Now I know this is old, but, it is good stuff.

This is from his book "History of the U.S. Navy, volume 2"

                At 0600 on 8 June, an Israeli reconnaissance transport appeared over the Liberty, circled, and then flew away.  More than a dozen Israeli aircraft reconnoitered the ship that morning, the last  flying over at about 1145. Neither Mc Gonagle nor his crew was concerned.

The weather was clear, the Liberty was well identified as an American warship by a five-by-eight-foot ensign, and the crew assumed  that the Israelis, who were receiving American arms, meant no harm to their vessel. Mc Gonagle alerted the 6th Fleet to the overflights,  but hours passed before McCain’s order giving Admiral Martin authority to direct the movements of the Liberty reached the Mediterranean. The Israelis had delivered an informal request to the State Department that American warships be kept away from the Egyptian coast, but this was not  interpreted as a threat to their safety.

Next, a CIA agent in Israeli’s Tel Aviv military headquarters warned
Washington that the Israelis intended to attack the Liberty if she came near enough to the war zone to eavesdrop on  Israel’s military communications. Although none of this reached McCain’s headquarters, his able acting chief of staff, Captain Michael Hanley, had already ordered the Liberty to withdraw to a position 100 miles off Israel’s coast, but this message also failed to reach the ship.
                 

At 1400 two Israeli Mirage III jet fighter-bombers appeared over the Liberty, strafed the vessel with cannon fire, and launched a rocket attack that quickly disabled every antenna on the ship. McGonagle returned fire with his four .50-caliber machine guns but was unable to disrupt the Israeli attack. Within minutes, a second section of Israeli Mystere fighters hit the Liberty with more cannon fire, rockets, and  napalm. At 1453, three torpedo boats from the nearby Israeli naval base at Ashdod arrived on the scene, circled the helpless ship, raked the vessel and American sailors in life rafts in the water with machine guns, and fired at least five torpedoes.

McGonagle evaded the first torpedo, but the second detonated against the Liberty’s starboard side, tearing a forty foot hole in her hull. He now ordered his crew to “stand by to repel boarders,” but the Israeli boats retired after the torpedo explosion. At 1515 the Israeli attackers broke off, leaving behind 34 American sailors dead and 171 wounded.
                 

The Israelis had successfully silenced  the Liberty’s listening equipment. McGonagle tried to alert Admiral Martin during the attack, but an Israeli shore communications station jammed five of the six radio circuits available to him; the Israeli torpedo boats finally withdrew. Less than one hour after the attack on the Liberty was over, the Israelis moved to repair the political damage that the operation was likely to cause and to advance against Syria. At 1614, the American defense attache in Tel Aviv relayed to Washington a message containing an Israeli apology.

The Israelis would later make the preposterous claim that their planes and torpedo boats had mistaken the Liberty for the smaller Egyptian horse transport El-Quseir, although both Tel Aviv and Washington knew that this vessel was anchored in Alexandria. Israeli motor torpedo boats returned to the scene at 1632, and Israeli helicopters appeared overhead soon after and ask McGonagle if they might render assistance. Angry and bitter, he rejected this hypocritical offer.
                   

When news of the attack finally reached Martin, he ordered Rear Admiral Lawrence R. Geis, the 6th Fleet carrier task force commander, to launch an air strike of four fighter-bombers to protect the Liberty. Learning that American aircraft were aloft and might be heading to attack the Israeli based at Ashdod, Secretary of the Navy Paul Nitze phoned McCain in London and tried to persuade him to order Martin to recall the strike. Captain Ernest Juehnke, the naval attache in Tel Aviv, was telling Washington that the attack was inadvertent.

Moments later Defense Secretary McNamara contacted Martin directly and ordered him to recall the aircraft. Eight more aircraft were launched after the attack on the Liberty ended, but Martin was again instructed to recall these planes. The Johnson administration viewed Israel as a valuable client, and American Jews, who uniformly supported Israeli policy, formed the core of LBJ’s Democratic coalition. He could ill-afford to offend them.

