by James Scott
These powerful allegations failed to gain the expected traction throughout the mainstream press. More in-depth news reports analyzing the Jewish state’s victory over its Arab neighbors overshadowed the mounting press speculation about the Liberty. In the same issue of Life magazine that raised concerns about the Liberty, a grinning Israeli sailor cooling off in the Suez Canal appeared on the cover under the headline “Wrap-up of the Astounding War.” Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan graced Newsweek’s cover while the magazine’s one-paragraph article questioning the Liberty attack ran on page 21. Time magazine, which ignored the questions raised by its competitors, also featured on its cover the famed Israeli general with his signature black eye patch, set against the backdrop of the burning desert.
Other media outlets discounted the charges or published articles based on Defense Department spin. Such stories often exonerated Israel. “Former Navy skippers in the Pentagon were frank to forgive the Israelis for not seeing or not believing the identity of the Liberty, and then attacking it,” wrote George Wilson in the Washington Post. Pentagon officials told the Associated Press that the attackers likely were unfamiliar with the Liberty’s design, though hundreds of identical vessels had sailed for decades. “The Israelis may have thought the Liberty was an Egyptian ship masquerading as a U.S. ship,” reported Seymour Hersh. “Officers noted that such deceits are as old as sea warfare.”
A few editorials and columns blamed the United States. Questions included whether the Liberty might have accomplished its mission from a safer distance and was the intelligence gathered worth the risk to the ship and crew. One unnamed Pentagon official sniped at McGonagle for steaming too close to a war zone: “Couldn’t that skipper have at least gotten over the horizon?” Syndicated columnist David Lawrence challenged whether the Navy could have done more to make the Liberty’s identity recognizable. “Greater precautions should have been taken by spreading out the American flag on the deck or painting it on the side, so that there could be no chance of mistaking the identity of the ship either from the air or the surface,” Lawrence wrote. “There is always the possibility that, even if the American flag had been flown conspicuously, the resemblance to the Egyptian ship could have misled the Israeli airmen into believing the whole thing was merely a ruse to protect an enemy vessel.”
The news coverage of the attack ranged widely in point of view. Some magazines and newspapers appeared on a crusade while others took a more tempered stand and a few chose to ignore it. Some of the same media outlets that questioned the assault on the editorial pages published news articles that contradicted the paper’s position. One of the best examples that illustrated this inconsistency appeared in the New York Times. The newspaper printed the Associated Press story that quoted the unnamed Golden. The same day it published a Reuters dispatch that contradicted the story and claimed the Liberty’s officers “rejected the idea that the attack was deliberate.” Liberty’s officers concluded that the Navy was behind the Reuters three-paragraph story. The Times neither investigated nor explained the inconsistency, but rather chose to run the opposing stories alongside each other.
The waffling news coverage likely confounded some readers and made it easy for Congress to ignore the Liberty. Some lawmakers questioned the attack in closed-door sessions, including members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But the Congressional Record shows that most elected leaders said little or nothing in public. Many chose to congratulate Israel on its victory—congratulations that at times bordered on fawning—rather than press for answers about the Liberty. Democratic representative Wayne Hays of Ohio quipped that the United States should trade four hundred fighter jets for Moshe Dayan. One of his colleagues proposed the United States unload defense secretary Robert McNamara in the trade. Other lawmakers urged the United States to back Israel in peace negotiations, halt foreign aid to Egypt, and provide emergency economic help for the Jewish state.
The same day Liberty sailors sifted through the tangled debris of what was once the National Security Agency’s hub, Representative Jonathan Bingham of New York proposed America lift the travel ban to Israel so tourists might pump money into the economy. “Israel is suffering economic stresses and strains brought about by the original Arab aggression, and sorely needs the foreign exchange which visitors from the United States can bring,” the Democrat urged. “I hope that the State Department will move quickly and take the action now.” Hours after Liberty sailors packed the last of the dead into body bags, Republican representative Seymour Halpern of New York suggested that the United States relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and called for an emergency economic aid plan for Israel. “We can yet redeem our pledges to Israel,” he argued. “What we did, or failed to do, is behind us. We now have the opportunity to fulfill our commitment to Israel by standing up for Israel’s rights in the peace settlement to come.”
Ambassador Avraham Harman pored over the latest news reports in his office at the Israeli Embassy just off Massachusetts Avenue, set amid the tree-lined streets and townhouses in one of northwest Washington’s most affluent neighborhoods. Harman was concerned. Newspapers quoted injured sailors and published excerpts from the letters of others detailing the horror of the attack. Some of the nation’s most prestigious media outlets reported that American leaders believed Israeli pilots and torpedo boat skippers had deliberately targeted the Liberty. These stories represented a stark change from days earlier when the press and administration had appeared satisfied that the attack was a tragic error. Some newspaper editorials now accused Washington of a cover-up, criticized elected leaders for settling for Israel’s apology, and called for a congressional investigation. Letters to newspaper editorial pages, which the ambassador read, captured the hostility of the American public. Grieving families soon would file into cemeteries to bury the dead. The attack, as Harman’s deputy observed, contained “very dangerous elements for us.”
