Blood in the Water: How the US and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty

by Joan Mellen

Presents evidence of collaboration between the United States and Israel in an attack on a US naval surveillance vessel during the Six-Day War pointing to collusion between the US government and the Israeli Mossad.

On June 8, 1967, the USS Liberty, an unarmed intelligence ship reporting to the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the auspices of the National Security Agency, was positioned in international waters off the coast of Egypt when it was attacked with deadly violence by unmarked jet planes firing rockets and machine guns and throwing napalm onto its deck. This ambush was followed by a torpedo strike that blew a forty-foot hole in the starboard side of the ship. Lacking the capacity to defend themselves, thirty-four sailors were killed and 174 wounded, many for life. By the end of the day, Israel had confessed to having been the aggressor, simultaneously arguing that the attack had been an "accident" and a "mistake."
     The facts said otherwise. So intense and sustained was the attack - it lasted for nearly an hour and a half - so specific was the aiming for the antennae and satellite dish on deck, that it was scarcely credible that Israel's aggression was not deliberate; such was the view of Marshall Carter, the director of the National Security Agency, his deputy director Louis Tordella, and Richard Helms, the Director of Central Intelligence.
     Based on interviews with more than forty survivors, knowledgeable political insiders, and Soviet archives of the period, investigative writer Joan Mellen presents evidence suggesting complicity between US and Israeli intelligence in the attack on Liberty and the more than fifty-year long cover-up. What were the underlying motives? Was this a false flag operation conducted in the midst of the Six-Day War? Was it conceivable that Israel would have initiated such an operation without a green light from the United States?
     For the sake of justice, truth and the murdered and surviving sailors, this is a story demanding to be told.

Genres: History, Conspiracy Theories, Nonfiction

432 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 13, 2018

About the author

Joan Mellen is the bestselling author of twenty books, including A Farewell to Justice, her biographical study of Jim Garrison s New Orleans investigation of the Kennedy assassination. She has written for a variety of publications, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Baltimore Sun. Mellen is a professor of English and creative writing at Temple University in Philadelphia.

(from http://www.booksandbooks.com/book/978...)

Reviews

[David W Young, Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm finished with Blood in the Water: I was gravely horrified by L. B. Johnson's participation in the post events as tid-bits eked out to the public before reading. On active duty then and when AGER-2 USS Pueblo was hijacked by DPRK, Twice shocked by American loss of life, injuries, and treatment and there for the grace of God go I. Afterwards, revelation of others' involvement is doubly terrible. All hands' bravery, USA's survival are most encouraging.

[Stephen Heiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read Mellen's other books, but I suspect she might be troubled by "too much information, not enough editing." I disagree with some of her assertions and conclusions, including the fact that Captain McGonagle was an accessory before the fact...who signs up for suicide missions but the most hard-core believers...and McGonagle was not one of those.

She also spends far too much time on James Angleton for far too little fruit. Yes, it seems clear that he and Meit Amir were the key players in this false flag operation, but we would have still made that connection without the 100 pages of exposition the book starts with.

"In 1955, Moshe Dayan, Israel's chief of staff of the armed forces, said, 'In order to have young men go to the Negev, we have to cry out that it is in danger.'" (p. 66)

"Nasser had to be eliminated not because his regime constituted a danger for Israel, but because an alliance between the West and his prestigious leadership in the third world, and in the Middle East, would inevitably lead to a peace agreement which in turn would cause the Zionist state to be relativized as just one of the region's national societies." (p. 81)

"Operation Cyanide — sacrifice Liberty. The intent was for Israeli aircraft to attack the unarmed ship with unmarked aircraft, destroy its communication first strike, and then sink it with all hands. With no evidence other than the fact that it had been sunk in view of the shore, it would be assumed that Egyptian warplanes had done the deed." (p. 157)

"The flag was replaced twice, first by Russell David, who was the leading signalman. When that flag too was shot down by the Israelis, it was replaced by a flag hoisted by Frank Brown and Joe Meadors. There was never a time when the American flag was not extended in the breeze." (p. 177)

"During a second wave of strafings and firings, Super Mystere jets sent canisters of napalm that burned hot and clean onto the deck. When sailors arrived topside with hoses to put out the fires, teh planes, swooping low, targeted the hoses and the firefighters, and riddled the hoses with holes and the men with shrapnel...When sailors carried stretchers onto the deck to rescue the wounded, the planes took aim at the stretcher bearers. There were to be no survivors." (p. 187)

"Golden acted swiftly and without undue speculation. He had given the order to 'flood the voids' (the empty tanks along the bottom of the port and starboard sides). This was known as 'counterflooding.' The tanks would be filled with seawater. He flooded the port side with seawater; he opened the ballast vents to take on seawater and create stability. They didn't have much 'free board' left. With a full load, the ship sits lower in the water. Liberty did settle, went down more, giving them less footage above the surface of the sea. They sank a little lower, but they didn't have as much list and did not capsize. They survived." (p. 211)

(quoting LBJ) "I don't give a damn if the ship sinks...I will not embarrass my allies." (p. 228)

(quoting McNamara) "We're not going to war over a bunch of dead sailors." (p. 229)

(an ONI officer) "If you ever repeat what you told us you will spend a few years in Leavenworth." (p. 238)

