James_Madison_Lives
11-17-2019, 07:45 PM
My question how can anyone see this list of power players who directly challenge the official conclusion that Israel attacked the USS Liberty by accident, slaughtering 34 American sailors and wounding hundreds more? Who say in unequivocal terms that it could not have been an accident, and Israel knew exactly what it was doing (perhaps to drag the US into war with Egypt, Israel's arch-enemy at the time?) A Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman inventor of the "triad" nuclear deterrent, Secretarys of State, CIA Director Helms? How has the official story withstood such a withering assault by giants from with the very establishment which has absolved Israel? Reading these how can anyone believe what the government is telling them and American - Israeli relations remain the same? This year another Liberty survivor passes, but the remaining crew vow to keep fighting for the truth until none of them is left. As Terry Halbardier ran to and fro to rig an antennae, wounded, he slipped on blood, oil, and body parts
A USS Liberty’s Hero’s Passing (https://consortiumnews.com/2019/06/08/a-uss-libertys-heros-passing/)
Terry Halbardier Silver Star Citation (https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/19490)
Petty Officer Halbardier, without hesitation and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, fearlessly and repeatedly exposed himself to overwhelming rocket and machinegun fire to repair a damaged antenna in an open deck area during heavy aerial attacks. Aware that all of the ship's transmitting antennas had been destroyed and that communication with higher authority depended upon antenna repair, Petty Officer Halbardier risked his life to run connecting coaxial cable across open decks from the antenna to the main transmitter room. His efforts allowed the ship to establish communications with distant elements of the SIXTH Fleet and call for assistance. Despite being wounded, Petty Officer Halbardier ignored his injuries until the antenna had been repaired and the call for help had been received and acknowledged. His courageous actions were critical in alerting distant Navy commanders to the ship's need for assistance and were instrumental in saving the ship and hundreds of lives.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/static.militarytimes.com/valor/recipients/19490.jpg
Heavy Hitters Who Never Believed the Official story
http://www.ussliberty.org/supporters.htm
"I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. . . . Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous."
-- US Secretary of State Dean Rusk
"Accidents don't occur through repeated attacks by surface vessels and aircraft. It obviously was a decision made pretty high up on the Israeli side, because it involved combined forces. The ship was flying an American flag. My judgment was that somewhere along the line some fairly senior official gave the go ahead. I personally did not accept the Israeli explanation."
-- US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Recorded interview, www.ussliberty.org
"...the board of inquiry (concluded) that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing in attacking the Liberty."
-- CIA Director Richard Helms in his book A Look Over my Shoulder
"It was no accident."
-- CIA Director Richard Helms in interview for Navy Times, 6/26/2002. Asked to say more, Helms remarked that he did not want to spend the rest of his life testifying in court about the attack.
That the attack was deliberate "just wasn't a disputed issue" within the National Security Agency
-- Former NSA Director retired Army Lieutenant General William Odom on 3 March 2003 in an interview for Naval Institute Proceedings
Former NSA/CIA Director Admiral Bobby Inman "flatly rejected" the Cristol/Israeli claims that the attack was an accident
-- 5 March 2003 interview for Naval Institute Proceedings
"I have never believed that the attack on the USS Liberty was a case of mistaken identity. That is ridiculous. Israel knew perfectly well that the ship was American."
-- Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, former Chief of Naval Operations and later Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff writing for Americans for Middle East Understanding, June 8, 1997
"To suggest that they [the IDF] couldn't identify the ship is ... ridiculous. ... Anybody who could not identify the Liberty could not tell the difference between the White House and the Washington Monument."
-- Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations and later Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, quoted in The Washington Post, June 15, 1991, p.
Of four former NSA/CIA seniors with inside knowledge, none was aware of any agency official who dissented from the position that the attack was deliberate
-- David Walsh, writing in Naval Institute Proceedings
"That the Liberty could have been mistaken for the Egyptian supply ship El Quseir is unbelievable"
-- Special Assistant to the President Clark Clifford, in his report to President Lyndon Johnson
"The attack was clearly deliberate."
