The Attack on the Liberty

by James Scott

  The Liberty’s new orders—four sentences on a single sheet of paper—provided little detail about the upcoming mission. The orders directed McGonagle to steam north to Spain, load extra equipment and men, and depart for the Egyptian coast in the eastern Mediterranean and await further instructions. The headlines of the world’s newspapers foreshadowed the ship’s new assignment. Even on board the Liberty as it crossed the Atlantic, the teletype spit out abbreviated bulletins that tracked the growing tension in the Middle East. A week earlier Egypt had expelled United Nations peacekeepers from the Sinai Peninsula, the vast desert that separates most of Egypt from Israel. As many as a hundred thousand Egyptian troops, tanks, and artillery amassed along the Jewish state’s border. Less than thirty-six hours earlier, as sailors had spilled down the Liberty’s gangway in Abidjan, Egypt had announced a blockade of the Strait of Tiran, a narrow waterway that connects Israel to the Red Sea. Closure of the strait restricted Israel’s oil imports and cut off its trade markets in Asia and Africa. War appeared imminent.

  The skipper’s haste this morning reflected the pressure he had felt since the Liberty sailed from its home port of Norfolk, Virginia, on May 2. McGonagle’s career was flatlining—and he knew it. Many of his peers commanded destroyers, led fighter wings, and worked policy problems for the Navy’s senior officers at the Pentagon. The Liberty in contrast ranked as the latest in a series of mediocre assignments that had dogged the forty-one-year-old skipper. McGonagle had spent the past thirteen months inching his ship along the African coast, patrolling an obscure frontier of the Cold War. Prior to his command of the Liberty, he had taught naval science at the University of Idaho. McGonagle spent much of his career at sea on tug and salvage vessels, a mundane job that had taught him the limits of what a ship could endure. He had towed target rafts for gunnery practice and raised sunken vessels off Guam after Typhoon Karen wrecked the island in 1962. A highlight of his career was a commendation letter the governor of American Samoa sent after McGonagle salvaged a Japanese tuna boat that had burned and sunk in the Pago Pago harbor.

  McGonagle lacked the U.S. Naval Academy pedigree or family legacy that assured others entrance into the Navy’s aristocracy. Rather than hone his seafaring skills as a midshipman on the banks of the Severn River, McGonagle had earned his commission through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps program at the University of Southern California. Marine sergeants had barked at him at 5:30 each morning as he cranked out push-ups and ran mile after mile. He learned to wear a uniform and march to and from class. The Navy’s fifty-dollar monthly stipend, he found, afforded him little more to eat than oatmeal. McGonagle’s first test of his training came soon after graduation when he served as a gunnery officer in the Korean War, hammering shore batteries with 40-mm cannons from the deck of the minesweeper U.S.S. Kite. He participated in the defense of Pusan and the amphibious landings at Inchon and Wonsan, earning the Korean Service Medal with six battle stars. McGonagle would later recall the chaos he witnessed when two nearby ships struck mines. The explosion hurled sailors into the water. The stunned young officer watched as both ships sank in minutes.

  Now, on the bridge of the Liberty, as he shouted orders in his boxers and T-shirt, McGonagle recognized that his career hinged on the success of this next mission. Twice the Navy had passed him over for promotion to the rank of captain. If the Navy didn’t promote him soon, McGonagle knew he would be forced to retire as the Navy thinned its ranks to allow what it perceived as more talented officers to advance. For the married father of three that would mean the end of a career he had fought for since the afternoon he had enlisted more than two decades earlier. The Liberty’s officers sensed his frustration. Though he was twice the age of many on board, McGonagle remained an imposing figure. His lean six-foot-one-inch athletic frame hinted at the speed and agility of a onetime high school football star and team captain. The Coachella Valley Lions Club had honored him in 1943 as the school’s most inspirational and outstanding player. He had even played left guard in 1945 during the brief period he spent at the University of Redlands—the team went undefeated that year—before he transferred to USC.

