The USS Liberty, a Flubbed-up False Flag
By Deanna Spingola
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By 1948, under David Ben Gurion’s direction, the Israeli government developed the Israeli Terrorist Cell, Unit 131. In the mid 1950s, the U.S. was friends with Gamal Abdel Nasser and Egypt. Ben Gurion, an avid Zionist and the Israel’s first Prime Minister, envisioned an Egyptian terrorist attack against the U.S. in order to destroy that alliance. However, that wasn’t a probability, given the relationship between the two countries. So the Israeli government developed a pattern of using young Israelis who disguised themselves as terrorists of whichever country they were attempting to implicate. This concept would be applied during Operation Cyanide, involving the USS Liberty, in an attempt to initiate World War III.
On May 23, according to instructions from the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Cyrus R. Vance, the Liberty, commanded by William L. McGonagle, was directed to the eastern Mediterranean via Rota, Spain and placed under the direction of the Commander-in-Chief, Europe upon its arrival at Rota. Frank Raven, the G Group Chief resisted such a risky move, “The ship will be defenseless out there. If war breaks out, she’ll be alone and vulnerable. Either side might start shooting at her…I say the ship should be left where it is.”
Army General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, of Northwoods fame, put Admiral John S. McCain, Jr. (father of Senator John McCain), the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Navy in Europe in charge. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, per President Johnson’s instructions had advanced Admiral McCain to a four-star commanding position in February 1967. Admiral John McCain directed operations from his office in London. Johnson promised continued support and help in re-opening the Straits of Tiran, previously closed to Israel by Egypt. Israel was already developing a nuclear program in the Negev desert, but also wanted additional military assistance including – 100 Hawk missiles, 140 Patton tanks, and 24 Skyhawk jets. John P. Roche, an avid supporter of Israel, wrote Johnson’s speech regarding the Straits of Tiran which was delivered in May 1967. Johnson had many Jewish advisors and friends including Mathilde Krim.
Mathilde Krim’s first husband was David Danon, a Bulgarian Jew and member of the Irgun, a terrorist group. She converted to Judaism and associated with many of Israel’s future leaders, as she had been a dedicated gunrunning member of Irgun, headed by Menachem Begin, prior to 1948. She was also friendly with the Stern Gang, another Zionist terrorist group founded by Avraham Stern and headed by Yitzhak Shamir. In 1958 she married Arthur B. Krim, a New York attorney and head of United Artists and a close advisor to Johnson and an avid Zionist. Krim was the finance chairman for the Democratic national committee and ran the President’s Club, Johnson’s fund-raising apparatus that held a $1,000 a plate dinner in New York on June 3, 1967. Arthur Krim built a huge vacation mansion next door to Johnson’s Texas ranch.
On June 3, 1967, the USS Liberty was trolling in international waters off the coast of the Gaza Strip where the ship was to engage in an “extended independent surveillance operation in the eastern Mediterranean.” Israel launched a long-planned war against her Arab neighbors at 7:45 a.m. Sinai time on June 5, 1967. In 1982, Menachem Begin, then Israel’s Prime Minister, admitted, “The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.” Mordechai Bentov, a member of Israel’s coalition cabinet during the war, said, “All this story about the danger of extermination has been a complete invention and has been blown up a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territories.”
President Johnson, an apparently energetic philanderer given the number and notoriety of his sexual exploits, was in Texas until June 1 when he returned with his “friend” Mathilde Krim who remained at the White House with Johnson for the next week. When Johnson, who was absolutely dazzled by Mathilde’s blonde beauty and intelligence, was informed of the beginning of the war on the morning of June 5. The very first person he informed was Mathilde Krim. Official records indicate that Mathilde passed documents from Israel directly to Johnson over the duration of the crisis. Johnson didn’t meet with his advisors, except Walt Rostow, nor any Israeli or Arab officials during the duration of the very short war, he knew exactly what was going on with the Israelis due to his intimate relationship with Mathilde Krim.
