Navy electronic research projects which include electromagnetic propagation studies and advanced communications systems.”28 The press release further stated that the Liberty “arrived at her position this morning to assure communications between the U.S. government posts in the Middle East and to assist in relaying information concerning the evacuation of American dependents and other American citizens from the countries of the Middle East.”29 Egypt had broken diplomatic relations with the United States following the Israeli air attacks of June 5, 1967. Evacuation of U.S. diplomats from Cairo and Tel Aviv started on May 25, 1967, and was completed long before the Liberty arrived at Point Alpha. It may be argued that because there were still American citizens in the region, the cover story was valid, but other than the press release, there is no evidence of any sort to support the claim that the Liberty was there to “relay information concerning evacuation of American dependents and other American citizens.”
There are apparently two valid primary reasons, and possibly a third, self-serving reason, that may explain the failure of the United States to candidly disclose, even after the incident, all of the facts regarding the decision to send the Liberty to the coast of the Sinai in late May and early June 1967 and regarding her mission there. The primary reasons reflect both security and political concerns. The self-serving reason is the normal reflex tendency of any bureaucracy to prevent the full exposure of its internal failures.
The security reason is quite valid. The United States had moved far ahead of the rest of the world in the development of listening and message-interception capabilities, a fact virtually unknown to almost everyone else. The United States thus had a tremendous intelligence edge, and it wanted to keep it as long as possible. For this reason, no doubt, the National Security Agency document “United States [deleted], Attack on a SIGINT Collector the U.S.S. Liberty (S)-CCO,” written by William D. Gerhard and Henry W. Millington and published in 1981, was originally classified top secret, with a declassification review date of April 2011.30 Although a great deal of information about the Liberty has been disclosed since June 1967, some of the intercept technology of 1967 probably still requires security classification. There was, then, a certain legitimate amount of holding back for security reasons, which still may cover some technical data relating to the capabilities of the equipment on board the Liberty. If some technical data of this nature remains hidden behind the veil of secrecy, it is doubtful that it goes to the issues explored in this book.
The political reason for lack of candor is more complex. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States has had a many-faceted foreign policy in the Near East, often complicated by contradictory forces and needs. The United States has substantial business interests in the Middle East related to oil. During the Cold War, it also desired to be “evenhanded” in the region while maintaining and continually expanding its influence, wishing to contain Soviet influence in the Arab world and to prevent the establishment of Soviet hegemony in the Middle East. At the same time, the United States wished to maintain a “special relationship” with the state of Israel. The many hats worn (then as now) by the United States made it difficult to chart a course of action. Not unlike Great Britain, the United States has many times found itself on both sides of the Arab/Israeli conflict.
The third, self-serving reason not to be candid was that it was an attempt to prevent disclosure of one’s own errors. Such action is not uncommon. The foreword to the NSA document on the history of the Liberty incident states, “The knowledge that the tragedy resulted not only from Israeli miscalculation but also from faulty U.S. communications practice was even more difficult to accept.”31 The presence of the eavesdropping Liberty off the coast of Sinai in the middle of the 1967 war was potentially a source of embarrassment to the United States. Moreover, it was by an innocent series of errors that Liberty entered the war area, without the intent or real-time knowledge of upper-level U.S. policy makers. She was there as a result of communication failure that misdirected her orders to remain well clear of the war zone. Thus the less-than-candid press releases by the U.S. Department of Defense were an effort to explain away an unwelcome but undeniable fact. Like most efforts of this kind, it was not successful, as to this day the false press report is widely recognized as just that.
But was there a cover-up of any aspect at all of the event? The dictionary meaning of the word “cover-up” is “an effort or strategy intended to conceal something as a crime or scandal.”32 Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance, the number-two person in the Department of Defense at the time, says in a letter to this author dated March 24, 1994, “As to the allegation there was a cover-up and I was in charge of the cover-up, it is simply untrue.” Goulding, however, says there was a cover-up.33 In view of the false public statement of the United States about Liberty’s mission, it is difficul
t to disagree with Goulding’s assessment. The United States never truthfully stated the precise mission of the Liberty. It made up a false press release and let the false press release stand as “our cover story”34 for the event. Obviously, Secretary McNamara and Deputy Secretary Vance saw this as an appropriate effort to protect security and diplomatic relations, while Goulding, a newspaperman by profession, saw it as violating the public’s right to know. Whether one prefers the Goulding description of “cover-up” or the Vance conclusion of “no cover-up” is related not to the issue of whether there was a cover-up about the attack but rather to the reason the NSA initially sent the Liberty on a mission to the eastern Mediterranean.
