20.“Introduction,” Report of the JCS Fact Finding Team, USS Liberty Incident, 8 June 1967 (Secret). This is commonly known as the Russ Report.
5. (U[unclassified]) Inasmuch as the Fact Finding Team was not a legal investigative body, in conducting its examination the Fact Finding Team observed the following constraints:
a. Interviews were not conducted under oath.
b. Individuals were not warned of their rights nor designated as interested parties.
c. Interference with the Naval Court of Inquiry was avoided.
d. Impact on Liberty’s personnel was held to a minimum.
e. Representatives of the military services were invited to accompany the team. (Russ Report, 3)
21.The President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was created by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 following the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
22.Many of Clifford’s friends in the Johnson administration were not pleased with this report, because they felt it attempted to label Israel as the aggressor when it was generally conceded that Israel had acted in preemptive self-defense as permitted by Article 51 of the UN Charter and was in fact not guilty of aggression. No charge of aggression regarding the 1967 war ever resulted in a UN resolution condemning Israel.
23.The Clifford Report is at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas, National Security File, Memos to the President, WWR, vol. 35, box 19. The report is identified as item 82b. The report was declassified upon the appeal of this author on October 25, 1995. Sanitized ED 12356, Sec3,4; NLJ 94–389, BY CB NARA Date 10–25–95: the transmittal letter from Clifford to Rostow, item 82a, was declassified on August 30, 1995. E.O. 12356, Sec3.4; NHJ 94–389 BY CB NARA Date 8–30–95: the transmittal letter from Rostow to President Johnson, item 82, remained classified. This author appealed that decision and prevailed. The letter from Rostow to Johnson transmitting the report was declassified on June 25, 1998.
24.Clifford Report, 4–5.
25.Ibid., 5.
26.Telephone interview of Clark Clifford by this author on February 9, 1989. Clifford was in Washington, D.C. He died on October 11, 1998.
27.“Murphy’s Law” was the phrase of Clark Clifford. During the interview his memory seemed quite clear and positive.
28.Possibly the Situation Room in the basement of the West Wing of the White House.
29.Telephone interview of Clark Clifford by this author on February 9, 1989.
30.Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President (New York: Random House, 1991), 446.
31.Bourke Blakemore Hickenlooper, a Republican, served in the Senate from 1945 to 1969.
32.Hickenlooper’s dislike or distrust of the Israelis is illustrated by his remark in a closed session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (the transcript was declassified in 1984) when he interrupted Christian Herter, secretary of state under President Eisenhower, during a discussion of the Israeli atomic project. “I think the Israelis have just lied to us like horse thieves on this thing. They have completely distorted, misrepresented, and falsified the facts in the past. I think it is very serious, to have them perform in this manner in connection with this very definite production reactor facility which they have been secretly building, and which they have consistently, and with a completely straight face, denied to us they were building.” Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991).
33.U.S. Senate, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations on S. 1872, A Bill to Amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as Amended, and for Other Purposes, 90th Cong., 1st sess., June 12, July 14 and 26, 1967 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967).
34.Cdr. L. M. “Pete” Bucher, USN (Ret.), the commanding officer of the Pueblo at the time of its capture, is quoted as saying, “I never fail to relate the USS Liberty story and its importance to our circumstance just 6 months later and the absolute fact that if the political contrivances that put the very valuable lessons learned in a totally sealed vault, the Pueblo incident could not have happened.” “Liberty” News, 4th Quarter, 1998, 1.
35.U.S. Senate, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, on S. 3293, Authorization for Military Procurement, Research and Development, Fiscal Year 1969, and Reserve Strength, 90th Cong., 2d sess. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), 47. This hearing was held on February 1, 1968, at 2:40 p.m. in Room 212, Old Senate Office Building. Present: Senators Stennis (presiding), Symington, Jackson, Connon, McIntyre, Byrd Jr. of Virginia, Smith, Thurmond, Miller, Tower, Pearson, and Dominick.
36.Rep. Robert Lee Fulton Sikes of Florida, House of Representatives, Report of Subcommittee on Department of Defense of the Committee on Appropriations, April 8, 1968 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), 357–58.
37.Rep. John J. Rhodes (Ariz.), House Subcommittee Hearing Report, 394.
38.Subcommittee on Department of Defense of the Committee on Appropriations, House Subcommittee Hearing Report, 398–99.
39.Congressional Record-House, July 12, 1968, 21055.
40.Through the assistance of Florida senator Bob Graham and his staff, this author was able to visit the restricted office of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. During that visit, a staff member advised that a portion of the House Appropriations Committee report remains classified as indicated.
41.U.S. House of Representatives, Report of the Armed Services Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, under the Authority of H. Res. 201. 92d Cong., 1st sess., May 10, 1971 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971). The report was submitted for printing, with deletions for security, to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman F. Edward Hebert of Louisiana, on March 24, 1971. The committee studied the USS Liberty incident, which occurred on June 8, 1967; the USS Pueblo incident, which occurred on January 23, 1968; and the downing of a Navy EC-121 aircraft by North Korea on April 15, 1969. Hearings were held and a report was published.
