Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty – The full story
Does anybody know, really know, which of those two possible explanations is the correct one?
The fact that President Johnson, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA and the NSA had advance notice of Dayan’s intention to attack the Liberty meant that, when the early reports of the attack arrived, they had a choice. In Taking Sides, Stephen Green put it this way: The choice was “either to take retaliatory action against Israel, or to become an accessory after the fact by promoting the fiction that it was somehow an accident.”
Out of fear of offending Zionism and its child it was, of course, the second option that the pork-barrel Johnson administration took, making a cover-up inevitable.
At this point I must pause to acknowledge that I, like most others (the few) who write about the cover-up, would know little that was worth knowing without Stephen Green’s original research. In Peering Into Dark Corners, the title of the first chapter of his book, he told of his epic struggle to make use of the Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to get access to declassified files from 22 different U.S. government agencies, mainly civilian and military intelligence agencies.
“The FOIA process,” he wrote in 1984 (how appropriate), “has in the past few years become an adversarial one with strong political overtones. Initial requests (for de-classified documents and files) may be simply ignored for months until repeated follow-ups elicit pro forma responses. Once a researcher’s request reaches an active pile, he or she may be threatened with exorbitant search and duplication fees.” He gave an example. In response to one particular request he was informed in writing that servicing it would require “13,000 hours of search time at $16 per hour. If I would just send along the $208,000, they would get cracking on the matter.”
To my way of thinking Green’s most chilling revelation was about the existence of Executive Order 12356. This was promulgated by President Reagan in mid-1982 to permit the re-classification of previously de-classified documents! “The Reagan Justice Department has encouraged a number of federal agencies to avail themselves of this new ‘opportunity’ to return to an era when the processes of government were none of the American people’s business.”
In passing it is also worth noting that Green’s credentials were beyond reproach because he is Jewish. He dedicated his book as follows – “For my father, who would have understood.” Green’s hope was that his book would encourage debate about the need for America to have a more distant and rational relationship with Israel.
Precisely when on Thursday 8 June Dayan ordered the actual attack on the Liberty has never been revealed. There was however a Congressional leak to Green from a named member – Representative Robert L.F. Sikes – of the intelligence working group of the investigating Defence Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations. The leak confirmed among other things the existence of a suppressed report of a secret CIA briefing in which it was stated that Dayan had issued the order over the protests of another Israeli general who said, “This is pure murder.”
The attack, the murder at sea, was in two main phases lasting more than one hour (as we shall see, an intended third and final phase had to be aborted); and it was launched after aerial reconnaissance of the Liberty, in the sunlight of the eastern Mediterranean, over a period of eight hours. As all television cameramen and still photographers know, the sunlight in the eastern Mediterranean has almost magical properties. It is Mother Nature’s assistance for taking perfect pictures.
Dawn on the morning of Thursday 8 June brought with it the promise of another beautiful and clear day. Calm sea. Light, warm breezes. The off-duty crew of the Liberty could not have had it better if they were holidaymakers on a cruise ship. Many were, in fact, looking forward to some sunbathing on the deck.
The aerial reconnaissance of the Liberty started at 0600 hours when a lumbering Israeli Noratlas (a Nord 2051) slowly circled the ship three times.
On the bridge Ensign John Scott, near the end of his watch as the Officer of the Deck, studied the plane through his binoculars.
The French-built Noratlas was a transport plane but this one had been modified by the Israeli Air Force. It was carrying not fighting men of any kind but photographers – the best the Israeli Air Force had (which probably meant they were second to none in the world) – and, to direct them, specialists from the directorate of military intelligence. The pictures that were being taken of the Liberty on this and several subsequent over-flights would determine the precise plan of attack.
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