The ambassador’s concern turned to anger after Israeli diplomats discovered that President Johnson was Newsweek’s anonymous source. Twenty-four hours after the president met with reporter Charles Roberts in his private lounge, a “very reliable journalistic source” tipped off Israeli officials to the details of the briefing. The embassy dashed off an urgent message that Johnson claimed Israel had “carried out a deliberate attack because the Liberty had intentionally engaged in electronic espionage.” Diplomats learned that information at a State Department background briefing the next day was “presented pretty much the same way.”
Ephraim Evron, the Israeli Embassy’s second in command, accused the administration of politicizing the Liberty. He wrote in a confidential memo that the news leaks were designed to dampen enthusiasm for Israel that only days earlier had sparked thousands to rally in American streets and raised millions in donations. If the administration could marginalize Israel’s political influence it would have greater freedom to take positions contrary to Israeli interests, dangerous ground for the Jewish state as it prepared to negotiate a peace deal that would involve controversial issues, such as territorial gains and refugees. “We can assume that the US Department of State and the White House are both party to this decision, each for its own reasons. The US Department of State, and especially Rusk, who had tried throughout the crisis to create the impression of not identifying with us, are attempting to use the incident to create a bridge to the Arab countries,” Evron wrote. “The President has been showing in the past few days special sensitivity and dissatisfaction with respect to Jewish pressures on him. He thinks that an information-based treatment of the matter of the ship in the aforesaid manner will lead to weakening of the pro-Israeli pressure that envelopes many circles, even outside the Jewish public.”
The Israeli Embassy now countered with its own spin campaign. “We are facing a clear and deliberate attempt to turn public opinion against us,” Evron cabled Jerusalem. “Our informative process must avoid confrontation with the United States Government, since it is clear that the American pub
lic, if faced with a direct argument, will accept its government’s version.” Silencing President Johnson was the top priority. Evron suggested the embassy remind the president “of the dangers facing him personally if the public learns that he was party to the distribution of the story that is on the verge of being blood libel.” The embassy turned to Supreme Court justice Abe Fortas, a close friend of Johnson’s, and Washington lawyer David Ginsburg—referred to in Israeli documents as “Ilan” and “Harari,” respectively—for advice and to help pressure the president. Fortas and Ginsburg urged the embassy to publicly propose a joint U.S.-Israeli commission to investigate the attack. America would reject the proposal, because that would expose the Liberty’s officers to interrogation by Israel. But diplomats recognized that even the rejection would “improve our position in public opinion” as Israel would appear more cooperative and open than America.
Embassy staffers hammered the media to kill critical stories and slant others in favor of Israel. Before Newsweek’s story appeared, embassy spokesman Dan Patir had reviewed an advance copy of the article. He successfully pressured editors to run a “toned down” version. Editors added a question mark to the headline and deleted the words “deliberate attack.” The magazine also killed an accompanying commentary that said the leak was designed to free American leaders from pro-Israel pressure. When Newsweek’s story broke, embassy officials pounced, labeling the allegations “malicious” in competing newspapers. “Such stories are untrue and without foundation whatever,” an unnamed embassy spokesman told reporters. “It was an unfortunate and tragic accident which occurred in an area where fierce land and air fighting took place in recent days.” Patir derailed another story about a House Armed Services Committee member under pressure from constituents to launch a congressional investigation: “We have made sure that the journalistic source will refrain from writing about this for now.” Israel’s spin frustrated American officials, who increasingly bore the media’s hostility. Phil Goulding later accused Israel of “floating one self-serving rumor after another” with the mission “to make this tragedy the fault of the United States instead of the fault of the Israeli government.”
Rumors evolved into deception. Israeli officials told the press that the day the war began, the Jewish state contacted the American Embassy in Tel Aviv and asked if the United States planned to operate any ships off the Sinai Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean. Israel claimed that the American Embassy failed to answer, so it was left to assume that no American ships steamed nearby. The implication was clear: America was to blame. When the story appeared in the Washington Post, Rusk fumed. The only request Israel had made about American ships came after its forces torpedoed the Liberty. The secretary of state telegrammed the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, demanding “urgent confirmation” that no prior inquiry was made. Ambassador Walworth Barbour confirmed Israel’s story was bogus. “No request for info on U.S. ships operating off Sinai was made until after Liberty incident,” Barbour cabled back. “Had Israelis made such an inquiry it would have been forwarded immediately to the chief of naval operations and other high naval commands and repeated to dept.”
Israel’s problems magnified. “A personal friend in the US Department of State just told me that they have proof that we attacked the ship intentionally, and that the purpose was to remove an independent American intelligence source, and force them to depend only on information we are feeding them,” Evron cabled Jerusalem. “This man warned me, as a friend, against trouble that we might have in this case.” The tip wasn’t isolated. Arthur Goldberg, the American ambassador to the United Nations, confided in Harman that the United States had intercepted the communications of Israeli pilots identifying the ship as American. Democratic fund-raiser Abe Feinberg—code-named “Hamlet” in Israeli telegrams—told Evron that the United States had “clear proof that at a certain stage the pilot had discovered the identity of the ship and had still continued the attack.” Fortas told the ambassador that many administration officials believed a local commander ordered the attack, fearing the spy ship eavesdropped on “Israeli combat orders, and that they might reach the enemy.” Fortas added “the entire city already knows” Israeli “planes circled above the ship a long time before the attack.”
