The USS Liberty incident: Israeli attack or friendly fire accident?

Liberty Incident, an attack on a neutral U.S. Navy Technical Research ship by the Israeli air force and torpedo boats, during the 6-Day Arab-Israel War on June 08, 1967 has aroused considerable controversy and debate since its occurrence. While the Israeli and the U.S. governments have always officially maintained that it was a case of an unfortunate but unintended "friendly fire," others have expressed their disbelief and doubts about the official versions of the incident. This paper presents an overview of the event, including its background, aftermath, the official versions of the U.S. And Israeli governments about the incident, and the private views of certain government officials and eye-witnesses about the controversy.

Background: Prelude to the Incident

During the Six-Day Arab Israeli War of June 5-10, 1967, the United States maintained an officially declared neutral status. However, due to the mounting political and military tensions between the Arabs and Israelis in the weeks before the outbreak of the war, the importance of the Middle East due to its oil resources, and the Cold War tensions, the U.S. felt the need for intelligence surveillance and monitoring of the electronic communication emanating from the region. As part of its plan to improve signal intelligence collection in the area, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) decided to request the deployment of a technical research ship in the area in May 1969 (Gerhard and Millington, 1981). USS Liberty, which was in port at Abidjan, Ivory Coast at the time, was ordered to be re-deployed in the Mediterranean for surveillance purposes. As a result, the U.S.S. Liberty left Abidjan on May 24 and arrived in the Mediterranean (i.e., Rota, Spain) on May 31.

Initially, before the outbreak of the Six-Day War, the closest point of approach (CPA) for Liberty was set at 12.5 nm to U.A.R. And 6.5 nm to Israel (Ibid., p. 17). After the start of the War, however, concern about the safety of the ship mounted and on the night of June 7 (Washington time), and 0310 hours June 8 (local time), the Pentagon issued an order to Sixth Fleet headquarters to tell the Liberty to come no closer than 100 nautical miles to the Israeli, Syrian, or the Sinai coast. Unfortunately, due to a series of administrative and communications problems, the directive was not received by the Liberty crew until after the attack.

The Attack on USS Liberty

The facts of the actual attack on USS Liberty are summarized as under:

On the afternoon of June 8, 1967 (2:05 PM, Israeli time), while the U.S.S. Liberty was in the international waters of Eastern Mediterranean, 15.5 miles north of Sinai and traveling in a westerly direction, it was attacked by Israeli aircraft. The initial attack consisted of six straffing runs by two Israeli Mirage jet fighters; hitting the ship with rockets and machine gun fire. This was followed twenty four minutes later by a tarpedo attack, launched by three Israeli speed boats. Both attacks were carried out "by complete surprise, remarkable efficiency, devastating accuracy, and deeply tragic results ("Clark Clifford Report," 1967). The attack left 34 crew members on the Liberty dead and 174 wounded, besides severely damaging the ship.

The American Official Findings

Most U.S. government's inquiry reports on the incident came to more or less the same conclusion, i.e., that the attack on USS Liberty by the Israelis was a case of "mistaken identity"; the attack was not made deliberately or "in malice" toward the U.S.; however, these reports have not totally absolved Israel of the responsibility for the attack. For example, Clark Clifford, Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, appointed by President Johnson to examine the Israeli attack, dubbed the failure of the Israeli Defense Forces, the attacking aircrafts, and the tarpedo boats to identify the Liberty as "a flagrant act of gross negligence" ("Clark Clifford Report," 1967).

Important Quotes about the Incident number of American officials, including important government figures, and the survivors have commented on the U.S.S. Liberty incident during their submission to the official inquiries as well as various publications / books that have appeared in press or on the Internet over the years. For example, Dean Rusk, the U.S. Secretary of State, commenting on the incident in his memoir observes: "I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. Their sustained attack to disable and sink Liberty precluded an assault by accident or some trigger-happy local commander... I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous." (Rusk, 1990, p. 338)

Similarly, Richard Helms -- the CIA Director at the time wrote, "...few in Washington could believe that the ship had not been identified as an American naval vessel... I have yet to understand why it was felt necessary to attack this ship or who ordered the attack." (Helms, 2003, p.300) Capt. William McGonagle, the commander of USS Liberty whose brave efforts in maneuvering the stricken ship to safety while seriously wounded almost certainly saved the lives of his surviving crew was awarded the Medal of Honor-but even his heroic feat was hushed up by Washington and instead of being awarded the medal in a White House ceremony (as is the tradition) he was given the Medal of Honor virtually in secret at the Washington Naval Yard.

Unlike, Capt. McGonagle, not all witnesses of the incident have kept quiet. James Ennes Jr., a lieutenant on the bridge of Liberty on the day of the attack, wrote a book about the incident after his retirement from the Navy. He believes that the attack by Israel on Liberty was deliberate and "a war crime" and dubs the Israeli version of the incident as completely untrue. He writes in his book that there was no way that the attacking Israeli aircraft and the torpedo boats could not have identified the ship as American -- it was clearly marked; flew the American flag and identified themselves. "They did not stop firing after seeing our flag as they claim, but continued to fire for another 40 minutes. The attack lasted 75 minutes and was not brief or accidental as Israel claims. We did not attempt to hide or escape when detected, as Israeli has charged." Ennes believes that a possible reason for the Israeli attack was the fact that its army was busy executing 150 Egyptian prisoners in cold-blood at the El-Arish airport when the U.S.S. Liberty was only 13 miles away -- it did not want its crime to be monitored by an intelligence ship. Ennes also condemns the U.S. government from refusing to investigate the alleged "war crime" by Israel despite repeated requests from Liberty survivors (Ennes, 1980)