-- General Marshall Carter, former director, National Security Agency, in a telephone interview with James Ennes
"The attack was deliberate"
-- Lucius Battle, former presidential advisor, as keynote speaker for 1982 USS Liberty reunion.
"My immediate reaction was it was not an accident. It had to be a deliberate attack."
-- Lucius Battle, in BBC Documentary "Dead in the Water".
"I can tell you for an absolute certainty (from intercepted communications) that they knew they were attacking an American ship."
-- Oliver Kirby, former deputy director for operations/production, National Security Agency. Kirby participated in NSA's investigation of the attack and reviewed translations of intercepted communications between pilots and their headquarters which he reports show conclusively that they knew their target was an American ship. Kirby is considered the "Godfather" of the USS Liberty and USS Pueblo intercept programs. (Telephone interviews with James Ennes and David Walsh for Friendless Fire, Proceedings, June 2003)
On the strength of intercept transcripts of pilots' conversations during the attack, the question of the attack's deliberateness "just wasn't a disputed issue" within the agency.
-- Lieutenant General William E. Odom, former director, National Security Agency, interview with David Walsh on March 3, 2003, reported in Naval Institute Proceedings, June, 2003
Inman said he "flatly rejected" the Cristol thesis that the attack was an accident. "It is just exceedingly difficult to believe that [USS Liberty] was not correctly identified" based on his talks with NSA seniors at the time having direct knowledge of intercepted communications. No NSA official could be found who dissented from the "deliberate" conclusion.
-- Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, USN, Director National Security Agency 1977-1981, reported in Proceedings, June, 2003
"I found it hard to believe that it was, in fact, an honest mistake on the part of the Israeli air force units. I still find it impossible to believe that it was."
-- Paul C. Warnke, Undersecretary of the Navy and later general legal counsel to the Department of Defense.
"In many years, I have wanted to believe that the attack on the Liberty was pure error. It appears to me that it was not a pure case of mistaken identity. . . . I think it is about time that the State of Israel and the United States government provide the crew members of the Liberty, and the rest of the American people, the facts of what happened and why it came about that the Liberty was attacked 30 years ago today." Later, McGonagle remarked, "USS Liberty is the only US Navy ship attacked by a foreign nation, involving large loss of life...that has never been accorded a full Congressional hearing."
-- Captain William L. McGonagle, Commanding Officer, USS Liberty, speaking at Arlington National Cemetery June 8, 1997.
"The Israelis told us 24 hours before that ...if we didn't move it, they would sink it. Unfortunately, the ship was not moved, and by the time the message arrived the ship was taking on water."
-- John Stenbit, Assistant Secretary of Defense for C3Im in an address to the AFEI/NDAI Conference for Net Centric Operations, Wednesday, April 16, 2003
"The highest officials of the [Johnson] administration, including the President, believed it 'inconceivable' that Israel's 'skilled' defense forces could have committed such a gross error."
-- Lyndon Johnson's biographer Robert Dallek in Flawed Giant, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 430-31
Never before in the history of the United States Navy has a Navy Board of Inquiry ignored the testimony of American military eyewitnesses and taken, on faith, the word of their attackers.
-- Captain Richard F. Kiepfer, Medical Corps, US Navy (retired), USS Liberty Survivor
"The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack...was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew.... It was our shared belief. . .that the attack. . .could not possibly have been an accident.... I am certain that the Israeli pilots [and] their superiors. . .were well aware that the ship was American."
-- Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, US Navy (retired), senior legal counsel to the US Navy Court of Inquiry
According to Kidd's legal counsel, Captain Ward Boston, USN, Kidd discussed with him his belief that the attackers were aware they were attacking an American ship. The Court ruled otherwise because they were so directed by Washington.
-- Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, President of the Navy Court of Inquiry, as reported in Navy Times, 6/26/2002
"I feel the Israelis knew what they were doing. They knew they were shooting at a U.S. Navy ship."
-- Captain Ward Boston, legal counsel to the Navy Court of Inquiry, as reported in . Navy Times, 6/26/2002
"No one in the White House believed that the attack was an accident."
