The Liberty Incident Revealed
Page 40
26.W. W. Rostow (who died on February 13, 2003) and Eugene V. Rostow (died November 25, 2002), were brothers.
27.Interview of Dean Rusk by this author on April 5, 1989, at Athens, Georgia.
28.The name is transliterated from Arabic and is spelled many ways. A more accurate spelling is Zakaria Muhyi al-Din.
29.Department of State, incoming telegram, 081545Z from American Embassy, Cairo, to Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., flash precedence.
30.Confidential DOD Message 081517Z June 67 from Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe to Commander Sixth Fleet.
31.Goulding, Confirm or Deny, 124.
32.Ibid. See also part of press release authorized by Secretary McNamara, ibid., 130. This release was termed by reporter Fred Farrar of the Chicago Tribune “one of the most intriguing pieces of prose that ever came out of the Department’s Press Office.” Chicago Tribune, June 18, 1967, 16.
33.James E. Akins, “The Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty, June 8, 1967, and the Thirty-Two-Year Cover-up That Has Followed,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, (December 1999), 28–34. Liberty crew member Phillip F. Tourney told this author a similar story in a telephone conversation on November 3, 1997, and James Bamford repeats the story in Body of Secrets (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 228.
34.Interview of retired ambassador Mahmoud Kassem by author on October 18, 1994, at the National Center for Middle East Studies, Cairo.
35.“Periscope,” Newsweek, June 26, 1967, 12.
36.“Periscope: Ahead of the News, Sinking the Liberty: Accident or Design?,” Newsweek, June 19, 1967, 21.
37.Five days after the attack, on June 13, 1967, it was reported on page 1 of Al-Ahram in Cairo, in an article headlined, “The task of the American ship which Israel hit by mistake [emphasis added] near Sinai was to intercept messages from the operation room in cipher, uncode them, and transmit them immediately.” The article said: “It has been proven that the mission of the American ship Liberty which was sailing 15 miles away from the coast of Sinai, was to intercept the wires which were issued from the operation room of the Sinai front, uncode them and transmit them. The ship is the most modern ‘spy ship’ of the American Sixth Fleet and is equipped with electronic installations and can connect with any place in the world via satellites.”
The presence of the ship was not discovered until it was hit by accident [emphasis added] by Israeli torpedo boats.”
38.“Armed Forces: Finis,” Newsweek, July 3, 1967, 24.
39.“Periscope: Inside Story,” Newsweek, August 28, 1967, 14.
40.“Periscope: Ahead of the News,” Newsweek, September 4, 1967, 11.
41.Goulding, Confirm or Deny, 101.
42.Ibid., 137.
43.Ibid., 102.
44.Telephone interview of Dr. Harold Saunders by this author March 28, 1991. Dr. Saunders was in Washington.
45.The simplest explanation of the difference between the two types of intelligence gatherers is that an AGTR was subject to national tasking, while an AGER was tasked by the Navy. For a more detailed explanation of the differences between the Pueblo and Liberty, see Trevor Armbrister, A Matter of Accountability (New York: Coward McCann, 1970), chap. 10.
46.Some reports say the Liberty was moving at about two or three knots, but if, as also reported, she was out of water for steam, dead in the water is more likely.
47.In the 1973 war, one of three flights of Israeli F-4 Phantoms made its way, by dead reckoning above overcast, to the vicinity of Damascus, the capital of Syria. The other two flights of F-4 aircraft with the same assigned target aborted their missions. The persistent flight dove down through the clouds, and the pilots found themselves near the Syrian military headquarters. They released their bombs, pulled up through the clouds, and returned to home base. The bombs hit the upper floors of the headquarters. Unbeknownst to the attackers, the Syrians had brought some captured Israeli prisoners of war into their headquarters, and at the time of the attack the Israeli prisoners were in the basement of the building. Many Syrian air force personnel insist to this day that the bombs were directed specifically at the upper stories of the building so as not to harm the Israeli prisoners in the basement. See Merav Halperin and Aharon Lapidot, G-Suit: Combat Reports from Israel’s Air War (London: Sphere Books, 1990), 106. This story, like the story of the Israeli torpedo being intentionally aimed at the NSA compartment, has its genesis in the legend of Israeli military infallibility. Those who want to believe these stories will probably never be persuaded otherwise.
48.Paul Tobin was ultimately promoted to the rank of rear admiral. He served as Oceanographer of the Navy before his retirement in 1998.
