The Attack on the Liberty

by James Scott

  Clifford appeared to recognize these failings years later when he described the Liberty attack in his memoir. Compared to his original analysis, his views seemed to have sharpened. The Liberty did not warrant a break in diplomatic relations, but he believed the attack had been left unresolved. Clifford wrote that he could not bring himself to believe that the highest levels of the civilian government had ordered the strike, but he also felt that Israel failed to make “adequate restitution or explanation.” “I do not know to this day at what level the attack on the Liberty was authorized, and I think it is unlikely the full truth will ever come out. Having been for so long a staunch supporter of Israel, I was particularly troubled by this incident,” he wrote. “Somewhere inside the Israeli government, somewhere along the chain of command, something had gone terribly wrong—and then had been covered up.”

  Robert McNamara appeared in room S-116 before a closed-door session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at 10 A.M. on Wednesday, July 26, ostensibly to talk about America’s military aid and sales program. The defense secretary was in for a surprise. In the seven weeks since the attack, the administration had refocused on the Vietnam War, largely viewed as the primary obstacle to the president’s 1968 reelection.

  McNamara had flown to Southeast Asia earlier in the month to meet with General William Westmoreland, the commander of American military operations in Vietnam. In spite of his increased personal doubts McNamara assured the president and his fellow advisers that victory was possible. “There is a limit to what the enemy can send into the South,” he confided in Clark Clifford. “For the first time, I feel that if we follow the same program we will win the war and end the fighting.”

  McNamara’s upbeat report contrasted with the bleak picture the press painted. Newsweek noted in a special Independence Day issue titled “The Vietnam War and American Life” that 11,373 Americans had been killed and another 68,341 wounded. The magazine reported that the war’s cost had now soared to $38,052 a minute. “There are no statistics to tot up Vietnam’s hidden price,” Newsweek wrote. “But its calculus is clear: a wartime divisiveness all but unknown in America since the Blue bloodied the Gray.”

  Lawmakers also doubted the assessment. The Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee planned hearings that would stretch over seven days in August. Senior military officers, angry over McNamara’s micromanagement of the war, hoped to use the hearings to pressure the administration to rescind its bombing restrictions. McNamara later described the hearings as “one of the most stressful episodes of my life.” The president considered them a “political disaster.”

  McNamara could not afford to be sidetracked.

  Few elected leaders had publicly questioned the Liberty, which had dropped from the headlines. Behind closed doors, where legislators could speak openly without fear of offending Israel’s powerful lobby, some lawmakers still clamored for more information. The Liberty attack had particularly troubled the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whose members grilled Dean Rusk the morning after the attack.

  Hickenlooper, a Republican and senior member of the committee, emerged as one of the more forceful leaders, though his colleagues also voiced concerns. Two days after the Liberty arrived in Malta, Hickenlooper had written to Rusk, demanding a detailed report on the attack that he believed “took place under circumstances making it hard to believe that it was accidental.”

  With McNamara already on Capitol Hill to discuss America’s military aid program, committee members seized an opportunity and shifted discussion to the attack. Republican senator George Aiken of Vermont was the first to raise the issue of the Liberty: “We have never gotten a very good story on a certain episode.”

  McNamara understood what he meant. “The attack on the Liberty, I think, represented a serious error of judgment and procedure,” he replied. “But I have examined the record of the investigation, and I find no intent by the Israeli Government, and no intent by any representatives of the Israeli Government to attack a U.S. vessel.”

  “Was it an individual rather than a governmental error?” Aiken pressed.

  “Yes, sir,” McNamara answered. “To the best of my knowledge.”

  “From what I have read I can’t tolerate for one minute that this was an accident,” Hickenlooper declared moments later. “I think it was a deliberate assault on this ship. I think they had ample opportunity to identify it as an American ship.”

