| Written By Dr. E.A. Richards for Palestine Chronicle I. THE ATTACK At 11:32 am, the USS Liberty, a sophisticated intelligence gathering vessel, commanded by Captain William L. McGonagle, was 15.5 miles north of the Sinai, and east of El Arish, Egypt, adjacent to the 12 mile limit off Egyptian waters, cruising international waters in an easterly direct. Just before 2:00 pm, the Liberty was north of the Bardawil Peninsula, still outside Egyptian territorial waters. In the morning hours, Israeli reconnaissance planes had circled the Liberty several times, ostensibly taking photographs, and other surveillance Israeli aircraft, including one slow- moving propeller-driven craft, were in the area at that time. Without any warning, the Liberty was attacked by Israeli fighter planes and torpedo boats while she lay in quiet waters off Bardawil. The United States naval vessel was machine-gunned repeatedly, and took 81 hits from aircraft rocket and cannon fire and a direct hit midships from a torpedo fired by one of the Israeli torpedo boat attack squadron. Thirty four American sailors were killed in the dastardly attack, and more than 170 were wounded. II. REPORTS FROM LIBERTY PERSONNEL. Lt. Richard F. Kiepher, a USS Liberty medical officer, wrote this to his mother: "We were cruising along, and it was a beautiful day under clear skies and the men were commenting about the Mediterranean pleasure cruise and what fine day it was for swimming. I heard the first explosion and then the jets were raking the decks with machine gun and rocket fire. "Our .50 caliber machine guns, which are our only armament, had a chance to return some small fire before another wave of jets knocked out the gun mounts and destroyed all the lifeboats and life- rafts." USS Liberty in port after the attack Kiepher wrote that when fires broke out, and crews attempted to put them out, the men were cut down by the strafing Israeli aircraft. Keipher himself was shot in the leg, his kneecap shattered, but in spite of the wound he set up an emergency hospital in the mess hall, as the sick bay was knocked out by four direct hits. He treated wounded sailors there for 18 hours straight. Joseph C. Lentini said this: "There was no way the Israelis could have mistaken the Liberty for an Egyptian ship. The hull was distinctively American, the lettering on the ship was English and not Arabic." He said the US flag was flying when the Israeli planes made their advance surveillance, and it flew during the attack. "The firing was too precise to be a spontaneous target-of- opportunity attack," Lentini went on, "The Israelis shot out the black boxes controlling the guns," noting, "precise fire such as that could only have come after the aerial photos taken by the Israelis had been carefully studied. "Moshe Dayan lied when he said the Israelis realized it was a mistake when they saw a life raft with "U.S. Navy" on it, and that is when the attack stopped. It stopped only a few seconds after a United States aircraft carrier finally received instructions from Washington to send American aircraft to the rescue of the Liberty." Captain McGonagle was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his command of the Liberty during the attack; Lt. George Golden, the ship's engineering officer, was given the Silver Star for his efforts to keep the crippled ship afloat and under power. III. ISRAELI STATEMENTS TO COVER UP THE CRIME. After US jet fighters had been launched from the air craft carrier, and the unmarked Israeli planes had fled, the Israeli government called the US naval attache from the US Embassy to notify him that the Israeli air force had attacked the USS Liberty "by accident" thinking it was an Arab ship, and offering its abject apologies. United Press International Reporter Bill Small said that Menachim Begin stated, "Anyway, we can defy the American Congress and it will go along." It still appears to be true. USS Liberty point of attack IV. OFFICIAL INQUIRIES INTO THE ATTACK Only a highly classified hear was ever held on the attack, and the only result that came out in summary was a statement that the attack was "unprovoked." Both Adlai Stevenson and Barry Goldwater wanted to conduct hearings on the Israeli attack, but were stymied. Neither Stevenson nor Goldwater believed that the Liberty attack was accidental. Later on both ran for President, massive amounts of pro-Israeli money poured in against them. V. STIFLING THE CREW MEMBERS. Members of the Liberty crew were transferred to stations far apart from one another after the incident. The crewmen located said they had been ordered not to breathe a word about the attack, and feared for their jobs, their families, and some, their lives. VI. QUESTIONS STILL UNANSWERED. To this day, a number of questions still have not been answered concerning the treacherous incident, for example: 1. Why did the government of the United States order the officers and crew of the USS Liberty to remain silent about the incident under implied penalty? If the attack had come from an Arabian state the hearings would have come thick and fast. 2. Why did one member of the crew consent to a an interview with expenses fully paid, then back out? His mother said she "didn't want him to end up with a bullet in his back." From an Uzi? 3. In 1976 it was reported that the secret findings of the Naval Board of Inquiry included the comment that the Israeli attack was deliberate. Why are certain elements of the report, and their conclusions still suppressed by the government and almost all of the media? 4. Why were 6th Fleet Phantom jets ordered by McNamara, Rostow, and the White House to halt a planned retaliatory strike on the Haifa torpedo base from where the attackers came? 5. Israeli officials admitted later that they knew an American naval vessel was operating off the Sinai coast; why didn't they pass on that information to the planes and PT boats that attacked the Liberty, unless the attack was planned? 6. Why did Senators Javits, Kennedy, and Ribicoff come out with alibis for Israel within hours of the attack? They said with Israel, we know it was a mistake." 