  McGonagle’s disposition proved equally intimidating. His slow Kansas drawl disguised a rigid demeanor that reflected his World War II–era training. He ordered his officers to wear hats at all times and forbade them to dress in the Navy’s white short uniform, an uncomfortable restriction in Africa’s tropical climate. The skipper rarely fraternized with his men. When many of the officers gathered in the wardroom after meals to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee, McGonagle often retreated to his stateroom to write letters and read. McGonagle took command of the Liberty seriously and set high expectations for his crew. He drilled his men almost daily to test firefighting, damage control, and gunnery skills. The skipper greeted his crew’s foul-ups with a scorching temper that one officer described in a letter as “the wrath of the old man.” McGonagle’s career pressure only exacerbated his outbursts and sparked him to micromanage his men. He demanded to review all of the Liberty’s incoming and outgoing messages. He woke sleeping sailors in the middle of the night to chew them out over petty errors. A minor infraction left one junior officer confined to quarters for meals.

  Ensign Patrick O’Malley had suffered the sting of McGonagle’s temper only days earlier. The Liberty’s mission marked the first assignment at sea for the twenty-two-year-old Minneapolis native, the ship’s most junior officer. The assistant operations officer and ship’s secretary, who had barely had time to unpack his footlocker before the Liberty sailed out of port, fumbled basic tasks, reflecting his inexperience. When one of O’Malley’s men lost an important message regarding quarterly tests for promotions, O’Malley dashed off a message requesting the Navy personnel office transmit another copy. McGonagle exploded. The skipper summoned O’Malley to the bridge over the loudspeaker. The young officer arrived to find McGonagle perched in his chair. He wore dark sunglasses and a cigar dangled from his mouth. McGonagle plucked out the cigar, blew a plume of smoke, then waved the cigar in front of O’Malley. “My career is at stake here,” the skipper barked. “If there is another mistake like this, this cigar is going to light the cannon that is going to blow your career to smithereens. You’re a smart kid. Is that clear?”

  Tied up alongside the Abidjan pier, the Liberty appeared unremarkable. It was painted a standard Navy gray with its name freshly stenciled in black across the stern and its hull numbers in white on either side of the bow. The superstructure that contained the bridge and officer staterooms towered four stories above the center of the main deck. A single stack belched dark smoke from the bunker fuel oil the Liberty burned in its boilers. When the ship was under way, the American flag fluttered above the bridge from the tallest of the three masts. The Liberty stretched less than half the length of an aircraft carrier and lacked the cannons of a battleship, for years the symbol of American naval dominance. Compared to sleek destroyers, the greyhounds of the sea, the Liberty wheezed over waves at a top speed of only eighteen knots, or just under twenty-one miles per hour. Its undistinguished appearance camouflaged its mission: the Liberty was a spy ship.

  Oregon shipbuilders hammered out the Liberty in just ten weeks in the waning months of World War II. The 455-foot-long cargo ship, originally christened the S.S. Simmons Victory, joined a fleet of more than five hundred freighters punched out on assembly lines nationwide to compensate for the losses caused by German submarines. These cargo ships ferried everything from troops and bullets to food, fuel, and toilet paper. The Simmons Victory, delivered in May 1945 to the Maritime Commission, served only briefly in the Atlantic and Pacific in the final days of World War II but played a vital role in the Korean War. Between November 1950 and December 1952, the cargo ship chugged across the Pacific nine times to equip American troops fighting communist North Korea. Six years later, with the Korean War over, the Simmons Victory joined the National Defense Reserve Fleet and was mothballed in Washington’s Puget Sound, its career seemin
gly over.

  Halfway around the world, Soviet technicians transformed trawlers into spy ships, jammed with eavesdropping equipment and linguists trained to intercept American radio communications and radar signals. The fleet of as many as forty ships harassed American forces in the Mediterranean and off the coast of Southeast Asia. Others monitored America’s overseas bases in Spain and Scotland. One ship patrolled off Guam and reported the takeoffs of B-52 bombers to North Vietnam. Soviet spy ships even prowled America’s shores near major military bases, including the Charleston Naval Base in South Carolina and Florida’s John F. Kennedy Space Center. The ships trolled just beyond America’s three-mile territorial limit though still close enough that sunbathers on beaches could easily spot them. Occasionally trawlers trespassed into American waters, prompting the Navy to escort them back into international waters.