-- George Christian, Press Secretary to President Lyndon Johnson in letter to James Ennes, 1978.
After reviewing the Court of Inquiry in his official capacity as legal counsel to the convening authority, concluded that the evidence did not support the findings that the attack was an accident and declined to recommend that his Commander sign and forward it to Washington.
-- Rear Admiral (then captain) Merlin Staring, Staff Legal Office for Commander in Chief US Naval Forces Europe and later Chief Judge Advocate General of the Navy. Statement to Navy Times, 3 June 2002 and elsewhere
"This book [Assault on the Liberty] gives convincing evidence that the attack was deliberate and that the facts, including the Navy's bungling before and during the attack, were covered up."
-- United States Senator Adlai E. Stevenson III as reported in Congressional Record -- Senate S13136 September 23, 1980. Senator Stevenson later announced his interest in holding Congressional hearings on the attack. He pointed out that the survivors have been consistent in their accounts of what happened and that the attack was, in his word, "premeditated." Also reported by William J. Small, United Press International, September 28, 1980.
"The Congress never investigated this matter, and I don't detect much enthusiasm for getting into it now."
-- Senator Adlai Stevenson III in letter to James Ennes dated September 9, 1980
"From what I have read, I can't tolerate for one minute that this was an accident! ... What have we done about the Liberty? Have we become so placid, so far as Israel is concerned or so far as that area is concerned, that we will take the killing of 37 (sic) American boys and the wounding of a lot more and the attack on an American ship in the open sea in good weather? We have seemed to say: 'Oh, well, boys will be boys.' What are you going to do about it? It is most offensive to me!
-- Senator Bourke Hickenlooper; From transcript of July 1967 Senate Foreign Relations Hearing on Foreign Assistance Act of 1967.
"I have read the Navy investigation of the Liberty, and the evidence adduced there, and I have read the Israeli court of inquiry records, and based upon their own records of the investigation, I cannot agree that it was accidental."
-- Senator Bourke Hickenlooper; From transcript of May, 1968, Senate Foreign Relations Hearing on Foreign Assistance Act of 1968, page 444.
"American leaders did not have the courage to punish Israel for the blatant murder of its citizens. . . . The Liberty's presence and function were well known to Israel's leaders. ...Israel's leaders concluded that nothing they might do would offend the Americans to the point of reprisal. If American leaders did not have the courage to punish Israel for the blatant murder of American citizens, it seemed clear that their American friends would let them get away with almost anything.
-- George Ball, under secretary of state at the time writing in The Passionate Attachment: America's Involvement with Israel, pages 57-58.
"I don't think that there's any doubt that it was deliberate.... [It is] one of the great cover-ups of our military history."
-- David G. Nes, the deputy head of the American mission in Cairo at the time
"The attack was deliberate and not an accident."
-- Victor Ostrovsky, author and former Mossad officer, in telephone conversations with former Congressman Pete McCloskey October 10, 1991, and with and several conversations with James Ennes.
"It's an American ship!" the pilot of an Israeli Mirage fighter-bomber radioed Tel Aviv as he sighted the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967. Israeli headquarters ordered the pilot to attack the American ship.
-- former US Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter describing transcripts of communications he saw, reported in syndicated column "Remembering the Liberty" by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, November 6, 1991.
"The historical event which took place in June 1967 can hardly be called enigmatic and mysterious. ...It is difficult to understand that the Israelis could not identity the USS Liberty, since the ship had a unique antenna and equipment and especially since the Israelis had identified the ship with long term observation."
-- Translated from a taped interview with Sergeev Oleg Korneevitch, retired Colonel, Soviet GRU.
"The government of Israel intentionally attacked the ship. ...The attack was not legally justified. ...(there were) two further violations of international law...the use of unmarked military aircraft (and)...the wanton destruction of life rafts."