  Hickenlooper, known by colleagues as the “consummate skeptic,” compared the Liberty to the torpedo boat assaults in the Gulf of Tonkin, which the president had used to drum up congressional support for military action against North Vietnam in 1964. “What have we done about the Liberty?” he asked. “Have we become so placid, so far as Israel is concerned or so far as that area is concerned, that we will take the killing of 37 American boys and the wounding of a lot more and the attack of an American ship in the open sea in good weather? We have seemed to say: ‘Oh, well, boys will be boys.’ What are you going to do about it? It is most offensive to me.”

  McNamara dismissed Hickenlooper’s comparison to the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, arguing that the United States had reason to believe North Vietnam intentionally targeted American ships. The defense secretary said the Navy’s court of inquiry concluded the Liberty attack was an error. He added that the United States had made a strong protest to the Israeli government. “In the case of the attack on the Liberty, it was the conclusion of the investigatory body headed by an admiral of the Navy in whom we have great confidence that the attack was not intentional,” McNamara told committee members. “I read the record of the investigation, and I support that conclusion.”

  Hickenlooper questioned whether the intelligence was really any better in the case of the Tonkin Gulf attacks than it was with the Liberty. “There is no evidence, then, no evidence that we have at all, that there was any communication between Tel Aviv and the attacking vessels or the airplanes that apparently flew over this ship several times at rather low altitude?” he asked.

  “No, there is no evidence that the individuals attacking the Liberty knew they were attacking a U.S. ship,” McNamara answered. “There is some evidence, circumstantial, that they didn’t know it.”

  “It just doesn’t sound very good to me,” Hickenlooper complained. “I can’t accept these explanations that so glibly come out of Tel Aviv and perhaps some rather confusedly come out of our own investigation, I don’t know.”

  McNamara assured him nothing was left out of the court of inquiry, but Hickenlooper persisted. “It is inconceivable to me that the ship could not have been identified. According to everything I saw, the American flag was flying on this ship. It had a particular configuration. Even a landlubber could look at it and see that it has no characteristic configuration comparable to the so-called Egyptian ship they now try to say they mistook it for,” he said. “It just doesn’t add up to me. It is not at all satisfactory.”

  “I don’t want to carry the torch for the Israelis,” McNamara countered.

  “That is what it looks like we are doing in this country,” Hickenlooper replied.

  “Not only the committee but the public wants better information than they have had so far,” Aiken interjected.

  “The public is thoroughly dissatisfied with the situation,” Hickenlooper added. “It is the seemingly cavalier attitude expressed by Israel in some ways apparently accepted by us on a very tragic situation. I think there is utterly no excuse for it.”

  “I completely agree with you,” replied McNamara. “But it is thoroughly clear, based on the investigation report, that it was not a conscious attack on a U.S. vessel.”

  “You mean by the pilots?” asked Senator Karl Mundt, a South Dakota Republican.

  “By the pilots. They did not identify the vessel as a U.S. vessel prior to the time of attack,” McNamara said. “You may consider this inconceivable.”

  “On the part of the attackers, yes,” Mundt replied. “It seeme
d to be broad daylight.”

  “They definitely did not,” McNamara countered. “All of the evidence points to the contrary.”

  “You take their word for it?” Mundt asked.

  “My conclusion is based on the investigation report which did not discuss the identification with the Israeli pilots or naval personnel involved, but did examine all of the circumstances of the attack and did discuss it with the commander and even the men on the Liberty.”

  Hickenlooper read the Pentagon’s summary of the court of inquiry that dealt with the Israeli reconnaissance prior to the attack, stating that witnesses had testified to “significant surveillance.” “If they didn’t identify that ship,” he quipped, “then they are not as smart as I think they are.”

  McNamara argued that the earlier recon flights weren’t the attackers. “I think it is an inexcusably weak military performance. That, I fully agree with,” he said. “But I simply want to emphasize that the investigative report does not show any evidence of a conscious intent to attack a U.S. vessel.”

  Each time the senators challenged the defense secretary, he pointed to the court of inquiry’s conclusions. McNamara’s defense grew more forceful as the questions continued. His bluster disguised the fact that others inside the Pentagon disagreed with him, including his own general counsel. “I found it hard to believe that it was, in fact, an honest mistake on the part of the Israeli air force units,” that assistant, Paul Warnke, later would admit. “I still find it impossible to believe that it was. I suspect that in the heat of battle they figured that the presence of this American ship was inimical to their interests, and that somebody without authorization attacked it.”

