The Attack on the Liberty

by James Scott

  The insinuation that Liberty gunfire and the failed effort to move the ship triggered the assault shifted the responsibility for the attack from Israel to the United States, just as Kidd warned would happen in his secret memo. Press accounts implied that if the Pentagon’s communications system had not failed, the attack would not have happened. Likewise, had the sailors not fired the Liberty’s machine guns, the Israeli torpedo boats might have spared the spy ship the torpedo strike that resulted in twenty-five of its thirty-four fatalities. The subtle suggestion of American culpability overshadowed the court’s determination that the Liberty had a legal right to sail where it did.

  The press coverage angered the Liberty’s officers in Malta. Many were particularly upset by the implication that the ship’s futile self-defense effort served as the attack’s catalyst. The men had only done what was expected of them and try to save the ship and themselves. Ensign Lucas described the allegations in a letter to his wife as “far fetched.” “If they had been pounding the hell out of us for half an hour, a little machine gun fire from our .50 cal. pea shooters wouldn’t have made much difference,” Lucas wrote. “Many of the articles are barking up the wrong tree.”

  Editorials and opinion columns also spread blame widely. Some charged Israel with deliberately attacking the spy ship. Others zeroed in on the Liberty’s bungled orders. The Washington Daily News blamed McGonagle for not pulling his ship from the war’s sideline. Despite the varying accusations, editorials largely agreed on one point: the Pentagon’s summary failed to explain what had happened. The Washington Post slammed it as “not good enough.” Time griped that it offered only “fragmentary answers” while the Chicago Tribune complained that the report produced “more fog and unanswered questions than clarification.” The Evening Star called it an “affront” filled with “irrelevant tidbits of fact” that revealed “little of consequence that has not been public knowledge since the day of the attack.”

  Many editorials doubted Israel’s explanations and criticized the Pentagon for its silence on that point. The conservative National Review urged Congress to investigate. “One thing at least is proved by analysis on the facts already at hand. The incident was not ‘an accident,’” the magazine opined. “It was an act either of stupidity gross enough to be negligence, or of aggression.” The National Observer blasted Israel’s supporters for blaming the United States. “The apologists are still maintaining that the Israelis made an understandable mistake because they thought the ship was Egyptian. This has to be sheer hokum,” it wrote. “Only the blind—or the trigger-happy—could have made such a mistake.” The Evening Star accused the Pentagon of failing to address the critical question of what Israel knew and when. “Did the attackers, in fact, know that the Liberty was an American ship? It seems to us they must have known. If so, why was the attack made and who ordered it?” the paper asked. “Surely the Defense Department knows the answers to these and other pertinent questions by this time. If it does not, there is something radically wrong in the Pentagon.”

  Other editorials challenged the Pentagon’s failure to contact the Liberty hours before the attack, often evoking apocalyptic scenarios should the communications system fail again. “The prompt transmittal of orders, in this nuclear age, is the first essential of effective military command,” argued the Washington Post. “A similar lapse could result in the destruction of the Nation itself.” The Chicago Tribune exclaimed that the failure to pull the spy ship from harm’s way evoked “shades of Pearl Harbor!” “A warning to the Liberty was imperative enough, but what if a great world holocaust demanded an instant warning to the field?” the paper questioned. “Would we find again that defense communications failed at zero hour?”

  Some columnists and editorial writers doubted the military had released all the facts. Syndicated columnist James Kilpatrick urged reporters to “keep digging.” “It surely will be some years, and it may be next to never, before the whole story is told,” Kilpatrick wrote. “Mum officially is the word.” The Baltimore Sun cautioned that Americans “have become wary of official announcements” and that readers must remember that public reports “are not necessarily the full story.” “The lay citizen, without access to the Navy’s classified information, cannot arrive at an informed judgment on the unfortunate event—beyond the point that it obviously should not have happened,” argued the paper. “So long as part of the episode remains shrouded in security secrecy, the rest of it cannot be expected to come into clear focus.”

