Ironically, Secretary of State Dean Rusk’s position on how to treat Israel was softer than Clifford’s. Rusk was bitterly disappointed that Israel had struck preemptively on June 5 and had not waited until Egyptian vice president Zachary Mohieddin arrived in Washington on June 7, 1967, for a meeting Rusk had scheduled.28 Rusk was certain he could have resolved the crisis diplomatically. On June 8, 1967, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Avraham Harman, and his deputy chief of mission, Ephraim Evron, were at the U.S. Department of State to discuss matters relating to the war. They were taken by Lucius Battle, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, to Secretary Rusk’s office. At that point the two men had been away from Israel’s embassy since morning and had not yet received the report of the Liberty incident. They were completely mystified when a very angry Rusk demanded information from them about the Liberty. Rusk’s demeanor was shocking to both Harman and Evron, as Rusk had always been polite and cordial in the past. Ultimately Rusk refused to accept the Israeli explanation and branded the attack as irresponsible.
If there was extreme tension in the White House Situation Room, the Sixth Fleet flagship, and IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, the situation in Cairo was chaotic. Anti-U.S. sentiment was running strong as a result of Nasser’s announcement that the United States had fought for the Israelis against Egypt. The security of the U.S. embassy in Cairo was in doubt. Ambassador Richard Nolte cabled the State Department in Washington, “We had better get our story on torpedoing of USS Liberty out fast and it had better be good. Nolte.”29
The State Department was receiving other inquiries from Muslim countries and from nations sympathetic to the Arab side of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In general, the issue revolved around what the Liberty was doing in the combat zone. The war caused the Arab countries to begin breaking diplomatic relations with the United States at an alarming rate. On June 6, 1967, Egypt (UAR), Syria, and Algeria broke diplomatic relations with the United States. On June 7, 1967, Sudan, Iraq, Mauritania, and Yemen followed suit.
The fact that a U.S. ship had been attacked in the war zone during the Arab-Israeli War was quite extraordinary. Dozens of reporters were, in fact, embarked on board the carrier America and were about to begin a press conference on the issue of whether the United States was actually involved in the conflict when first word of the attack on the Liberty was received by the Sixth Fleet. When the Liberty arrived in Malta, numerous reporters and correspondents sought the Liberty crew. However, a little more than three hours after the attack, Cyrus Vance, the Under Secretary of Defense, had issued an order by telephone that all news releases on the Liberty incident would be made at the Washington level and not from ships in the fleet.30 After the Associated Press reported, on the day of Liberty’s arrival in Valletta, that an unidentified officer on the aircraft carrier America had said, “To put it bluntly she [Liberty] was there to spy for us. Russia does the same thing,”31 a message was sent to America “to pipe down.” Secretary McNamara issued a press release that stated in part: “Many rumors and reports about the attack have been circulating. The Department of Defense has no evidence to support some of these rumors and reports. Others appear to be based on partial evidence. Some appear to be accurate on the basis of present information here, which is incomplete. Until the Court has had an opportunity to obtain the full facts, the Department of Defense will have no further comment.”32
Many vastly different stories and tales have been told by numerous crew members and others about a gag order. Former ambassador James E. Akins wrote:
While in Malta most of the surviving officers and men were interviewed in several groups by Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, who ostentatiously took off the stars on his uniform in each case and said, “Now, tell me, man to man, everything that happened.” They all did. Then he equally ostentatiously put the stars back on and said, “Now I’m talking officially; you are never, repeat never to discuss this with anyone, not even your wives. If you do you will be court-martialled and will end your lives in prison or worse.”33
Some of the tales have reached the extreme. For instance, Egyptian ambassador Mahmoud Kassem reported that the families of crewmen who were lost on the Liberty were prohibited by the U.S. government from holding memorial services for them.34 However, this author has not been able to locate a documented case of anyone ever being prosecuted, court-martialed, or disciplined as a result of talking about the Liberty incident.
