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The Liberty Incident Revealed

Page 44

by A. Jay Cristol


  4.Thames script, 52.

  5.Mabat shaine translates from the Hebrew as “second view,” “hindsight,” or “double take.” The program has a magazine format similar to that of 20/20 or 60 Minutes. The tape was reduced from its original fifty-three minutes, seventeen seconds to about forty-nine minutes. George Golden was cut from the tape. The program was broadcast in English with Hebrew subtitles. The introductory remarks in Hebrew were translated from the original tape for this author by Oded Ben-Arie in February 1991.

  6.Interview of Rex Bloomstein by this author on September 16, 1991, in London, at BBC Television headquarters. Bloomstein had become very fond of the Liberty crew members and very sympathetic to their situation. He was of the opinion that some of them still suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and that they had not been treated properly by the U.S. government.

  7.Rhoda Lipton, producer, “The Attack on the Liberty,” ABC News 20/20, show 719, aired on May 21, 1987, transcript, 2.

  8.Ibid., 7.

  9.“Liberty” News, September 1987, 3.

  10.Michael Shiloh completed his tour as deputy chief of mission at the Embassy of Israel in Washington and then was appointed as Israel’s ambassador to Norway.

  11.Christopher Carlson, producer, and John Cosgrove, supervising director, The Story behind the Story, NBC, aired on January 27, 1992.

  12.Justin Sturken, producer, Now It Can Be Told, aired on Apri1 14, 1992, syndicated program, 1992. The program was first aired by WVUE, New Orleans, Channel 8 (an ABC affiliate). It then appeared on various channels around the country.

  13.Telephone interview of producer Justin Sturken by this author on January 28, 1992, during the time that the videotape was being made. Sturken had seen the NBC program The Story behind the Story aired January 27, 1992, and was very unhappy with it. He felt it portrayed the Liberty crewmen in an unfavorable light. His exact words were, “It made them look like a bunch of jerks.”

  14.The crew members presented in the program are Joseph Lentini, Lloyd Painter, John Hrankowski, James Ennes, Richard Sturman, and Joseph Meadors.

  15.U.S. Senate, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations on S. 1872, a Bill to Amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, 90th Cong., 1st sess., June 12, July 14 and 26, 1967, 266–67.

  16.U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, Liberty Incident, Record of Proceedings, testimony of Cdr. William L. McGonagle, beginning at p. 31 and again at p. 124.

  17.Thames script, 18–19, items 92–94.

  18.Glenn Frankel, “In Britain, Fallout from Friendly Fire: Families of Allied Dead Press Two Nations for Facts,” Washington Post, May 18, 1992, D-1: “American officials contend they’ve done their best to cooperate but say the government will not compel the pilots to testify in Britain.” Also William E. Schmidt, “Nine Deaths in Gulf: British Ask Why?,” New York Times, May 11, 1992, A-3: “No Americans will be coming to England to testify about what went wrong.”

  19.The list of witnesses called for the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry includes the following Liberty crew members. Their testimony appears in the record beginning at the page indicated:

  Crew Member

  Page

  Ens. D. G. Lucas, USNR

  12

  Cdr. W. L. McGonagle, USN

  31

  Lt. (jg) L. C. Painter, USNR

  55

  Ens. J. D. Scott, USNR

  59

  Lt. G. H. Golden, USN

  63

  Ens. M. P. O’Malley, USN

  68

  Lt. (jg) M. M. Watson, USNR

  72

  Lt. R. F. Kiepefer, USNR (MC)

  74

  CTC H. J. Thompson, USN

  87

  CTC C. F. Lamkin, USN

  91

  RMC W. L. Smith, USN

  94

  CT2 J. P. Carpenter, USN

  105

  Lt. M. H. Bennett, USN

  114

  CT2 T. L. Long, USN

  117

  Cdr. W. L. McGonagle, USN (Recalled)

  124

  20.U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, testimony of Commander McGonagle, 131.

  21.Ibid., testimony of Ensign Lucas, at Malta, on June 13, 1967, 12–23; of Chief Thompson, at Malta, on June 13, 1967, 87–90.

  22.Letter to this author from Susan Werbe, Vice President, Historical Programming, the History Channel, dated August 24, 2001, confirms to this author that in some cases the footage shown “is not of the actual event described.” Werbe claims the practice of using footage that “is representational” or of doing reenactments has “become a quite accepted element in historical documentaries.” This author would suggest that custom and practice in the documentary industry requires file film or reenactments to be orally described as such or labeled. No such oral disclosures or screen captions were included in this production.

