Status Updates From Taking Sides: America's Sec...

Ball cited the example of the tattered UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967, which, inter alia, called for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. Since 1967, he reminded the Senators, America had stood mute while Israel established its capital city in captured Jerusalem, annexed the Golan Heights, and settled 40 percent of the West Bank of the Jordan.

In addition to the large scale acquisition of published scientific papers and technical journals from all over the world through overt channels, the Israelis devote a considerable portion of their covert operations to obtaining scientific and technical intelligence. This had included attempts to penetrate certain classified defense projects in the United States and other Western nations.

From 1946 to 1983, we have provided over $27 billion in official economic and military aid to Israel. This amounts to over $7,700 for every man, woman, and child living in Israel at the present time—over $38,000 for each family of five. During the last three fiscal years (1981-1983), U.S. official assistance has averaged over $3,400 each year for each Israeli family of five.

By June of 1967, for a variety of reasons that prominently included "domestic political considerations," Lyndon Johnson and his team of foreign-policy advisers had completely revised U.S. -Israeli relations. To all intents and purposes, Israel had become the 51st state.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff knew about the planned attack by Israel on the U.S.S. Liberty before it occurred and presumably informed the White House. When the early reports of the attack arrived, those who had known of the plan had a choice: either take retaliatory action against Israel, or become an accessory after the fact to the attack by promoting the fiction that it was somehow an accident.

instructing Liberty crewmen to Refer all questions to the commanding officer or executive officer or to Admiral Kidd. Answer no questions. If some- how you are backed into a corner, then you may say that it was an accident and that Israel has apologized. You may say nothing else.

Mr. President, I must say that it is a great tribute to the valor of the troops of Israel that this morning I have heard Senator after Senator say that while they were terribly dismayed and saddened by this accident, they understood how it could take place under the terrible stress which the forces of Israel have been under in these last few weeks.

The message from the U.S. Defense Attache's Office in Tel Aviv stating that the government of Is- rael had reported an "erroneous" attack on a U.S. ship ("maybe Navy ship") was sent to Washington at 10:14 a.m. EDT.

If the Defense Department's actions to recall the rescue planes were fast and efficient, they were nothing compared to the speed with which officials in Washington, and particularly in Congress, began to "explain" the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty to the American people.

A mounted machine gun pointed from each of the cargo bays. Large blue Stars of David marked each helicopter. The Liberty's general announcing system blared, "Stand by to repel boarders." "They've come to finish us off," yelled one hysterical, but logical, sailor.

After the attack he carefully photographed the shredded boats, thinking that one day the pictures would help tell a story. "They didn't want anyone to live," he maintains. And then it was over; the motor torpedo boats suddenly wheeled and departed in the same high-speed V formation in which they had first appeared.

the motor torpedo boats moved in closer and shot the lifeboats out of the water with their cannon. Several Liberty crewmen witnessed this, and Petty Officer Rowley also noticed the concentration of Israeli machine-gun fire on the life- boats stored on deck.

Again, there was no hesitation in the attack, though one of the boats did signal something as it sped toward the Liberty. Altogether, the Israeli MTB's fired five torpedoes at the ship, one of which struck amidships, accounting for 25 of the 34 men eventually killed in the attack.

Over the next 20 to 25 minutes, the Liberty was attacked continuously from the air. The three Mirages were soon joined by several Mystere fighters, which were slower and more effi- cient for strafing and for the dropping of napalm.* Before it was finished the Liberty had some 821 holes in her sides and decks, including over 100 rocket holes six to eight inches wide.

But they were not playing games. At about the time this small group gathered around the Liberty's radar screen, the Office of the U.S. Defense Attache in Tel Aviv sent a startling message back to U.S. Army Communications Center in Washington by code telegram: the IDF was planning to attack the Liberty if the ship continued to move closer to the Israeli coast!

Nikolai Federenko of the Soviet Union went further, charging that Israel, with the tacit assent of the United States, was actually using the UN cease-fire to enable it to deal more efficiently with the Arab countries it had attacked, one by one, stabilizing one front with a cease-fire and then moving its forces to the next.

In implementing [the decision to move the Liberty] a series of five messages from JCS and U.S. commanders in the European Command were directed to U.S.S. Liberty and other addressees. None of those messages had reached Liberty by 1200 Z hours on June 8th, 13 Vi hours after the first message was released for transmission.

It then required 4 hours and 22 minutes for a message-order to be sent on from the Sixth Fleet flagship U.S.S. Little Rock to the U.S.S. Liberty. 15 Why? The Committee on Appropriations of the U.S. House of Representatives later determined that the routing clerk on the Little Rock had misplaced the information sheet indicating which naval communications station was to be used to relay messages to the U.S.S. Liberty

The Liberty's genuine emergency simply got lost in a bureaucratic jumble of essentially routine messages. From there on, thing got worse. The Sixth Fleet Commander was sent the formal move order at 12:55 a.m. EDT, or 6:55 a.m. his time (and Liberty's time) on the morning of June 8.

The JCS fact-finding team later attributed the delay to a large volume of high-precedence traffic, related to a NATO communications exercise to relay numerous press extracts as part of the Foreign Broadcast Intercept System (FBIS) of the CIA, and to transmission of many messages related to a press conference held on the morning of June 8 by Secretary of Defense McNamara.

The Sixth Fleet Commander was sent the formal move order at 12:55 a.m. EDT, or 6:55 a.m. his time (and Liberty's time) on the morning of June 8. 14 It then required 4 hours and 22 minutes for a message-order to be sent on from the Sixth Fleet flagship U.S.S. Little Rock to the U.S.S. Liberty.

Sometime in the late afternoon or early evening of June 7, probably just after the routine "move" order was given, the NSA learned, from an intelligence report emanating from the Office of the U.S. Defense Attache in Tel Aviv, that Israel was planning to attack the Liberty if her course was not changed.

The IDF did not need any help to win the war. But like the diplomatic delaying tactics used by Ambassador Goldberg in the UN Security Council, the aerial recon- naissance did help the Israelis to achieve certain territorial objectives within a very finite, limited time. U.S. and Israeli strategists knew well before the commencement of the fighting that diplomatic pressures for a cease-fire would be enormous.

They were told they would be going to a remote section of the Negev Desert to provide tactical reconnaissance support for the IDF against the Arabs. The mission was to be top secret. Pilots from the 38th Squadron (Ramstein) were to go with the technicians and equipment from the 17th (Upper Heyford).