  Editorial pages in small towns and cities far removed from the Beltway’s insider gossip reflected frustration and disbelief with the efforts to explain the attack. The Edwardsville Intelligencer in Illinois said that the Navy’s report only confirmed what many already suspected: the Liberty did not provoke the attack. “Still unknown—and this is a question which can only be answered by the Israeli government—is whether the attack was accidental or deliberate. This question never may be answered to the satisfaction of everyone unless someone confesses,” the paper observed. “Portions of the testimony before the court of inquiry by the Liberty’s commanding officer, Cmdr. William L. McGonagle, would seem to indicate that the attack was deliberate.”

  CHAPTER 17

  I have mixed emotions about leaving the ship. I would like to come home right now, that’s for sure. But I also want to ride the ship back to Norfolk—after getting this far I want to go all the way.

  —ENSIGN DAVE LUCAS, LETTER TO HIS WIFE

  Representative Craig Hosmer took the floor of the House of the Representatives on the morning of June 29 to voice his outrage over the assault on the Liberty. The Pentagon’s censored report dominated headlines in most of the nation’s top newspapers that morning. The California Republican viewed the attack through his own military experience. Hosmer had enlisted in the Navy in July 1940 and served throughout World War II. He remained in the Naval Reserves when the war ended, eventually earning the rank of rear admiral. Hosmer understood seamanship, ship identification, and naval warfare.

  After the House convened at 11:00 on this Thursday morning—exactly three weeks after the attack—Hosmer told his colleagues that he had concluded that the coordinated strike by fighters and torpedo boats meant Israel must have deliberately targeted the Liberty. “I do not believe the attack was ordered at the highest command level of the Israeli military, but that it was ordered at a sufficiently high level to permit coordination of the Israel air and naval forces involved,” he declared. “This means that some officer or officers of relatively high rank must have acted on their own initiative.”

  Hosmer said he doubted Israel’s claim that its forces had confused the Liberty for an Egyptian cargo ship. “The fact that the U.S.S. Liberty was a Victory hull vessel, hundreds of which were produced and used by the U.S. Navy during World War II and since, rules out the possibility of mistaken identity. Every ship recognition book in the world has, for years, identified the characteristic Victory hull and superstructure of the U.S.S. Liberty as U.S. Navy property,” he argued. “What those responsible for this outrage sought to gain can, at this point, be only a matter of speculation.”

  The conservative lawmaker suggested that Israel might have hoped that the attack would trigger intervention by the United States and the Soviets or might have served as a signal to keep the superpowers out. He also speculated that Israel, euphoric with victory on land, thought the sea attack might “further demonstrate Israeli military might.” Regardless of motive, Hosmer concluded that the Jewish state now had an obligation to pay retribution to the families of the men killed and punish those involved. “Whatever is the reason for the attack, it was an act of high piracy,” he declared. “Those responsible should be court-martialed on charges of murder, amongst other counts.”

  Mississippi representative Thomas Abernethy rose moments later. Like his colleague, the southern Democrat doubted Israel’s explanations, but he also believed the American government was covering up the truth. He watched in disbelief the day aft
er the attack as State Department officials fanned out across Capitol Hill, assuring lawmakers that it was an accident. Abernethy’s efforts to ferret out information drew elusive answers. He could tolerate it no longer. “This useless, unnecessary and inexcusable attack took the lives of 34 American boys, wounded 75 others, and left many others in a state of horrified shock, to say nothing of what it did to a flag-flying vessel of the U.S. Navy,” he roared. “How could this be treated so lightly in this the greatest Capitol in all the world?”

  The lawmaker noted that the spy ship sailed more than fifteen miles from shore, far beyond the territorial waters recognized by Israel and Egypt. He pointed out that reconnaissance flights had buzzed the Liberty that morning and that the “attack was incessant, heavy and hard.” “The ship was well marked, so said the Pentagon. Its name was painted on its stern. U.S. letters and numbers were on its bow. The day was clear. And it was distinctly flying the flag that you and I stood here and so praised and respected just a few days ago on Flag Day,” Abernethy said. “But what respect have we shown for it since it was so recklessly shot down by the Israel attackers? What complaint have we registered? What has Washington said? To tell you the truth, this great Capital as well as this great Government—if it can still be called great—was and is as quiet as the tomb regarding this horrible event.”