  23.Cheryl Faris, producer, and Patrick King, director, USS Liberty Survivors [film], Los Angeles, Sligo Productions, 1991.

  24.Quoting Anthony Pearson, Conspiracy of Silence (London: Quartet, 1978), 319. See chapter 9, pages 112–13.

  25.Telephone conversation, this author with Joe Lentini of July 23, 2002.

  26.The USS Liberty Newsletter 3, no. 1 (January 1984), 8.

  27.Reported by Robert A. Hamilton, The Day: Connecticut, October 29, 2002, http:/www.theday.com/mews/Is-reASP?newsUID_08D3612C-B9A2–4341–0EDEAEA.

  28.Telephone conversation, this author with Joe Lentini on July 23, 2002.

  29.“Attack on the Liberty,” Thames TV.

  30.Vice Adm. Connolly served as OP-05 from November 1, 1966, to August 21, 1971.

  31.See The Liberty Incident, www.thelibertyincident.com/documents/hotline, and “The Nation: Hot Line Diplomacy,” Time Magazine, June 16, 1967, 15–17, including a picture of the hotline teletype machine, and at Lyndon Baines Johnson, Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency. 1963–1969 (New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 297–304.

  32.Bryant Jordan, “SS Liberty sails to Challenge Israel,” Military.com, http://www.military.com/news/articles/SS_Liberty_sails_to_challenge_Israel.html?col=1186032325324, plus comments.

  33.Telephone conversation, this author and John Hadden, initiated by John Hadden on February 3, 2002.

  34.Ibid.

  35.Cdr. David Lewis lives in Colebrook, Vermont. An interview with Lewis is included in the video production “Dead in the Water.”

  36.“Dead in the Water,” London, Vision, 2003.

  37.Review of “Dead in the Water” by Mike Weeks, posted on Amazon.com, customer reviews, August 19, 2006. See also review of Joseph (United States) on Amazon, July 25: “Absolute lies and falsified information. This film is not only severely biased, but it fails to explain why Israel would deliberately attack their only ally.”

  38.Associated Press report on speech of Capt. William McGonagle, June 8, 1977, carried in multiple newspapers on June 8, 1967.

  39.Stephen Green, Taking Sides (New York: William Morrow, 1984).

  40.“USAF in Sinai in the 1967 War: Fact or Fiction?,” Journal of Palestine Studies 27, no. 1 (Autumn 1997), 67–75. Ambassador Parker served as U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Algeria, and Morocco. After retirement he was scholar in residence at the Middle East Institute, Washington, D.C.

  41.See picture in Aviation Week & Space Technology, July 24, 1967, 69. It was taken on June 5, 1967, the first day of the Six Day War, by Israel Air Force Squadron 119. A similar picture showing the shadow of a Mirage IIIC on the ground as it flies over three destroyed Egyptian aircraft is published in Lon Nordeen and David Nicolle, Phoenix over the Nile (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), the twenty-fourth picture following page 218. The caption reads: “This photograph, taken by an IAF Mirage, documents the severe blow inflicted upon the UARAF by Israeli jets on 5 June 1967. These three Egyptian MiG-21 fighters were destroyed on the ground by cannon fire at an air base said to be demolished before they could take off (Photo IAF)” (emphasis added).

  42.“Libert
y” News, September/October 1981, 4.

  43.Ibid., August 1982, 2.

  44.Ibid., 9.

  45.Ibid., March 1983, 2.

  46.The program titled “1967 Arab-Israeli War and USS Liberty” may be obtained from C-SPAN.org ID: 179892-01/12/2004-2:58.

  47.This author’s paper for the conference, submitted by invitation, may be viewed at www.thelibertyincident.com/docs/liberty-intelligence.pdf. It was coauthored with John Hadden, CIA chief of station in Tel Aviv in 1967, and Capt. Ernest Castle, USN, U.S. naval attaché in Tel Aviv in 1967.

  48.E-mail, Brooke E. Runnette, to A Jay Cristol, November 4, 2004.

  49.Reported by David Bauder, AP television writer, Thursday, March 28, 2008, New York: “Former Nightline reporter David Marish has quit Al-Jazeera English, saying Thursday his exit was due in part to an anti-American bias at a network that is little seen in this country.”

  50.James M. Ennes Jr., “The USS Liberty Affair,” Link (May/June 1984), 7; James M. Ennes Jr. “The USS Liberty,” Link (May/June 1992), 6.