There was no effort to cover up mistakes made by either the United States or Israel. The Navy, the Department of Defense, and Congress had an intense interest in discovering all the facts, and U.S. failures in particular, to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again. Even if there had been an effort to cover up the errors that were made, it would not have succeeded, in view of the multiple investigations and the very large number of personnel involved.
It is important to understand that the false statement, or cover-up, regarding the mission of the Liberty was made not to conceal the failure or wrongdoing of any individual or to hide any errors and mistakes relating to the attack but rather to protect a perceived national interest of the United States in the area of security and diplomatic relations. Secretary of State Dean Rusk agreed with Vance in his interview with Thames TV.
Interviewer: They say Mr. Rusk, that there’s been a coverup for 20 years on behalf of successive American administrations to examine and explore the affair.
Rusk: Oh, I don’t think so, I think it’s simply that the feeling that once something like this has happened you have to continue to work toward constructive ends, you don’t allow an incident of this sort to poison the entire relationship.35
While there is obviously substantial dispute about a cover-up, it is clear that the dispute rages over the reason the Liberty was sent on her mission and not about the mistakes by the United States that put her in harm’s way and the mistakes by Israel that resulted in the attack.
Chapter 4
THE LIBERTY TARGETED
The Liberty reached Point Alpha at 0849 on June 8, 1967, and began her patrol, steaming to the west with her bow pointed in the general direction of Port Said, Egypt.1 The Liberty’s commanding officer, Cdr. William L. McGonagle, knew she was in a potentially dangerous position. It has been written that he contemplated sailing away from the coast, but because he was “not in the loop”—that is, he did not know the reason for the Liberty’s mission, he apparently was persuaded by the advice of Lt. Cdr. David E. Lewis, the head of the cryptologic detachment, to remain in harm’s way.
There was the Liberty, in eye view of the war, painted haze gray, armed with .50-caliber machine guns, in an area where, unbeknownst to her, the previous day the U.S. defense attaché at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv had advised Washington by message that Israeli forces had reported being shelled from the sea.2
On that same morning of June 8, the Israelis held the ground at El Arish and also controlled the air above. Explosions were occurring at El Arish.3 Ennes reports, “At 1130 the ship arrived at Point Bravo. . . . Coastal plotting remained difficult. . . . Suddenly a large explosion rocked the town of El Arish. . . . I located Captain McGonagle in the wardroom to tell him of the fire and smoke ashore.” At noon, thick black smoke extended for miles along the beach.4
Commander McGonagle testified at the U.S. Navy court of inquiry,
At the commencement of the drill [1300] it was possible to see a large billowing cloud of black smoke rising from approximately 15 to 20 miles to the west of El Arish on the beach. The exact identity of the cause and location of this explosion is not positively known, although it was believed to be near the beach area. This was noted about 1300. At about 1330 a smaller cloud of black smoke was noted to the west of El Arish estimated five to six miles and also along the coastline. . . .
So that they would be impressed I pointed out to the crew at the time that the column of black smoke on the beach should be sufficient evidence that the ship was in a potentially dangerous location.
When these explosions occurred, the Israeli troops at El Arish wrongly concluded that, as reported the day before, they were being shelled from the sea. In fact, either Egyptian sappers, caught behind Israeli lines, were detonating Egyptian ammunition dumps or the explosions were part of IDF cleaning-up operations. With hindsight it is clear that there was no shelling from the sea and that one or both of the above activities caused the explosions and the resulting columns of smoke along the coast near El Arish, but the Israeli forces on the scene at El Arish did not know that at the time.
Perhaps, if the Liberty had not been in sight, about fourteen miles off the coast, the Israeli army units might not have come to the conclusion that they were being shelled from the sea.5 Of course, the Liberty did not have guns that could reach the beach from fourteen miles, but a ship’s details were not discernible at that distance, especially to soldiers. Consequently the troops stationed at El Arish advised the high-command headquarters at the Kirya in Tel Aviv that they were being shelled from the sea. The people at the Kirya, following normal IDF procedures, determined this to be a naval matter. A call was placed to navy headquarters in Haifa at Stella Maris, and the navy was told to investigate.
