The Attack on the USS Liberty

Massie, in all of his Jew hating glory, tried yesterday on the floor of the House to make hay of the 1967 attack on the USS Liberty.  Amazing he waited till the end of his time in Congress, a decade, to bring this burning issue from 59 years in the past to the fore.

The attack on the USS Liberty was a tragic friendly fire incident, the US has had thousands of them over the years, committed by the Israelis as they were waging the Six Day War.

Every official report has found that the attack was a tragic error caused by the Israeli pilots misidentifying the ship. You can find these reports online:

U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, June 18, 1967
“Available evidence combines to indicate the attack on the Liberty on 8 June was in fact a case of mistaken identity.”

CIA Report, June 13, 1967
“The attack was a mistake. In 1978, in a response to an inquiry, Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner wrote: “It remains our best judgment that the Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty was not made in malice toward the United States and was a mistake.”

Joint Chiefs of Staff, Russ Report, June 9-20, 1967 General Russ did not make any findings about the actual attack. The report compiled all message traffic and contains no evidence that the attack was not a mistake.”

Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, Clifford Report, July 18, 1967
“The information thus far available does not reflect that the Israeli high command made a premeditated attack on a ship known to be American…. ”

National Security Agency, 1981
“Liberty was mistaken for an Egyptian ship as a result of miscalculation and egregious errors.”

Israeli Report
Ram Ron Commission of Inquiry, June 16, 1967
“[T]he attack on the ship by the Israeli Defense Forces was made neither maliciously nor in gross negligence, but as a result of a bona fide mistake.”

We know who the lead Israeli pilot on the attack was: Yiftah Spector. After he was dismissed by the IAF in 2003 for his signing of a pilot’s protest against Israeli air operations in Gaza and on the West Bank, Spector talked about the attack on the Liberty. Here is a story that appeared on this in the Jerusalem Post on October 10, 2003:

“An Israeli pilot who mistakenly attacked the American intelligence ship USS Liberty during the 1967 Six Day War said they were lucky he had no bombs – otherwise he would have sunk her.

“There was a mistake. Mistakes happen. As far as I know, the mistake was of the USS Liberty being there in the first place,” said Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yiftah Spector.

After 36 years Spector, who this week was dismissed by the IAF for signing the pilots’ refusal letter protesting the policy of targeted killings, agreed to speak to a reporter for the first time on his role in the attack on the Liberty, an American spy ship strafed on the fourth day of the war.

Flying a Mirage III fighter jet code named “Kursa” or couch, Spector was the first pilot to reach the ship, which was about 20 nautical miles west of Gaza. He had been on an air-to-air mission and was not loaded with bombs.

Spector, now 63, went on to become a triple ace, shooting down 15 enemy aircraft, and take part in the 1981 raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, earning himself a place in the pantheon of Israeli fly boys. This week he ended a 20-year stint teaching new generations of pilots.

Spector had always refused to discuss the attack on the USS Liberty, which killed 34 US sailors and wounded 172, or even be revealed as the pilot who led the attack on her. Until now.

“I did not fire on the Liberty as a human target. I was sent to attack a sailing vessel. This ship was on an escape route from the El Arish area, which at that same moment had heavy smoke rising from it,” Spector said.

“It was thought to be an Egyptian vessel. This ship positively did not have any symbol or flag that I could see. What I was concerned with was that it was not one of ours. I looked for the symbol of our navy, which was a large white cross on its deck,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “This was not there, so it wasn’t one of ours.”

The concern of the IAF was that Spector and his wingman, who had been diverted from the Suez Canal, would strike one of the Israel Navy ships in pursuit of the vessel, which was assumed to be Egyptian. IAF archival recordings of the pilots’ radio transmission of the actual attack obtained by the Post show that Spector was specifically requested to verify that the ship was a military vessel and not Israeli.

According to the June 8, 1967, radio transmission, Spector said: “I can’t identify it but in any case it’s a military ship.”

Speaking of the event 36 years later may have caused Spector to mix what he remembered with what he may have read and his testimony does not always match archival facts.

“I circled it twice and it did not fire on me. My assumption was that it was likely to open fire at me and nevertheless I slowed down and I looked and there was positively no flag. Just to make sure I photographed it,” said Spector, who retired from active duty as a brigadier-general in 1984.