-- Walter L. Jacobsen, Lieutenant Commander, US Navy, in Naval Law Review, Vol 36, Winter 1986
"Certain facts are clear. The attack was no accident. The Liberty was assaulted in broad daylight by Israeli forces who knew the ship's identity. ...The public, however, was kept in the dark. Even before the American public learned of the attack, U.S. government officials began to promote an account satisfactory to Israel. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee worked through Congressmen to keep the story under control. The President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, ordered and led a cover-up so thorough that years after he left office the episode is still largely unknown...."
-- Paul Findley, author and former Member of Congress 1961-1983 in They Dare to Speak Out, by Paul Findley, 1985, page 166
"Is the Liberty episode being erased from history. So it would seem...What has happened to our prying journalistic corps and our editors, normally so indignant of attempted suppression of the news?...We believe that a joint select committee of Congress should investigate the strange case of the USS Liberty..."
-- William F. Buckley, journalist and publisher, National Review, June 27, 1967
"The attack on the USS Liberty was planned and there is and was a cover-up." "If the very valuable lessons of the Liberty were known, the capture of the USS Pueblo could not have happened."
-- Lloyd M. "Pete" Bucher, US Navy, Commanding Officer USS Pueblo when captured by North Korea in January 1968, in telephone conversations with James Ennes and on September 6, 2002, with Richard Schmucker.
"It is clear that the Israelis knew that they were attacking a vessel of the US Navy, especially as it was flying a large Stars and Stripes at the time. The fact that they spent six hours reconnoitering and executing the attack, which included machine-gunning the lifeboats, attests to the deadly intent of the operation.
-- Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison, the Inside Story of the US-Israeli Covert Relationship, by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, p152.
"A. Jay Cristol's virtual minority of one assessment is not supported by the detailed non-technical common sense evidence to the contrary in Body of Secrets (by James Bamford). "There is nothing surprising in Bamford's conclusion that the attack was deliberate. Liberty survivors have made that case convincingly for years."
-- Professor Hayden Peake, author, former CIA officer and member, Association of Former Intelligence Officers, The Intelligencer, Vol. 12, No.1, Summer 2001
Survivors of the attack are unanimous in their conviction that the attack was deliberate. Among other things, their belief is based upon the intense pre-attack reconnaissance, the fact that the firing continued from close range long after the attackers examined the ship and its markings from a few feet away, and because the Israeli version of events as reported to the United States is grossly untrue.
-- USS Liberty survivors
OFFICIAL USS LIBERTY WEBSITE (http://www.gtr5.com/index.html)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx72tAWVcoM
A USS Liberty’s Hero’s Passing (https://consortiumnews.com/2019/06/08/a-uss-libertys-heros-passing/)
Terry Halbardier Silver Star Citation (https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/19490)
Petty Officer Halbardier, without hesitation and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, fearlessly and repeatedly exposed himself to overwhelming rocket and machinegun fire to repair a damaged antenna in an open deck area during heavy aerial attacks. Aware that all of the ship's transmitting antennas had been destroyed and that communication with higher authority depended upon antenna repair, Petty Officer Halbardier risked his life to run connecting coaxial cable across open decks from the antenna to the main transmitter room. His efforts allowed the ship to establish communications with distant elements of the SIXTH Fleet and call for assistance. Despite being wounded, Petty Officer Halbardier ignored his injuries until the antenna had been repaired and the call for help had been received and acknowledged. His courageous actions were critical in alerting distant Navy commanders to the ship's need for assistance and were instrumental in saving the ship and hundreds of lives.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/static.militarytimes.com/valor/recipients/19490.jpg
Heavy Hitters Who Never Believed the Official story
http://www.ussliberty.org/supporters.htm
"I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. . . . Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous."
-- US Secretary of State Dean Rusk
"Accidents don't occur through repeated attacks by surface vessels and aircraft. It obviously was a decision made pretty high up on the Israeli side, because it involved combined forces. The ship was flying an American flag. My judgment was that somewhere along the line some fairly senior official gave the go ahead. I personally did not accept the Israeli explanation."
-- US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Recorded interview, www.ussliberty.org
"...the board of inquiry (concluded) that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing in attacking the Liberty."