  McNamara succeeded in stifling the debate. Despite the heated volley, McNamara insisted there was no evidence of an intentional attack. The defense secretary did concede the critical point that Navy investigators had failed to interview the attackers, though that admission drew no follow-up from the lawmakers. The frustrated senators soon tired and moved on to other topics. Hickenlooper griped that he doubted the committee would ever learn the truth. “That is all we have to go on at the present time. I suppose that is all we will ever get,” he conceded. “It creates a sense of utter frustration.”

  McNamara’s rigorous defense of Israel contrasted with Dean Rusk’s position. The pragmatic secretary of state appeared several times before the same committee in the weeks after the attack, often meeting behind closed doors. Rusk, who described the attack as a “genuine outrage,” doubted Israel’s explanation that it was simply a tragic accident. Though Rusk did not seek out opportunities to publicize his disbelief, he likewise showed no hesitation about sharing his doubts when asked. His candor even had sparked a minor diplomatic crisis.

  At a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Luxembourg, Rusk shared his thoughts on the Liberty with NATO secretary-general Manlio Brosio and other attendees. His blunt comments prompted a frantic telegram to the State Department from Harlan Cleveland, America’s ambassador to NATO. “Secretary’s comments to Brosio and several foreign ministers at Luxembourg about Israeli foreknowledge that Liberty was a US ship piqued a great deal of curiosity,” Cleveland wrote. “Would appreciate guidance as to how much of this curiosity I can satisfy, and when.”

  The same day the Pentagon released its summary of the court of inquiry, Rusk met with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Hickenlooper asked if he had any information about the attack, but Rusk could offer few answers. He read the opening paragraphs of the Pentagon’s summary and noted that Israel had conducted extensive surveillance of the ship prior to the attack. He told members he had sent a stern letter to Israel’s ambassador. The United States still awaited the outcome of Israel’s investigation.

  Rusk told the committee two weeks later, on July 11, that the United States still had no clear answers. He raised the possibility that America might never know with certainty what had happened. “I might just say at the moment that all the facts we are going to get, I think, are pretty well in, and we still have no satisfactory explanation of how it occurred,” Rusk said. “We will be putting a bill in to the Israeli government for reparations and damages for both personnel and for damage to the ship, and that will be coming along as soon as we get all the data together. That will be a very substantial bill.”

  The secretary of state sat down again with the committee later that same week in the Old Senate Office Building. He reiterated the government’s plan to submit reparations claims but could offer no more information on the attack. The United States still had no real understanding of it despite its investigations. Israel had all the answers. “We have now had our Naval Board of Inquiry, and the summary of that report has been made public,” Rusk said. “We do not believe that we have had anything that could be called an adequate justification from the Israeli Government.”

  Chairman J. W. Fulbright voiced his frustration. Senators had hoped to have a thorough report on the Liberty before deciding on the foreign aid bill before the committee for approval. Fulbright told Rusk the senators wanted a transcript of the Navy’s court of inquiry, a request Rusk said he could arrange. “These matters are very difficult for us to come to conclusion on if we do not have what the members consider to be a full account of it,” complained the Arkansas Democrat. “I do not think I am revealing any secret to say that several members were extremely upset about that incident.”

  “Senator,” Rusk replied, “so were we.”

  Commander McGonagle guided the Liberty into the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base near Norfolk on Saturday afternoon, July 29. Anxious sailors in crisp white uniforms lined the rails as the Liberty—still accompanied by the tugboat Papago—tied up alongside pier 17 at 5 P.M. A helicopter buzzed high overhead. McGonagle likely felt a mix of relief and sadness as he observed the families gathered on the concrete pier below, many waving signs welcoming the crew home. When the Liberty had sailed from Virginia eighty-eight days earlier for its top-secret mission to Africa, the skipper believed his career had stagnated, and he obsessed over inconsequential matters. He now returned with thirty-four of his men dead and nearly two hundred more injured. His spy ship, which no one was supposed to know existed, had briefly dominated the news that summer.

