Memorial Day is for remembering those killed or wounded in service to our country. Forty-eight years ago, 34 sailors were killed and 171 wounded when the U.S.S. Liberty was attacked by Israeli war planes and torpedo boats off the coast of Israel. The Israelis said it was a mistake caused by the fog of war, but the survivors tell a very different story.
I remember the incident well; I was a Russian linguist with the Army Security Agency stationed in West Berlin at the time. The Army Security Agency, Air Force Security Service and Naval Security Group all operated under direct command of the National Security Agency (NSA), and the U.S.S. Liberty was one of “our” ships.
The 1960s was the height of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall was built in 1961; we faced down the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962; America was becoming increasingly embroiled in the war in Viet Nam; and in the summer of 1967, it looked like we were heading for a showdown with the Soviets in the Middle East.
The U.S. was a staunch supporter of Israel, while Gamal Nasser, the president of Egypt, and other Arab leaders, were becoming increasingly dependent on the Soviet Union for their weapons, military supplies and military advisors.
In May, 1967, at the urging of the Soviets, Nasser moved his tanks and 100,000 troops into the formerly demilitarized Sinai Desert along the border with Israel, and the Soviets dispatched 20 warships to the eastern Mediterranean. My assignment in Berlin was to monitor communications from the Ministry of Defense in Moscow to detect any movement of troops or equipment to the region.
The newly commissioned U.S.S. Liberty, laden with antennas and carrying the latest electronic intelligence equipment, as well as a detachment of Russian and Arabic linguists, was dispatched to the coast of Egypt and Israel to monitor the activity up-close.
President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk had told Israel that we had their back if the Arabs attacked, but warned them not to initiate a war. The Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan, didn’t want to sit around while the Arab nations built up their forces. On June 5, he launched an attack that destroyed most of the Egyptian air force while their planes were still on the ground.
Israel initially told the world the Egyptians had attacked them first, but the U.S. confronted the Israeli government with intelligence that proved the carefully orchestrated surprise attack had been initiated by Israel.
Johnson and Rusk were furious, but within three days, the Egyptian army was crushed and the western media were marveling at the daring efficiency of the Israeli military. There wasn’t much the U.S. could do except warn Israel not to broaden the war by attacking Syria lest the Soviets, who seemed anxious for a fight, intervene.
After trouncing the Egyptians, Dayan’s plan was to launch an attack against Syrian forces in the Golan Heights, which he considered essential to the security of Israel. On June 7, the Israeli leadership met under heavy pressure from the U.S. to debate whether to launch the attack. In that meeting, Dayan spoke against invading Syria, saying he feared it would trigger Soviet intervention.
The attack was postponed 24 hours to allow time for negotiations. At 3 am on June 9, Syria accepted a cease-fire agreement.
Despite this, and without consulting the government, four hours later, Dayan gave the order for Israeli forces to seize the Golan Heights.
Why did Dayan change his mind? Was he suddenly less concerned about Soviet intervention, or was he perhaps less concerned about possible U.S. reaction?
On June 8, the U.S.S. Liberty arrived unescorted 15 miles off the coast of Israel, flying the American flag, and clearly recognizable by its array of antennae as an intelligence gathering ship. This gave the U.S. “ears” to monitor troop movements and detect the invasion we had warned Israel not to launch.
That morning several Israeli military planes flew low over the Liberty to check it out. This caused no concern to the captain and crew, as they were confident they had been identified by friendly forces.
Then three Israeli Mirage jets showed up and began firing missiles and strafing the ship with a 30 mm cannon. A Mystere fighter-bomber arrived to dump napalm on the boat’s deck. The Liberty was a smoldering wreck when three Israeli patrol boats arrived and torpedoed it, killing 26 of the 100 or so NSA technicians and Russian and Arabic linguists who were working in restricted compartments below the ship’s waterline.
Meanwhile, in Berlin, we had been on high alert for weeks. The Liberty was in our communication loop, and I recall standing around the Telex machine with other linguists, reading what I believe were real-time reports of the attack. It was especially disturbing to us because nearly all the linguists — Army, Navy and Air Force — were trained at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., then dispatched to their various branches for assignment. Those on the Liberty were our cohorts, our “comrades-in-arms,” and perhaps even our former classmates.
What happened that day is well documented; we just don’t know why it happened. The Defense Dept. investigated the incident, but some on the investigating team later said they were ordered by President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to conclude the attack was an accident.
Most investigators and military experts who have since looked into the incident have concluded that the evidence is overwhelming that the Israelis knew they were attacking an American “spy ship” that day. According to Admiral Thomas Moorer, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970 to 1974, it was “one of the classic all-American cover-ups.”
The secrecy surrounding the Liberty’s mission and the cover-up that followed have given rise to many conspiracy theories, some of them pretty far-fetched in my opinion. I will cling to the assessment of the linguists gathered around the Telex machine in Berlin that afternoon. Four days earlier, we had caught the Israelis in a lie when they claimed Egypt had attacked them first; they got away with it because by the time we confronted them, the defeat of Egypt was a fait accompli.
The Israeli generals were convinced that control of the Golan Heights was essential to Israel’s security, but the U.S. was pressuring the Israeli government to negotiate a cease fire.
As long as the Liberty was listening off the coast, any movement into Syria would be quickly detected, and the U.S. would pressure the Israeli government to cancel the invasion. Dayan’s solution: sink the U.S.S. Liberty, blinding American intelligence and giving Israeli forces enough time to seize the Golan Heights before anything could be done about it.
This happened 48 years ago. Every survivor believes their ship was deliberately targeted. They and their families have a right to know what happened; who gave the order to attack; and what was behind the cover-up by the U.S. government. A congressional investigation would be a great present for them on the 50th anniversary of their ordeal.
For anyone interested in learning more about the attack, there is a BBC documentary called The U.S.S. Liberty: Dead in the Water available for viewing on the Internet. It is very accurate, except where it suggests there may have been a plot by the CIA and Israel to attack the Liberty and blame it on the Egyptians, thereby drawing the U.S. into the war. This conflict was known as The Six-Day War; by June 8, Israel did not need our involvement to defeat the Arabs; they just needed us to stay out of it so they could finish the job themselves.
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