Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty – The full story
In Green’s reconstruction of events, that was because it was not in the same state of alert or readiness as the Saratoga. That might not have been the whole story. There is evidence that Captain (later Admiral) Donald Engen was not going to launch any of the America’s planes immediately even if he could have done so – because he was insisting on playing by the rules to protect his own back and career prospects. What were the rules? Years later former Congressman Findley was to quote Engen as saying: “President Johnson had very strict control. Even though we knew the Liberty was under attack, I couldn’t just go and order a rescue.”
In any event it was only minutes after the Saratoga’s launch that the Commander of Carrier Task Force 60, Rear Admiral Geis, issued an order for the recall of the A-1s and minutes later they were back on the Saratoga’s deck. They were not to respond to the Liberty’s desperate plea for assistance.
One inference is that Captain Engen communicated with Rear Admiral Geis and said something like, “Should we not clear this with our political masters in Washington?” And that Geis replied, “You bet”, or words to that effect.
President Johnson was very quickly informed – presumably by Defence Secretary McNamara – that the Liberty was under attack and that the Saratoga had launched planes to go to its assistance. Hence the order – from the President to the Defence Secretary – to recall the planes. In Findley’s account the Saratoga’s planes were hardly in the air when McNamara’s voice was heard over Sixth Fleet radios, “Tell the Sixth Fleet to get those aircraft back immediately!”
Initially, President Johnson was – as Green put it – determined “that no U.S. aircraft would be thrust into an adversary role with the IDF, whatever the implication for the struggling U.S.S. Liberty.” Initially, and for the usual domestic political reason – fear of offending Zionism – this President was prepared to sacrifice the lives of 286 of his fellow Americans on board the Liberty.
What was about to happen indicates that for the best part of 30 minutes or so following the political decision to abandon the Liberty and its crew, elements of the U.S. military took on the President and shamed him into changing his mind. Their argument would have been to the effect that not going to the assistance of the Liberty was disgraceful and dishonourable in the extreme. It is reasonable to assume that this struggle with President Johnson (and those of his advisers he was taking most notice of – those who supported Israel right or wrong) was led initially by the Sixth Fleet’s Commander, Admiral Martin, to the cheers no doubt, of Captain Tully. But Martin could not have prevailed without the support of the Chief of Naval Operations and most if not all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
At about 1500 hours (eastern Mediterranean time) President Johnson changed his mind and authorised some action. At 1505 hours a message from COMSIXTHFLT (Commander Sixth Fleet) was transmitted to the Liberty via plain-language radio. (For U.S. Navy file purposes the message was COMSIXTHFLT 081305Z – Z denoting Greenwich Mean Time, which was two hours earlier than eastern Mediterranean/local Liberty/Israeli time.) The message said: “Your flash traffic received. Sending aircraft to cover you. Surface units on the way. Keep situation reports coming.”
As it happened this message was not received by the Liberty because it had no electricity and was off the air.
Question: Was it co-incidence that at about the time the Commander of the Sixth Fleet was sending his message, the Israeli MTBs were ordered to break off their attack and withdraw five miles to await further instructions? I think not. Though the Liberty was unable to receive Admiral Martin’s plain-language radio message, it would have been picked up by IDF monitors. And that would have been enough for those around Dayan who had opposed the attack – in particular the general who had said it would amount to “pure murder” – to press for it to be called off, or, at least, for the situation to be urgently reviewed. It is also possible that President Johnson, desperate in the extreme to avoid a confrontation with the IDF, authorised Walt Rostow to use his network to inform the Israelis that U.S. warplanes were being launched to go to the Liberty’s assistance.
The next sequence of events, military and political, could not have been more dramatic. A writer of fiction would not have dared to invent them.
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