From the documentary The Day Israel Attacked America: The USS Liberty, Co-produced by James Scott, author of The Attack on the Liberty, The Untold Story of Israel’s Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship
Below is a short excerpt from the book, and below that is an essay by the film’s director:
…[Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.] Avraham Harman pored over the latest news reports in his office at the Israeli Embassy just off Massachusetts Avenue, set amid the tree-lined streets and townhouses in one of northwest Washington’s most affluent neighborhoods. Harman was concerned. Newspapers quoted injured sailors and published excerpts from the letters of others detailing the horror of the attack. Some of the nation’s most prestigious media outlets reported that American leaders believed Israeli pilots and torpedo boat skippers had deliberately targeted the Liberty. These stories represented a stark change from days earlier when the press and administration had appeared satisfied that the attack was a tragic error. Some newspaper editorials now accused Washington of a cover-up, criticized elected leaders for settling for Israel’s apology, and called for a congressional investigation. Letters to newspaper editorial pages, which the ambassador read, captured the hostility of the American public. Grieving families soon would file into cemeteries to bury the dead. The attack, as Harman’s deputy observed, contained “very dangerous elements for us.”
The ambassador’s concern turned to anger after Israeli diplomats discovered that President Johnson was Newsweek’s anonymous source. Twenty-four hours after the president met with reporter Charles Roberts in his private lounge, a “very reliable journalistic source” tipped off Israeli officials to the details of the briefing. The embassy dashed off an urgent message that Johnson claimed Israel had “carried out a deliberate attack because the Liberty had intentionally engaged in electronic espionage.” Diplomats learned that information at a State Department background briefing the next day was “presented pretty much the same way.”
Ephraim Evron, the Israeli Embassy’s second in command, accused the administration of politicizing the Liberty. He wrote in a confidential memo that the news leaks were designed to dampen enthusiasm for Israel that only days earlier had sparked thousands to rally in American streets and raised millions in donations. If the administration could marginalize Israel’s political influence it would have greater freedom to take positions contrary to Israeli interests, dangerous ground for the Jewish state as it prepared to negotiate a peace deal that would involve controversial issues, such as territorial gains and refugees. “We can assume that the US Department of State and the White House are both party to this decision, each for its own reasons. The US Department of State, and especially Rusk, who had tried throughout the crisis to create the impression of not identifying with us, are attempting to use the incident to create a bridge to the Arab countries,” Evron wrote. “The President has been showing in the past few days special sensitivity and dissatisfaction with respect to Jewish pressures on him. He thinks that an information-based treatment of the matter of the ship in the aforesaid manner will lead to weakening of the pro-Israeli pressure that envelopes many circles, even outside the Jewish public.”
The Israeli Embassy now countered with its own spin campaign. “We are facing a clear and deliberate attempt to turn public opinion against us,” Evron cabled Jerusalem. “Our informative process must avoid confrontation with the United States Government, since it is clear that the American public, if faced with a direct argument, will accept its government’s version.” Silencing President Johnson was the top priority. Evron suggested the embassy remind the president “of the dangers facing him personally if the public learns that he was party to the distribution of the story that is on the verge of being blood libel.” The embassy turned to Supreme Court justice Abe Fortas, a close friend of Johnson’s, and Washington lawyer David Ginsburg—referred to in Israeli documents as “Ilan” and “Harari,” respectively—for advice and to help pressure the president. Fortas and Ginsburg urged the embassy to publicly propose a joint U.S.-Israeli commission to investigate the attack. America would reject the proposal, because that would expose the Liberty’s officers to interrogation by Israel. But diplomats recognized that even the rejection would “improve our position in public opinion” as Israel would appear more cooperative and open than America.