  51.USS Liberty Veterans Association, Special Pre-Reunion Bulletin, May 6, 1987.

  Chapter 15. Red Herrings and Myths

  1.Richard B. Parker, ed., The Six Day War: A Retrospective (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996), 270. The entire quote is: “I’ll take up the challenge of the Liberty with your permission. Why would Israel do such a terrible thing? We may be crazy, but we are not fools. For Israel in the middle of a war, when the Soviet fleet is on the horizon, to come out and shoot up and try to sink and bomb and kill American sailors is worse than a crime, it’s damned folly. [As for] the reason being that we were going to attack the Golan Heights: that this was a reason good enough to provoke this kind of horrible thing, which would do incalculable damage to Israel is unimaginable. The Americans had many ways of finding out what our plans were. They knew what was going on, and anybody who knows Israel knows that even a truck that goes up the single road to the Golan could be spotted. We don’t have to sink an American ship for that. At the risk of being laughed out of this room, I have to repeat to you that it was a terrible tragic mistake.”

  2.The Japanese carriers Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu were all lost at Midway. Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya, Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan (New York: Ballantine, 1955), 213, 155–77. See also Samuel Eliot Morrison, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964), 4: 9–93.

  3.The only “rockets” were air-to-air missiles, most likely AIM-9 Sidewinders, which were heat seekers and which, if fired, would probably not have locked onto a surface ship. Shrapnel fragments were collected from Liberty and sent for evaluation to the Navy Scientific Intelligence Center. On June 28, 1967, the center sent a priority message to the Liberty, with information copies to the Chief of Naval Operations; Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe; Commander in Chief, U.S. European Command; Joint Chiefs of Staff (Joint Center Reconnaissance); Commander in Chief, Atlantic Command; Commander Sixth Fleet; Commander Service Force Atlantic; and the Defense Intelligence Agency. The message stated:

  Confidential

  Shrapnel Evaluation

  a.Liberty (AGTR-5) 081715Z

  1.Interim evaluation of fragments received as a result of attack Reference A indicates following types of ammunition and source:

  a.20 mm HE-T. From MTB 20K DM-11 German

  b.30 mm HC, aircraft cannon, nationality unknown

  c.40 mm tracer element from MTB. US made projectile

  d.50 caliber projectiles (several) nationality unknown.

  Apparently no shrapnel fragments from rockets, missiles, or napalm canisters were collected and submitted. Though the issue of whether Liberty was hit by rockets remains in dispute, it is not relevant to the issue of whether the attack was intentional or a mistake.

  4.Examining Judge’s Preliminary Inquiry, para. 16: “It was testified to me that the area was declared by the Egyptian Authorities as one dangerous to shipping, a declaration which presumably reached all vessels to be found in the vicinity.”

  Chapter 16. Confirmation: National Security Agency Intercepts

  1.Marvin Nowicki ultimately retired from the Navy with the rank of lieutenant commander.

  2.Naval Historic Center DTG 081359Z June 1967 COMSIXTH FLEET TO FAIRECCONRON TWO [VQ-2 and others].

  3.Richard Hickman is referred to in the original (i.e., first) edition of this book as the Third Hebrew Linguist (page 136 of that edition). His oral history at the National Security Agency was declassified and released on September 19, 2005, as a result of this author’s Freedom of Information Act, NSA FOIA case no. 41707A.

  4.Department of Defense news release 530–67 of June 6, 1967.

  5.Report of House Armed Services Investigative Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services, May 10, 1971.

  6.Interview of George Golden, March 11, 1991, by this author.

  7.National Security Agency Report, “Attack on a SIGINT Collector, USS Liberty,” National Security Agency, 1981, p. 64.

  8.See U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, Case No. 03–20123-CIV-HUCK, A Jay Cristol v. National Security Agency.

  9.James Bamford, Body of Secrets (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 185–239.

  10.Scott Shane and Tom Bowman, “New Book on NSA Sheds Light on Secrets,” Baltimore Sun, April 24, 2001.

  11.“Tragic Gross Error in 1967 Attack,” Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2001, A-23.

  12.Mentioned on page 146.

  13.See record of U.S. District Court, Case No. 03–20123-CIV-HUCK, A. Jay Cristol v. National Security Agency.

  14.National Security Agency, “Attack on a SIGINT Collector, the USS Liberty,” 1981, 64. The audiotapes, transcripts, and 1981 report may be heard and viewed on the National Security Agency website, www.nsa.gov/liberty/.