Under the circumstances, an attack on Ashdod would have been disastrous. On the other hand, McNamara’s second order---not to send aircraft to overfly the Liberty---was inexplicable. Martin directed the destroyer Davis and Massey to steam to the rescue of the stricken ship, but she was left without support until the following day.
                           
Once the Israeli attack was over, Commander McGonagle made emergency repairs to his ship, rendezvoused with the destroyers early on 9 June, and evacuated the wounded. The heavy carrier America soon arrived on the scene and the task force escorted the Liberty back to Malta. There, Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd convened a court of inquiry to investigate the attack. Within hours, Kidd received orders from McNamara not to release any statements critical of the Tel Aviv government. Kidd’s final report courageously declared, however, that “the attack of the Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats was entirely unprovoked amd unexpected.”  Kidd privately told Admiral McCain that, while McGonagle had failed to prepare his ship for combat, he and his crew had performed heroically during and after the wanton attack.

In a politic gesture, McCain accepted full blame for the lack ofpreparedness and recommended that McGonagle receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. McCain was rewarded in 1968 by Admiral Moorer, the CNO, with a promotion to the Navy’s more prestigious Pacific theater unified command. President Johnson had long since adopted a self-conscious policy of ignorong Israeli  duplicity and callousness in the Liberty incident, so McNamara arranged for McGonagle’s Medal of Honor to be awarded quietly at the Washington Navy Yard rather than at the White House, where LBJ usually conducted these ceremonies. A subsequent congressional  invesrigation scored the Defense Department, but the Democrats who controlled the Hill refused to criticize Johnson or his pro-Israel foreign policy.              

ya know...this isn't gonna endear you with the "in crowd"...

iirc, the last "battle of the liberty conspiract" in this forum turned into a one-man war zone.

like the last go round, i think i'll sit back and watch the morons go at it again.

pass the popcorn, please.

WHOA!!!  Here we go again!

The Hun and I crossed swords last year for a couple of weeks on this very subject.  Neither of us gave an inch.

Here's a little tidbit to start it off...

I was stationed with a Liberty survivor in the '70s.  He was convinced that the Israelis attacked the ship on purpose.

I worked with another man who was a Liberty survivor in the early '90s.  He too was absolutely convinced that the Israeli attack was on purpose...and that the United States has covered the entire matter up for all this time.

I tend to agree with both gentlemen.

Let the games begin!  [;D]

Campy, I brought some beer... you brought the popcorn, right?

Scoot over a bit, willya? Here, that's right.

*passes pretzels and beer around and gets comfy*

I saw the battles. But they were not my concern. You can look up the book on any of the on-line book sellers out there. I was just reading it for the second time, and remembered the aforementioned "war" and thought I would post this little tid bit.[:D]

And by the way, I am Pro Israel.

ho hum.........................................................................................................................................................

Since Shotar accused politeness, I will ask if I might join you gentlemen and share your beer, popcorn, and pretzels?
I do enjoy a good show.

I that would bring me good fortune?

again, iirc, there were two ex-usn guys on that thread that made much sense.

gunbert...i'm in! got us some burritos, too!

now...all we need are the jew crew, a shot of rum and i'm gonna hoot & holler!

hey shotar! figured you'ld be up for a good fight! how's yer hangover?

...and in dis corna...champeeeen of da woild and still yaweh's favorites, weighing in with mistaken identity and mis-placed bomb runs....da innocent jews!

...and in da udda corna...the challenger, rock 'em sock em kid levi, terror of da temple defiler of all dat's holy, killa of americans, he spit on our flag...the deceitful jews!

ya both know da rules. no poisenal attacks, no links ta porn and no hitting below da yamulke! at da sound of da server rebooting, i want you come out of yous cornas and have a good, clean fight. now, shake a finger at each udda and go to ya cornas!

Well the Hun rarely posts to my topics, I doubt I will worry about that. And besides, check some of the aforementioned info and you will find many facts there.