Embassy staffers hammered the media to kill critical stories and slant others in favor of Israel. Before Newsweek’s story appeared, embassy spokesman Dan Patir had reviewed an advance copy of the article. He successfully pressured editors to run a “toned down” version. Editors added a question mark to the headline and deleted the words “deliberate attack.” The magazine Embassy staffers hammered the media to kill critical stories and slant others in favor of Israel. Before Newsweek’s story appeared, embassy spokesman Dan Patir had reviewed an advance copy of the article. He successfully pressured editors to run a “toned down” version. Editors added a question mark to the headline and deleted the words “deliberate attack.” The magazine Embassy staffers hammered the media to kill critical stories and slant others in favor of Israel. Before Newsweek’s story appeared, embassy spokesman Dan Patir had reviewed an advance copy of the article. He successfully pressured editors to run a “toned down” version. Editors added a question mark to the headline and deleted the words “deliberate attack.” The magazine also killed an accompanying commentary that said the leak was designed to free American leaders from pro-Israel pressure. When Newsweek’s story broke, embassy officials pounced, labeling the allegations “malicious” in competing newspapers. “Such stories are untrue and without foundation whatever,” an unnamed embassy spokesman told reporters. “It was an unfortunate and tragic accident which occurred in an area where fierce land and air fighting took place in recent days.” Patir derailed another story about a House Armed Services Committee member under pressure from constituents to launch a congressional investigation: “We have made sure that the journalistic source will refrain from writing about this for now.” Israel’s spin frustrated American officials, who increasingly bore the media’s hostility. Phil Goulding later accused Israel of “floating one self-serving rumor after another” with the mission “to make this tragedy the fault of the United States instead of the fault of the Israeli government.”
Rumors evolved into deception. Israeli officials told the press that the day the war began, the Jewish state contacted the American Embassy in Tel Aviv and asked if the United States planned to operate any ships off the Sinai Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean. Israel claimed that the American Embassy failed to answer, so it was left to assume that no American ships steamed nearby. The implication was clear: America was to blame. When the story appeared in the Washington Post, Rusk fumed. The only request Israel had made about American ships came after its forces torpedoed the Liberty. The secretary of state telegrammed the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, demanding “urgent confirmation” that no prior inquiry was made. Ambassador Walworth Barbour confirmed Israel’s story was bogus. “No request for info on U.S. ships operating off Sinai was made until after Liberty incident,” Barbour cabled back. “Had Israelis made such an inquiry it would have been forwarded immediately to the chief of naval operations and other high naval commands and repeated to dept.”
Israel’s problems magnified. “A personal friend in the US Department of State just told me that they have proof that we attacked the ship intentionally, and that the purpose was to remove an independent American intelligence source, and force them to depend only on information we are feeding them,” Evron cabled Jerusalem. “This man warned me, as a friend, against trouble that we might have in this case.” The tip wasn’t isolated.
Arthur Goldberg, the American ambassador to the United Nations [and recent Supreme Court Justice], confided in Harman that the United States had intercepted the communications of Israeli pilots identifying the ship as American. Democratic fund-raiser Abe Feinberg—code-named “Hamlet” in Israeli telegrams—told Evron that the United States had “clear proof that at a certain stage the pilot had discovered the identity of the ship and had still continued the attack.” Fortas told the ambassador that many administration officials believed a local commander ordered the attack, fearing the spy ship eavesdropped on “Israeli combat orders, and that they might reach the enemy.” Fortas added “the entire city already knows” Israeli “planes circled above the ship a long time before the attack.”
But Israeli diplomats continued their defense. Harman told Fortas that he was certain no local commander ordered the attack. Even if Israeli planes had circled the Liberty, he insisted, the pilots must have misidentified it. Evron cautioned Feinberg that there was “a significant difference between blaming a single pilot and making a public claim that the Israeli Government I repeat that the Israeli Government had initiated the attack intentionally.” The charges only intensified. Ginsburg advised Israel to hurry up and finish its investigation into the attack and turn over the results to the American government. Feinberg urged the embassy to halt what he called its “guerrilla war.” Goldberg warned Ambassador Harman that the president was furious and that the embassy needed to be “very careful.” He told the embassy that the “only chance of getting out of this crisis is to punish someone for negligence.” The frantic ambassador cabled his concerns back to Jerusalem. “In light of the serious developments in this matter, it is essential that our inquiry will end within a day or two at the latest,” Harman wrote to the Foreign Ministry. “The faster this thing is behind us, the healthier for all of us!”
By Richard Belfield, director of the documentary
I was first told about the attack on the USS Liberty in 1980 over dinner with a former analyst from the National Security Agency (NSA) in Washington DC.