-- CIA Director Richard Helms in his book A Look Over my Shoulder
"It was no accident."
-- CIA Director Richard Helms in interview for Navy Times, 6/26/2002. Asked to say more, Helms remarked that he did not want to spend the rest of his life testifying in court about the attack.
That the attack was deliberate "just wasn't a disputed issue" within the National Security Agency
-- Former NSA Director retired Army Lieutenant General William Odom on 3 March 2003 in an interview for Naval Institute Proceedings
Former NSA/CIA Director Admiral Bobby Inman "flatly rejected" the Cristol/Israeli claims that the attack was an accident
-- 5 March 2003 interview for Naval Institute Proceedings
"I have never believed that the attack on the USS Liberty was a case of mistaken identity. That is ridiculous. Israel knew perfectly well that the ship was American."
-- Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, former Chief of Naval Operations and later Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff writing for Americans for Middle East Understanding, June 8, 1997
"To suggest that they [the IDF] couldn't identify the ship is ... ridiculous. ... Anybody who could not identify the Liberty could not tell the difference between the White House and the Washington Monument."
-- Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations and later Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, quoted in The Washington Post, June 15, 1991, p.
Of four former NSA/CIA seniors with inside knowledge, none was aware of any agency official who dissented from the position that the attack was deliberate
-- David Walsh, writing in Naval Institute Proceedings
"That the Liberty could have been mistaken for the Egyptian supply ship El Quseir is unbelievable"
-- Special Assistant to the President Clark Clifford, in his report to President Lyndon Johnson
"The attack was clearly deliberate."
-- General Marshall Carter, former director, National Security Agency, in a telephone interview with James Ennes
"The attack was deliberate"
-- Lucius Battle, former presidential advisor, as keynote speaker for 1982 USS Liberty reunion.
"My immediate reaction was it was not an accident. It had to be a deliberate attack."
-- Lucius Battle, in BBC Documentary "Dead in the Water".
"I can tell you for an absolute certainty (from intercepted communications) that they knew they were attacking an American ship."
-- Oliver Kirby, former deputy director for operations/production, National Security Agency. Kirby participated in NSA's investigation of the attack and reviewed translations of intercepted communications between pilots and their headquarters which he reports show conclusively that they knew their target was an American ship. Kirby is considered the "Godfather" of the USS Liberty and USS Pueblo intercept programs. (Telephone interviews with James Ennes and David Walsh for Friendless Fire, Proceedings, June 2003)
On the strength of intercept transcripts of pilots' conversations during the attack, the question of the attack's deliberateness "just wasn't a disputed issue" within the agency.
-- Lieutenant General William E. Odom, former director, National Security Agency, interview with David Walsh on March 3, 2003, reported in Naval Institute Proceedings, June, 2003
Inman said he "flatly rejected" the Cristol thesis that the attack was an accident. "It is just exceedingly difficult to believe that [USS Liberty] was not correctly identified" based on his talks with NSA seniors at the time having direct knowledge of intercepted communications. No NSA official could be found who dissented from the "deliberate" conclusion.
-- Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, USN, Director National Security Agency 1977-1981, reported in Proceedings, June, 2003
"I found it hard to believe that it was, in fact, an honest mistake on the part of the Israeli air force units. I still find it impossible to believe that it was."
-- Paul C. Warnke, Undersecretary of the Navy and later general legal counsel to the Department of Defense.
"In many years, I have wanted to believe that the attack on the Liberty was pure error. It appears to me that it was not a pure case of mistaken identity. . . . I think it is about time that the State of Israel and the United States government provide the crew members of the Liberty, and the rest of the American people, the facts of what happened and why it came about that the Liberty was attacked 30 years ago today." Later, McGonagle remarked, "USS Liberty is the only US Navy ship attacked by a foreign nation, involving large loss of life...that has never been accorded a full Congressional hearing."
-- Captain William L. McGonagle, Commanding Officer, USS Liberty, speaking at Arlington National Cemetery June 8, 1997.