Pro, Schmoe, [b]you are in big trouble![/b]  We'll have no dissent about the faithfullness of Isreal around here!!

Move over you guys..............Oh Waiter!! Waiter!!...'nuther round over here please!

The "truth" can hurt sometimes. And if you read the book, the reason for the attack becomes transparent. But I do not agree with it!

And I am pro-Israel! I say we give them a carrier battle group and see what the Arabs do!

Wait a minute!!! I just remembered somfin"!
All those bigoted, anti-isreal, anti-semite, [b]hate[/b] people....

[b]Ain't around no more!!!![/b]

WAITER!!!                (cancel that order)

Wheeee! Camel-kaze!

Better be careful.  There is a coalition of groups out there who will jump on you big time. They hate to have someone mention the Liberty.   They consist of the:

Israel is my REAL Homeland Group.

I a fundamentalist Christian and not going to Heaven unless I love Israel Group.

I hate Arabs so therefore I love Israel Group.

I think Israeli weapons are great Group.

I love IDF women Group.

The Moron Group.

Be prepared.  Their absolute best (and only) counter argument is "My goodness, my good Israeli friends would NEVER do something like that".

I will not participate in the fun but I will sit back and enjoy the one sided discussion.

Published by Stackpole Books

Cameron and Kelker St.
Box 1831
Harrisburg, Pa. 17105

Copyright 1992

ISBN 0-8117-1862-X (V.1)
ISBN 0-8117-1863-8 (V.2)

Post from ar10er -

Well, to each his own, but I find nothing good in this article at all!

No sooner than we get into the second paragraph
do we come across this jewel:

[b]'...and the crew assumed that the Israelis, who were receiving American arms, meant no harm to their vessel.'[/b]

Problem there, Mr. Love! The Israelis were not the recipients of American arms until [u]after[/u] the end of the 1967 Six Days War! Prior to that Israel was armed by Britain and France, as anyone with a modicum of knowledge about the history of this area would know!

How can this fellow [u]not[/u] know it? Hmmmm?

The next piece of ca-ca? How about this:

[b]'Mc Gonagle alerted the 6th Fleet to the overflights, but hours passed before McCain’s order giving Admiral Martin authority to direct the movements of the Liberty reached the Mediterranean.'[/b]

Why would the movements of the USS Liberty need to be directed by Admiral Martin? Nothing indicated the Israelis would attack, so why did the ship need its movements directed by anyone? Why not just carry out its previously assigned mission?

Yes, why? The author's statement is pure BULLSHIT, that's all. There's the answer. If anyone at all knew that the USS Liberty was sailing within 12-14 miles of the active war zone off the coast of the Sinai, the ship would have been immediately ordered to withdraw! Either by Washington, or by the Sixth Fleet's commander.  

We all know that the USS Liberty had previously been ordered to retire to a point at least 100 miles off the coast of Israel, but that this order was not received by the USS Liberty until [u]after[/u] the attack.

And again:

[b]'The Israelis had delivered an informal request to the State Department that American warships be kept away from the Egyptian coast, but this was not interpreted as a threat to their safety.'[/b]

Well, let's just say that the United States took it as a warning, or simply used its own good common sense, and that it ordered all ships, including the USS Liberty to stand off at least 100 miles from the war zone.

The Israeli request to the United States was for a naval liaison officer but the United States refused, probably because it felt that it might be interpreted as being too involved in Israel's war effort against the Arabs.

Strange that we are just now getting some old tired story from an (again, as always) unidentified CIA agent that warned, but was ignored.

[b]' McGonagle returned fire with his four .50-caliber machine guns but was unable to disrupt the Israeli attack.'[/b]

Wrong again! McGonagle's testimony before the US Naval Board of Inquiry is uncontradicted by anyone! [b]NO ONE FIRED SHOTS AT THE ISRAELI PLANES AT ALL DURING THE ATTACK![/b]

The only time at all that the USS Liberty fired its .50 cal machine guns was during the Israeli [b]torpedo boat attack[/b], not the air assault!