  Abernethy criticized the government for settling for an apology. If any other nation had attacked the Liberty, the government would have roared back and possibly even retaliated. “It is not enough to let it drop with a simple statement that the attackers just happened to make a mistake,” he argued. “This is too serious a matter to accept a simple ‘Excuse us, please’ sort of statement. There must be more than this to assure our men, our people, and our Nation that another nation must not make such unprovoked and vicious attacks upon us.” Abernethy reminded his colleagues in closing that the families of the Liberty’s sailors and the rest of the nation awaited Congress’s response. “The world has been standing by looking at us now for days since the Liberty was pounced upon,” he concluded. “What do we do? What do we say?”

  Few other elected leaders said or did anything. Of the 435 House members, only Hosmer and Abernethy spoke out during the three and a half hours that legislative body met. No one in the Senate, which met for less than two hours, mentioned the attack. Some lawmakers quietly appealed for information through committees. More than sixty wrote letters to the State Department and Navy—roughly five per day—asking the status of reparations for the dead and injured. Many of the letters were pro forma, written in response to constituent requests, including family members of men killed. A memo to Secretary of State Dean Rusk two weeks after the attack, analyzing the State Department’s voluminous mail, summarized the outrage felt by many Americans: “The attack on the Liberty was almost unanimously condemned.”

  Diplomats at the Israeli Embassy in Washington learned the outcome of the court of inquiry days in advance of the Pentagon’s planned publication. A journalist who managed to read a draft of the release tipped off embassy spokesman Dan Patir. Five days before the Defense Department released its summary to the press, Patir cabled a detailed description of the report’s contents to Jerusalem. He noted the hefty size of the full report and that it contained the testimonies of roughly twenty officers, crewmembers, and other Navy officials. Patir reported that a special team at the Pentagon had spent three days editing the voluminous report into a declassified summary. Senior leaders with the Navy, Defense, and State departments reviewed the draft prior to publication.

  Patir wrote that the Pentagon summary chronicled the attack in detail and exonerated McGonagle of wrongdoing. The Navy also had nominated the skipper for the Medal of Honor. More importantly, Patir wrote that the report might prove politically damaging for Israel. “This announcement includes denunciation of the Israeli attack, that is defined as a ‘rash act.’ It insists that the incident took place in international waters, and that the Liberty had the right to be in them,” Patir wrote. “It notes that Israeli airplanes were seen circling above the ship about 6 hours before the attack itself. It assumes with certainty that these aircraft had identified the Liberty immediately and had communicated this observation to the headquarters in Tel Aviv.”

  The embassy’s problems soon compounded. Ambassador Avraham Harman learned that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, particularly Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa, had shown increased interest in the attack. Another member of the committee even had suggested the United States launch a congressional investigation. Such a probe would only jeopardize U.S.-Israeli relations. Harman wrote a desperate message to Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s chief of staff. He reiterated the need to indict the attackers. “Our main goal is to emphasize the truth, that the attack was not conducted maliciously by the Israeli government and IDF,” he wrote. “I am convinced that the only way is for the legal inquiry to end in negligence and recklessness charges.”

  Harman’s suggestion drew a heated response from Rabin. Israel had followed the ambassador’s earlier advice and expanded its probe of the attack after Harman noted myriad flaws in Colonel Ram Ron’s report. But Rabin now denounced Harman for what he believed was the ambassador’s effort to sway the outcome of that investigation. Harman needed to back down. “Do you or your American colleagues even consider that the US Administration would try to influence the work of a Supreme Court judge?” Rabin wrote in a highly confidential and restricted telegram. “Please understand once and for all that no interference or pressure are possible in the direction you’re suggesting.”

