ZGram - 6/8/2003 - "USS Liberty"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

June 8, 2003

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

This being the weekend of the anniversary of the
Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, It is appropriate
to show a pro and con  argument as to whether
the slaughter and wounding of so many young
American men by the Israelis was intentional.

As you read the two accounts, please note also the
difference in tone.  You get insinuation and sneering
from Maxwell Brown, and you get a restrained, factual
argument from Joseph C. Lentini CTOC USN-ret.,
USS Liberty Survivor.

First, Maxwell Brown:

[START]

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 22:02:05 -0700
Subject: Another opinion

I have just completed reading the book by
A. Jay Cristol, The Liberty Incident, and I have
to frankly say he beyond any doubt shows the attack
on the Liberty to be mistaken identity. He also shows
how Jim Ennes's book* was based on hearsay.

Mr. Ennes has made some wild claims and outright
lies. One is how the Israeli motor torpedo boats did
not have any identification. However, William
McGonagle testified he ordered the gunners not
to fire on the boat as he saw the Israeli flag.

Also he says the attack jets were flying so fast it
would have been impossible to detect any markings
on it, such as the Star of David. He also shows how
to see the American flag, you have to have been
within a certain distance and not flying past a
certain speed. yet you continue to claim that they
"must" have seen the flag.

Also Ennes claims that then-US Senator William
Fullbright said that Lyndon Johnson ordered him
to cover up the attack. One problem. Fullbright
denies this, and Ennes hears it 3rd party.

Ennes was injured at the beginning of the attack,
thus relies on full hearsay.

Your theories on why the ship was attacked are
nonexistent. The theory that Israel didn't want
the US to know about their imminent invasion of
Syria is dead and confirmed by John Borne, as
proof is shown that Israel told the US they were
invading Syria hours before the Liberty was
attacked.

The NEW theory--and their appears to be a new
one every week--is the alleged Israeli massacre
of Egyptian POW's. Considering that Egypt NEVER
accused Israeli of this and has had the Sinai for
20 years and yet has found no mass graves,
makes that theory useless.

Also it was said that the Liberty intercepted
messages of Israeli killing those POW's. One
problem, the claim of a POW massacre was that
it took place on June 7, one day BEFORE the
Liberty reached Alpha Point. Do you have any
other theories to propagate?

Lastly, Mr. Ennes is now in full anti-Jewish
conspiracy mode. He said he has friends in Tehran,
Iran. What a shock. Iran, a nation that hates Jews,
a nations that blew up the Israeli embassy in
Argentina and has executed Jews on alleged
spying charges, is pro-Liberty.

Also have we forgotten on how Iran financed the
attack of the US Marines in Lebanon in 1983?
Also the interviewer mentions how Pollard gave
away the identity of US agents in Eastern Europe.
This is a lie. It never happened. Ennes will associate
with anyone who hates Israel. Anyone.

I am still waiting for your "dissection" of the
Cristol book. One has to wonder what excuse you'll
use this time.

Max Brown

[END]


Here, Joseph C. Lentini's answer:

[START]

Dear Mr. Brown:

I was on board the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967,
and I can tell you without any doubt, the recount
of the attack in the Ennes book is accurate and
that there is much more to this issue than you are
obviously aware.

First, let me thank you for caring enough to even
look into it.  So many Americans know nothing
about the attack because of the politics involved,
and so many others have a dual allegiance to the
US and Israel and, when it comes to any problems
between the two countries, they always lean
towards Israel and so cannot see what happened
in 1967 or, for that matter, in more recent history
(e.g., Pollard spy case, and the slaughter of
Palestinians).

There is an enormous amount of material which is
considered documented and accurate by both this
country and Israel, which clearly brings into
question the accidental attack claim by the State
of Israel.  There have been discoveries over the
last 35 years that have revealed attacking Israeli
pilots identifying our ship and being told to
attack anyway, identified US military intelligence
personnel who were privy to various messages and
transcripts clearly indicating the attack was a
coordinated effort, and the sworn testimony of the
survivors who, after all, were there. 

You may locate much of this material, and see the
documentation for yourself, by simply doing a search
on the Internet for "USS Liberty" and following all links
(<http://www.ussliberty.org/lentini2.txt>).  You will see
many sites with accurate information, and some with
not so accurate information, and many with a clear
bias towards protecting Israel's reputation.