From the testimony of Capt. McGonagle on June 14, 1967:

'When the [Israeli motor torpedo] boats reached an approximate range of 2,000 yards, the center boat of the formation was signaling to us.[!]  Also, at this range, it appeared that they were flying an Israeli flag.  This was later verified.  It was not possible to read the signals from the center torpedo boat because of the intermittent blocking of view by smoke and flames. [b]At this time, I yelled to machine gun 51 to tell him to hold fire.  I realized that there was a possibility of the aircraft having been Israeli and the attack had been conducted in error. I wanted to hold fire to see if we could read the signal from the torpedo boat and perhaps avoid additional damage and personnel injuries. The man on machine gun 51 fired a short burst at the boats
before he was able to understand what I was attempting to have him do.  Instantly, on machine gun 51 opening fire machine gun 53 began firing at the center boat.  From the
starboard wing of the bridge, 03 level, I observed that the fire from machine gun 53 was extremely effective and blanketed the area and the center torpedo boat.[/b]  It was not possible to get to mount 53 from the starboard wing of the bridge.  I sent Mr. LUCAS around the port side of the bridge, around to the skylights, to see if he could tell QUINTERO, whom I believed to be the gunner on Machine gun
53, to hold fire until we were able to clarify the situation.  He reported back in a few minutes in effect that he saw no one at mount 53. [b]As far as the torpedo boats are concerned, I am sure that they felt that they

[39]

were under fire from USS LIBERTY.[/b][!]  At this time, they opened fire with their gun mounts and in a matter of seconds, one torpedo was noted crossing astern of the ship at about 25 yards.  The time that this torpedo crossed the stern in believed to be about 1426.  About 1427, without advance warning, the ship sustained a torpedo hit starboard side
forward, immediately below the waterline in the vicinity of the coordination center.'

Hmmm, that is the recollection of the captain of the USS Liberty given less than a week after the attack occurred.

Notice what [u]he[/u] said about the attack.

Now, lo these many years later, we have a naval historian giving his own testimony about what happened on that fateful day!

It may be a 'good story', but it is not the 'true story.'

Unless you think the good Captain is lying under oath!

Which I don't.

Eric The(HonestToGod)Hun[>]:)]

Well, that was an ... interesting performance by the Hairy Fairy, let's see what the judges say. Uh huh, hmm, uh huh, seems like the juror from East Germany is sneering a bit, uh huh, a mere 3.2. He's probably seen this program before and isn't very impressed. Especially the lack of variation of the theme was indeed rather depressing.
Back to the studio, and we'll have the next contestant right after the commercial.

Post from EricTheHun
         [b]Why would the movements of the USS Liberty need to be directed by Admiral Martin? Nothing indicated the Israelis would attack, so why did the ship need its movements directed by anyone? Why not just carry out its previously assigned mission?[/b]

Could it be, that since this was a [b]spy[/b] ship, that others not mentioned, had control of the ship?

Post from ar10er -

Then why was it actually ordered to leave the area and stand off 100 miles from the War Zone?

No one doubts that the ship was actually ordered to leave the area, and that everyone thought that it had!

Do you?

When President Johnson was informed of the attack on the USS Liberty, he was told at the time that the ship was 60 to 70 miles off of the Sinai Coast.

He, and everyone else in Washington DC, first thought that [u]Soviet[/u] planes and ships had attacked the USS Liberty, since the USS Liberty was actually there to determine whether Soviet pilots were engaged in actual combat with the Israelis.

When he and everyone else found out it was Israel that had mistakenly attacked the US ship, there was much relief in DC!

Eric The(FountainOfAllKnowledge)Hun[>]:)]

But wait, [b]ar10er[/b]! Of all that I wrote in my previous post, attacking the credibility of Mr. Love on several key issues, the only thing you addressed was 'who guided the ship'?

Come, man, you must answer these other much more serious flaws in Love's rendition of the story!