49.At this point the U.S. Navy was unaware that those code keys had probably already been compromised, having been sold to the Soviets by the Walkers, a U.S. naval family that included Chief Warrant Officer John A. Walker Jr.; his brother, Lt. Cdr. Arthur J. Walker; and his son, Yeoman Third Class Michael Walker. Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen say, “The Walker case was probably the largest and most damaging spy episode in the history of the U.S. Navy.” See Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen, The Spy Book (New York: Random House, 1997), 516, 585–88, 609.
50.Paul E. Tobin, “Comment and Discussion: The Violation of the Liberty,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (December 1978), 104–107.
Chapter 7. Friendly Fire Kills
1.Charles R. Shrader, Amicicide: The Problem of Friendly Fire in Modern War (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1982).
2.James Ennes Jr., Assault on the “Liberty” (New York: Random House, 1979), 51, 52.
3.Ibid., 51.
4.Excerpt from enclosure 3 attached to letter dated March 3, 2000, to Mr. James Bamforth [sic] Washington, D.C., from Marvin E. Nowicki, Ph.D. Copy provided to this author by Nowicki via e-mail, April 28, 2001.
5.The formula for visual acuity is included here, although it may not mean much to the average lay person. It may be used to confirm the distance conclusions used in this study. Any competent mathematician or physicist can confirm the validity of the conclusions by applying the formula to the data.
A person with 20/20 vision is able to distinguish visual targets with an angular separation of one minute (1/60th of a degree) of arc. If the targets are closer than one minute of arc, they are visually indistinguishable.
To understand the calculation, imagine lines extending from the observer’s eyes to the two edges of the target. For a small (compared to the distance) distant target, we can assume that the imaginary lines are the same length, r. These lines intersect at the center of a circle with radius r. The target forms an isosceles triangle with the lines. Call the small angle by the observer theta. Then, for a small distant target, the length of the target equals the distance r times theta (measured in radians). Thus, for a target of size s, the distance (r) at which it subtends one minute of arc and can be distinguished can be calculated:
r = s / theta
If the target is a five-by-eight-foot U.S. flag, it may be distinguished at 17,194 feet. Knowing that one minute of arc is 0.0002908 radians (2 × ϖ × 1/360 × 1/60 = 0/0002908), the limit of distinguishability is
r = 5 ft. / 0.0002908 = 17,194 ft.
This does not mean that it could be identified at this distance, only that it would appear as a distinct spot, indicating that something is there but not necessarily recognizable as a flag.
For a five-by-eight-foot U.S. flag, the stripes are 0.3846153 feet. Thus, the limit of distinguishability for this identifying feature of the U.S. flag is 1,323 feet:
r = 0.384615 ft. / 0.0002908 = 1,323 ft.
Similarly, for a seven-by-thirteen-foot U.S. flag, the limit of distinguishability for the stripes is 1,852 feet for a person with 20/20 vision.
These computations are for static pictures. Movement of the target or the viewer would adversely affect the result.
An aircraft flying at 1,000 ft/s (600 mph) would have a little less than two seconds to see and identi
fy a flag before reaching it, in optimum conditions.
6.U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, Liberty Incident, Record of Proceedings, Finding no. 2. See also message from CINCUSNAVEUR (Admiral M Cain) to SECNAV, 142148Z June 67.
7.English translation of pilot debriefing report filed by Kursa Flight leader at 1500 Sinai time on June 8, 1967. Copy in this author’s files.
8.Joseph Lentini, a Liberty crew member, believes that pictures were also taken by the Liberty’s photographer’s mate. The photos were taken on board the ship during the attacks and are a part of the record of the U.S. Navy court of inquiry, where Commander McGonagle testified that he took pictures with the ship’s camera while additional pictures were taken by others. The pictures in the court of inquiry record are not identified by photographer.
9.U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, exhibit 9.
10.Frederick D. Mullenin, Handbook of the Law of War for Armed Forces (Geneva: International Committee of the Red Cross, 1987), 96.
11.U.S. Department of the Navy, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, NWP 9 (Washington, D.C.: Naval Warfare Publications, 1989), 12–1.
12.Samuel Eliot Morrison, John Paul Jones: A Sailor’s Biography (Boston: Little, Brown, 1959), 229.
13.David Howarth, Famous Sea Battles (London: Artus, 1981), 131.
14.Dudley Pope, The Battle of the River Plate (New York: Avon Books, 1956), 71.