  Israeli officials failed to recognize how far the U.S. government had gone to help the Jewish state’s public position, including slanting the court of inquiry’s public summary. When the Pentagon released that summary, Israel again resorted to a spin campaign. News reports appeared in American papers, often with vague attributions, that challenged many of the Navy’s findings. Israel disputed the fact that the Liberty flew a flag. Other press reports claimed that the Israeli boats had approached the Liberty prior to the torpedo attack and demanded the ship identify itself. The Liberty instead had signaled back “A-A,” a maritime code that means “identify yourself first.” Israel said an Egyptian destroyer used the same signal in the 1956 war. The alleged use of the identical message led Israeli sailors to conclude the Liberty must be Egyptian.

  The press reports frustrated senior Navy officers. Kidd re-interviewed McGonagle and his signalmen. Kidd reported that Israel’s claim that the Liberty had signaled the torpedo boats was bogus. McGonagle was unable to read Israel’s signals. Even if the skipper had wanted to reply, he couldn’t because the attackers had shot out the signal lights. “Nothing intelligible was received by light from any of the Israeli torpedo boats prior to the offer of help which was received from the torpedo boats after the torpedo hit,” stated a Navy memorandum for the record. “The only available installed signaling apparatus on Liberty was destroyed early in the attack and the hand-held Aldis lamp was not ‘unlimbered’ until after the torpedo hit.” Kidd elaborated in a telegram: “I am convinced these men know what they are talking about.”

  The Associated Press soon published an article written by an Israeli Naval Reserve officer who served on one of the torpedo boats. The first-person account by Micha Limor appeared in newspapers nationwide, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune. Limor wrote that crews tried to identify the Liberty with binoculars as two fighters circled the spy ship. The jets fired two rockets then retreated to base. “About 2,000 yards from the ship, a strange spectacle met our eyes. The high masts and the many weird antenna showed that this was a warship. The side of the vessel was blotted out by smoke, and apart from three numbers along her side, which meant nothing to us, we could not discern a thing. We could see no flag on the mast, nor was anyone to be seen on the decks and bridge,” he wrote. “We spent several minutes trying to contact the ship and demanding identification. We tried by radio and by heliograph, in accordance with
internationally accepted means. But she gave no answer.”

  Torpedo boats zoomed past the Liberty in battle formation and fired across the bridge and bow to demand identification. “Suddenly, a sailor appeared in view and started firing at us with a heavy machine gun from the bridge. We took the challenge and directed cannon fire against him,” he wrote. “A moment later he fell, together with the machine gun. Thus there was no doubt that we were faced by the enemy. The prolonged refusal to identify herself, the absence of any flag, the shooting at us, and above all, the weird contraptions on the ship left us without doubt.” Limor wrote that Israel hoped to capture the Liberty rather than sink it. The torpedo boats circled the ship and repeatedly fired to try to stop it. “This had no effect. No one appeared. No one reacted. The shells caused little damage to the hull and the ship proceeded on her way,” he wrote. “You could almost hear the men’s teeth grinding aboard our boat. Nothing can annoy a torpedo boat crew more than being completely ignored.”

  Unable to stop the ship, commanders ordered it torpedoed. “We drew up along the left side of the ship and advanced at full battle speed. Just as in dozens of training exercises we reached the right angle and range—and let go. We thought only a miracle would save the ship,” he wrote. “One of the torpedoes hit amidships. There followed an enormous explosion and a huge water spout. And then fires broke out and the ship leaned sideways as if about to sink.” Only when Israeli crewmembers plucked a rubber life raft from the water—marked “U.S. Navy”—did the sailors realize their mistake. Limor wrote that after the attack ended, Israeli sailors watched the American flag rise up the mast. “Dozens of shells, rockets and torpedoes were needed to drag a sign of identity from them, said one of my seamen who, like the rest of his mates, was bitterly upset at this surprising turn of events,” Limor wrote. “He was right. The showing of the Stars and Stripes at the first stage would have prevented all that happened subsequently.”