And story, it is!

Eric The(Suspicious)Hun[>]:)]

ETH, I don't mean to contradict you with as little knowledge as I have of this specific subject.  I haven't read much on it, but what I have read (accounts of the incident-and whether or not the sources were entirely credible I don't know for sure) seems to indicate that it may not have been a mistake.  I'd much appreciate it if you or anyone else who reads this could point me in the direction of some credible sources or links so I don't have to wallow in ignorance with respect to THIS subject, at least [:D]  Thanks.

The speed of Israel's offensive stunned American intell and left LBJ eager to learn the details of Tel Aviv's strategic plans and the Arab response.

A converted Victory-class cargo ship, which had been converted into a signal intell collector. She had a special 32-foot antenna aft from which messages could be transmitted directly to the NSA at Fort Mead.

Commander William L. McGonagle in the Liberty had received ordrers on 23rd May to steam from Rota, Spain, into the eastern Med. and intercept, process, and relay the most sensitive Egyptian and Israeli military traffic back to Washington.

The Commander even ask for a destroyer escort, and this was denied, and he was assured that American aircraft wpuld only be ten minutes away.

I can not believe, ETH, that you did not know that we have been providing aid to Israeli since 1949?

[b]CRY HAVOC...AND LET SLIPS THE DOGS OF WAR![/b]

Welcome Hun.  I KNEW this topic would get your attention.

Since this issue will never be decided until the governments of the United States and Israel decide to declassify the authoritative records, WE cannot know for sure WHY the attack took place.

For that reason...this time I choose to watch.

Pass the popcorn and Ice House please!  [:D]

Not military aid, my friend, not military aid!

You will note that the Israelis were flying French aircraft that day, just as their soldiers were carrying FN-FALs, and their tank corps was made up of British tanks!

Their helicopters were Soviet!

So tell me, how much military aid did Israel receive from the United States [u]prior[/u] to 1968?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Eric The(So,JesusIsYourLord?WhatACoincidence!He'sMine,Too!)Hun[>]:)]

I have no input on the Liberty incident, but in response to ETH's last post, the Israeli Airforce flew P-51s, B-17s, C-46s, C-47s, Stearmans and Pipers during the early days. They flew these aircraft alongside various other planes from England, France and Italy such as Spitfires, Mosquitos, Avia S199s, Avro Ansons and Harvards (which may have also come from England or Canada).

I believe the provision of these aircraft to an emerging nation would fall under the rubric of "military assistance."

I wonder where such a new nation got all of that money to purchase all of that equipment from? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Post from LWilde -

Well, all the secret communiques were released in 1997, following the '30 Year Rule' in such matters!

That, and that alone, is why James Bamford changed his tune on the [b]motive[/b] for Israel's attack!

In his 1992 book, [b]The Puzzle Palace[/b], Bamford wrote that the motive for Israel's attack was to conceal their pending attack on the Golan Heights in Syria, a situation that Washington looked on with displeasure!

His story then was that the USS Liberty was attacked to prevent it from learning of the Israeli moves against Syria, and the resulting escalation of the War!

Then in 1997, the secret communiques between Tel Aviv and Washington were released and the world learned that Washington DC not only knew in advance of the impending attack by Israel on the Golan Heights, but that Washington was secretly encouraging the Israelis to do it!

So much so, that UN Ambassador Goldberg purposefully delayed the vote on a Security Council vote for demanding a ceasefire in the Middle East, until after the Israelis notified Washington DC that their attack was completed and the Golan Heights were in Israeli hands!

After [u]that[/u] particular motive was shown to be nonexistent, Bamford didn't stop there, but looked for a new motive and found one just in time to include in his 2001 book, Body of Secrets!

The new, improved motive? That the Israelis were slaughtering thousands of Egyptian POWs in the Sinai desert, near where the USS Liberty was sailing and that, to prevent this gross war crime from being discovered, they were willing to commit another war crime - attacking a nonbelligerant's vessel on the high seas!