Back in 1980, I promised my friend that if I ever got the chance I would make a film about it. Over the years, I pitched the idea to numerous broadcasters and always got the same response: eyes rolled upwards, usually followed by the statement, “Are you completely mad?”
Fast forward to 2009 and I was a guest speaker at the NSA’s biennial conference on historical cryptography, talking about an unsolved code on an 18th century monument in an English stately home.
While there, I went to two other sessions – both about attacks on American signal intelligence naval vessels.
The first was the capture of the US spy ship, the Pueblo (boarded by North Korean forces in 1968 – and never returned). The survivors of that incident were treated like heroes and feted on stage.
The next day there was a session about the USS Liberty. James Scott, who has written easily the best book on the Liberty attack, was on stage and limited to his allotted 20 minutes. Ranged against him were three Israeli apologists, all of whom were allowed to overrun their time. Survivors from the Liberty affair were allowed to sit in the audience, but they were denied any say in proceedings.
As an Englishman, I was brought up with a strong sense of fair play and I thought this was a disgrace. It was gruesome to watch. First, the crew had been attacked in broad daylight by a close ally, then they were betrayed by their government and now they were being humiliated by the same agency many had worked for back in 1967.
Earlier this year, I acquired a copy of the audiotape of the attack as it had unfolded, the real time conversations between Isreali Air Force pilots and their controllers back at base. It had never been broadcast before. I went to talk to Al Jazeera and after careful consideration, the network commissioned the film.
On location, it all started with James Scott (who gets a co-producer credit on this project). When writing his book, he had already interviewed the survivors as well as many of the key people in the Washington political and intelligence machine from that time. The introductions he made would prove invaluable as we began filming interviews.
The veterans were extraordinary. One after another, they were generous with their time, uniformly eloquent and passionate and above all, honest in their recollections.
They all felt betrayed by the American government but were keen to exonerate ordinary Jewish people both in Israel and without, for any responsibility for the incident. Their beef was simply with the senior Israeli officers in the control room and their superiors higher up the command chain who had ordered the attack.
After a few days filming, I rang Elaine Morris, my producer back in London. She asked how things were going. All I could say was that the quality of the interviews was the best I had ever experienced in many decades in this business.
In Texas we interviewed Bobby Ray Inman, an intelligence officer with a glittering track record at the CIA, Naval Intelligence and as a former director of the NSA. My contacts in the UK intelligence world had always told me “he is one of the good guys” and I quickly discovered why. He was frank and clear. The top Israeli commanders, he explained, had known exactly what they were doing when they attacked the Liberty and when it came to holding them to account, the US government rolled over for them.
We filmed an annual memorial ceremony in Washington, D.C. It was emotional, visceral and tense, with survivors, family and friends gathered in the morning sun. Listening to a sole bugler playing the US Navy’s lament, ‘Taps’ is a memory that will never fade.
Years earlier, I had visited the US military graves in Arlington Cemetery but now, following the ceremony, I got to go there again with Dave Lucas, one of the survivors of the attack and a truly wonderful man.
We filmed as he walked up the hill carrying a wreath from the ceremony. Alongside him was a crew member, a Portuguese language specialist, who had left the Liberty in Spain just a few days before it sailed off up the Mediterranean to take up position off the Egyptian coast. He had been temporarily replaced for the mission by an Arab linguist. He wept openly for the comrades he had said goodbye to, never to see again. As we filmed the pair laying the flowers, an interview with one of the other survivors, Jim Kavanagh came suddenly to mind. “I went through hell,” he had said about his shipmates. “But they left this earth.”
Finally, we filmed on a sister ship to the Liberty, now moored in San Francisco. The crew hauled an outsized US flag up a mast for us. The flag – known as the “holiday colours” – was identical to that which was flown from the Liberty on June 8, 1967. It was huge, clearly visible for miles, and I knew immediately that no one could ever have been in any doubt about the nationality of the ship beneath it.
Watching the Stars and Stripes unfurl into the wind, I realised that I had got to keep the promise I first made to my friend in a Washington restaurant 34 years ago.
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- The USS Liberty | If Americans Knew
- Justice for Liberty
