The Attack on the Liberty

by James Scott

  The agency’s concern centered on whether the Liberty might pose an intelligence breach. Soviet ships sailed in the Mediterranean at the time of the attack. Officials had feared the Russians might recover classified records. The Papago, stationed a thousand yards behind the Liberty, had netted some documents and shredded others in its propeller. A few likely were lost at sea. Benjamin Cwalina, a security officer tasked with determining whether the Liberty posed an intelligence breach, looked at the piles of soggy papers and realized that the torpedo had vaporized much of the spy ship’s records. After opening only a half dozen bags, Cwalina and others told the sailors to stop. The rest of the materials should be burned. “We declared no compromise,” Cwalina recalled. “We didn’t have to worry about the Russians getting hold of any of our documents.”

  The final destruction of the classified records fell to the men on the Liberty. A work party from the local base arrived one humid August morning a couple of weeks later with a truck and a crane to help Painter and other sailors dispose of the stacks of canvas bags. The first sailor to venture down inside the torpedoed spaces in Malta, Painter would be the last to deal with the remnants of the attack. The men loaded the bags onto the back of a truck and drove to the base incinerator. There a crane lifted each bag—many containing bone fragments and tissue of the Liberty’s dead—and dropped them one by one into the incinerator. The young officer watched as the bags vanished in seconds. “I remember thinking that I had just cremated the remains of many unnamed sailors,” Painter later recalled. “I never forgot that day.”

  Sixteen days after the Liberty tied up in Virginia, Ephraim Evron delivered a copy of Israel’s final report on the attack to Eugene Rostow at the State Department. Brigadier General Joseph Geva, Israel’s military attaché, also submitted a copy to his counterparts in the U.S. Navy. Israeli diplomats urged American officials to downplay the nineteen-page report now that the attack had faded from the headlines. American leaders agreed and limited distribution largely to members of Congress and senior officers at the Pentagon. “I made clear that the document is secret and added that in our opinion, it is best not to re-evoke the matter now that it is being forgotten,” Evron cabled to Jerusalem. “Rostow responded that confidentiality will be guaranteed.”

  American leaders had awaited a satisfactory explanation of the attack for more than two months. The Israeli prosecutor, without naming any defendants, recommended seven charges of negligence. Those ranged from failure to alert senior officers of the spy ship’s presence after reconnaissance flights spotted it that morning to the dereliction of the torpedo boat division commander to positively identify the Liberty before attacking it. Lieutenant Colonel Yeshayahu Yerushalmi was the judge who presided over the case. Like Ron, Yerushalmi was a native of Poland. He had emigrated to Israel as a teenager in 1935 and later graduated from Tel Aviv’s Balfour College. After he studied law at the University of Jerusalem, Yerushalmi joined the military court of appeals as a judge in 1957, where he served at the time of the attack on the Liberty. Yerushalmi’s report stated that over the course of a month, he heard thirty-four witnesses and considered fourteen exhibits before rendering his verdict. The English-language version of his report provided to the United States identified witnesses by title only and did not include a breakdown of those exhibits.

  Yerushalmi’s explanation for the attack largely mirrored Ron’s, but a close comparison of the reports revealed stark differences. Ron had exonerated the attackers, but his full report contained damaging evidence against Israeli forces. Transcripts of radio communications showed that a pilot reported the Liberty’s hull markings more than twenty minutes before the torpedo strike, markings that convinced the chief air controller at general headquarters in Tel Aviv the ship was “probably American.” The Navy’s second in command had received the pilot’s report of the Liberty’s hull markings, but dismissed the markings as an Egyptian ruse. Ron’s report also revealed that before the torpedo attack, two other Israeli Navy officers believed the target was the Liberty. These facts had convinced Ambassador Harman that people needed to go to jail.

  Yerushalmi’s report in contrast downplayed, omitted, or used ridiculous logic to explain away the most damaging evidence that showed Israeli forces had conclusively identified the Liberty in time to halt the fatal torpedo strike that killed twenty-five of the thirty-four sailors. In his poorly written and cumbersome report, Yerushalmi conceded that pilots spotted the Liberty’s hull markings but said only that it raised doubts about the ship’s identity. Likewise, he omitted the fact that the Navy’s second in command had earlier testified that he discounted the pilot’s report as evidence of an Egyptian ploy. Also absent was the critical fact that two Israeli Navy officers believed before the torpedo attack that the ship was the Liberty but failed to intervene. In referring to one of the officers, Yerushalmi stated only that the officer’s suspicion was “aroused” that the target might be wrong.

  Yerushalmi’s report instead appeared intended to counter many of the criticisms against Israeli forces. He explained away the morning’s reconnaissance by stating that shortly before the attack, an officer assumed the Liberty had sailed away and ordered the ship’s marker removed from the Navy’s war room plotting table. He wrote that he examined photographs of the Liberty and El Quseir and was satisfied that the two ships appeared similar. The smoke, a result of the air strikes, made it harder for Israeli forces to identify it. As for the criticism that torpedo boat skippers should have recognized the unarmed ship was incapable of a shore bombardment, Yerushalmi argued that it could have been an escaping Egyptian supply ship that lagged behind the true culprits or, as one witness testified, was a transport ship that had “come to assist in the evacuation of Egyptian soldiers.”