7. Why wasn't the Israeli attack met by US aircraft immediately? When Captain Joe Tully of the Saratoga was informed of the attack by a Liberty radioman, he sent four A-1 aircraft to the rescue. Tully notified Admiral Martin of the attack and Martin ordered both the Saratoga and the America to help out. USS Liberty in international waters 8. But, within a few minutes, Rear Admiral Lawrence R. Geis, commander of Carrier Task Force 60, ordered the immediate withdrawal of the Saratoga's planes. For the next 90 minutes, the White House and the Defense Department "discussed" options, finally ordering another rescue attempt, at which time the Israelis withdrew and "apologized." 9. After the attack ceased, why did the Liberty have to wait 16 hours before another American ship arrived? There was a Soviet ship hove to that offered assistance, but her help was refused. 10. A crewman on an American submarine in the battle area during the attack stated that sub personnel took motion pictures of the attack on the Liberty, through the periscope. Why didn't the sub radio the 6th fleet for help, and where are the pictures? VII. POSSIBLE REASONS FOR THE ISRAELI ATTACK. 1. One view has it that the Israelis did not want the US to know they were massing troops along the Golan Heights and the West Bank for fear the US would bring pressure on them to halt the operation. 2. Another view states that there was a high-jacked freighter nearby which was filled with enriched uranium stolen from the US, which would subsequently be used to make the Israeli nuclear weapons. And if the uranium report was untrue, where DID Israel get the nuclear material for their atomic weapons? VIII. ISOLATED INCIDENT? In 1976, an SR-71 Blackbird flew a seep over the Negev and confirmed that Israel had 13 nuclear weapons of 20 kiloton intensity. The Israeli air force tried to down the Blackbird, but it easily out- climbed and outdistanced the Israeli pursuers, unlike the two civilian transports, with passengers, that the Israelis shot down long before the Soviet kill of flight 007. IX. Stephen Green. In his book, "Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel," Stephen Green reported the following: 1. Israel had the arrogance to order the US ship to leave the international waters and warned, several times, that it would attack the ship if she remained. (The question is, whom did Israel warn?) Captain William McGonable with his Congressional Medal of Honor 2. The attack was with unmarked aircraft. Israel expected to sink the ship after killing her communications system. Israel could then blame the attack on Egypt. (The warnings could then be denied as "unauthorized" and "something we would never really do.") 3. One of the six shore circuits survived the Israeli attack long enough for the Liberty to communicate its distress. But the defense department (Robert Strange McNamara) ordered American vessels not to come to the aid of the Liberty. 4. The night before the attack, Israel had ordered the US government to remove the ship or it would be attacked. The DOD then told the Liberty to change course, but the messages never reached the ship. 5. Within 15 minutes US planes from the Saratoga were en route to the Liberty. Their presence would have cut off the attack by the Israelis, limited the damages, and save many American lives. They were recalled. 6. Evidence of the Israeli plan to leave no survivors was compelling. The lifeboats were shot out of the water and the lifeboats still on the vessel were shot full of holes. 7. Green said after a discussion of his book at the National Press Club, and repeated it in a subsequent telephone interview, that "Official Washington had immediate knowledge that the attack was deliberate, even while pronouncing it a tragic mistake, and the amazing uninterest of the establishment press was part of the biggest cover-up in American history. X. US NAVY LT. JAMES ENNES, ABOARD THE USS LIBERTY. Of all the books written about the Israel attack on the Liberty, by Green, Pearson, Don Neff's Warriors for Suez, and all the articles written on the subject, Lt. James Ennes' book, Assault on the Liberty, is the most factual, descriptive, and well-known of the Liberty incident publications and has already been quoted extensively. Most of his book set the standard for Green, Neff, and others in his description of weather conditions, circumstances of the attack, and theUS Government and media cover-up after the fact. XI. Summary. 1. Much of the information on the cowardly attack on the USS Liberty by the forces of Israel has been garnered through the Freedom of Information Act; however, E. H. Sharp, who has collected huge files of data on the incident, was denied access to nine key documents, about 48 pages of critical material. 2. Sharp stated that, no full official record of the attack, none of the alleged failures of communication before and after the attack, none of the data describing the heroic defense of the Liberty by its personnel, or of the rescue attempt, has ever been given or even made available to the American people, an that "Attempts to piece the full story together through the Freedom of Information Act have been frustrated by the government.itself." It yet continues. 3. Most trecherous of all, a CIA observer in the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, reported that on the afternoon of 7 June 1967 the Israeli leaders already had decided to sink the USS Liberty if it came near what they considered the "war zone," international waters or not. XII. Concluding Questions. 1. When is a 'war crime' not a war crime? Answer: When the propaganda apparatus of the guilty party is able to convince the world that the act in question was an "accident."Answer: When he dares to question the official Israeli position as to what really happened to the USS Liberty. 3. In the Six Day War, Who attacked first? Answer: Contrary to what has been implied by the pro- Israelis, the Six Days War began militarily when Israel attacked the planes of the Egyptian Air Force while the Egyptian planes were parked next to the runways. Nasser had made no overt or covert military attack on the Israelis; he had said Egypt would close a main waterway to Israeli shipping, which was the excuse Israel was looking for to attack Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in order to take over Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai, and the Golan Heights. Even today, as was then, the Israeli Defense Force is strictly an Israeli Attack Force, at its best against unarmed, or poorly armed, opposition who cannot effectively defend itself against American- made aircraft, tanks, armour, and heavy weapons. |
Israel's Attack on The USS Liberty home |
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