"The Israelis told us 24 hours before that ...if we didn't move it, they would sink it. Unfortunately, the ship was not moved, and by the time the message arrived the ship was taking on water."
-- John Stenbit, Assistant Secretary of Defense for C3Im in an address to the AFEI/NDAI Conference for Net Centric Operations, Wednesday, April 16, 2003
"The highest officials of the [Johnson] administration, including the President, believed it 'inconceivable' that Israel's 'skilled' defense forces could have committed such a gross error."
-- Lyndon Johnson's biographer Robert Dallek in Flawed Giant, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 430-31
Never before in the history of the United States Navy has a Navy Board of Inquiry ignored the testimony of American military eyewitnesses and taken, on faith, the word of their attackers.
-- Captain Richard F. Kiepfer, Medical Corps, US Navy (retired), USS Liberty Survivor
"The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack...was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew.... It was our shared belief. . .that the attack. . .could not possibly have been an accident.... I am certain that the Israeli pilots [and] their superiors. . .were well aware that the ship was American."
-- Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, US Navy (retired), senior legal counsel to the US Navy Court of Inquiry
According to Kidd's legal counsel, Captain Ward Boston, USN, Kidd discussed with him his belief that the attackers were aware they were attacking an American ship. The Court ruled otherwise because they were so directed by Washington.
-- Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, President of the Navy Court of Inquiry, as reported in Navy Times, 6/26/2002
"I feel the Israelis knew what they were doing. They knew they were shooting at a U.S. Navy ship."
-- Captain Ward Boston, legal counsel to the Navy Court of Inquiry, as reported in . Navy Times, 6/26/2002
"No one in the White House believed that the attack was an accident."
-- George Christian, Press Secretary to President Lyndon Johnson in letter to James Ennes, 1978.
After reviewing the Court of Inquiry in his official capacity as legal counsel to the convening authority, concluded that the evidence did not support the findings that the attack was an accident and declined to recommend that his Commander sign and forward it to Washington.
-- Rear Admiral (then captain) Merlin Staring, Staff Legal Office for Commander in Chief US Naval Forces Europe and later Chief Judge Advocate General of the Navy. Statement to Navy Times, 3 June 2002 and elsewhere
"This book [Assault on the Liberty] gives convincing evidence that the attack was deliberate and that the facts, including the Navy's bungling before and during the attack, were covered up."
-- United States Senator Adlai E. Stevenson III as reported in Congressional Record -- Senate S13136 September 23, 1980. Senator Stevenson later announced his interest in holding Congressional hearings on the attack. He pointed out that the survivors have been consistent in their accounts of what happened and that the attack was, in his word, "premeditated." Also reported by William J. Small, United Press International, September 28, 1980.
"The Congress never investigated this matter, and I don't detect much enthusiasm for getting into it now."
-- Senator Adlai Stevenson III in letter to James Ennes dated September 9, 1980
"From what I have read, I can't tolerate for one minute that this was an accident! ... What have we done about the Liberty? Have we become so placid, so far as Israel is concerned or so far as that area is concerned, that we will take the killing of 37 (sic) American boys and the wounding of a lot more and the attack on an American ship in the open sea in good weather? We have seemed to say: 'Oh, well, boys will be boys.' What are you going to do about it? It is most offensive to me!
-- Senator Bourke Hickenlooper; From transcript of July 1967 Senate Foreign Relations Hearing on Foreign Assistance Act of 1967.
"I have read the Navy investigation of the Liberty, and the evidence adduced there, and I have read the Israeli court of inquiry records, and based upon their own records of the investigation, I cannot agree that it was accidental."
-- Senator Bourke Hickenlooper; From transcript of May, 1968, Senate Foreign Relations Hearing on Foreign Assistance Act of 1968, page 444.
"American leaders did not have the courage to punish Israel for the blatant murder of its citizens. . . . The Liberty's presence and function were well known to Israel's leaders. ...Israel's leaders concluded that nothing they might do would offend the Americans to the point of reprisal. If American leaders did not have the courage to punish Israel for the blatant murder of American citizens, it seemed clear that their American friends would let them get away with almost anything.