What insanity!

If the old book was so thoroughly researched, why did he have to change the motive in the new book?

As book critic James D. Fairbanks of the Houston Chronicle wrote concerning [b]Body of Secrets[/b]:

'While Body of Secrets contains more than 80 pages of notes, it is not always clear how directly the evidence Bamford cites supports his allegations. At times he seems interested in looking only at that evidence that will support the most sinister interpretation.'

Yep.

Eric The(LessThanSinister)Hun[>]:)]

To fully answer ETH's semi-rhetorical question directly, the answer would be "not much." The aircraft described in my previous post were war surplus, and did not indicate a recurring relationship on a lend-lease or any other basis for the provision of military aircraft to Israel from the US.

As ETH correctly points out, during the 50s and 60s, the Israeli Air Force was comprised mostly of French aircraft (Dassault Mirages) and Soviet helicopters (Mi-8 Hip).

Give Eric credit, we would not give nor sell any of our military hardware to the new nation.
As a matter of fact, the purchased that stuff thru phantom corps. set up by the mosuad. We even intercepted a B-17 and a few other items before they could reach the battlefield.

Yeah, AR10er, I kind of stepped in it on this issue. Indeed, the B-17s and P-51s were purchased by Israeli "agents" (whatever that means) immediately prior to the US embargo on weapons delivery to either side of the War of Independence. The B-17s were rushed out of the US from Miami to Puerto Rico, eventually ending up in Czechoslovakia. From there, they were delivered to Israel.

The P-51s were crated up in the US and shipped to Israel as "agricultural products" or some such nonsense.

However, there was a popular sympathetic movement in the US to support Israel. This support manifested itself in the form of monetary and other contributions from private citizens in the US to private citizens in Israel, which did not really violate the embargo.

Again, what direct military support by the US for Israel prior to 1967? Not much.

Post from DzlBenz -

Well, it would be error to believe that the United States supplied any of the aircraft which you mentioned to Israel!

These planes were all purchased sub rosa and smuggled out of the United States, and against the express wishes of the United States.

See the Israeli Air Force's website detailing how they acquired these planes at: [url]http://www.iaf.org.il/iaf/doa_iis.dll/Serve/level/English/1.3.3.6.html[/url]

After Israel became an independent country in 1948, the United States joined an embargo on weapons sales to Israel, the [b]1949 Tripartite Agreement[/b] on weapons.

Although the US sold hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry to Arab states during the 1950s and early 1960s, there were no sales to Israel until 1962 when the US agreed to sell to Israel its first significant American system, the HAWK anti-aircraft missile.

It was SOLD to Israel, and only for the limited purpose of protecting the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona.

American military involvement with Israel remained sporadic from 1968 until the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Following an Egyptian refusal to accept a cease-fire and a Soviet military airlift to the Arab states, the Nixon Administration sent a United States airlift of weapons and supplies to Israel enabling her to recover from earlier setbacks. Starting on October 14, 1973 US Air Force "Operation Nickel Grass" flew resupply missions to Israel for a full month.

As a direct result of the Yom Kippur War, the United States quadrupled its foreign aid to Israel, and replaced France as Israel's largest arms supplier. The doctrine of maintaining Israel's "qualitative edge" over its neighbors was born in the war's aftermath. This was based both on US appreciation of Israel's role as a defender of Western values in a generally hostile region, and also on the Cold War calculus of opposing the Arab client states of the Soviet Union.

It certainly wouldn't support the original article that spawned this thread, by Robert love that 'and the crew assumed that the Israelis, who were receiving American arms, meant no harm to their vessel.'

Mr. Love fell victim to the thought that others have  - that Israel has [u]always[/u] been the client state of the US.

That simply is not true, and certainly was not true in 1967!

Eric The(HonestToGod)Hun[>]:)]

ETH:

Please refer to my posts subsequent to the one you quoted.