(quoting a survivor) "It wasn't until the Court of Inquiry began that we realied what a massive cover-up had been put in place. Then a real sense of abandonment, anger and frustration emerged. it is still inside of me today." (p. 246)

"On June 15, 1967, Secretary of State Dean Rusk told the NATO ambassadors meeting in Luxembourg that Israel's attack was deliberate." (p. 283)

"Some believed that as Israel expected that the complete destruction of the ship and killing of the personnel would leave the US free to blame the UAR for the incident and bring the US into the war on the side of Israel." (p. 293)

"Many sailors faced a lifetime of surgeries. By 1980, Moe Shafer had ribs removed to release pressure on his neck, two neck fusions, and six lower back fusions, all related to the attack. His ears were still ringing. His medical records had gone astray, and he was denied veterans benefits. The Israelis offered him $500 in reparations. Larry Weaver endured a lifetime of pain; he emerged with a stainless steel left shoulder, two knee replacements, nerve damage to the right side of his body. Old age would be accompanied by the use of only his right thumb and index finger, with a square foot of mesh holding his abdomen together, and sixty pieces of shrapnel in his body. He had survived thirty-one major surgeries. Yet on his DD-214 discharge form, the navy made no mention of the USS Liberty. It took him twenty-nine years to obtain benefits from the Veterans Administration." (p. 335)

"Adlai Stevenson III, both as a US Senator and later, became a supporter of the idea that the truth of what happened to Liberty should be investigated. When he ran for governor of Illinois in 1982, a strong effort by the American/Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) resulted in his narrow defeat. He lost by one-seventh of one percent. A recount was denied by one vote. A judge named Seymour had admitted to a mutual friend, Bernard Peskin, that he voted as he did 'because of Israel.' All it took for AIPAC to mobilize was Stevenson's avowed intention to investigate the attack on Liberty as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Collection and Production." (p. 346)

[Lawrence A · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author's argument, previously elucidated by others, is that high-level players in the US and Israeli intelligence and defense establishments conspired to attack the USS Liberty in the Mediterranean and blame it on Egypt to secure US involvement in the 1967 Six-Day War. Although her argument is persuasive, this book is so poorly written and edited that I began to wonder if Mellen---a former Professor at Temple University---had actually written it. Her previous books had been well written and edited. This one is repetitive, disjointed, filled with factual errors (former CIA Director William Colby died in a drowning "accident" in 1996, not two weeks after he fired Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton more than 20 years earlier!), and suggests that Mellen does not know the meaning of "nonplussed" (it means perplexed, flummoxed, confused, not nonchalant!).

My favorite excerpt from the Department of Redundancy Department, referable to a video called "Dead In The Water":

"Dead In The Water was aired in London late at night, far from prime time. In the United States, it was not broadcast at all, although it is available on the internet on YouTube and can be purchased from the USS Liberty Veterans Association. Censorship assumes many guises. You can discover the film on the internet under BBC: Dead In The Water. It's on YouTube and can be purchased from the USS Liberty Veterans Association."

This 350-page book, which does contain important factual reporting, could have been condensed to about 150 pages. Mellen doesn't need to tell us 20 times that aircraft launched from the USS Saratoga to come to the aid of the USS Liberty were recalled several times. Moreover, she spends many pages blaming then Undersecretary of Defense Cyrus Vance of foreknowledge of the attack and the ensuing coverup---in fact listing him as one of the 10 people she blames for the attack---yet she drops this gem on p 129: "Among those on the American side disgusted by the sacrifice of the USS Liberty who retired shortly after the attack were Cyrus Vance and Admiral Lamar McDonald, the chief of naval operations." Huh? When did Vance express "disgust"? When did he come clean about the nature and purpose of the operation? Mellen doesn't inform us. We are simply left to speculate as to when, if ever, he "saw the light" and came clean with his guilty knowledge.

There is a good book waiting to be written about the attack on the Liberty that includes recently revealed information provided by the sailors and officers on that vessel. Sadly, this is not that book.

[Dom Schnbl · Rating 3 out of 5]

When the end point is closer to conspiracy theory than fact, and lacks actual evidence besides that which is circumstantial, it’s better in this type of literature for the reader to draw his own conclusion. When a man who’s providing information for a CIA investigation into military action dies of a drowning in a pool, even the dumbest of readers will come to a specific conclusion, and we don’t need the author to become imaginative. The author loses credibility when she presents theories as matters of fact in a matter where the distinction is so critical. This notwithstanding, the book is an excellent example, though only one in a long list, of how grossly our own government conspires against us and the young men we send to war.

[Rowland Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incredible History, Badly Mangled

It is difficult to believe that such an invaluable book as this is could have been published in its current form. Highly repititious and horribly disorganized the book is a travesty for both its author and editor. Nevertheless the documentation of US and Israeli complicity in attempting to overthrow the Egyptian government through a false flag operation (the attempted sinking of the USS Liberty) is a godsend given both governments attempts to destroy factual evidence and intimidate the seamen aboard the Liberty. This could be a five star book if properly edited.

[Savannah McClelland · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a page turner, very well written. Once you understand the lengths the government will go to cover this up, it really is no surprise what we are experiencing today in 2025. It's a big show and if you're in the Club you know to keep your mouth shut. The Truth always comes out one way or the other.

[John Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tedious with long names and many names at times, but a very good account.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paul read and reviewed