Mintz declined to be interviewed by this author.17 But Mintz appeared live on camera in 1992 on the television NBC program The Story behind the Story. On this occasion his story, as broadcast, was again different from his prior tales. There was no mention of his earlier claim that he had been an Israeli intelligence officer. He was described by Richard Kiley, the narrator, as a twenty-year-old soldier in the Israeli army, visiting a family friend at the air force control center in Tel Aviv. He said there was no doubt among the Israelis that the ship was American and that sets of pictures of the Liberty were sent to the U.S. embassy, where the U.S. denied the ship was an American ship. (In prior stories he had said the embassy was contacted by telephone. Because he did not go to the embassy, it is not clear how he knew the embassy’s reply.) He concluded his TV appearance with a somewhat convoluted statement of why the Israelis decided to attack. In his own words: “The Israelis were convinced that if the Americans weren’t willing to acknowledge the existence of their own ship . . . the possibility, no matter how remote it was, existed that it was in fact not an American ship.”18
Mintz is an enigma regarding the Liberty incident. In view of the many different versions of his story, it is clear that he is not reflecting a consistent, single perception; yet it is difficult to identify a special interest as the basis of, or motive for, his stories. Whether Dagan was Mintz is not certain. The fact that neither Mintz nor Dagan was an intelligence officer is clear. Also, Mintz’s description of the “War Room” and its location is not accurate. His motives and objectives remain unknown. For a short time, “Major Mintz” was the darling of some of the conspiracy theorists. His letter in the Washington Post probably chilled that relationship. Rich Bonin, the CBS 60 Minutes producer who rejected the Mintz story as not credible, commented to this author, “Mintz is a troubled soul.”19
Adrian Pennink’s research for the Thames TV production Attack on the “Liberty” unearthed an additional story. Pennink interviewed former congressman Paul N. “Pete” McCloskey, who told Pennink that he had visited an Israeli in a federal prison in Springfield, Missouri. McCloskey claimed that the prisoner, a certain Amnon Tavni, told him that he was an Israeli pilot who flew against the Liberty and that he had a clear identification of the Liberty as a U.S. ship when he made the attack.
Pennink called Tavni in prison, but Tavni told Pennink that he had never made such a statement to Congressman McCloskey. Pennink learned the name of Tavni’s former girlfriend in New York and interviewed her. She stated to Pennink that Tavni had told her he served in the IDF but never mentioned being a pilot. The IDF spokesman could not find a record of Tavni as a pilot in the Israel Air Force nor as a member of any branch of the IDF.20
The Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Missouri,21 confirmed to this author that Amnon Tavni, prisoner number 05818–054, was convicted in federal court for the Southern District of New York of robbery and conspiracy to rob a bank. He was sentenced to ten years in prison by U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Griesa.22 Records indicate that Tavni entered prison on April 26, 1984, and served thirty months and twenty-five days. He was paroled on November 19, 1986, and returned to New York, where parole office records indicate he was deported to Israel in December 1986. Recent efforts by this author to locate Tavni in Israel have not been successful. This author has learned that after Tavni was deported to Israel in 1986, he changed his name and so cannot be located.23
Four Israel Air Force pilots were involved in the air attacks on the Liberty. Yaacov Hamermish, the pilot who flew as wingman in Royal Flight, died in a plane crash prior to 1979 while practicing for an air show.24 Royal Flight leader, whose name is not to be disclosed, died in 2009. The two surviving pilots, who live in Israel, flew as Kursa wingman25 and Kursa Flight leader.26 Kursa Flight leader has since come out and has been identified as Brig. Gen. Iftach Spector, one of the Israel Air Force’s top aces. No Israel Air Force record identifies a pilot who participated in the air attack named Amnon Tavni. Either Tavni or Pennink or McCloskey told a tall tale. It is also possible, of course, that Tavni told two different stories, one to McCloskey and another to Pennink. All things considered, the Pennink story is more believable, because Pennink “had no dog in this fight, while McCloskey has had a well-known aversion/opposition to Israel.”
An even more fascinating story surfaced in July 1997, when the Orlando Sentinel printed a “My Word” column by Ronald M. Wade of Rockwell, Texas, entitled “Israel Should Own Up to the Truth about the Liberty.” Wade wrote that he had worked in the engineering department of E-Systems Inc., a company that designed the data-collection systems installed in both the Liberty and the Pueblo. The most interesting part of the column stated:
Among the Israelis assigned to our facility to oversee that contract [for the installation of surveillance systems in Israeli aircraft in Texas during the 1970s] was the airman who had been radar officer on the aircraft that had led the machine gun, rocket, and napalm attack on the Liberty.27
In private conversations, he acknowledged that the attack had been well planned in advance and was broken off only when Israeli listening posts picked up radio transmissions from American carrier-based fighter aircraft coming to the Liberty’s aid.