Following the 1956 Suez campaign, the Israel Air Force recognized the need to move its headquarters from Ramla, about twelve miles southeast of Tel Aviv, to the Kirya in the center of Tel Aviv, where it was installed next to the headquarters of the IDF chief of staff. The Israel Navy headquarters remained in Haifa, more than sixty miles away, linked to the Kirya by closed telephone.6
The war log at the navy headquarters in Stella Maris indicates a call from the Kirya was received and that the navy first ordered two destroyers to head toward El Arish. That order was canceled and a new order directed Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) Division 914,7 which had departed the port of Ashdod at 1120 and was still in the vicinity of Ashdod, to proceed toward El Arish. At this point, the MTB division was not told of the reason for the order; it was only told “turn to El Arish for patrol.”8
MTB Division 914 consisted of three diesel-powered motor torpedo boats named after birds of prey—203, named the Aya; 204, named the Daya; and 206, named the Thames—all under the command of Lt. Cdr. Moshe Oren. The boats were built in France and were powered by two Napier Deltic diesel engines and capable of forty-two knots, according to Jane’s Fighting Ships. They carried a normal crew of fifteen and were armed with one 40 mm cannon facing aft, one 20 mm cannon on the bow, and two .50-caliber machine guns, one on each side. They carried two German aerial nineteen-inch torpedoes mounted on launchers or throwers, which were often referred to as “torpedo tubes.” They were not torpedo tubes in the classic sense but rather throwing devices that pushed torpedoes over the side and away from the boat. The boats were equipped with old U.S. World War II–surplus Kelvin-Hughes radar, but only one boat had true motion radar. They also had UHF radios that had been installed about a week earlier. Only boat 206’s UHF radio was operable.
Division 914 steered toward El Arish, a distance of about fifty miles, at top speed of about thirty-six to thirty-eight knots.9 At 1330, division commander Oren was advised that “El Arish is being shelled from the sea.”10 At 1341, a target was detected at the extreme radar limit of motor torpedo boat 204, which the Israeli radarman called about twenty-two nautical miles.11 Using the map from the 1982 IDF History Report on the Liberty incident and the times indicated in that report on page 18, it can be calculated that took the MTBs about forty-four minutes to close the distance of about twenty-two miles from their position to a position about two miles from the Liberty. With the MTBs moving at thirty-six to thirty-eight knots toward the Liberty, and with the ship moving away from the MTBs at her patrol speed of about five knots, the relative motion between the two was t
hirty-one to thirty-three knots. It would therefore take about forty-one to forty-four minutes to traverse twenty or twenty-one nautical miles. The figures are not precise and suggest that the speeds may have been a knot or two different than reported by the MTBs or by the Liberty, or that the times may have been off a minute or two, or a combination of all of the above.
The Israeli radarman on the MTB division commander’s boat, 204, a young enlisted man called Gulli,12 accurately reported to his combat information center (CIC) officer that the target was steering west (the actual heading was 283 degrees). This information, together with a range, was used by the CIC officer to calculate the speed of the target as thirty knots. This was inaccurate. How could such a mistake have been made? The radar operator watched a round radar screen shaped much like a large dinner plate. The center of the screen represents the position of the boat. A line from the center of the screen to the top indicates the direction the MTB was traveling. The radar beams emitted by the radar and returned or reflected by the target causes a bliplike image to appear on the radar screen.
A sweep swings 360 degrees, indicating the rotation of the radar antenna. Each time the sweep finds the target, it is illuminated on the screen. The screen momentarily retains the illuminated image. The image, or target, thus appears to move on the screen. If the radar is stationary and the target is moving, the calculation is easier. If both radar and target are moving, the calculation is more complex. When the target is moving away from the radar and the radar is moving toward the target, as was the case of the Liberty and the MTBs, the speeds of both are factors in the equation.
The round radar screen is about eighteen inches in diameter. Thus, from the screen’s center, which represents the MTB, where the radar is located, looking forward, the screen is about nine inches from center to top. If the center to the extreme range is twenty-four miles, then a mile is represented by three-eighths of an inch.13 The Liberty’s speed of five knots is a mile and a half per minute or a deflection of 1/32 of an inch per minute on the screen. During a one-minute period, on the radar scope the MTB moved a little less than 9/32 of an inch toward the target. At the same time, if the target was moving at thirty knots, the target moved away from the MTB on the radar scope 6/32 of an inch. If the target was moving at five knots, it would move away 1/32 of an inch. Dealing with such tiny measurements in a small dim room with only minutes to make calculations and while en route to a twenty-year-old naval officer’s first combat engagement is a recipe for error.
The Liberty Incident Revealed Page 5