Experts intimately acquainted with the incident said that the only photos Spector took were from his gun-sight camera during his strafing run. Regardless of whether the 455-foot ship bristling with eavesdropping antennas flew a US flag, which it evidently did from its starboard halyard, that banner was shot off in Spector’s first strafing pass.

“I was told on the radio that it was an Egyptian ship off the Gaza coast. Hit it. The luck of the ship was that I was armed only with light ammunition [30mm] against aircraft. If I had had a bomb it would be sitting on the bottom today like the Titanic. I promise you,” Spector said.

The 30mm rounds were armor piercing, which to this day led Liberty survivors to believe they had been under rocket attack. Spector’s first pass ignited a fire which caused the ship to billow black smoke. Ironically, Spector transmitted he suspected the Liberty was putting out smoke to deliberately mask itself.

“Every order is given by commanders and the last one to receive it has to decide whether he will pull the trigger or not. In this instance I was the fighter. I checked what I had to check [i.e. that it was a military ship and not one of ours] and pulled the trigger,” Spector said.

“The crew should be thankful for their luck [that I was on an air-to-air mission and did not have any bombs]. It is a pity we attacked. I’m sorry for poor Capt. (William Loren) McGonagle, who was wounded in the leg and the other guys who were killed and wounded.”

“I’m sorry for the mistake. Years later my mates dropped flowers on the site where the ship was attacked,” Spector said. “I’m the last guy who has a problem with admitting mistakes and asking for forgiveness. There was a mistake, but it wasn’t my mistake.”

He added he remains baffled that the conspiracy theories live on that Israel deliberately attacked the US intelligence ship. He suggested it might be due to anti-Semitism, or anti-Israeli sentiments.

“I know that after the war one of the first things that was done was the establishment of a [US] senator’s inquiry. I know this personally, because I was called upon to testify before it. They came to the country and I was questioned. I told them what I told you just now – that there was a mistake. I am sorry for the mistake. In war mistakes happen,” Spector said.

He said that he had never in the past 36 years ever met with any of the Liberty survivors, but has no qualms about doing so now.

“They must understand that a mistake was made here,” Spector said. “The fool is one who wanders about in the dark in dangerous places, so they should not come with any complaints.

The best study that I have read of the Liberty incident is that of Jay Cristol, a Captain in the US Naval Reserve and a Bankruptcy Judge. He had a topnotch site in which he went over the incident in exacting detail.  He passed away in 2024.  Below is  a presentation he gave to the US Naval War College:

Below is a letter Cristol had at his site by Marvin E. Nowicki, who was one of the Hebrew-English specialists aboard a Navy EC121 and who listened in on the Israeli pilots and the crews of the Israelis motor torpedo boats during the attack on the Liberty. The text of the letter is as follows:

“Letter from Marvin E. Nowicki, Ph.D., published in The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, May 16, 2001, page A-23:

Tragic “Gross Error” In a 1967 Attack

In regard to Timothy Naftali’s review of James Bamford’s book “Body of Secrets” (Leisure & Arts, May 9): Mr. Naftali doesn’t quite have it right concerning the book portion dealing with the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967. I know because I am the person to whom Mr. Natfali [sic] refers as the “chief Hebrew-language analyst” aboard the U.S. Navy (not Air Force) EC121 aircraft. He says that I recall one of my teammates telling me of hearing references to “a U.S. flag” from Israeli pilots.

For the record, we (my teammate and I) both heard and recorded the references to the U.S. flag made by the pilots and captains of the motor torpedo boats. My personal recollection remains after 34 years that the aircraft and MTBs prosecuted the Liberty until their operators had an opportunity to get close-in and see the flag, hence the references to the flag.

My position, which is opposite of Mr. Bamford’s, is that the attack, though terrible and tragic especially to the crew members and their families on that ill-fated day in June 1967, was a gross error. How can I prove it? I can’t unless the transcripts/tapes are found and released to the public. I last saw them in a desk drawer at NSA in the late 1970s before I left the service.

MARVIN E. NOWICKI, PH.D.
Ashley, Ill.”

The attack on the USS Liberty was a tragic accident of war, and not a deliberate act as crazed Jew haters would have it.