It is interesting to note that Wade does not make clear whether he was a party to the “private conversations” and his information is firsthand or whether the “private conversations” were repeated to him and his information is hearsay. While the Orlando Sentinel did not provide the name of the Israel radar officer, Wade subsequently did. Ronald Wade amplified his earlier story in the Intelligencer: The Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies (December 1999, p. 26) by including the name of the Israeli radar officer. The letter then appeared on the Internet on Saturday, January 8, 2000. “One of the Israeli officers assigned to monitor the program was Yohanan Levanon. One day when the subject of the Liberty came up, Levanon told a small group that he himself had been radar officer on the lead attack aircraft that strafed and napalmed the Liberty. He confided that the attack was well planned and coordinated with naval forces in advance.”28 Again Wade did not make it clear whether he was one of the “small group” or whether he was told second hand what Levanon allegedly told the small group.
Yohanan Levanon was an officer in the Israel Air Force with a specialty in electronics.29 In a telephone interview with this author he stated that he did not fly at all during the 1967 war. He did fly as a nonpilot flight officer in Vautour aircraft after the Six Day War. He retired as a lieutenant colonel and, as a civilian electronics expert, was posted to E-Systems in Greenville, Texas. He spent considerable time in the United States, including a long stay in the burn center of a hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as a result of serious injury in the crash of a civil aircraft. He currently resides in Israel. When furnished with both the Orlando Sentinel article and Ron Wade’s Internet item, Levanon responded by sending an e-mail directly to Wade that read:
Mr. Wade, I recently read your fax to a Mr. Anderson (date unknown) in which my name and my comments about the attack on the Liberty ship were mentioned.
Yes, I was shown photographs of the damage done on the Liberty ship by one of the E-Systems engineers and in the conversation that followed I stated that I have a first hand information that the Israeli AF attack on the Liberty was by mistake. On the late afternoon of the attack while I was talking with Gen. Hod, the Israeli AF commander, two Israeli AF intelligence officers approached him and told him that the assumed Egyptian ship that was attacked was an American one, his reaction and sorrow were unmistakable.
These were my words at that time and later on when I was approached about this subject. You misquoted me, actually inverted my words and that is as close as I can come to being politically correct. Were you really Director of Ethics for seventeen years?
I did not fly during the 1967 war. While at E-Systems, I was employed by the company as a Senior Project Engineer and already retired from the Israeli AF therefore not a monitoring officer as you
wrote.
Yohanan Levanon30
Ron Wade responded by e-mail to Levanon’s message with an admission that he never heard Levanon speak about the Liberty and that his source was hearsay from another person at E-Systems. He apologized to Levanon on March 18, 2000, by e-mail:
Dear Mr. Levanon:
The story I passed on concerning the subject of your 3/17 e-mail was related to me by a close friend whose veracity I had no reason to doubt. I did not claim I was present at the conversation but that the information was given to a small group by you. If this information is incorrect or if I was misinformed, please accept my sincerest apology. If you are innocent of association with the Liberty attack, we both have been victimized.
Ronald Wade31
In 1982, author James Bamford, in his book about the National Security Agency, The Puzzle Palace, described the attack on the Liberty as an attack on a ship known to be U.S., carried out because the Israelis did not want the United States to know that they were going to attack Syria. When interviewed by this author, Bamford made it quite clear that he was very sympathetic to the Liberty crewmen and that he had an intense dislike of Israel.32 When the “Syrian attack secret” was effectively discredited by this author, by disclosure of the U.S. State Department cable from the U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv to the secretary of state, another conspiracy theorist, John Borne, was quoted in the Rutland (Vt.) Herald:
John Borne, a New York University adjunct professor of history who also wrote a dissertation on the Liberty and believes the attack on the U.S. ship was intentional, nonetheless agrees with Cristol that a clear motive is tough to pin down. “I mean if the ambassador is sending this message, there’s no point in attacking the ship to prevent the ship from sending the message,” Borne says. He says the crew will need to find “another motive, if they are ever able to prove their case.”33
James Bamford produced such a motive in his book Body of Secrets.34 Bamford reports that the motive for the attack was an effort by the Israelis to keep the Liberty from learning of war crimes and atrocities being committed at El Arish. There is no independent confirmation that Israel perpetrated the war crimes at El Arish. Yet, Bamford claims that, “[the NSA via the Liberty] recorded evidence of the numerous atrocities committed that morning only a few miles away [at El Arish].”35 Bamford does not explain how electronic surveillance equipment could record evidence of war crimes being committed. Bamford also fails to explain why the evidence of these war crimes was not recorded by the Navy EC-121 aircraft or, if such evidence was recorded, why none of the Hebrew linguists who heard the transmissions on board that aircraft or later listened to the tapes at NSA headquarters ever mentioned it to anyone. The material provided to Bamford by one such Hebrew linguist is totally devoid of any mention of such evidence of war crimes.
In chapter 7 of his book, Bamford discloses the existence of tape recordings of the entire attack made by a Navy EC-121 electronic surveillance airplane that was flying high above the Mediterranean within line-of-sight reception of the Israeli airplanes attacking the Liberty. Bamford claims the information on these tapes proves that the attack was an attack on a ship the Israelis knew to be American. He claims that these tapes are among the “deepest darkest secrets” of the NSA. His source for this information is a retired U.S. Navy officer, Marvin Nowicki,36 a Russian-Hebrew linguist who was on the EC-121 as it flew overhead near the site of the attack and who supervised the surveillance and recording of the attack. Following his retirement from the Navy, Nowicki earned a doctorate and became a professor and a Fulbright scholar.