  Yerushalmi justified Israel’s actions in part by blaming the United States. He conceded the Liberty was in international waters, but determined that that didn’t matter because the ship steamed in an area Egypt had declared “dangerous for shipping.” He wrote that he could only assume Egypt’s declaration was known to the Liberty. He further noted that the area was not a recognized shipping route and criticized the United States for failing to announce the Liberty’s presence. McGonagle also shared the blame for allegedly signaling “identify yourself first” when confronted by the torpedo boats, a claim the United States had disproved. Yerushalmi insisted—despite evidence to the contrary—that Israeli forces did not identify the Liberty until after the torpedo strike. “It was only a helicopter, sent after the attack in order to render assistance—if necessary—which noticed a small American Flag flying over the target,” he wrote. “At that stage the vessel was finally identified as an audio-surveillance ship of the U.S. Navy.”

  In his conclusion, Yerushalmi ruled that Israel’s pilots, skippers, and commanders all acted reasonably under wartime circumstances. He then dismissed all charges. No Israeli would ever be punished for the attack that killed thirty-four Americans, injured almost two hundred others, and nearly destroyed an American ship. The assault on the Liberty, which raged for approximately an hour on a clear afternoon in international waters, was the most violent assault on an American naval ship since World War II. Yet Yerushalmi could find no evidence of wrongdoing, no negligence, no violation of military procedure. “For all my regret that our forces were involved in an incident with a vessel of a friendly state, and its sad outcome,” Yerushalmi concluded, “I have not discovered any deviation from the standard of reasonable conduct which would justify the committal of anyone for trial.”

  American officials slammed Yerushalmi’s report. Lucius Battle, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, questioned why Israeli officers removed the Liberty from the war room’s plotting table. Reconnaissance planes had flown regular missions since before sunrise. Surely someone could have assured Israel’s high command that no ships capable of a shore bombardment had sailed into the area. If it was clear the Liberty was not a threat, why did Israeli forces attack? How wer
e fighter pilots able to spot the spy ship’s hull markings after the assault—when fires raged on deck—but failed to observe the towering letters and numbers before repeatedly strafing the defenseless ship with cannons and napalm?

  Battle’s memo to Nicholas Katzenbach, the State Department’s second in command, concluded that Yerushalmi’s report promised political problems for the administration. Congressional interest remained strong and it would be only a matter of time before word of the report’s arrival leaked. To mitigate the backlash, America needed to make sure Israel punished someone. “It seems likely that the decision will be considered a ‘whitewash’ by the press, public, and Congressional officials,” Battle wrote. “The United States cannot accept the report as exonerating the Israeli Government from taking the disciplinary measures which international law requires in the event of wrongful conduct by the military personnel of a state.”

  Others shared Battle’s view. Captain Mayo Hadden, Jr., in the Navy’s Politico-Military Policy Division prepared a summary of Yerushalmi’s report for senior officers at the Pentagon. Two months earlier, Hadden had written a secret analysis of Ron’s report, describing it as a “whitewash.” The World War II fighter pilot reiterated his previous analysis in a confidential memo. “A one-word summation,” he concluded, “well could be white-wash.” NSA deputy director Louis Tordella went further. Tordella, who previously told members of the House Appropriations Committee in a closed-door meeting that he believed Israel intentionally targeted the Liberty, was outraged by Yerushalmi’s findings. He made his feelings clear in a handwritten note. “A nice whitewash for a group of ignorant, stupid and inept xxx,” he wrote, substituting the letter x for his true beliefs. “If the attackers had not been Hebrew there would have been quite a commotion. Such crass stupidity—30 knots, warship, 2 guns, etc., does not even do credit to the Nigerian Navy.”

  When Ambassador Harman had urged Israel to expand its investigation, he believed that only a thorough vetting of the assault followed by the prosecution of the attackers would assure Washington that the strike had not been malicious. Yerushalmi’s exoneration instead confirmed the belief among many senior American officials that Israel had deliberately targeted the Liberty. The question remained: How could trained Israeli naval officers confuse a spy ship with forty-five towering antennae for an aged horse and troop transport a fraction its size? Israel’s skilled intelligence services had pinpointed the precise location of Egyptian forces on the eve of the war but days later seemed at a loss to identify the lumbering Liberty on a clear day.

  Even Israel’s convoluted justification as outlined in Yerushalmi’s report overlooked the obvious question: Why did senior commanders, when presented with the possibility that the target might be American, not do everything possible to stop the assault? The senior air controller later admitted he was certain the ship was American. Why had neither he nor his supervisors called the Navy, the defense minister, or even the leaders of Israel’s civilian government to demand an end to the assault? Surely more could have been done to halt the attack before the torpedo strike more than twenty minutes later that resulted in the majority of the Liberty’s casualties. Israeli forces already had determined the ship was unarmed, alone, and incapable of escape. There was no need to hurry.