As the news about the outcome of the Israeli-Egyptian-Syrian-Jordanian war was spreading, most of the press was euphoric in its reporting of the David-versus-Goliath story of Israel’s defeat of the Arabs in a “six-day war.” The June 19, 1967, issue of Newsweek magazine included in its “Periscope” column a comment regarding the Liberty. This was the first-ever suggestion in the world media that the attack on the Liberty had been an intentional Israeli attack on a ship that Israel knew to be American. A week later (June 26, 1967) the same “Periscope” column ran a story, “U.S.S. Liberty: Caught in Political Currents?,” presenting a fascinating theory.35 It first confirmed that sources in the State Department and the Pentagon backed Israel’s story that the attack was an unfortunate accident. It then went on to say, “Some members of the Administration decided to talk about the possibility of a calculated attack for what they considered important political reasons. The supposed fears: that U.S. diplomats’ maneuvering ability in the Mideast would be severely hampered unless some way was found to deflate pro-Israeli sentiment in the U.S.”36
The next week Newsweek (July 3, 1967) wrote that “the Navy turned up no evidence to indicate the attack was anything but a tragic blunder. . . . In fact, no one seemed to doubt that judgment—not even Cairo.37 . . . The Israelis were for once exact when they said that the bombardment of that ship . . . was a mistake.”38
About seven weeks later (August 28, 1967) the following appeared in Newsweek under the headline, “The U.S.S. Liberty: Tragedy of Errors”:
Defense Secretary McNamara is satisfied that the strafing of the U.S. ship Liberty by pilots during the Mideast war was unintentional. He recently told a closed session of a Congressional committee that “there is no evidence that the individuals attacking the Liberty knew they were attacking a U.S. ship.” McNamara blamed the attack on “inadequate communications and an inexcusable error of professional tactics.” The Israelis are yet to report on their own investigation into the attack in which 34 U.S. seamen died.39
The September 4, 1967, Newsweek reported that Israel was not going to take court-martial action against any of the pilots or seamen who fired on the USS Liberty.40 An Israeli court of inquiry headed by Examining Judge Yeshayahu Yerulshalmi concluded that the Liberty had been attacked because she greatly resembled an Egyptian supply ship and, when asked to identify herself, she had replied, “Identify yourself first.”
The Liberty issue quickly faded from the print media as a result of continuing unsettling news from Vietnam and the unfortunate race riots that broke out in the United States at the time. Within the U.S. administration, there was a major debate on how much the United States should disclose to the public about the event. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Phil G. Goulding suggested going public with the simple truth. The State Department objected to truthful disclosure, because it feared the impact on future Arab-U.S. relations. A stronger argument against Goulding’s position came from the intelligence community. The Liberty and her sister ships were described—indeed disguised—as auxiliary general technical research ships and were believed by the National Security Agency to be safe and generally welcome around the world. The NSA’s argument was, “These ships had access to many ports as research ships where they would not be welcome if they were branded intelligence gatherers.”41 Although Secretary of Defense McNamara allegedly leaned toward the Goulding approach, he was ultimately persuaded to go with what Goulding later described as a “cover-up.”42
On June 8, the Department of Defense issued a press release, penned by Goulding himself, which said, “A U.S. Navy
technical research ship, the U.S.S. Liberty (AGTR-5) was attacked about 9:00 a.m. (EDT) today approximately 15 miles north of the Sinai Peninsula in international waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The Liberty departed Rota, Spain, June 2nd and arrived at her position this morning to assure communications between 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.”43 When asked in 1991 about this press release, Dr. Harold Saunders, who in June 1967 was on the Near East desk at the National Security Council, replied, “For every covert operation, there has to be a cover story, that is our story.”44 The cover story about the Liberty’s purpose did not exactly work. It is still called a cover-up by many.