It was evident, as that first day progressed, that Egypt was unprepared and inundated by Israel’s aggressiveness. Ambassador Michael Hadow, a British expert on Israel and the Middle East didn’t believe that war was inevitable. Yet his advice, as well as negotiation possibilities were ignored. He sent a telegram to the British Foreign Office, “It looks as if the Israelis started it. We have been led up the garden path.” Abba Eban, Israel’s Foreign Minister, told U.S. Ambassador Walworth Barbour that his government was going to protest Egypt’s actions to the U.N. Security Council. Eban, along with other dignitaries, misled the entire world but never offered any apologies for his deception about Egypt initiating the war. The Western media characterized Israel as a vulnerable country threatened with extinction by its Arab neighbors. Rather than a war of land seizure, it was portrayed as a defensive war of survival. However, Israel kept the land her military grabbed.
Of course it was all over the news and millions of Americans believed that the Arabs had started the war and attacked the poor defenseless state of Israel, an act that could have erupted into World War III. Although both parties, the Arabs and the Jews had participated in the warfare, the Israelis were the only people who had immediate access to President Johnson any time they wanted. Conversely, the Arabs were silenced by their inaccessibility to the White House and the U.S. media.
Yitzhak Rabin, former Chief of Staff and then Ambassador to the United States, said, “I do not believe that Nasser wanted war…The two divisions he sent into Sinai on May 14 would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.” Rabin recognized that any country with good intelligence, like Israel, could ascertain that Egypt had no plans to wage war against Israel. The CIA, before the war, embraced Israel’s views about Egypt’s intentions. Israel would have won any war, a veritable turkey shoot, in a week. Further, Israeli intelligence had broken the Arab codes as soon as the fighting started. The Israelis also had the ability to block and alter all communications between King Hussein in Cairo and Egypt’s military. Israel, with military and tactical superiority, altered the communications to give the Arabs the impression that they were winning when in fact they were being ambushed and summarily slaughtered.
Israel had air supremacy immediately after their surprise attack on Egypt. Within hours, Israeli jets pummeled twenty-five air bases from Damascus, in Syria to Luxor. They used machine guns, mortar fire, tanks and air power in their assault against the Jordanian section of Jerusalem and the Jordan River’s west bank. Israeli tanks and auxiliary personnel transporters assaulted the Sinai moving towards the Suez Canal. They transformed the area into a “massive killing field” as Egyptian deaths, according to one Israeli general, amounted to between 7,000 to 10,000 people. His losses were only about 275 soldiers. Indian peacekeeper soldiers, flying the U.N. flag, were also attacked on their way to Gaza. Fourteen peacekeeper soldiers were killed in what one Indian officer called the “deliberate, cold-blooded killing of unarmed U.N. soldiers.”
The Israelis had captured some Egyptians and held them in the town of El Arish. By June 8, the prisoners had become annoyances as the Israelis had no place to house them and insufficient forces to guard them and too few vehicles to move them to regular prison camps. Consequently, the Israelis transformed the town into a “slaughterhouse” by methodically “butchering” their Egyptian prisoners. They lined up sixty unarmed Egyptians with their hands tied behind their backs and, with machine guns, slaughtered them in cold blood. Another group of thirty prisoners were killed nearby. The Israelis directed some Bedouins to bury those victims. In another incident, the number of Egyptian prisoners killed totaled about 150, as witnessed by an Israeli journalist, Gabi Bron. Some prisoners were forced to dig graves for the dead and then they were shot. Aryeh Yitzhaki, an Israeli army historian, and other officers collected testimony from dozens of soldiers who admitted killing Egyptian prisoners. According to Yitzhaki, Israeli soldiers murdered about 1,000 Egyptian prisoners in the Sinai, including about 400 in El Arish. Ariel Sharon was close to El Arish at the time of the incidents. Yitzhaki said that the Israeli leadership, Dayan, Rabin and others knew about the slaughter.