  15.See Richard W. Hickman, oral history, declassified by NSA on September 19, 2005. It may be seen at The Liberty Incident, www.thelibertyincident.com/hebrewlinguist3.html.

  16.See Thames TV production, Attack on the Liberty, first aired Tuesday, June 28, 1987, at 10:39 p.m. on British television, fifty-three minutes, fifteen seconds in length.

  17.See appendix 2, p. 261.

  18.National Security Agency, “Attack on a SIGINT Collector, the USS Liberty,” 1981, vii.

  19.Ibid., 64.

  20.CIA intelligence memorandum, June 13, 1967, SC No.01415/67. See U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume XIX (Washington, D.C., 2003), item 317.

  21.CIA intelligence memorandum, June 21, 1967, SC No. 08384–67. See U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume XIX, item 284.

  22.Stansfield Turner, director of CIA, letter to Senator Abourzek, February 27, 1978.

  23.Defense Intelligence Agency, memoranda to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, TS-SI-0186/AP-5, 13 June 1967 (Top Secret Trine); and SS-S1–0211/AP-5, 28 June, 1967 (Secret Savin).

  24.President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board report, July 18, 1967, p. 4. This report may be viewed, as “Clark Clifford Report,” at TheLibertyIncident.com under Documents.

  25.U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, 28 June 1967, findings 1 and 6.

  26.First endorsement on letter of Adm. Isaac C. Kidd, USN, 111645/1100 of 18 June 1967 from Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, to Judge Advocate General, 4, para. 15.

  Chapter 17. Confirmation: The Mythical Submarine

  1.National Security Council Note by the executive secretary dated December 28, 1955, states “The President has this day approved the amendment of. . . . NSC 5412/1” which had created “Special Group 5412” and promulgated National Security Council directive on covert operations, NSC5412/2. See National Security File, NSA 5412/1 and NSA 5412/2, both originally classified top secret and declassified in 1977. Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas.

  2.Memorandum on White House stationery signed by McGeorge Bundy (at the time National Security Advisor to Preside
nt John F. Kennedy). The document was declassified on December 5, 1987. Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas.

  3.Ennes claims to have interviewed General Steakley and to have been told “that his job with the Joint Chiefs of Staff was to win approval of such projects from the appropriate authorities. He was rarely involved in the projects themselves. He could remember nothing about FRONTLET 615.” James M. Ennes Jr., “USS Liberty: Periscope Photography May Finally Reveal Truth,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs 26, no. 1 (June/July 1997), 19–20.

  4.William Broe was a division chief at CIA and later inspector general of the CIA. He worked on projects related to the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile. It appears doubtful that Item 2, referred to in the memorandum, had anything to do with a submarine in the Mediterranean.

  5. National Security File, Files of the Special Committee of the NSC, “Liberty,” box 10, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library.

  6.James M. Ennes Jr., Assault on the “Liberty” (New York: Random House, 1979).

  7.Ennes, “USS Liberty: Periscope Photography May Finally Reveal Truth.”

  8.Russell Warren Howe, Weapons (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980). Howe claims the USS Andrew Jackson was two hundred feet below the USS Liberty during the attack. The deck log of the Andrew Jackson shows only that from April 1 through 30 June 30, 1967, she was attached to the Atlantic Fleet and operating out of Rota, Spain.

  9.The deck log of USS Trutta shows on June 8, 1967, she was in port at Souda Bay, Crete, “moored side to starboard side USS Tidewater AD31.”

  10.The deck log of USS Requin shows on June 8, 1967, that she was in port at Souda Bay, Crete, “moored to buoy no. 7 in anchorage at Suda Bay, Crete.”

  11.Ennes Jr., “USS Liberty: Periscope Photography May Finally Reveal Truth.”

  12.An antenna at sea level could pick up sea-level transmissions at no more than two miles, line of sight. Transmissions from high-flying aircraft could be received from a greater distance. Nevertheless, some conspiracy stories claim of hearing ground controllers broadcasting from transmitters many miles away in Israel, at or near sea level, which is a physical impossibility. For example, Capt. Richard Block claims to have been on active duty with the 6931st Reconnaissance Center in Crete, more than five hundred miles away, where he heard real-time intercepts. When others who claimed they heard the intercepts in real time as far away as Viet Nam or in the United States were asked how they understood the Hebrew language of intercepts, they changed their stories to having read teletype translations of the intercepts in real time.

 

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