15.See Graham Rhys-Jones, The Loss of the “Bismarck”: An Avoidable Disaster (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1999), 182–85, for a detailed description of the attack on HMS Sheffield by British Fleet Air Arm pilots. See also Howarth, Famous Sea Battles, 138–149; Oliver Warner, Great Sea Battles (New York: Exeter Books, 1981), 272–81; and Geoffrey Regan, Blue on Blue: A History of Friendly Fire (New York: Avon Books, 1995), 219.
16.The Bismarck’s actual length was 792 feet, two inches at the water line and 813 feet, eight inches overall.
17.The basic displacement of the Liberty was 7,190 tons. With a full load of stores and fuel she would displace up to 10,680 tons.
18.Indar Jit Rikhye, The Sinai Blunder: Withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Force Leading to the Six-Day War of June 1967 (London: Frank Cass, 1980), 96–97.
19.Regan, Blue on Blue. The incident became known as the Dogger Bank incident; see 202–207.
20.Ibid., 207–208.
21.Ibid., 209.
22.Ibid., 215–18.
23.Danny Shapira was one of the first Israeli pilots in the Israel Air Force. He became the chief test pilot for the IAF and flew combat in every war fought by Israel until his retirement in 1992. He was assigned to Dassault in France, where he worked on the development of a new Dassault jet fighter and became known as the father of the Mirage IIIC. He personally flew fifty-three of the seventy-six Mirage IIICJs acquired by Israel from France to Israel. He was the ninth person in France to break the sonic barrier. He was the first Western pilot to fly a MiG-21. After checking out the aircraft for Israel in 1966, he checked out an American pilot and turned the MiG-21 over to the U.S. Air Force. (The plane was returned to Israel many years later and may be seen at the Israel Air Force Museum at Hatzerim Air Force Base.) In 1995 Shapira was inducted into the International Association of Experimental Test Pilots at a ceremony at the Beverly Hilton, in Hollywood, California. In 1997 he was still flying demonstration flights at the Paris Air Show. This author has had the privilege of flying with him on numerous occasions, including a flight to the site of the attack on the Liberty.
24.Destroyers of the Z, or Zed, class were manufactured by Great Britain. The Egyptian navy in 1956 was composed of Zed-class and Hunt-class destroyers, both of British manufacture. Prior to 1967 the Egyptians also obtained Skory-class destroyers from the Soviets.
25.Interview of Danny Shapira by this author on June 21, 1990, at Hatzerim Air Force Base, Israel. Shapira was one of four graduates of the first class of pilots in the Israel Air Force. Among his classmates was Mordechai Hod (commander of the Israel Air Force during the 1967 war).
See also Joseph F. Bouchard, “Accidents and Crises: Panay, Liberty, and Stark,” Naval War College Review (Autumn 1988), 87–102. Martin van Creveld, in The Sword and the Olive: A Critical History of the Israeli Defense Force (New York: PublicAffairs, 1986), 150, cites as his source Y. Steigman, Me-atsmaut le-kadesk Chel Ha-Avir bashanim (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1990), 281–82.
26.George M. Gawrych, Key to the Sinai: The Battles for Abu Ageila in the 1956 and 1967 Arab-Israeli Wars (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1990).
27.John McCain and Mark Salter, Faith of My Fathers (New York: Random House, 1999), 79–80.
28.Regan, Blue on Blue, 219.
29.Interview of Cdr. Tom Krupp by this author at the U.S. embassy, Tel Aviv, August 16, 1989.
30.Krupp interview.
31.As a further example of thoughts like the ones expressed by Lt. Col. Grossman (Ret.), see the 20/20 ABC News broadcast “Friendly Fire,” aired July 14, 1995, which tells of the suffering of the parents of Cpl. Lance Fielder, killed on February 27, 1991, by American friendly fire during the Gulf War of 1991.
Chapter 8. Survivors’ Perceptions
1.Twenty-five died in the National Security Agency compartment, twenty-four Navy men and one civilian. The other nine fatalities were members of the crew of the Liberty. Although there is a technical distinction between the crew and the NSA detachment personnel, in most instances all personnel are referred to as Liberty crew.
2.On that day he held the rank of commander. As commanding officer, he was referred to as the “skipper” or the “captain” of the ship. He was promoted to the rank of captain on August 3, 1967.
3.Testimony of Cdr. William L. McGonagle, commanding officer of the Liberty, on June 13, 1967, before U.S. Navy court of inquiry. Transcript of testimony, 39.
4.The first meeting occurred on June 7, 1991, in Washington, D.C.; a second meeting occurred on June 9, 1991.
5.Letter from Capt. William L. McGonagle to this author dated August 20, 1998.