42.U.S. House, Report of the Armed Services Subcommittee, 10.
43.Set forth in the letter of transmittal of the report, dated March 24, 1971, from the committee chair, Robert H. Mollohan, to the chair of the Armed Services Committee, F. Edward Hebert. U.S. House of Representatives, Report of the Armed Services Subcommittee, III.
44.Capt. Frank Snyder, the Sixth Fleet communications officer who was on board the USS Little Rock with Admiral Martin on June 8, 1967, worked with Rear Admiral Fitzpatrick in preparation of his testimony before the committee.
45.Brig. Gen. Roscoe M. Cougill (Ret.), “C3 during Desert Shield and Desert Storm,” in Seminar on Command, Control, and Communications, Guest Presentations, spring 1992. Program on Information Resources Policy, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 1994.
46.U.S. House, Report of the Armed Services Subcommittee, 3–4.
47.Lt. Gen. Richard P. Klocko, USAF, assumed the position of director, Defense Communications Agency (DCA), on November 15, 1967. He had begun serving in the DCA in July 1967 as deputy director of the agency and deputy director, National Military Command System Technical Support (NMCSTS).
48.U.S. House, Report of the Armed Services Subcommittee, 41–42.
49.James M. Ennes Jr., Assault on the “Liberty” (New York: Random House, 1979).
50.All three of the surviving pilots, who speak fluent English, have been interviewed by this author, face to face, without the intervention of a sheet. The fourth pilot was killed in an aviation accident while preparing for an air show in 1979. Under the terms of an agreement with Israel Field Security, the names of the living pilots are not to be disclosed.
51.In June 1982 the Israel Defense Forces History Department, Research and Instruction Branch, published The Attack on the “Liberty” Incident, 8 June 1967. Col. Uri Algom, the head of the History Department, signed the report. The report is prefaced by the following five notes:
1.The
tragic event of the attack on the American intelligence ship Liberty [sic] (8 June 1967) became, over the years, an instrument in the hands of journalists and authors, with which to contend that Israel attacked the ship maliciously.
2.Recently, with the publication of the book, Assault on the “Liberty,” the American Congress appointed a committee, headed by Adlai Stevenson, for the purpose of investigating the affair and publishing the results of the investigation.
3.Immediately upon learning of the appointment of the committee, it was decided that the History Department would research the affair and submit the official version of the State of Israel.
4.The research is based upon all the primary and secondary evidence available.
5.This article is the official version, written by Lt. Col. Matti Greenberg—Head of the Combat Research Branch.
This author interviewed Matti Greenberg for the first time in Tel Aviv on August 13, 1989, and many additional times in person and by telephone.
52.In a telephone interview with this author, former Senator Adlai Stevenson stated that he had almost no recollection of the matter or the investigation. The interview took place on January 4, 1990. Stevenson was in Chicago.
53.This author visited the office of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in Washington, D.C., but was unable to locate any public record of the investigation. As indicated in note 52, former Senator Adlai Stevenson claimed to have no memory of the investigation. This author wrote to each of the senators who served on the committee in the 1979–81 time frame seeking information on the investigation. No senator replied.
54.This author interviewed two Israeli officers attached to the IDF spokesman who have personal recollections of the interviews. They are Col. Raanan Gissen and Maj. (later Lt. Col.) Danny Grossman. This author also confirmed the interviews with Kursa Flight leader and Royal Flight leader.
55.The senators on the committee were Birch Bayh (D-Ind.); Adlai E. Stevenson (D-Ill.); Walter D. Huddleston (D-Ky.); Joseph R. Biden (D-Del.); Daniel P Moynihan (D-N.Y.); Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii); Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash.); Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.); Barry M. Goldwater (R-Ariz.); Edwin (Jake) Gam (R-Utah); John Chafee (R-R.I.); Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.); Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.); David Durenberger (R-Minn.); Charles McC. Mathias (R-Md.); and ex officio: Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) and Howard H. Baker Jr. (R-Tenn.).
56.The document is entitled Attack on the U.S.S. “Liberty.” It was originally classified top secret, because some of its contents were in that category. Other portions were categorized as secret, confidential, and unclassified. The original document, marked top secret, bore the legend “Not releasable to foreign nationals.” The document was declassified per part 3, E.O. 12356 by Director, NSA/Chief, CSS COF Date 7/11/83.
This author originally obtained a copy of the document from a foreign national, not part of any intelligence community. The copy did not reflect declassification. The author spent months trying to write to the NSA. Those were the days when NSA was reputed to stand for “No such agency,” and letters were either returned marked “insufficient address” or not answered. Eventually it was learned that the document had been declassified and in fact is on file in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., under document number SRH-256. The only other declassified documents relating to the Liberty incident in the National Archives are REP0006C, RG 218, Chairman Wheeler Files, 091 Israel-UAR Conflict, May–June 1967, Box 27, 631/8/14/4.
57.NSA, Attack on the U.S.S. “Liberty,” 40.
58.Allen M. Blue, from Rockville, Maryland, one of three civilian technicians employed by the NSA, also died in the attack.