  McGonagle had weathered a court of inquiry in the meantime and emerged a hero. Rather than force him to retire, the Navy nominated him for the Medal of Honor and recommended him for promotion to captain. Senior officers in the Pentagon greeted the skipper’s success with surprise and admiration, best reflected by a doctored copy of McGonagle’s Navy bio that circulated. Someone had underlined McGonagle’s unspectacular assignments in blue ink, ranging from salvage ship operator to naval science instructor at the University of Idaho. “A diverse background, the product of our ‘system’ which some people don’t like,” read a handwritten note appended to it. “But he had the right skills & experience to do a big job at the right time.”

  The roughly three hundred wives, children, parents, and reporters gathered could see no outward scars of the attack that had left 821 shell holes and a huge gash in Liberty’s side. The only remnants of that violent afternoon sat zipped inside 168 canvas bags under guard in a locked compartment belowdecks, a waterlogged mix of classified records, flesh, and bone fragments. The absence of scars did little to ease the pain for families of the dead, many of whom traveled to Norfolk and climbed the gangway. One woman approached Ensign O’Malley and insisted that her son had survived the torpedo blast. The junior officer, who had helped McGonagle write letters to the families, recognized the woman’s name. Her son was one of the sailors lost at sea.

  “He swam through the hole,” the woman insisted. “Maybe he made it to shore.”

  O’Malley glanced at the woman’s husband. The man remained silent, offering O’Malley only a pleading look.

  “Nobody got out. Nobody,” O’Malley replied. “He’s dead. I’m sorry.”

  The widow of one of the petty officers killed by the torpedo blast aske
d Lieutenant Painter if she could visit the place where her husband had died. Painter obliged. He escorted her through the ship’s passageways and down a couple of ladders into the torpedoed compartment. The space that for six days was filled with warm seawater, oil, and blood, was now clean and largely rebuilt. The smell of fresh paint filled the air. The woman surveyed the empty room. “Not much was said. There was just an overwhelming sense of sorrow and loss,” Painter recalled later. “She was one brave, courageous woman.”

  The Virginian-Pilot captured the sadness many felt in an editorial that appeared that morning. “The arrival here today of the USS Liberty is a sobering reminder to this Navy community that no ship that clears this port is assured of returning with her hull intact and all her crewmen alive and uninjured,” the newspaper wrote. “Among the casualties were our neighbors—men who walked down our streets, shopped in our stores, chatted with us at lunch counters. The survivors and their families are joyful. But the rejoicing is tempered by the loss of shipmates and friends.”

  Miss Norfolk, dressed in a white knee-length dress and a flower hat, and Miss Hospitality in a blue dress, white hat, and gloves, greeted sailors. Reporters photographed the tearful reunions of husbands and wives, parents and children. Though the Liberty had dropped from the headlines, the Pentagon remained guarded with the press. The day before the Liberty’s arrival, the ship’s Plan of the Day again ordered crewmembers to defer interviews to senior officers. To satisfy the media, McGonagle led reporters on a brief tour. He described the attack only as “unprovoked and unexpected.” The skipper shifted the attention to his men, complimenting the “magnificent job” of his damage control teams and noting that he had recommended forty-two sailors for medals: “The reaction of the crew was everything I could have expected or hoped for.”

  A team of National Security Agency analysts visited the Liberty two days after it arrived in port to inspect the canvas bags stowed below deck. The agency demanded an inventory if possible of all surviving classified materials. The bags, stacked several high, held the remnants of key cards, manuals, and magnetic tapes that crews had shoveled up in Malta. Liberty sailors with classified clearances slipped on coveralls, masks, and gloves inside the darkened compartment that morning. The men opened the duffle bags and emptied them one after the other onto the deck. A rancid smell filled the air. Some manuals contained legible material, but many others had been reduced to an oil-soaked pulp. One of the men spotted a finger. “It was a nightmare,” recalled John McTighe, a young Navy lieutenant who worked at the NSA. “It was just mush.”