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Ground control: "Never mind; hit it!"
The Israelis might have been able to report "mission accomplished, ship sunk, all crew killed" save for the bravery and surefootedness of 23-year-old Navy seaman Terry Halbardier, whose actions spelled the difference between the murder of 34 of the crew and the intended massacre of all 294.
Halbardier skated across the Liberty's slippery deck while it was being strafed in order to connect a communications cable and enable the Liberty to send out an SOS. The Israelis intercepted that message and, out of fear of how the U.S. Sixth Fleet would respond, immediately broke off the attack, returned to their bases, and sent an "oops" message to Washington confessing to their unfortunate "mistake."
As things turned out, the Israelis didn't need to be so concerned. When President Lyndon Johnson learned that the USS America and USS Saratoga had launched warplanes to do battle with the forces attacking the Liberty, he told Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to call Sixth Fleet Carrier Division Commander Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis and tell him to order the warplanes to return immediately to their carriers.
According to J.Q. "Tony" Hart, a chief petty officer who monitored these conversations from a U.S. Navy communications relay station in Morocco, Geis shot back that one of his ships was under attack. Tellingly, McNamara responded: "President Johnson is not going to go to war or embarrass an American ally over a few sailors."
John Crewdson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Chicago Tribune, asked McNamara about this many years later. McNamara's answer is worth reading carefully; he said he had "absolutely no recollection of what I did that day," except that "I have a memory that I didn't know at the time what was going on."
Crewsdon has written the most detailed and accurate account of the Israeli attack on the Liberty; it appeared in the Chicago Tribune, and also in the Baltimore Sun, on Oct. 2, 2007. Read it and you'll understand why Crewdson got no Pulitzer for his investigative reporting on the Liberty. Instead, the Tribune laid him off in November 2008 after 24 years.
On the few occasions when the mainstream U.S. media outlets are forced to address what happened, they blithely ignore the incredibly rich array of hard evidence and still put out the false narrative of the "mistaken" Israeli attack on the Liberty. And they attempt to conflate fact with speculation, asking why Israel would deliberately attack a ship of the U.S. Navy.
Why Tel Aviv wanted the Liberty and its entire crew on the bottom of the Mediterranean remains a matter of speculation, but there are plausible theories including Israel's determination to keep the details of its war plans secret from everyone, including the U.S. government.
On June 25, 2015, The Real News Network interviewed the only U.S. Marine survivor, Sgt. Bryce Lockwood, and me, a CIA analyst in June 1967 responsible for reporting on the activities of the Soviet Union. Paul Jay, the interviewer, made a strong attempt to separate fact from speculation.
Part 1 presents the facts. They include: (1) Israel attacked the USS Liberty by air and sea for two hours on June 8, 1967 during the six-day Israeli-Arab War; (2) The Israelis knew they were attacking a U.S Navy ship and gave the order to sink it and leave no survivors; (3) The U.S. Navy betrayed its own in obeying White House orders to parrot the Israeli excuse of "mistaken identity." Not one naval officer resigned in protest.
Part 2 of the interview proceeds from those facts; it features speculation regarding what the Israelis may have had in mind in trying to sink the Liberty and leave no survivors. The facts being what they are, it should come as no surprise that trying to put a rationale behind them is a mind-boggling task. And, sad to say, no U.S. official has apparently dared confront the Israelis!
Interviewer Paul Jay, understandably, comes down hard on the obvious need for an official U.S. investigation. We know -- from the testimony of some of those who actually took part in the whitewash "investigation" commissioned by Adm. John S. McCain Jr. (father of Sen. John McCain) -- that it was a travesty.
Will the Navy Finally Take Care of Its Own?
There are some glimmers of hope.
--The annual ceremony on June 8 to honor Liberty crew killed that day has typically been ignored by Navy brass. This year was different. Three senior active duty Navy officers came to pay their respects. They were led by Rear Admiral Nancy A. Norton, Director, Warfare Integration Directorate, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.
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