The Liberty, close to El Arish at the time, and loaded with $10.2 million of sensitive equipment eavesdropped on Israel’s Six-Day War with Egypt, then known as the United Arab Republic. The Israelis were aware by 10:55 the morning of June 8 that a clearly-marked U.S. ship was off the coast and unmistakably visible from El Arish. On that day, June 8, 1967, without any warning and apparently without reason, the Israeli Navy and Air Force attacked the ship with torpedoes, rockets, white phosphorous, cannons and armor-piercing bullets. The Israelis used napalm, a flammable liquid or jellied gasoline to turn the Liberty’s deck into a 3,000-degree holocaustic firestorm. Thirty-four Americans were killed and 171 others were wounded, one of which died later from his wounds. Napalm is designed to kill and maim, generate panic and cause confusion.
The first wave of attacks, comprised of as many as eight planes using heat-seeking missiles, destroyed the transformers (miraculously, all except one) which fed the aerial systems. This was a well-planned, premeditated strategy to prevent the USS Liberty from alerting the world of this murderous attack. The surveillance ship was no longer able to listen in to the war or send messages. If that was the objective of the attack, then the goal was met and the attack should have subsided. However, the real objective was to slaughter the crew and send the ship to the bottom. Finally, the planes left only to be followed up by three surface craft which fired torpedoes. One hit below the water line and made a hole which measured 45 feet by 34 by 37. Amazingly, the ship didn’t sink but listed eleven degrees. When the crew inflated the lifeboats, the torpedo boats even destroyed those boats.
The war was over by June 8 and Egypt had lost. The men on the Liberty first assumed that the Arabs, in unmarked planes and ships, were attacking their ship in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel. There were 294 survivors from the premeditated Israeli attack, directed by Moshe Dayan. The remains of five men were never found and body parts were put into sacks for burial.
Vice Admiral William I. Martin, a former World War II test pilot and “Pentagon loyalist,” had assumed command of the Sixth Fleet in April 1967. During Israel’s assault there were several U.S. ships in the area, the aircraft carrier Saratoga commanded by Captain Joseph Tully, the Flagship commanded by Vice Admiral Martin, a Cruiser commanded by Rear Admiral Roger Payne, the USS America, a new aircraft carrier was under the command by Captain Don Engen. Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis was the Sixth Fleet carrier Division Commander. Additionally, there were approximately a dozen escorting destroyer ships. The Saratoga’s Communications Officer received a message from the Liberty, addressed to any or all U.S. ships or stations, “Liberty is under attack by unknown enemy air and surface units. Request Assistance.”
Help was only about 15 to 20 minutes away from the Liberty. Captain Tully notified Vice Admiral Martin and said, “Unless otherwise directed, I plan to launch my Ready Strike Group in support of Liberty.” Martin approved and directed the USS America to launch their Ready Strike Group. However Rear Admiral Geis of the USS America recalled his aircraft which created a dilemma for Captain Tully. Vice Admiral ordered another strike to give aid to the Liberty but it was again recalled by Rear Admiral Geis. According to an independent, unofficial study, the “The White House deliberately prevented the U.S. Navy from coming to the defense of USS Liberty by recalling Sixth Fleet military rescue support while the ship was under attack…” McNamara recalled the aircraft that had been launched from the Saratoga within minutes. Certainly, he would not have made such a move without Johnson’s approval.
Secretary McNamara ordered the aircraft recalled a second time. Admiral Geis was told that President Johnson had ordered the aircraft to be returned, “He would not have his allies embarrassed, he didn't care who was killed or what was done to the ship.” According to Admiral Geis, President Johnson, known for his ruthlessness and vile profanity told Geis, “I want that goddamn ship going to the bottom. No help – recall the wings.” Tony Hart, a Navy communications technician stationed at the U.S. Navy Base in Morocco in June 1967 reported that McNamara responded, “We are not going to war over a bunch of dead sailors.” If the Liberty had sunk, as Johnson wanted, Egypt would have been blamed. Government officials, including the McCains have maintained absolute silence about the Liberty’s assault.
