ZGram - 7/14/2002 - "The Ghost of the Liberty Lobby Returns, Again and Again"

irimland@zundelsite.org irimland@zundelsite.org
Sun, 14 Jul 2002 20:36:17 -0700


The Memorandum is five years old - but its message is timeless.  The 
ZGram reader
who sent it to me did so with this warning:

"As America prepares for war in the Mid-East, remember who our allies are."

[START]

MEMORANDUM:

From:  Admiral Thomas H. Moorer
   
Subject: Attack  on the USS Liberty June 8, 1967

Date:  June 8, 1997

I have never believed that the attack on the USS Liberty was
a case of mistaken identity. That is ridiculous. I have
flown over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, thousands of
hours, searching for ships and identifying all types of
ships at sea. The Liberty was the ugliest, strangest looking
ship in the U.S. Navy. As a communications intelligence
ship, it was sprouting every kind of antenna. It looked like
a lobster with all those projections moving every which way.

Israel knew perfectly well that the ship was American. After
all, the Liberty's American flag and markings were in full
view in perfect visibility for the Israeli aircraft that
overflew the ship eight times over a period of nearly eight
hours prior to the attack. I am confident that Israel knew
the Liberty could intercept radio messages from all parties
and potential parties to the ongoing war, then in its fourth
day, and that Israel was preparing to seize the Golan
Heights from Syria despite President Johnson's known
opposition to such a move. I think they realized that if we
learned in advance of their plan, there would be a
tremendous amount of negotiating between Tel Aviv and
Washington.

And I believe Moshe Dayan concluded that he could prevent
Washington from becoming aware of what Israel was up to by
destroying the primary source of acquiring that information
the USS Liberty.   The result was a wanton sneak attack that
left 34 American sailors dead and 171 seriously injured.
What is so chilling and cold-blooded, of course, is that
they could kill as many Americans as they did in confidence
that Washington would cooperate in quelling any public
outcry.

I have to conclude that it was Israel's intent to sink the
Liberty and leave as few survivors as possible. Up to the
point where the torpedo boats were sent in, you could
speculate on that point. You have to remember that the
Liberty  was an intelligence ship, not a fighting ship, and
its only defensive weapons were a pair of 50-caliber machine
guns both aft and on the forecastle. There was little the
men could do to fight off the air assault from Israeli jets
that pounded the Liberty with bombs, rockets, napalm and
machine gun fire for 25 minutes.

With the Liberty riddled with holes, fires burning, and
scores of casualties, three Israeli torpedo boats closed in
for the kill. The second of three torpedoes ripped through a
compartment at amidships, drowning 25 of the men in that
section. Then the torpedo boats closed to within 100 feet of
the Liberty to continue the attack with cannons and machine
guns, resulting in further casualties. It is telling, with
respect to whether total annihilation was the intent, that
the Liberty crew has reported that the torpedo boats'
machine guns also were turned on life rafts that were
deployed into the Mediterranean as well as those few on deck
that had escaped damage.

As we know now, if the rescue aircraft from U.S. carriers
had not been recalled, they would have arrived at the
Liberty before the torpedo attack, reducing the death toll
by 25. The torpedo boat commanders could not be certain that
Sixth Fleet aircraft were not on the way and this might have
led to their breaking off the attack after 40 minutes rather
than remaining to send the Liberty and its crew of 294 to
the bottom. Congress to this day has failed to hold formal
hearings for the record on the Liberty affair. This is
unprecedented and a national disgrace. I spent hours on the
Hill giving testimony after the USS Pueblo, a sister ship to
the Liberty, was seized by North Korea. I was asked every
imaginable question, including why a carrier in the area
failed to dispatch aircraft to aid the Pueblo. In the
Liberty case, fighters were put in the air not once, but
twice. They were ordered to stand down by Secretary of
Defense McNamara and President Johnson for reasons the
American public deserves to know.

The captain and crew of the Liberty, rather than being
widely acclaimed as the heroes they most certainly are, have
been silenced, ignored, honored belatedly and away from the
cameras, and denied a history that accurately reflects their
ordeal. I was appalled that six of the dead from the Liberty
lay under a tombstone at Arlington Cemetery that described
them as having "died in the eastern Mediterranean," as if
disease rather than Israeli intent had caused their deaths.
The Naval Academy failed to record the name of Lt. Stephen
Toth in Memorial Hall on the grounds that he had not been
killed in battle. I intervened and was able to reverse the
apparent idea that dying in a cowardly, one-sided attack
by a supposed ally is somehow not the same as being killed
by an avowed enemy.

Commander McGonagle's story is the stuff of naval tradition.
Badly wounded in the first air attack, lying on the deck and
losing blood, he refused any treatment that would take him
from his battle station on the bridge. He continued to
direct the ship's defense, the control of flooding and fire,
and by his own example inspired the survivors to heroic
efforts to save the ship. He did not relinquish his post
until hours later, after having directed the crippled ship's
navigation to a rendezvous with a U.S. destroyer and final
arrival in Malta.

I must have gone to the White House 15 times or more to
watch the President personally award the Congressional Medal
of Honor to Americans of special valor. So it irked the hell
out of me when McGonagle's ceremony was relegated to the
obscurity of the Washington Navy Yard and the medal was
presented by the Secretary of the Navy. This was a
back-handed slap. Everyone else received their medal at the
White House. President Johnson must have been concerned
about the reaction of the Israeli lobby.

The Liberty Veterans Association deserves the encouragement
of everyone who wants the facts of the Liberty incident
revealed and proper homage paid to the men who lost their
lives, to their families, and to the survivors. I have
attended many of their reunions and am always impressed with
the cohesion of the Liberty family. They arrive in town with
their whole entourage grandmas, grandpas, grandchildren.
They promote the memory of the boys who were killed and I
respect them for that. They are mostly from small country
towns, probably a lot like Eufaula, Alabama, where I grew
up, and they represent the basic core of America that has
enabled us to be a superpower for so long. These are the
kind of people who will make certain that our liberty and
freedom survive if fighting is what it takes.

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