-- George Ball, under secretary of state at the time writing in The Passionate Attachment: America's Involvement with Israel, pages 57-58.
"I don't think that there's any doubt that it was deliberate.... [It is] one of the great cover-ups of our military history."
-- David G. Nes, the deputy head of the American mission in Cairo at the time
"The attack was deliberate and not an accident."
-- Victor Ostrovsky, author and former Mossad officer, in telephone conversations with former Congressman Pete McCloskey October 10, 1991, and with and several conversations with James Ennes.
"It's an American ship!" the pilot of an Israeli Mirage fighter-bomber radioed Tel Aviv as he sighted the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967. Israeli headquarters ordered the pilot to attack the American ship.
-- former US Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter describing transcripts of communications he saw, reported in syndicated column "Remembering the Liberty" by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, November 6, 1991.
"The historical event which took place in June 1967 can hardly be called enigmatic and mysterious. ...It is difficult to understand that the Israelis could not identity the USS Liberty, since the ship had a unique antenna and equipment and especially since the Israelis had identified the ship with long term observation."
-- Translated from a taped interview with Sergeev Oleg Korneevitch, retired Colonel, Soviet GRU.
"The government of Israel intentionally attacked the ship. ...The attack was not legally justified. ...(there were) two further violations of international law...the use of unmarked military aircraft (and)...the wanton destruction of life rafts."
-- Walter L. Jacobsen, Lieutenant Commander, US Navy, in Naval Law Review, Vol 36, Winter 1986
"Certain facts are clear. The attack was no accident. The Liberty was assaulted in broad daylight by Israeli forces who knew the ship's identity. ...The public, however, was kept in the dark. Even before the American public learned of the attack, U.S. government officials began to promote an account satisfactory to Israel. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee worked through Congressmen to keep the story under control. The President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, ordered and led a cover-up so thorough that years after he left office the episode is still largely unknown...."
-- Paul Findley, author and former Member of Congress 1961-1983 in They Dare to Speak Out, by Paul Findley, 1985, page 166
"Is the Liberty episode being erased from history. So it would seem...What has happened to our prying journalistic corps and our editors, normally so indignant of attempted suppression of the news?...We believe that a joint select committee of Congress should investigate the strange case of the USS Liberty..."
-- William F. Buckley, journalist and publisher, National Review, June 27, 1967
"The attack on the USS Liberty was planned and there is and was a cover-up." "If the very valuable lessons of the Liberty were known, the capture of the USS Pueblo could not have happened."
-- Lloyd M. "Pete" Bucher, US Navy, Commanding Officer USS Pueblo when captured by North Korea in January 1968, in telephone conversations with James Ennes and on September 6, 2002, with Richard Schmucker.
"It is clear that the Israelis knew that they were attacking a vessel of the US Navy, especially as it was flying a large Stars and Stripes at the time. The fact that they spent six hours reconnoitering and executing the attack, which included machine-gunning the lifeboats, attests to the deadly intent of the operation.
-- Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, Dangerous Liaison, the Inside Story of the US-Israeli Covert Relationship, by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, p152.
"A. Jay Cristol's virtual minority of one assessment is not supported by the detailed non-technical common sense evidence to the contrary in Body of Secrets (by James Bamford). "There is nothing surprising in Bamford's conclusion that the attack was deliberate. Liberty survivors have made that case convincingly for years."
-- Professor Hayden Peake, author, former CIA officer and member, Association of Former Intelligence Officers, The Intelligencer, Vol. 12, No.1, Summer 2001
Survivors of the attack are unanimous in their conviction that the attack was deliberate. Among other things, their belief is based upon the intense pre-attack reconnaissance, the fact that the firing continued from close range long after the attackers examined the ship and its markings from a few feet away, and because the Israeli version of events as reported to the United States is grossly untrue.
-- USS Liberty survivors
OFFICIAL USS LIBERTY WEBSITE (http://www.gtr5.com/index.html)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx72tAWVcoM