The attack ended at about 3:15 pm. A while later, Israeli helicopters circled the ship. Some of the crewmembers, not yet realizing that Israel was the perpetrator of the attack, were glad to see their friendly ally. Then one crewmember shouted, “They’ve come to finish us off.” The copters just hovered as the Israeli troops watched without signaling and then soared away as if the attack had finally been called off. The survivors were stunned by what had happened and by the total lack of response from U.S. rescue planes. The ship generated sufficient steam to start moving from the area. There were 851 rocket hits and it was estimated that there were at least fifteen planes that had targeted the USS Liberty. One hit could be rationalized as an accident but not 851.
Captain Ward Boston, the chief Navy attorney for the 1967 U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, revealed that the clear-cut evidence demonstrated that the ship was clearly marked as an American ship. On October 9, 2003, Captain Boston said, “Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack…was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew.” Captain Boston stated that Admiral Kidd had, in 1967, concluded that the attack was “a case of mistaken identity” because he was “under direct orders to do so by Defense Secretary McNamara and President Johnson.” At the time, Congress, failing in their check and balances responsibility, opted not to convene a formal investigation of the situation. Israel was not held accountable and no one was punished or reprimanded. The U.S. Navy prohibited its investigators from going to Israel to question Israeli pilots and boat captains. The Navy conducted an eight-day inquiry and issued a top-secret final report.
Prior to the attack, Petty Officer Phil Tourney had determined that there had been at least thirteen over flights by Israeli planes. Two of the over-flights were by planes that had the prominent Star of David plainly visible. One plane got so incredibly close that Tourney waved and smiled at the pilot or co-pilot and he smiled and waved back. The survivors knew that the attack was not the result of an identification error. On the fourth day of the war the men on the USS Liberty who were monitoring radio traffic during the war between Israel and Egypt could see the smoke of the fighting even though the ship was thirteen miles from land within international waters. The militarily superior Israelis were decidedly victorious over Egypt.
Yitzhak Rabin, the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, concluded that Israel was not to blame for the attack on the USS Liberty but said, “In any event, to express our goodwill and humanitarian concern, the Israeli Government paid $13 million in compensation to the families of the Americans killed or wounded in the attack.”
On June 19, 1967, Abba Eban, Israel’s Foreign Minister, delivered a speech to the Special Assembly of the United Nations in which he claimed, “The danger to his country was great.” He said, “The military build-up in Egypt proceeded at an intensive rate. It was designed to enable Egypt to press its war plans against Israel while maintaining its violent adventures elsewhere. In the face of these developments, Israel was forced to devote an increasing part of its resources to self-defense.” Eban claimed he heard the following on a Cairo broadcast on May 25, 1967, “The Arab people is firmly resolved to wipe Israel off the map and restore the honour of the Arabs of Palestine.” Levi Eshkol, Israel’s Prime Minister, in a newspaper article in October 1967, “The Egyptian layout in the Sinai and the general military build-up there testified to a military defensive Egyptian set-up south of Israel.” Ezer Weizman, chief of the operations staff under Rabin, told an Israeli newspaper that there was “no threat of destruction.” He admitted that the attack against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria was intended to allow Israel to “exist according to the scale, spirit and quality she now embodies.” Rabin’s deceptive claims were designed to win the world’s support and ultimately blame the war on Nasser.
Operation Cyanide was the reason that the USS Liberty was sent to the war zone without protection. Yet, thirty years after the attack, there isn’t a single reference to Operation Cyanide despite numerous Freedom of Information Act requests regarding the attack. The Government archives for this period are kept at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, Texas. Among all of the papers about the Liberty there is one dated April 10, 1967 stamped – SECRET – EYES ONLY. That document was “sanitized” in December 1988. It was apparently the minutes from a meeting on April 7, 1967 that included Walt Rostow (National Security Advisor), Ambassador Foy Kohler (Deputy Under Secretary of State), Cyrus Vance (Deputy Secretary of Defense), and Admiral Rufus Taylor (CIA Deputy Chief).