6.New York Times, March 9, 1999, C27.
7.According to the USS “Liberty” Newsletter, August 1981.
8.USS “Liberty” Newsletter, November/December 1981, 5.
9.Interview of Brig. Gen. Oded Erez, IAF (Ret.), by this author on June 5, 1988, at Tel Aviv. Erez was a lieutenant colonel on June 8, 1967, and flew over the Liberty at noon at thirty thousand feet in a Vatour. His log book reflects that he reported a ship with “no wake.”
10.Interview of Thames TV producer Rex Bloomstein by this author on September 16, 1991, in London. A follow-up telephone interview was conducted on June 25, 1992, with Rex Bloomstein in London.
11.The USS “Liberty” Newsletter was published until September 1986. The next issue, in December 1986, was renamed the “Liberty” News.
12.John Hrankowski, “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” “Liberty” News 14, no. 2/3, 1996, 7.
13.Interview of George Golden by this author on March 11, 1991, by telephone. Mr. Golden was in Norfolk, Virginia.
14.The most senior chief petty officer is called the “leading chief.”
15.Interview of Chief Machinist Mate Richard J. Brooks by this author on June 7, 1991, in Washington, D.C.
16.Interview of Seaman Steven Richards by this author on June 8, 1991, in Washington, D.C.
17.James M. Ennes Jr., Assault on the “Liberty”: The True Story of the Israeli Attack on an American Intelligence Ship (New York: Random House, 1979).
18.Ibid., 62.
19.Ibid., 137 [emphasis added].
20.Ibid., 206.
21.Ibid., fn 5.
22.Telephone interview of Adm. David L. McDonald by this author on June 29, 1990. Admiral McDonald was in Jacksonville, Florida. He died on December 16, 1997.
23.Interview of Sen. J. William Fulbright by this author at Coral Gables, Florida, on December 6, 1988. Senator Fulbright died on February 9, 1995.
24.E-mail from Commander Bennett to this author, March 14, 2001.
25.0800 June 5, 1967; Ennes, Assault on the “Liberty,” 38.
26.James Ennes Jr., “The USS Liberty: Back in the News,” American-Arab Affairs, no. 15 (Winter 1985–86), 26 fn 18 [emphasis added].
27.Bill Gunston, An Illustrated Guide to the Israeli Air Force (New York: Arco, 1982), 86–89. See also William Green, The World Guide to Combat Planes (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), vols. 1 and 2.
28.Hard points are specially strengthened fittings, usually on the wings or fuselage of aircraft, where ordinance, fuel tanks, and other accessory items may be attached and, in most cases, released during flight. For an explanation of hard points and their locations on the Israeli Mirage CIII, see Shlomo Aloni, Mirage III vs. MiG 21: Six Day War 1967 (Oxford, U.K.: Osprey, 2010), 9.
29.“Documentation,” American-Arab Affairs 15 (Winter 1985–86), 104.
30.Ennes, “Liberty: Back in the News,”19.
31.In 1967 the title of the number-two person in the Department of State was “Under Secretary.” In 1972 it was changed to “Deputy Secretary.”
32.Ennes, “Liberty: Back in the News,” 24–26.
33.Ibid., 26.
34.Reinforced to this author by Joseph Lentini, a Liberty survivor, at a meeting in Washington, D.C., on June 21, 1998.
35.Interview of CIA chief of station, Tel Aviv, in June 1967 by this author. Name and date and place of interview not disclosed, by agreement.
36.Interview of former Secretary of State Dean Rusk by this author on April 5, 1989, in Athens, Georgia. Dean Rusk died December 20, 1994.
37.Abba Eban, television documentary Israel: A Nation Is Born, program 4, part 1, Tele Cine, London, England, October 6, 1992. According to Eban, this call was from McGeorge Bundy, special adviser on the Middle East to President Lyndon Johnson. See also Ahron Bregman and Jihan El-Tahri, The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs (New York: TV Books, 1998), 110.
38.Incoming telegram, Department of State telegram, from American Embassy, Tel Aviv, to Secretary of State, Washington, D.C. Date/time group 081604Z June 1967, State Department number 4020, declassified by Freedom of Information Act appeal of this author in 1999. The telegram reports: “1. Following is summary of IDF Intelligence Chief’s briefing of McPherson of White House June 8, 11:30 a.m.” It is signed by the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Walworth “Wally” Barbour. In addition to the comments on Syria, it gave a detailed brief on all IDF activities of the past few days.