by James Scott
The planned rally reflected the surging pro-Israel sentiment that had swept much of the country as Jews and gentiles alike celebrated Israel’s stunning success. “There never was an issue,” observed McGeorge Bundy, “where public opinion was more in accord as to who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.” Americans showed that support by donating millions of dollars to Israel since the war’s outbreak. A lunch fund-raiser at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York netted $1 million a minute during a fifteen-minute period the day the war started. Donors pledged another $2.5 million at a fund-raiser that evening in Chicago, while congregants of a Washington temple pledged $1 million following a worship service only days later.
Many of the donations came from wealthy individuals and families. The publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer donated $1 million and the chairman of Revlon gave $500,000. Robert T. Stevens, the former secretary of the Army, contributed $250,000 while fifty Boston families contributed a combined $2.5 million. Many others sold cars, real estate, and cashed in life insurance policies. A gas station owner signed over the deeds to his two stations and youths collected spare change in cans at subway entrances. In Denver, a thirteen-year-old made headlines after he donated the $500 he had received in gifts for his bar mitzvah.
The president and his advisers were not immune to the swelling pro-Israel support. Letters, telegrams, and petitions poured into the State Department, White House, and congressional offices. Between June 2 and 6, the State Department processed 17,445 letters related to the Middle East crisis. “Pro-Israeli letters now represent 98 per cent of the total. About 2 per cent of the mail is from persons opposed to American intervention in the Middle East, and there are only a handful of pro-Arab letters,” stated a memo to Rusk. “Emotional content of the mail remains high.”
The day of the rally the State Department mailroom would process another 9,470 letters and telegrams—nearly double the amount received just the day before—with 99 percent of the mail favoring Israel. Letter writers included mayors and state legislators. Towns and cities nationwide passed resolutions urging American support for Israel and forwarded them to Washington, including cities such as Miami Beach and Beverly Hills and small towns like Ramapo, New York. Many of the resolutions and letters predicted apocalyptic scenarios for Israel if America failed to intervene.
“There should be absolutely no doubt where the U.S. stands concerning the present conflict in the Middle East,” the mayor of North Las Vegas cabled the president. “The very existence of Israel as a nation is threatened and our country can not stand by and see this courageous country lost to nations bent on its utter destruction.”
Illinois congregants of the West Suburban Temple Har Zion in River Forest sent a petition calling for the United States to supply troops and equipment to Israel. “As an elected official we place our trust in you in the prevention of the genocide of 2,500,000 innocent people,” the accompanying letter stated. “Action must be taken at once.”
“The entire world will be affected by the fate of Israel,” wrote an administrator with New York City’s board of education, who begged the president to intercede on Israel’s behalf. “To withhold aid now would be a crime against humanity. Let us not be guilty of needless human slaughter.”
The increased pressure to support Israel from the public and his aides only frustrated the president. That frustration was evident when aides Larry Levinson and Ben Wattenberg suggested in a memo that the president send a message to the afternoon rally, expressing his support for Israel. The president exploded on Levinson soon after in a hallway confrontation outside the Oval Office that left the aide “shaken to the marrow.” “You Zionist dupe!” the president shouted, raising his right fist. “Why can’t you see I’m doing all I can for Israel. That’s what you should be telling people when they ask for a message from the President for their rally.”
On the eve of the rally, senior White House advisers called leaders of the Jewish community to assure them of the president’s commitment to Israel and urge them to pass along that message to the Jewish community. Vice President Hubert Humphrey even met with the leaders of twenty-one national Jewish organizations the day of the rally, emphasizing the president’s “quiet diplomacy.” Washington lawyer David Ginsburg, a friend of the president and a powerful leader in the Jewish community, scored the biggest victory: the opportunity to edit and rewrite the main speech to be read during the rally. When Ginsburg finished, he assured the White House that everything was “under control.” The theme of the speech: “solidarity with Israel.” Two hours before the rally began, the president’s advisers passed him a copy of the speech. The potential crisis appeared defused.
Busloads of American Jews arrived in the park early that afternoon. Despite the administration’s efforts, the president still drew scorn from some of the estimated thirty thousand demonstrators. One woman, whose granddaughter was in Israel, described the president to a reporter as a lemmischka, someone with no backbone. That residual hostility soon dissipated when at 3:20 P.M. one of the rally organizers climbed on a platform and announced that Egypt had accepted a cease-fire. The crowd roared. Thousands sang the “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem. The sudden emotional outpouring even moved reporters covering the event. “We were all Jews in the park,” observed columnist Mary McGrory of the Evening Star. “Instant Israelization was occurring all over.”
Children strung flags and banners from the park’s statues. Others gathered in circles and danced the hora, a traditional Jewish folk dance. A group of rabbis sang “Next Year in Jerusalem” on the platform and danced to the backdrop of guitars, harmonicas, and accordions. “Moses led us out of the land of Egypt, now Moshe Dayan has led us back,” declared one man, referring to Israel’s defense minister. “Praise to almighty God.” Several congressmen and senators joined the crowd as nearly three hundred police and park officers patrolled to make sure no fighting erupted between Israel’s exuberant supporters and the two hundred pro-Arab demonstrators who marched across the street. “Look at this crowd,” declared one man in a yarmulke. “We have so many friends. I never knew we had so many friends.”
