USS Liberty - 40 Year Anniversary - June 8, 1967

Fascinating video. I remember the incident, but never saw it put this way. I wonder what was the motive or the objective of the attack? To blame an Arab country for attacking our ship?

 

It is a very unfortunate event, this happened while Israel was at war with six other countries.

No matter how terrible, Israel did aknowledge it's mistakes, and I believe most of America has accepted her apology.

And I don't believe it was a consipracy, or anything else, besides a very grave error.

 

Well, you know there are others on this board who will disagree with you, but I'm not one of them.

 

Unless one believes that the Israeli military was the most incompetent organization in the world in June 1967(I don't) the only conclusion that a sensible person(one who is not an sycophant for the modern political state of Israel) can come to is that those who participated in this attack on these United States knew who and what they were attacking.

Thank you, Rufus_1611, for reminding everyone of this. I listened for about two hours the other night on a radio show to one of the survivors of this attack on these United States talk about the attack. It was so sad to listen to what he had to go through during the attack and then the way our government attempted to hush-hush the incident.

 

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/liberty2.html


Investigations of the Liberty Tragedy

The tragic Israeli attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, has provoked a great deal of controversy and longstanding anger among surviving members of the crew. Though residual anger and suspicions remain, the incident was the subject of ten U.S. investigations and three more by Israel. In the American case, the full weight of the U.S. government was behind the investigations, which had access to all the relevant information. Though some accusations have been made suggesting the reports sough to hide facts or protect Israel, no credible evidence for these charges has been produced. Moreover, if the investigatory bodies had a bias, it was far more likely to be against Israel. Here is a summary of the investigations and their conclusions:
InvestigationDateConclusionU.S. Navy Court of InquiryJune 10-18, 1967The attack was a case of mistaken identity. Calm conditions and slow ship speed may have made American flag difficult to identify. No indication the attack was intended against U.S. ship.CIA ReportJune 13, 1967The attack was not made in malice and was a mistake.Joint Chiefs of Staff Fact Finding Team (Russ Report)June 9-20, 1967Outlined "findings of fact," bud did not make any findings about the actual attack.Clifford ReportJuly 18, 1967No premeditation, but "inexcusable failures" by Israeli forces constituing "gross negligence."Senate Committee on Foreign Relations1967Secretary of Defense McNamara testified he supported conclusion that the attack was not intentional. Senate Armed Services CommitteeFeb. 1, 1968No conclusion. Secretary McNamara makes comparison of attack on Liberty to that on Pueblo with regard to uncertainty about what was happening at the time of the incident.House Appropriations CommitteeApril-May 1968Navy communications "foulup" and no conclusion regarding Israeli actions. Much of report remains classified.House Armed Services CommitteeMay 10, 1971Critical of Navy communications, no conclusion regarding Israeli actions.Senate Select Committee on Intelligence1979Responding to critical book by Liberty crewman James Ennes, Senate investigation found no merit to his claim attack was intentional.National Security Agency1981Liberty was mistaken for an Egyptian ship as a result of miscalculations and egregious errors. House Armed Services CommitteeJune 1991Responding to request from Liberty Veterans Association, Subcommitte on Investigations launched probe that concluded there was no evidence to support allegations made by the Association and no reason for further investigation.
Israeli Investigations

InvestigationDateConclusionRam Ron CommissionJune 12, 1967The attack was made "neither maliciously nor in gross negligence, but as the result of a bona fide mistake. Also notes that the Liberty made a mistake as well by carelessly approaching a war area.Preliminary InquiryJuly 1967There was no malicious intent and no deviation from the standard of reasonable conduct that would justify a court-martial.IDF History1982The attack was a result of an "innocent error."

 

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/jcsliberty.html


On June 8, 1967, the fourth day of the Six-Day War, the Israeli high command received reports that Israeli troops in El Arish were being fired upon from the sea, presumably by an Egyptian vessel, as they had a day before. The United States had announced that it had no naval forces within hundreds of miles of the battle front on the floor of the United Nations a few days earlier; however, the USS Liberty, an American intelligence ship assigned to monitor the fighting, arrived in the area, 14 miles off the Sinai coast, as a result of a series of United States communication failures, whereby messages directing the ship not to approach within 100 miles were not received by the Liberty. The Israelis mistakenly thought this was the ship doing the shelling and war planes and torpedo boats attacked, killing 34 members of the Liberty's crew and wounding 171.
Shortly afterward, the Joint Chiefs of Staff organized a fact-finding team to investigate the communications problems that led to the tragedy. The report focused on the ship's position rather than the attack itself. AICE obtained a declassified version of the secret report, which still was redacted. The most important piece of information that was not declassified was the ship's mission, which is now widely believed to have been intelligence gathering.
On June 6, the Liberty was sent a message citing the “unpredictability of United Arab Republic actions” and directed the ship to “maintain a high state of vigilance against attack or threat of attack.” (pp. 16-17)
Originally, the ship was to get no closer than 20 nautical miles to the UAR and 15 to Israel. The Chief of Naval Operations expressed concern about the prudence of sending the Liberty so close to the area of hostilities and the ship was subsequently ordered to remain 100 miles away from both countries. (pp. 19-20)
The message was apparently never received. The fact-finding team reported that “there were no records or communications files surviving which could be examined, nor were there any surviving key communications personnel available who had direct knowledge and reliable power of recall.” (p. 3)
A flash cable sent immediately after the attack reported that Israel had “erroneously” attacked the Liberty, that IDF helicopters were in rescue operations, and that Israel had sent “abject apologies” and requested information on any other U.S. ships near the war zone.
The JCS team found that:

There were four (4) messages disseminated during the period of 7-8 June 1967 from higher headquarters to subordinate echelons containing revisions to previous instructions regarding the assigned operating location of USS LIBERTY. Since each of these message transmissions contained instructions for substantially increasing the closets point of approach (CPA) to the UAR and Israel, the receipt of any one of these by the USS LIBERTY would undoubtedly have resulted in the ship's being a greater distance from the scene of action than underway between Israel and the UAR. Although the USS LIBERTY was either an action or an information addressee on each of these directives, there is no evidence available to confirm that the ship's Captain received any of them...The failure of the USS LIBERTY to receive any one of these time-critical revisions to operational directives can be attributed to a combination of (1) human error, (2) high volume of communications traffic, and (3) lack of appreciation of sense of urgency regarding the movement of the LIBERTY. (pp. 1-2)
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Report of the JCS Fact Finding Team, "USS Liberty Incident, 8 June 1967," The Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, DC, June 18, 1967.

 

KenH does a good job in dismissing anyone who might disagree with him on this, by his negative comments, but thinking people on both sides have opinions, and with a sensitive issue like this, perhaps that kind of garbage could be given a rest.


You guys did a good job digging up the eyewitness accounts, I have posted official findings, perhaps this story could just be presented, and not bloviated upon.....