  The Defense Department decided the United States would not be outflanked by the Soviets. The National Security Agency and the Navy developed a plan. American warships and planes for years had carried out similar spy missions. But warships were expensive to operate and were handicapped by various maritime treaties. Stationed off the coast of foreign nations, combat ships appeared provocative and made eavesdropping difficult. Fuel costs and flight-time restraints likewise handicapped airplanes. Cargo ships offered an ideal solution. The lumbering liners could troll for weeks in a single spot, intercepting radio broadcasts, phone calls, and radar transmissions twenty-four hours a day, a job one estimate showed would require as many as thirteen spy planes to duplicate. The conversion from a cargo ship to spy ship cost taxpayers approximately $3.1 million. Fueling, staffing, and operating each ship cost $2.5 million annually.

  The Navy commissioned the U.S.S. Oxford in July 1961. The 11,500-ton ship soon sailed for its first mission along the east coast of South America. Over the next few years, the Navy commissioned the U.S.S. Georgetown, U.S.S. Jamestown, and U.S.S. Belmont. The U.S.N.S. Pvt. Jose F. Valdez and U.S.N.S. Sgt. Joseph E. Muller joined the fleet, though civilians with the Military Sea Transportation Service largely operated both. The Navy classified its new fleet as “technical research ships” and developed a cover story: the vessels conducted scientific studies into electromagnetic propagation and advanced communications systems, including moon relay and satellite tracking. The Navy’s policy, however, was “to discourage any public attention on these ships and their mission.” Impressed by the success of the program, the Navy called the Simmons Victory back into service in February 1963.

  Shipfitters with Oregon’s Willamette Iron & Steel Corporation reengineered the Simmons Victory over the next two years, converting its cargo holds into secret rooms guarded by cipher locks. Technicians installed receivers designed to intercept radio communications and Morse code along with magnetic tape recorders. Electricians later affixed a satellite dish to the ship’s stern that towered approximately thirty-five feet above the deck and bounced messages off the moon at a hundred words a minute back to NSA headquarters in the wooded suburbs of Washington. Forty-four other antennae aimed skyward, prompting one admiral to describe the ship as a “porcupine.” On the frigid morning of December 30, 1964, the 13th Naval District Band launched into the National Anthem on the docks in Bremerton, Washington. The American flag rose up the mast as the ship’s new executive officer set the first watch. The U.S.S. Liberty—named in honor of ten cities and towns with the same name—officially was born.

  Like its namesakes, the Liberty functioned as a small town. Two Babcock & Wilcox boilers produced superheated steam that powered the turbines at up to 8,500 horsepower and generated the electricity to run the ship’s lights, radios, and navigation system. A desalination plant made ocean water drinkable and provided fresh water for showers, the galleys, and boilers. Walk-in freezers, refrigerators, and pantries carried frozen steaks, chickens, and canned hams. The main griddle was so large that the cooks coated their arms in Crisco to protect against popping grease when flipping burgers near the back. The Liberty boasted a small infirmary along with a doctor and two medical corpsmen for emergencies. A post office sold George Washington stamps for a nickel while pricier airmail stamps cost eight cents. The ship’s barber buzzed heads in his one-stool shop and a small store sold everything from razor blades and toothpaste to underwear, radios, and cigarettes.

  Sailors checked out Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey, and Ray Bradbury paperbacks in the ship’s library and leafed through issues of Reader’s Digest and Life magazine when not at work. Some of the enlisted men used the quiet space to cram for high school equivalency exams while others piled in on Sunday mornings for a nondenominational worship service. Men built and raced model cars in the hobby shop while the ship’s collection of woodworking tools allowed McGonagle’s predecessor to handcraft the African mahogany rails that adorned the bridge. Other crewmembers lifted weights, played hearts in the berthing spaces, or fished for red snapper and sharks off the stern when anchored. The ship’s soda fountain offered ice cream after dinner, and in the evenings sailors watched scratched Dean Martin, Rock Hudson, and Tyrone Power movies on 16-mm reels projected on curtains on the walls of the mess deck and wardroom.