Apparently, Operation Cyanide included an Israeli war against Egypt in order to depose Gamal Abdul Nasser, a purported Soviet puppet. U.S. intelligence and military specialists were sent to Israel months before to plan and prepare for the operation. The operation was an agreement between Johnson and Israel during which the USS Liberty was supposed to be sunk, along with all of her crew. When Israel’s attack failed to sink the ship, the game plan changed which included an apology from Israel and a phony cover story. According to author Peter Hounam, a U.S. intelligence agent claimed that Captain McGonagle was aware of the pretext and the intentions of the U.S. to attack Egypt and had been briefed to anticipate a superficial strafing attack on the USS Liberty. The attack unexpectedly accelerated, perhaps because what the Liberty’s surveillance revealed about Israel’s terrorism against the Egyptians.
Ephraim Evron, the Minister of the Israeli Embassy in Washington in 1967 and an avowed Socialist, served with Ambassador Avraham Harman. Evron, who viewed Johnson as a hero, was frequently invited to Johnson’s Texas ranch. In addition to Evron and Harman, Harry McPherson, Special Counsel in the White House, served as a link between Johnson and the country’s Jewish population and represented their interests. Evron greatly admired Johnson and regarded him as the greatest thing that had ever happened to America for the “social revolution” that Johnson was “going to achieve.” He believed that Johnson, Israel’s best friend, would never do anything that would hurt Israel. Johnson’s affection for Jews and Israel had more to do with their votes and financial support than sentimentality or principles. The very generous U.S. Jewish community, amounting to 5.5 million, supported Johnson’s divisive Vietnam policies.
In the mid 1990s Rabin attempted to achieve peace with the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat with the U.S. acting as the mediator. Some of the other Zionists saw this as a hindrance to their plans of expanding Israel’s control of the area for an ultimate “greater Israel.” Consequently, whether acting on his own or as an agent, Yigal Amir, a young law student, shot five bullets into the Prime Minister when he was attending a 1995 peace rally. He later told investigators that he had absolutely no regrets. In the New York Times, dated November 27, 1995, Rabin’s assassin reportedly claimed, “According to Jewish law, the minute a Jew betrays his people and country to the enemy, he must be killed. No one taught me that law. I’ve been studying the Talmud all my life, and I have all the data.”
Senator John McCain, backed by William Kristol in the 2000 presidential race, has always supported Israel. Representative Vin Weber, a pro-Israel member of the CFR, helped found William Kristol’s Empower America. Weber backed McCain in the 2000 and advised McCain during his campaign. Representative Weber sabotaged “an effort to force a congressional investigation of Israel’s terroristic 1967 attack on the USS. Liberty.” Robert S. McNamara later claimed, in his memoirs, that he didn’t know what happened and didn’t “take the time to find out.” The attack on the USS Liberty, part of Operation Cyanide, had to be concealed and all evidence had to be whitewashed.
It took another false flag, 9/11, to get the U.S. embroiled in the Middle East. A 9/11 Commission was convened despite Bush and Cheney’s efforts. But, it took time to gather the right people to staff the commission which predictably failed to reach accurate conclusions because essential evidence was withheld by the government. One member, Bob Kerrey, admitted that 9/11 was a thirty- year conspiracy. Shortly after 9/11, Eckehardt Werthebach, the former president of Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Verfassungsschutz said, “the deathly precision” and “the magnitude of planning” behind the attacks would have required “years of planning.” Was 9/11 another false flag, with blame again placed on the Arabs, to compensate for the flubbed-up false flag on June 8, 1967? And if that is the case, did the planning begin shortly after the first failure? Benjamin Netanyahu, the day after the horrific event, said that the 9/11 terror attacks were good for Israel. The five Israelis who were in the U.S. prior to 9/11 and were caught photographing the event admitted, “Our purpose was to document the event.”
Attack on a Sigint Collector, the U.S.S. Liberty, United States Cryptologic History, Special Series Crisis Collection, National Security Agency, Volume 1, 1981, Declassified on November 8, 2006, p. 17, nsa.gov |
