Remembering the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty

Dennis Lamb

Guest opinion

This is the USS Liberty, which was attacked north of the Sinai Peninsula in the Mediterranean Sea. The Pentagon said that the Israeli government reported the attack was made in error by Israeli forces. Four American were killed and 53 wounded.

"If it was an accident, it was the best planned accident I've ever heard of." — USS Liberty survivor

On June 8, 1967, Israeli war planes and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, an intelligence gathering ship, while it was on a signals collections mission in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula during the Six Day War. It was the first attack on a U.S. Navy vessel since Pearl Harbor and the first attack on America by a Middle East nation. Out of a crew of 294, 34 Americans died and 173 were wounded during an attack that lasted as long as the attack on Pearl Harbor. The ship, armed only with four machine guns, was first strafed repeated by IDF aircraft that took out its communication antennas so it could not radio for help, then bombed, hit with napalm and torpedoed. It was also the only peacetime attack on a U.S. naval vessel that, to this day, the Congress of the United States of America formally refuses to investigate. That Washington failed to respond or condemn the attack may have inspired North Korea to seize the USS Pueblo on January 23, 1968, a Navy intelligence vessel engaged in routine surveillance off North Korea.

Israel claimed it mistook the Liberty for an enemy vessel. The surviving crewmen claim that could not have been possible.

One cannot imagine the horror the crew went through, nor their anger that the White House twice called back aircraft that Rear Adm. Larry Geiss had launched from aircraft carriers to their aid after a crewman jerry-rigged up an antenna in the midst of the attack and an SOS was sent. President Johnson reportedly told Geiss during the second recall of rescue planes that he didn't care if the ship sank, he wasn't going to embarrass an ally. But how did he know the attackers were Israelis?! Not even the crewmen knew who their attackers were because they were flying unmarked aircraft. This, plus the survivors having been ordered to keep silent about the attack on penalty of life in prison — or worse — and that one of the investigators alleged before he died that a cover up had been ordered by Adm. John McCain Jr., father of Sen. John McCain, have led to conspiracy theories.

During the Six Day War between Israel and the Arab States, the USS Liberty, an American intelligence ship, was attacked for 75 minutes on June 8, 1967, in international waters by Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats. Thirty-four men died and 171 were wounded. The crew's mess hall was converted to a battle dressing station. (Gannett News Service photo courtesy www.ussliberty.com)

Much has been written about the attack on the Liberty by the crewmen who broke silence 12 years after the attack once President Johnson died in 1973, by interested parties, and by Israelis and pro-Israeli Americans. Survivor Lt. Cmdr. James M. Ennes Jr. published a book, "Assault on the Liberty," in 1980. John Crewdson, senior correspondent, published an examination of the incident entitled "New revelations in attack on American spy ship" in the Chicago Tribune on Oct. 2, 2007. It is still online.

Two YouTube videos one can Google are: "The Attempted Sinking of the USS Liberty (in 1967)" published Nov 28, 2012, and "BBC Documentary on the USS Liberty: 'Dead in the Water'".

In 2002, Russian newspaper Pravda published an online English language article entitled "USS Liberty — Hot summer of 1967: The Israeli attack on America and the 'Soviet destroyer.'" Following is an excerpt:

Officers and crew of the USS Liberty survey damage to the ship suffered during a June 8, 1967, attack in the Mediterranean.

"Last year, a Russian translation of Joseph Daichman’s 'History of the Mossad' was published in Moscow. The author describes the tragedy in 1967 in detail. He admits that it was perfectly clear that the Liberty was an American ship and that the attack was committed to deprive the USA 'of its eyes and ears,' of the opportunity to control the situation. Daichman says the attackers had the right to act so. The Israelis feared that the Liberty would report information about the course of the war: They wanted to keep it a secret that troops had been shifted to Syria and the Egyptian border wasn’t protected at all. The border was quite open for Egyptian soldiers to cross. Israel knew that American radio signals were intercepted by the Soviet Union, and the latter would certainly inform Egypt of the fact. That is why the Liberty was to be sunk to avoid leakage of important information. This is a very cynical version. I even couldn’t have thought that I would ever read it."

It is not clear why Daichman would write about the attack on the USS Liberty in a "History of the Mossad," Israel's external intelligence service. His explanation for the attack sounds plausible, though, and his expressed belief that the "attackers" had the right to attack the USS Liberty sounds like something Netanyahu himself would say.

Dennis Lamb, from Chelsea, Iowa, retired from the CIA in 2002 after serving 30 years in its Directorate of Operations as a case officer and intelligence analyst. The thoughts outlined above represent his personal views and not those of his former employer.