More direct and damning eyewitness evidence USS Liberty attact was intentional

Israeli Pilot Speaks Up Fifteen years after the attack, an Israeli

pilot approached Liberty survivors and then held extensive interviews

with former Congressman Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey about his role.

According to this senior Israeli lead pilot, he recognized the Liberty

as American immediately, so informed his headquarters, and was told to

ignore the American flag and continue his attack. He refused to do so

and returned to base, where he was arrested.

This Month in History

The Assault on the USS Liberty Still Covered Up After 26 Years

By James M. Ennes Jr.

June 1993, Page 19

Twenty-six years have passed since that clear day on June 8, 1967 when

Israel attacked the USS Liberty with aircraft and torpedo boats,

killing 34 young men and wounding 171. The attack in international

waters followed over nine hours of close surveillance. Israeli pilots

circled the ship at low level 13 times on eight different occasions

before attacking. Radio operators in Spain, Lebanon, Germany and

aboard the ship itself all heard the pilots reporting to their

headquarters that this was an American ship. They attacked anyway. And

when the ship failed to sink, the Israeli government concocted an

elaborate story to cover the crime.

There is no question that this attack on a U.S. Navy ship was

deliberate. This was a coordinated effort involving air, sea,

headquarters and commando forces attacking over a long period. It was

not the "few rounds of misdirected fire" that Israel would have the

world believe. Worse, the Israeli excuse is a gross and detailed

fabrication that disagrees entirely with the eyewitness recollections

of survivors. Key American leaders call the attack deliberate. More

important, eyewitness participants from the Israeli side have told

survivors that they knew they were attacking an American ship.



Israeli Pilot Speaks Up

Fifteen years after the attack, an Israeli pilot approached Liberty

survivors and then held extensive interviews with former Congressman

Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey about his role. According to this senior

Israeli lead pilot, he recognized the Liberty as American immediately,

so informed his headquarters, and was told to ignore the American flag

and continue his attack. He refused to do so and returned to base,

where he was arrested.

Later, a dual-citizen Israeli major told survivors that he was in an

Israeli war room where he heard that pilot's radio report. The

attacking pilots and everyone in the Israeli war room knew that they

were attacking an American ship, the major said. He recanted the

statement only after he received threatening phone calls from Israel.



The pilot's protests also were heard by radio monitors in the U.S.

Embassy in Lebanon. Then-U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter has

confirmed this. Porter told his story to syndicated columnists Rowland

Evans and Robert Novak and offered to submit to further questioning by

authorities. Unfortunately, no one in the U.S. government has any

interest in hearing these first-person accounts of Israeli treachery.

Key members of the Lyndon Johnson administration have long agreed that

this attack was no accident. Perhaps most outspoken is former Chairman

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer. "I can never accept

the claim that this was a mistaken attack, " he insists.

Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk is equally outspoken, calling the

attack deliberate in press and radio interviews. Similarly strong

language comes from top leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency,

National Security Agency (some of whose personnel were among the

victims), National Security Council, and from presidential advisers

such as Clark Clifford, Joseph Califano and Lucius Battle.

A top-secret analysis of Israel's excuse conducted by the Department of

State found Israel's story to be untrue. Yet Israel and its defenders

continue to stand by their claim that the attack was a "tragic

accident" in which Israel mistook the most modern electronic

surveillance vessel in the world for a rusted-out 40-year-old Egyptian

horse transport.

Despite the evidence, no U.S. administration has ever found the courage

to ever found the courage to defy the Israeli lobby by publicly

demanding a proper accounting from Israel.

How Does Congress React to These Complaints?

Most members of Congress respond to inquiries about the Liberty with

seemingly sympathetic promises to "investigate. " Weeks or months

later they write again to report their "findings": "The Navy

investigated in 1967 and found no evidence that the attack was

deliberate," they say. "Israel apologized, calling the attack a tragic

case of misidentification, and paid damages for loss of life, injuries

and property damage. The matter is closed.

The fact is, however, that the Navy's "investigation" examined only the

quality of the crew's training, the adequacy of communications and the

performance of the crew under fire. The Navy was forbidden to examine

Israeli culpability and Navy investigators refused to allow testimony

showing that the attack was deliberate or that Israel's excuse was

untrue.

The Navy blocked all testimony about Israeli actions.

Instead of determining whether the attack was deliberate, the Navy

blocked all testimony about Israeli actions. No survivor was permitted

to describe the close in machine-gun fire that continued for 40 minutes

after Israel claims all firing stopped. No survivor was allowed to

talk about the life rafts the Israeli torpedomen machine-gunned in the

water. No survivor was permitted to challenge defects and fabrications

in Israel's story. Even my eyewitness testimony as officer-of-the deck

was withheld from the official record. No evidence of Israeli

culpability was "found" because no such testimony was allowed. To

survivors, this was not an investigation. It was a cover-up.