McNamara and Vance met that afternoon for a regular briefing with reporters in the defense secretary’s private dining room. The two hosted a background briefing every Thursday for the Pentagon’s beat reporters. The informal meetings allowed journalists, who normally received information through the filter of a spokesperson, to directly question top leaders about the week’s news. The Pentagon considered the briefings on the record but barred reporters from using direct quotations. Journalists had to attribute all information to “defense officials.” The Pentagon retained transcripts of each briefing and, in keeping with the ground rules, omitted the names of all speakers.
Defense officials considered scratching the background briefing this afternoon, knowing that reporters would press for details on the Liberty, details that hours later still remained scarce. But fearing that the press might misinterpret the cancellation, Pentagon officials opted to go forward with it. As expected, the attack soon became the focus of the afternoon session. The casualty figures had climbed since spokesman Phil Goulding’s briefing in the pressroom only hours earlier. The latest reports now listed ten killed and as many as seventy-five wounded, up to fifteen critically. The transcript shows that reporters appeared more interested in the Liberty’s mission, capabilities, and location on the war’s sideline than the casualty figures.
“Can you tell us why that ship was needed there?” a reporter asked soon after the briefing began.
The defense leaders fell back on the Pentagon’s flimsy excuse concocted that morning: the Liberty served as a relay to offset the communications overload associated with pulling Americans out of the war zone. “We have evacuated literally thousands of individuals from certain Middle Eastern countries in the last several days, and there’s been a tremendous amount of extra communications traffic as a result,” officials said. “It’s just driving us insane to read it, as
a matter of fact.”
“About how many have we evacuated?”
“About seventeen thousand,” officials replied. “A fantastic movement of American personnel.”
“How many are left to go?”
“It depends on a country-by-country basis.”
Questions soon returned to the spy ship’s location as journalists searched for details to explain the Liberty’s proximity to a war zone. Most recognized that the Liberty skirted the edge of Egyptian and Israeli territorial waters. “Is there a technical reason that this communications ship had to be fifteen miles off the Sinai Peninsula?”
“I honestly can’t answer your question. I just don’t know enough about the communications problem to know exactly where it has to be,” answered an official. “There are technical reasons, technical factors, that dictate its location. It uses the moon as a passive reflector, and it’s positioned in relation to that to get maximum amplification or relay capability.”
A reporter then asked a question that exposed a fatal flaw in the cover story, a flaw that would haunt the Defense Department for weeks. If the Liberty’s mission was to serve as a benign communications relay—as the government publicly declared only hours earlier—then surely the Pentagon alerted the Egyptian and Israeli governments of its presence. That seemed only prudent given the ship’s proximity to the fighting. McNamara and Vance stammered. “I can’t answer that question either,” officials conceded. “I just don’t know.”
The briefing then shifted to the details of the attack. “Was it a torpedo hit or was there also strafing?” a reporter pressed.
“I think there was both.”
When asked if the Liberty fired on the attacking forces, defense officials again had no answer. “Was the attack without warning, sir?”
“As far as we know, yes.”
Across the river at the White House, Christian addressed reporters for his afternoon briefing at 4:35 P.M. in the West Lobby. It had remained a hectic day at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as the president juggled the Liberty crisis and the visit of the Malawian president Hastings Kamuzu Banda. At one point, he made his guest quietly sip coffee in the Oval Office so he could review the transcript of Christian’s morning briefing.
Soviet premier Kosygin had responded to Johnson’s earlier message over the hotline, letting him know that he had passed word about the Liberty to Egyptian president Gamal Nasser. About an hour before Christian’s afternoon news conference, the president hotlined another message to Kosygin. “I deeply appreciate your transmitting the message to President Nasser,” he wrote. “We lost 10 men, 16 critically wounded, and 65 wounded, as a result of Israeli attack, for which they have apologized.”
When Christian opened up the afternoon briefing for questions, journalists soon returned to the morning’s unanswered question of President Johnson’s secret meeting with Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Reporters demanded to know who else attended the meeting, how long it lasted, and the topic of discussion.
Christian conceded that the meeting focused on the attack on the Liberty. Yes, McNamara attended, he told them, so did National Security Adviser Walt Rostow and special consultant McGeorge Bundy. Despite the fact that the latest reports listed as many as ten killed and up to seventy-five wounded, Christian downplayed the violence of the assault, referring to it merely as a “ship incident,” a phrase he repeated in varying forms a half-dozen times throughout the twenty-eight-minute briefing.
The reporters even noted his blasé description. “Can you tell us what the president’s feeling was about what you refer to as the ‘ship incident’?” one asked.
Christian didn’t seem to notice the inference. Instead, he informed the press corps that Rusk had summoned the Israeli ambassador to the State Department hours earlier to protest the attack. “The Ambassador expressed apologies on behalf of his government,” Christian said. “A formal United States protest is also being delivered to the Government of Israel.”