But Israeli diplomats continued their defense. Harman told Fortas that he was certain no local commander ordered the attack. Even if Israeli planes had circled the Liberty, he insisted, the pilots must have misidentified it. Evron cautioned Feinberg that there was “a significant difference between blaming a single pilot and making a public claim that the Israeli Government I repeat that the Israeli Government had initiated the attack intentionally.” The charges only intensified. Ginsburg advised Israel to hurry up and finish its investigation into the attack and turn over the results to the American government. Feinberg urged the embassy to halt what he called its “guerrilla war.” Goldberg warned Ambassador Harman that the president was furious and that the embassy needed to be “very careful.” He told the embassy that the “only chance of getting out of this crisis is to punish someone for negligence.” The frantic ambassador cabled his concerns back to Jerusalem. “In light of the serious developments in this matter, it is essential that our inquiry will end within a day or two at the latest,” Harman wrote to the Foreign Ministry. “The faster this thing is behind us, the healthier for all of us!”
CHAPTER 14
His loss to the present day Navy and the Navy of the future is incalculable but irrevocable and regrettable.
—COMMANDER WILLIAM MCGONAGLE, CONDOLENCE LETTER TO THE FAMILY OF LIEUTENANT STEPHEN TOTH
Soon after the Liberty docked in Malta, Commander William McGonagle checked into the Hotel Phoenicia, a World War II–era hotel set amid acres of manicured gardens overlooking the harbor. His wounded leg still healing, the skipper settled into a spacious room on an upper floor of the grand hotel that once housed the British Royal Air Force and barely survived the German and Italian bombings during the Siege of Malta. McGonagle closed the shutters, blocking the Mediterranean sun as he stretched out in bed to write letters to the families of his thirty-four dead men.
Repair work on the Liberty had prevented concentration. Teams of Maltese shipfitters now hammered from 6 A.M. until 10 P.M. to patch the 821 shell holes. The workers replaced shattered portholes, pried machine gun rounds from the walls, and scraped charred paint. Others cut away bent steel and reengineered the warped and destroyed interior decks. Dave Lucas captured the chaos in a letter to his wife. “Damn, the noise in the office is unbelievable!” he griped. “It sounds like the workmen are right next door hitting the metal beams with a sledge hammer.”
A short cab ride from the drydock and an easy stroll to the city’s waterfront, the Hotel Phoenicia provided McGonagle a refuge to work and reflect. The skipper asked Patrick O’Malley to help. O’Malley served as the ship’s secretary and assistant operations officer. Early in the mission—O’Malley’s first after he graduated from Officer Candidate School—McGonagle often berated the junior officer for mundane foul-ups that reflected his inexperience. Now the men worked side by side, skipper and young ensign, sharing one of the military’s most difficult tasks.
McGonagle sat up in bed, drafting each letter by hand to the wives, parents, and siblings of the men killed. O’Malley, perched in a chair beside him or on the foot of the bed, reviewed the drafts that he later typed for the skipper to sign. To prepare the letters, McGonagle demanded to know the gruesome details of how each of his men died. He reviewed pages of typed medical records and scribbled notes that charted with clinical precision each sailor’s fatal wounds: “Blast injury to brain,” “Multiple bullet and shrapnel wounds,” “Exsanguination from complete transection of body.”
The notes in some cases provided a snapshot of a man’s final seconds. Some described the smoke-filled compartment moments before the torpedo hit while others detailed the attacks on the forward machine guns, deck, and the bridge. “When the torpedo exploded, a fragment struck
him in the back of the head, fracturing his skull and injuring vital parts of his brain,” the medical records noted for one sailor. “He had another similar injury lower on his back, indicating that he was turned away from the explosion, and that he probably never knew, until the moment of his death, what was about to occur.”
McGonagle omitted the horrific details in his letters, but recounted what each man was doing at the moment he died. He wrote how one sailor had fought a gasoline fire on deck when rocket shrapnel hit him in the chest and face. He praised another man who climbed over the bodies of the dead to try to operate one of the Liberty’s machine guns before he too was killed. McGonagle told the parents of Francis Brown that their son had refused to abandon his post at the helm, though it was “engulfed in flames.” Whenever possible, McGonagle noted death was “instantaneous.”
The torpedo had vaporized some of the men and the remains of a few drifted out of the hole as the ship steamed to Malta. McGonagle had to explain this difficult fact to families who expected to bury loved ones. “It is with profound regret that your husband’s body was lost at sea and is unrecoverable or has not yet been positively identified. Everything possible was done to recover those who drifted away from the ship through the enormous torpedo hole and no effort is being spared to identify your husband as one of the three as yet unidentified remains,” he wrote to the wife of one man. “It is a painstaking and time consuming task, but will be completed as soon as possible.”