Congress Goes Through the Motions

Occasionally a member of Congress will seem to probe a bit deeper, as

Ted Kennedy once did. In response to requests, Kennedy asked Liberty

survivors and others for input,whichhis staff then "studied" for more

than a year.

Kennedy asked no questions, conducted no interviews, and showed no

curiosity about the many discrepancies in Israel's story. Then Kennedy

reported his "findings" in a letter to survivors. Carefully avoiding

the circumstances of the attack, Kennedy's letter deplored the "tragic

circumstances and loss of life" and declared that the facts about the

Liberty must be uncovered "to the maximum extent humanly possible. "



That letter, however, represented Kennedy's maximum effort. Appeals to

Kennedy for some real help go unanswered.

The Guest Goes On

The best forum in the '90sfor this story and related stories of the

Middle East may well be electronic mail, the complex of computer and

electronic mail systems that now span the globe.

For instance, the USS Liberty and theMiddle East are hot topics in the

"Prodigy interactive computer service" run by Sears and IBM. With over

2 million members, Prodigy's "Israel" forums guarantee some lively and

often bitter debates.

Unfortunately, the playing field often seems uneven. The cover-up side

heavily outnumbers its critics, and is allowed tactics rarely

tolerated from others. Criticism of Israeli policies is seen as

"attacks on the Jewish homeland. " Pro-Israel debaters charge that

Israel's critics are "disciples of hate," and "pathological haters of

Israel and all things Jewish. "

The language gets worse. Prodigy allows Israel's critics to be called

"sodomists," and "derriere bussing antiSemites. " The Washington

Report on Middle East Affairs, which prints an update on progress

toward a congressional investigation every year on the June anniversary

of the tragedy, comes in for special vitriol. The magazine is

described almost daily as I a hate rag." Yet Prodigy's censors often

reject even mild and factual rebuttals of such charges as "insulting.

"

Despite a near media blackout, and such invective directed at

publications that defy it, Americans, do continue to support the USS

Liberty and its survivors' association. Late last year the Veterans of

Foreign Wars Post 560 in Zimmerman, Minnesota, raised over ,000 to

create a rest stop and picnic area on donated land near a major highway

as a memorial to the men who died on the Liberty. This makes the 29th

public memorial to the USS Liberty.

The memorial area and an inscribed granite stone were appropriately

dedicated in a ceremony attended by survivors, VFW members, Mayor

Randy Hanson, and Liberty's heroic Congressional Medal of

Honor-winning skipper, Captain William McGonagle, among others.

Inspired by community support, members of Post 560 are now telling the

USS Liberty story to every VFW post in Minnesota. Member Stan Wuolle

tells us that after they cover all of Minnesota, they will start on

Wisconsin and the Dakotas.

In New York, meanwhile, Korean War veteran John Everts learned about

the attack just last year and was similarly moved. Everts inspired

two Korean vets groups in which he is active, "The Chosin Few" and

"The Korean War Veterans" Kivlehan Chapter, to write more than 100

letters to Congress seeking the investigation that survivors mill are

denied.

To date, no member of Congress has risked re-election chances by

agreeing publicly to Evert's request. No one really expected that to

happen. But efforts like these help members of Congress and the

American public remember that Israel attacked the USS Liberty,

deliberately and then lied about it. Sooner or later, Americans will

insist that their government and their representatives in Congress

find out why.

James Ennes retired from the Navy in 1978 as a lieutenant commander

after 27 years of enlisted and commissioned service. He was a

lieutenant on the bridge of the USS Liberty on the day of the attack.

His book on the subject, Assault on the Liberty (Random House, 1980),

is a "Notable Naval Book " selection of the U. S. Naval Institute and

was "editors' choice " when reviewed in The Washington Post. Copies of

the book are available from the American Educational Trust, publisher

of this magazine, at .95 for one, .95 for two.





About James Ennes’ Assault on the Liberty

"I've never read a more graphic depiction of war and its effects at sea

... an insider's book by an honest participant."

—Author Seymour Hersh

"If this book received more attention, U.S. policies in the Middle East

might be better balanced and more successful."

—Former U.S. Senator Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.

"Searing heat and terrible noise came suddenly from everywhere. Heat

came first, and it was heat-not cannon fire-that Caused me to turn

away. An explosion tossed our gunners high in the air-spinning, broken,

like rag dolls. We were being pounded by a deadly barrage of aircraft

cannon and rocket fire.

"A solid blanket of force threw me against A railing. My arm held me up

while the attacker passed overhead, followed by a loud swoosh, then

silence. I seemed to be the only one left standing as the jet

disappeared astern of us. Around me, scattered about carelessly, men

squirmed helplessly, like wounded animals-wide-eyed, terrified, not

understanding what had happened."

—From Assault on the Liberty