The story that had sparked a barrage of questions earlier in the day seemed to deflate, as reporters soon appeared far more interested in the use of the hotline that morning than in a questionable attack by an ally that had killed at least ten Americans. Is the hotline located in the White House or Pentagon? Did the Russians send the first message? Had the White House ever used the hotline before?
Christian tried to satisfy the reporters’ curiosity as best he could. He explained when the hotline was installed and briefly described how it worked. More importantly, he noted the context of why the United States and Russia depended on it. “One reason it was installed, as you will recall, was to prevent misunderstandings or misinterpretations of government activities.”
“Why was it considered necessary to use the hotline?” a reporter asked moments later, referring to the Liberty.
“As I said, the purpose is to prevent misinterpretation,” Christian replied.
“I wondered what they might misinterpret about our picking up survivors from our own ships,” a reporter commented.
“We wanted to inform them that one of our ships had been struck.”
Questions soon gravitated back to the specifics of the hotline. The volley of hotline-related questions—more than three dozen over the course of the briefing—irritated the press secretary. Each time he tried to return to the White House’s daily talking points, reporters sidetracked him with questions about the hotline, prompting Christian to finally declare: “I have given you all of my knowledge on it.”
Toward the end of the briefing the press secretary returned to the Liberty, informing the reporters on background that the United States had launched aircraft to go to the spy ship after news arrived of the attack.
“Carrier-based planes?”
“Yes. Carrier-based planes went to that area when we learned that the ship had been hit,” he answered. “That is why I mentioned this as one means of avoiding a misunderstanding.”
Only in the remaining minutes of the briefing did a reporter finally ask if the United States knew who had attacked the Liberty at the time it sent its hotline message to Russia. The journalists appeared to now sense the gravity of the situation as it had unfolded hours earlier. A ship had been torpedoed and fighters launched to defend it—and America had not known at the time which country its pilots might soon engage.
Christian delicately answered these questions. Just as he had done in the morning, he gave only limited responses, refusing to entertain the reporters’ speculation. “The notification of the incident was sent on the initial report of the incident, prior to the time the Israelis advised this government that they had accidentally hit the ship,” he told the press corps. “We knew that a ship had been damaged.”
“We didn’t know who had hit it?” a reporter asked.
“At that time the Israelis had not advised us,” Christian replied.
“Had our navy advised who had hit the ship?”
“It was prior to the time we had information on what had happened.”
“That leaves the impression we might have thought it was the Russians?” a reporter questioned.
“I don’t want to leave any impressions,” Christian responded. “We advised them of the incident, without knowing.”
“Did we inquire of them whether they by any chance were involved, or was it to explain our planes’ flight?”
“There was an advisory that something had happened to one of our ships and we were sending our planes in to see what was the trouble,” answered the press secretary.
“Did we do this because we had scrambled some of our planes off of our carriers and we wanted them to know that we wanted them to protect an American ship that was under attack?”
“That is the reason.”
Ten minutes into Christian’s afternoon briefing—and unbeknownst to the press corps—the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon phoned the Situation Room to relay the latest casualty figures: “10 killed, about 100 wounded—(1 doctor aboard, just hasn’t been able to comp
lete rounds on all)—15 to 25 wounded seriously (so far).” The grim picture of life on the Liberty now began to emerge as the casualties climbed and help still remained hours away. The attack had evolved into far more than a “ship incident.”
CHAPTER 8
The mess deck was a bloody mess that night. People were dying. It was a ghastly sight.
—LLOYD PAINTER, TESTIMONY BEFORE LIBERTY COURT OF INQUIRY
After the attack, with the sickbay destroyed by a rocket, the Liberty’s medical corpsmen converted the spy ship’s mess hall into an emergency room for the wounded. Cavernous and centrally located, the mess hall was designed to feed nearly three hundred hungry sailors three hot meals a day. Like much of the Liberty, the mess deck was austere, even prisonlike, offering little more than steel walls, exposed steam pipes, and fluorescent lights. Sailors ate off metal trays with bent utensils. Roughly two dozen tables, each with attached stools, sat end to end in rows, all bolted down to weather rough seas.
A mural ran the length of the forward wall, providing the mess hall with its only dramatic flair. Painted by homesick sailors on an earlier cruise, the mural depicted a towering canopy of trees with several wood-frame homes nestled beneath them. A waterfront stretched across the mural’s foreground. This idyllic American landscape, which could have been copied from the pages of the Saturday Evening Post, offered a touch of color and a change of scenery for sailors who spent weeks staring at an empty horizon.
Dr. Richard Kiepfer, fueled by adrenaline, fear, and the responsibility of being the ship’s lone doctor, had not stopped working since the attack began. Rocket and cannon explosions had turned even the most benign objects into weapons. When the torpedo tore apart the Liberty’s forward compartments, it converted coffee mugs, chairs, and wastebaskets into projectiles. An hour of such physical violence translated into scores of shrapnel and gunshot injuries along with compound fractures and penetrating chest wounds. The torpedo blast had even fused one sailor’s eyelids shut.