In addition to this inaccurate and misleading press release, the Department of Defense issued a press release on June 28, 1967, no. 594–67. It consisted of a cover sheet, “a summary of the proceedings of the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry” and an edited transcript of the testimony of the commanding officer of the Liberty before the court. The summary is inaccurate. It states “facts” and conclusions that do not appear anywhere in the court of inquiry proceedings, and it omits substantial significant facts and conclusions that put an entirely different spin on the release. The author of this June 28, 1967, press release remains unknown. When read against the findings and conclusions of the court of inquiry, it is at once apparent that its contents are more the imagination of the author than an accurate report of the court’s findings and conclusions.
The notion that intelligence-gathering ships of the Liberty class were generally safe and welcome anywhere was shattered less than a year later, on January 23, 1968, when the USS Pueblo, an auxiliary environmental research ship, or AGER, similar to the Liberty was captured by the North Koreans off the coast of North Korea, to the further great embarrassment of the United States.45 Certainly the use of ships like the Liberty and the Pueblo was a calculated risk. Only the NSA has the data necessary to establish whether the intelligence collected by these ships was worth the price of the Liberty and Pueblo disasters.
On Friday morning, June 9, 1967, the Davis (DD 937) and the Massey (DD 778), two U.S. Sixth fleet destroyers, rendezvoused with the Liberty. The Davis and the Massey had been with the carriers of Task Force 60 near Crete, about five hundred miles northwest of the location of the Liberty when she was attacked. After continuous steaming through the night at thirty knots, as dawn broke the destroyers came upon the Liberty lying dead in the water.46 A nineteen-inch-diameter German torpedo had blasted a hole in the hull of the Liberty large enough for a Greyhound bus to drive through. The original estimate was that the hole was twenty feet by thirty feet, but when the torpedo hole was measured it was found to be in excess of forty feet by forty feet. The torpedo had struck the ship on the starboard side, just forward of amidships. It was a square hit on the NSA, or “spook,” compartment and caused the death of twenty-five persons in the compartment. Some Liberty crewmen insist that the Israeli torpedo was aimed precisely at the NSA compartment to put it out of action. However, this assumption of precision does not explain why the other four Israeli torpedoes missed completely.47
Blast damage and bullet holes covered much of the Liberty’s topside area, and she was listing nine or ten degrees to starboard. Her radio facilities were very limited. The first order of business was the evacuation of casualties. It was accomplished that day by helicopters from the Sixth Fleet’s aircraft carrier America. Most of the surviving crew and personnel were suffering from shock and exhaustion. The uninjured men (and some with minor injuries) remained on the ship and assisted with the salvage operation.
Lt. Paul E. Tobin, the engineering officer of the Davis, came on board and supervised the damage control and engineering repairs on the Liberty.48 When Tobin came on board, he was assigned a stateroom. Sadly, it had belonged to Lt. Stephen Toth, a former classmate of Tobin’s at the U.S. Naval Academy who had died on the bridge during the air attack.
After seven hours of damage control and repair under Tobin’s direction, his men from the Davis and the remaining Liberty crew, working together as a salvage team, determined that the tanks and voids nearest the keel had not been damaged. They calculated that there was a sufficient margin of transverse stability to ensure adequate “righting moment” if heavy weather was encountered. Some of the 250,000 gallons of fuel oil remaining on board was transferred from starboard to port, and the ship was righted and stabilized. The Davis engineers, together with the engineering staff of the Liberty, then went to work on the ship’s steam plant to see if the ship could sail on her own power. When this was accomplished, Admiral Martin ordered the Davis to escort the Liberty to Souda Bay, Crete, for temporary repairs. After they got under way, the destination was changed to Valletta, Malta, where a dry dock was available.
En route, the electricians worked at repairing the ship’s electrical system. This was accomplished with amazing speed, and within hours lighting and ventilation were restored. The Navy fleet tug Papago (ATF 160) arrived but did not have to tow the Liberty, because Tobin had been able to restore the propulsion plant. During the slow transit to Malta, most of the ship’s vital systems, including the main gyro, sound-powered phone circuits, and a main fire and flushing pump, were restored to service.