Whoa! Easy there, cowboy! Don't lump me in there with this guy Love. I'm just a wingnut whose brain cells were mutated at an early age by model airplane glue![whacko]

Thanks, [b]Sylvan[/b], you are correct!

In keeping with their national pastime of being cheese-loving surrender monkeys, France decided to jump from the war-winning Israeli side to the defeat-enduring Arab side!

Lord, what fools these mortals be! At least the French ones!

Eric The(UnFrench)Hun[>]:)]

I have a few questions:

Why would Israeli warplanes be vectored onto a ship intentionally or not?

Were the clearing the way for strikes elsewhere?

Were the planes that attacked the USS Liberty part of a larger strike package on a mission that had nothing to do with the USS Liberty? In other words what role were the planes that attacked the USS Liberty full-filling with respect to the larger picture??

Everytime I have seen this issue discussed everyone is looking inside the box to see what happened? What was going elsewhere that put the planes over the USS Liberty in the firstplace?


I think with a little more context (which I never have seen on any of the posted articles that start this particular discussion) the truth about what happened could be deduced.

Post from DzlBenz -

Sorry, if you thought I did, but I don't! You know your stuff, whereas Love seems to be out in left field somewhere with this article.

The errors are too glaring to be considered even mediocre history.

Eric The(LucidAtTimes)Hun[>]:)]

AR10er, sorry if this turns into a hijack of your thread.

Eric, as usual, your posts indicate that you have researched the issue well enough to post authoritative and documentable arguments that are blatently contrary to the published work. How is it that a book titled "History of the U.S. Navy" can be published with such sketchy (at best) accounts of a critical engagement? Are there not fact-checkers and managing editors at these publishing houses? What Love is claiming in his book is tantamount, in my estimation, to claiming that the [i]Vincennes[/i] sailed from her home port with the express, dedicated purpose of shooting down an Iranian airliner full of women and babies.

It paints an inaccurate and unflattering (to say the least) image of the US Navy as well as the IDFAF, and is just simply not correct.

I have always been of the idea that it was in part or whole an accident. That takes nothing away from how horrible it was however.

There had been reports of a ship shelling the Israeli coast. So the Israeli aircraft were out looking for an Egyptian ship and had a preconcieved notion of what they would find. When they found the Liberty they effectively fit their observations to the pre-existing theory.

The Liberty had in fact been correctly identified earlier in the day. However, at watch change at IDF Navy HQ at 11 AM, the marker for the Liberty was removed since the last contact was five hours old. Israeli aircraft had been over the area, but they were looking for submarines.

The Israeli navy of the time was rather substandard. One ensign reported the Liberty's speed as 30 knots, and another identified it as a Hunt class destroyer.

The Liberty was strafed and napalmed by Israeli jets. Finally one pilot noticed the ship hull number, CTR-5, and the Israelis ordered a halt to the attack. Egyptian ships were not normally marked with latin letters. The Israelis were terrified that they had attacked a Soviet ship.

The order to halt the attack was entered in the log of the torpedo boats 24 minutes before they began their attack. The commander on the scene claimed he never received it. The torpedo boats made yet another incorrect identification and attacked. The return of fire from the Liberty and the mis-identification caused yet another change in the Israeli status of the ship, and the Israeli naval command ordered the attack to continue.

Eight F-4's were launched from the America. But the ship was in the middle of strategic weapons exercises, and were armed with nuclear payloads. Sending nuclear armed planes into the situation would have been a spectacularly bad idea, particularly since some thought the Egyptians or Soviets might be involved. The planes were recalled at the order of Admiral Martin.

[Source: _Six Days of War_, Oren, pp. 263-271.]

Since the motivation for an Israeli attack on a US naval vessel is so lacking, I'm inclined to attribute the attack to a substandard Israeli navy, making decisions in a chaotic situation.

Bamford's new, revised motivation for an intentional Israeli attack on the Liberty is discussed at
[url]http://www.tnr.com/072301/oren072301.html[/url]

Bamford and others reply at
[url]http://www.tnr.com/091701/correspondence091701.html[/url]