  A class system permeated the Liberty’s ranks. Nearly half the sailors worked for the Naval Security Group, the intelligence and cryptology command that reported to the National Security Agency. These crewmembers, dubbed “spooks,” held top-secret clearances and bunked together in the rear of the ship. The spooks’ clean fingernails and starched uniforms contrasted with the dirty dungarees and the smell of sweat and fuel oil clinging to members of the ship’s company, often condescendingly referred to as “deck apes.” Many among the ship’s company felt that the spooks were arrogant, uninterested in the ship’s drills, and received preferential treatment. The rear-berthing compartment was a smoother ride in rough seas and was just steps to the mess deck and ship’s laundry. The spooks fueled the tension by playing practical jokes on gullible sailors, often warning them not to stray too close to the moon-relay dish on the stern or risk sterilization.

  Unlike most Navy ships that steamed as part of a fleet, the Liberty and its sister spy ships sailed alone, often along remote and sometimes hostile shores. Though the government denied it for years, the spy ship Muller routinely fished refugees from the waters off Cuba. The Liberty operated off Africa, eavesdropping on the developing nations and scouting signs of Soviet penetration. The ship spent so much time there that the men decorated the wardroom walls with African masks and batiks. The Liberty had steamed up the Congo River on one mission, while crewmembers built houses at a leper colony on another. The terrain was so barren at times that tree stumps onshore served as the only navigational aids. The Liberty and its sister ships carried only four .50-caliber machine guns for defense, designed in case the ship ever needed to repel boarders. These Navy ships sailed under an American conviction, fueled by the nation’s post–World War II status as a superpower, that no nation would dare attack a U.S. flagged vessel in international waters.

  With the crewmembers all on board, fresh vegetables loaded, and the ship’s truck secured on deck, the Liberty sailed at 7:30 A.M., clearing Abidjan’s narrow Vridi Canal, separating the harbor from the ocean, in fifteen minutes. It had proven a difficult morning for many of the officers and crew. Some officers, who had attended an embassy party the night before, had stumbled back to the ship shortly before the orders arrived. Ensign John Scott had to escort the ship’s chief engineer to bed, unfastening Lieutenant George Golden’s sword and tunic to make sure he didn’t choke in his sleep. Golden dozed through reveille. Scott fared little better. The early departure coupled with his headache meant he failed to mail his weekly letter to his parents. “I was too hung over to remember,” Scott later confessed in a letter. “It was a bad morning for getting underway.”

  Lieutenant Commander Philip Armstrong, Jr., the ship’s executive officer and second in command, chided the younger officers, many of whom nursed hangovers with cups of black coffee in the wardroom as the
Liberty steamed north toward Spain at fifteen knots. The thirty-seven-year-old Armstrong, born in Detroit on Independence Day in 1929, managed the Liberty’s officers and enlisted sailors, oversaw the ship’s administrative duties and executed McGonagle’s orders. He was a much less imposing figure than McGonagle. Armstrong often hid his buzzed hair, which had begun to gray, beneath his khaki officer’s hat. He stood just shy of six feet and was slender with a chiseled jaw and solid physique, despite his penchant for scotch. The executive officer wore glasses and chain-smoked cigarettes. The married father of five—three boys and two girls—was one of only three Naval Academy graduates on the Liberty.

  Armstrong and McGonagle could not have been more different. Compared to the skipper, who applied a strict interpretation of Navy regulations, Armstrong was a cerebral leader and a keen appreciator of personalities. He recognized that not all decisions could be found in the pages of Navy manuals, that good governance involved creativity and an understanding of people’s strengths and weaknesses. The executive officer observed, for example, that McGonagle’s rigidity irritated many of the junior officers, who often suffered his outbursts. Armstrong refused to allow his men to criticize McGonagle in the skipper’s absence, but would often do so himself. The younger officers realized that Armstrong did so not out of dislike or disrespect for the skipper, but to defuse the tension McGonagle created among the officers and crew. Armstrong’s criticism let the men know that he appreciated the concern over McGonagle’s leadership, but also prevented one of them from a career-damaging slip-up.