Once the ship was under way to Malta, a suction effect drew large amounts of debris out the ship’s torpedo hole. There was intense concern about secret documents that might float out through the gaping hole in the hull, the major worry being the code keys and other cryptologic documents. All the way to Malta precautions were taken to prevent any ship, in particular Soviet warships, from retrieving documents from the wake of the Liberty.49 The Papago sailed immediately astern of the Liberty and collected and sifted through whatever material could be recovered as it washed out of the flooded space. One hundred and fifty miles east of Malta the wind and sea conditions deteriorated to the point that unusual noises were heard from the damaged portion of the ship. Tobin would later recall: “The bulkhead on the forward side of the flooded hold was visibly panting as hogging and sagging stresses distorted the ship’s structure. The unusual noises were determined to be the sound of breaking surf and the impact of desks, chairs, and equipment being violently tossed around in the hold.”50
The ship was slowed to allow bracing and shoring; these heroic efforts were successful. Finally, after a day, the rough weather subsided, and the Liberty entered Valletta. Lieutenant Tobin was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious achievement in bringing the Liberty safely to port.
Chapter 7
FRIENDLY FIRE KILLS
History is replete with cases in which military forces have made mistakes that resulted in the killing or wounding of their own people or allied personnel, friends, or neutrals. The lessons to be learned from the tragedy of the Liberty are many and varied. Col. Charles R. Shrader, in his outstanding research survey Amicicide: The Problem of Friendly Fire in Modern War, documents the sad fact that modern warfare carries with it the burden of losses to “friendly fire.”1 Shrader coined the word “amicicide”; the U.S. Navy has long referred to it as “blue on blue,” and the Israelis use the Hebrew words esh (fire) yedidutit (friendly).
According to Shrader, all modern military forces, including those of the United States, suffer amicicide casualties at the rate of about 2 percent. Moreover the percentage of friendly fire casualties has changed very little in modern times. The percentage was perhaps a little higher for the French in World War I, and it was terribly high for the United States in the Gulf War, where almost as many British troops were killed by the United States as by the Iraqis. In each case the tragedy occurs because of a mistake in identification.
The display of a flag as a means of identification or protection against air attack is not effective in practice. The Liberty had a five-by-eight-foot U.S. flag hoisted on her main halyard at the time of the air attack. It was shot away in an early strafing run by the atta
cking Israeli aircraft and replaced before the MTB attack with a seven-by-thirteen-foot holiday ensign on the port halyard—opposite the side from which the MTBs approached the Liberty.2 In his book Assault on the “Liberty,” James Ennes tells how on the morning of the day of the attack he stressed to the Liberty signalman the importance of flying the ship’s only remaining new flag, because the Liberty was operating in a dangerous area.3 Since the incident much has been made of whether the flag was drooped or extended at the time of the air attack. Many crew members believe it was extended and should have been seen and identified as an American flag by the attacking aircraft. However, according to Marvin Nowicki:
In reconstruction of the attack, the Liberty crew makes much of flying the American flag, as if it would somehow protect them in harm’s way (see Ennes p. 152). Little does the crew appreciate the difficulty of identifying a ship from an aircraft merely on the basis of a flag or even a hull number (GTR-5 displayed by the Liberty). Based on my experience of flying many “low and slow” reconnaissance flights over ships in the Med and Atlantic with VQ-2, unless the flights are almost overhead, target identification is virtually impossible. High powered binoculars are not much good in a bouncing low-level aircraft. Even post facto photos do not always reveal identification. See for example, Ennes’ photo of the ship on page 146. The crisp overhead photo does not clearly show the identity of the American ship. So how could the attacking Israeli forces conclude this was a friendly ship?4
The Liberty Incident Revealed Page 10