  The possibility of such a catastrophic intelligence breakdown seemed preposterous to American officials, particularly in the wake of Israel’s stunning performance in what would later be known as the Six-Day War. To many, Yerushalmi’s report appeared orchestrated to provide political cover for Israel’s leaders and shield the attackers. The failure to punish those involved, Katzenbach later said, only “confirms that there was some knowledge of it.” It also left lingering resentment among many, particularly in the Navy. When asked about his “most prominent memory of the Liberty,” Admiral Rivero answered: “My anger and frustration at our not punishing the attackers.”

  Katzenbach shared his disbelief in a private meeting at the State Department in August with Evron, the Israeli Embassy’s second in command. Evron said he could add little to the report’s findings. He had pressed the issue with Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, but said Israel was now bound by Yerushalmi’s conclusion. “Examining judge laid out point after point confirming negligence on part of various Israeli officials in affair, yet ended up finding no deviation from normal conduct. Surely, Under Secretary said, one cannot believe such conduct was consistent with normal Israeli practice and did not involve culpable negligence on part of officials involved,” a memo of the conversation stated. “Under Secretary reiterated his surprise at judge’s findings though he assured Evron he did not intend publicly to express these personal conclusions.”

  The State Department continued to seek answers. In a September analysis, Deputy Legal Adviser Carl Salans contrasted Yerushalmi’s findings with the Navy court of inquiry and Clark Clifford’s report. The Harvard-trained lawyer outlined nearly a dozen significant inconsistencies between the American and Israeli accounts, from the Liberty’s speed and direction to the number of reconnaissance flights, visibility of the ship’s markings, and the alleged resemblance to El Quseir. His five-page report, prepared for Katzenbach and stamped top-secret, convinced Salans that the attack must have been deliberate. “There were a lot of discrepancies. That was the whole point of the memo,” recalled Salans, the department’s second-ranking lawyer at the time. “My opinion was that very likely the Israelis were not telling the truth.”

  State Department legal adviser Leonard Meeker agreed. He later wrote that the apparent coordination between the fighters and torpedo boats—followed by hours of close surveillance—ruled out an accidental attack by local commanders. The department’s top lawyer concluded that the order to strike must have originated high up the chain of command. “The Israeli and U.S. Navy accounts of what happened on 8 June 1967 plainly do not jibe,” Meeker wrote. “The attacks on the Liberty cannot be written off as accidental. Nor can they really be seen as the result of mis-identification of the ship. In view of the repeated reconnaissance runs by Israeli aircraft over several hours between 0515 and 1245, the air and torpedo boat attacks must be judged as deliberate.”

  The discrepancies noted in the State Department’s analysis were familiar to many senior American officials, but absent the political motivation to press Israel, the report accomplished little. Phil Goulding later summarized the frustration over Washington’s inability to determine precisely what happened. “How in the name of heaven was the Pentagon to learn whether the attackers knew that the Liberty was an American ship? How was it to know why the attack had been made and who ordered it? The Israeli government had not offered us its logs or copies of its messages; it had volunteered no witnesses nor affidavits,” the Pentagon’s chief spokesman wrote in his memoir. “When I left the government, nineteen months after the attack, we still did not have from Israel the answers to why it happened or how it happened or who ordered it or who was to blame. Having acknowledged—rather begrudgingly—its responsibility for the attack, the sovereign government of Israel had not seen fit to disclose details to us.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The average American taxpayer would likely find it hard to reconcile a settlement of less than two cents on the dollar in the case of the Liberty with our recent large-scale support for Israel.

  —CONFIDENTIAL STATE DEPARTMENT LETTER

  Family, friends, and shipmates gathered on the banks of the Potomac River at Arlington National Cemetery on a warm August morning to bury the last of the Liberty’s dead. Two tents set up along either side of the grave sheltered rows of folding chairs that protected grieving families from the summer sun. Women in dark knee-length dresses sobbed in the shade, comforted by men in business suits. A single casket suspended over the fresh grave held little more than bone fragments and tissue—shoveled into body bags two months earlier in Malta—of five sailors and one Marine vaporized by the torpedo. The casket and funeral served largely as a symbolic gesture.

  Taps soon so
unded over the rolling hills of the cemetery as the morning service, performed according to Catholic and Protestant traditions, concluded. Officers in formal Navy whites saluted the flag-draped coffin. Some of the men in suits placed their right hands over their hearts. Others bowed their heads. Seventy-four days after a torpedo ripped open the side of the Liberty—and nearly six thousand miles from where it happened—the remains of the men were lowered into the ground. The rectangular headstone that marked the new grave read: “DIED IN THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN.”

  Few newspapers covered the funeral. The press, like much of the country, focused elsewhere. Race riots recently had rocked more than one hundred cities, including Detroit, Newark, and Milwaukee, triggering a presidential commission and congressional probes. News stories depicted armored personnel carriers and even tanks rolling past looted stores. Others showed smoldering city blocks and bloodied bodies strewn on sidewalks. A photo published in U.S. News & World Report in early August showed National Guardsmen crouched behind a jeep in Detroit, battling rooftop snipers in what the magazine described as a “guerrilla war.” Newsweek’s cover that same week displayed an urban inferno beneath the headline “Battlefield, U.S.A.”