59.NSA, Attack on the U.S.S. “Liberty,” 40.
60.Letter from Debra Rae Anderson, deputy assistant to the president and director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, the White House, September 5, 1991.
61.Letter from the USS Liberty Veterans Association to the Honorable Nicholas Mavroules, July 1, 1991, signed by Joseph L. Meadors, chairman.
62.Meeting of this author with Roy J. Kirk and Warren Nelson at 11:00 a.m. on April 29, 1992, in Room 2120, Rayburn House Office Building. Following this meeting, all three named persons proceeded to the office of Congressman Mavroules at 2334 Rayburn House Office Building for a meeting with the congressman; that meeting lasted over an hour.
63.Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and William J. Clinton.
Chapter 13. Israel Investigates
1.Section 537 states: “The Minister of Defense or the CGS may appoint a commission of inquiry for the purpose of investigating any matter relating to the Army, and such commission shall be competent to summon witnesses and to take evidence on oath or otherwise. A commission of inquiry may consist of one officer.”
2.Interview of Ram Ron by this author on June 7, 1988, at Tel Aviv.
3.His report refers to exhibits up to the letter L.
4.Whether this is in fact an error by Ram Ron or an error in the translation from Hebrew to English is not known. This possibility should be considered regarding any of the documents originally produced in Hebrew and thereafter translated into English.
5.A preliminary inquiry under section 283 is essentially the same type of procedure as a court of inquiry under U.S. law: “283. Where the Military Advocate General has directed that a preliminary inquiry be held, he shall notify the President of the Appeal Court Martial, who shall appoint an examining judge to hold it. Sections 283 through 298 govern the conduct of a preliminary inquiry.”
6.There is no record of the Liberty receiving the Egyptian declaration, but it appears that the judge believed that such a declaration had been made by the Egyptians well before the Liberty’s arrival in the area and that it had been published in Al Ahram and broadcast on Egyptian radio.
7.This is not exactly correct. The Liberty was certainly in the vicinity of the war but did not approach any closer to the coast of Israel than longitude 34-00 E, which was at least thirty-eight nautical miles from the nearest coast of Israel.
8.Examining judge’s report, 16 (English translation).
9.From an outgoing telegram of the Department of State time-stamped both June 7, 1967, and June 10, 1967. The document indicates that the “text was approved in White House” and bears a number stamp 210139. Other messages from the U.S. Department of State to Israel’s ambassador contain similar or identical language.
10.Clifford Report, 4–5.
11.Capt. Glenn R. Brindel had been the commanding officer of the USS Stark when she was hit by two Iraqi Exocet missiles on May 17, 1987. It is not unusual in the naval service to avoid a court-martial by allowing an officer to resign or retire. On April 23, 2001, Cdr. Thomas Waddle was given similar treatment in connection with the collision of the submarine Greenville, which he was commanding when it collided near Hawaii with a Japanese vessel; the collision killed nine people.
12.In the opinion of Captain Castle, Rehav had been an outstanding naval officer. He was talented, diplomatic, and charismatic. In the history of the Israel Navy, the second in command has almost always “fleeted up” and became the next commander. The navy of Israel was established March 17, 1948.
Navy Commander
Second in Command
1948–49
Paul Shulman
1950
Shlomo Sharnir
1950–54
Mokal Limon
Shmuel Tankos
1954–60
Shmuel Tankos
Kenan
1960–66
Yochai Ben-Nun
Yitzhak Rehav
1966–68
Shlomo Erell
Yitzhak Rehav
Avraham Botzer
1968–72
Avraham Botzer
Biny Telem
1972–75
Biny Tel
Suit Trosh
Michael Barkaei
1975–79
Michael Barkaei
Gideon Raz
Zeev Alrnog
Gideon Raz
Abraham Ben-Shushan
1985–89
Abraham Ben-Shushan
Michael Ram
1989–93
Michael Ram
Ami Ayalon
1993–96
Ami Ayalon
Alexander Tal
1996–2000
Alexander Tal
Yedidya Ya’ari
2000–2004
Yedidya Ya’ari
David Ben-Bashat
2004–2007
David Ben-Bashat
Eli Marom
2007–2011
Eli Marom
Ben Yehuda
2011–
Ram Rutberg
Yaron Levi
13.Israel Defense Forces, History Department, Research and Instruction Branch, The Attack on the “Liberty” Incident, June 1982 [hereafter cited as IDF History], 2.
14.This author has always preferred to refer to the “attacks” (plural) rather than “the attack” (singular), as the air attack began and ended before the torpedo attack began, and there are many distinct aspects of each attack that are best considered separately.
15.IDF History, 33.
16.Ibid., 38.
17.Letter of Admiral Michael Ram, Commander in Chief, Navy of Israel, published in the Naval Reserve Association News, September 1992.
Chapter 14. Television’s Perspective
1.Rex Bloornstein, producer and director, Attack on the “Liberty,” London, Thames Television, aired on BBC 2, January 27, 1987.
2.Adrian Pennink, the research editor of Thames TV, was kind enough to give the Thames research files to this author.
3.In the Thames script, 50, 51, and 52, at items 234–44.
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