Bamford claims that Nowicki told him that the Israeli radio transmissions that Nowicki had heard and that the EC-121 NSA crew recorded prove the attack was an Israeli attack on a ship known to be American. The NSA has never admitted publicly that such tapes ever existed. Whatever the EC-121 tapes ultimately prove, if they are ever released, the data provided to Bamford by Nowicki in an e-mail dated March 3, 2000, effectively destroys Bamford’s credibility. Nowicki tells a not only interesting but very credible story about the event being recorded by the EC-121 for the NSA. Nowicki told Bamford exactly the opposite of what Bamford speculates in his book. The classic reason that courts do not allow hearsay evidence is that all too often the relator of hearsay, as in this case, tells a story that is quite different from the story told by the source.
The National Security Agency adds its comment on Bamford’s credibility in their press release stating, “Mr. Bamford’s claim that the NSA leadership was ‘virtually unanimous in their belief that the attack was deliberate’ is simply not true.”37
Bamford quotes Nowicki on four different pages of Body of Secrets in support of his argument that Israel attacked a ship it knew to be a U.S. ship.38 The quotes of Nowicki are presented out of context in an ambiguous and broken narrative. Bamford presents no new evidence, although he leads his readers to believe that on the basis of what Nowicki told him, he has new evidence that the attack was made by the Israelis on a ship they knew to be American. A comparison of what Bamford attributed to Nowicki and what Nowicki actually told Bamford should give readers a better yardstick by which to evaluate the Body of Secrets claim. The Nowicki letter of March 3, 2000, to James Bamford states:
Dear Jim,
As a followup to our e-mail and telephone exchanges, I am enclosing sensitive information about U.S. intelligence collection techniques that I engaged in during a career in the U.S. Navy spanning over 20 years. Like you, l am interested in preserving certain historical events surrounding SIGINT collection. I believe it is important that future generations understand and appreciate the efforts of the Cold War warriors.
In this correspondence, I am concentrating on a single event that involved the USS Liberty in June 1967. As you know, Jim Ennes and members of the Liberty crew are on record stating the ship was deliberately attacked by the Israelis. I think otherwise. I have first hand information, which I am sharing with you. I was present on that day, along with members of an aircrew in a COMFAIRAIRRECONRON [Commander Fleet Air Force Air Reconnaissance Squadron] TWO (VQ-2) EC-121M aircraft flying some 15,000 feet above the incident. As I recall, we recorded most, if not all, of the attack. Further, our intercepts, never before made public, showed the attack to be an accident on the part of the Israelis [emphasis added].
To support my claim, I am forwarding four enclosures of information. My story is over 30 years old but there are certain events that are embedded in my memory, including a scary night flight into the battle zone and the attack on the Liberty. Enclosure (I) begins with a narrative entitled, “Assault on the Liberty: The untold story from SIGINT.” Enclosure (2) provides a postscript to the attack in the years that followed. Enclosure (3) gives my views of additional evidence of a mistaken attack by the Israelis [emphasis added], contradicting Jim Ennes in his book. Enclosure (4) discusses Ennes’ cover-up conundrum, asks who was ultimately responsible, and why the presence of our VQ mission was never revealed.
In addition, I am enclosing personal information about my 24-year career in the Naval Security Group. I am doing this for the purpose of helping you see how I might assist you with other aspects of your historical account of SIGINT. You may, for example, be interested in stories how we hunted Soviet TU-95 Bears [Soviet turbo prop reconnaissance aircraft] in the Atlantic and searched for SA-2 [missile] sites in southern Algeria during flights into the Sahara. A chronology of my duty stations and professional experience is found in Enclosure (5).
Finally, on a cautionary note I would appreciate it if you would cull any information that crosses the bar of national security, in addition to the names of colleagues cited herein. I do not have permission to use their names. If you have any questions or need clarification, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you and good luck with your book.
Sincerely,
Marvin E. Nowicki, Ph.D.39
The five enclosures to the Nowicki letter may be viewed on the Internet at www.thelibertyincident.com. Nowicki’s letter to the Wall S
treet Journal confirming his rejection of Bamford’s story was published on May 16, 2001 (p. A23).
How Bamford, a professional writer and researcher, could read Nowicki’s letter and its enclosures and conclude Nowicki was telling him that the NSA tapes proved the attack was intentional staggers the imagination. James Bamford has never heard the tapes. Since his knowledge of their existence came exclusively from what Nowicki wrote him, the question is, did Bamford accurately report what Nowicki told him? Thus the issue is the integrity of James Bamford. The contents of Nowicki’s letter make it clear that Bamford’s book does not fairly and accurately report the information Bamford received. The Bamford tale is by far the apogee of this chapter about tall tales. Furthermore, Bamford continues to make completely false claims about the Liberty incident at public appearances and in letters to the editor, including a claim that there has never been an official investigation of the Liberty incident.
The Liberty Incident Revealed Page 18