As for Jay Cristol's book--have not read it totally yet,
but I can tell you without any doubt that much of his
information and argument for the attack being an
accident is based on half-truths and highly questionable
Israeli reports.

Let me give you something to think about, I hope,
and something that will encourage you to look deeper
into this historical moment.

1.  The ships logs clearly indicate tracking first the
torpedo boats and then the high-speed aircraft passing
over them, both on a direct line to the USS Liberty.

2.  The planes did not circle the ship trying to identify
the ship, but, instead, approached the ship bow-on
and came in shooting.

3.  The planes were flying well below their top speed
and many survivors who were fighting fires from the
napalm and otherwise were topside performing assigned
damage control noted that these planes were unmarked--
this at a time when Israel was in control of the skies and
had no reason to paint out the Star of David and other
clearly Israeli markings.

4.  A high ranking Israeli officer was interviewed several
years later and clear states that Israel had identified the
USS Liberty by June 7, 1967. This is consistent with the
several documented overflights by Israeli slow-flying
aircraft on the day prior to the attack which were clearly
taking our picture for identification purposes.

5.  Our flag was flying until the jets shot it away. 
We then hoisted another, and that was also shot away. 
Finally, we ran up the huge holiday flag--one of these
shot-up flags is on display at the museum at the NSA
Cryptologic Museum at Ft. Meade, Maryland. 

We were slowly sailing into the wind, so the flag was
standing out at all times and, while the pilots might not
have seen it in a bow-on or stern-on attack posture,
they certainly saw it as they crisscrossed the ship,
attacking from both port and starboard. Please note
that these pilots saw well enough to hit the four 50-cal.
machine-gun mounts with at least two rockets each,
put at least one rocket through all topside hatches/
doorways, hit all antenna pods with two or more rockets,
blew up the two small boats on board, and hit the only
gasoline drum on board.

Again, their speed allowed this degree of accuracy
and they obviously had knowledge of our strategic
targets.

6.  One of the Israeli torpedo boat captains was also
interviewed several years later, and he said that after
one of the five torpedoes had hit the ship, he saw the
colors of our flag and thought he had hit a Russian
ship. Kind of puts a kink in the Israeli claim of June
1967 that we had no flag, doesn't it?

7.  Cristol and Israel both give credibility to the Israeli
claim of 1967 that the torpedo boats misread their
radar to the point that they thought the "unknown" ship
off the Sinai Peninsula was traveling in excess of 20
knots and that local Israeli field commanders reported
shelling of their position from that area of the Med.

Possible?  Sure!  But take the time to look a little
deeper, please.  The torpedo boats identified us as
the El Quisar (spelling?), an Egyptian troop and animal
carrier 1)known to be in an Egyptian port at that time,
2) unable to make even 8 knots, and 3) with absolutely
no armament whatsoever. 

It gets better!  This ship is about 2/3 the size of the USS
Liberty, and has none of the topside antenna equipment,
did not have a huge satellite dish on its stern, and was
not painted USN grey with US information on both sides
of the bow.  The ship they said they thought we were
could not go the speed they say they mistakenly thought
we were going and had no means to attack anything. 
Further, the Liberty had only 4 50-cal. machine gun
and was also unable to shell anything from its position
some 13 miles offshore.

8.  There are documents available from the LBJ Library
that clearly indicate that LBJ wanted to seek re-election,
did not want to offend this country's Jewish Lobby, and
had specific recommendations from his political advisors
to stay at arm's length from anything having to do with
the USS Liberty.

9.  There are a number of plausible reasons for the
attack, and

1) the accurate time-line of that day indicate that, in fact,
taking the Golan Heights was not known until it was
accomplished.

2) You might also find it interesting that Moshe Dayan,
the head of the IDF at that time, said in an on-camera
interview that this expansion had nothing to do with
state security, but was, in his words, executed to take
this property solely to increase the power and financial
wealth of the political and some of the military leaders
of that day.

3) There is also the very real issue of the added US
support that would come if the US and the world thought
a US ship was sunk by the Arab States--and the attack
came very close to accomplishing that very thing. 

We were silenced in the first minutes of the attack and
only got word out because our technicians were able
to rig a temporary antenna under fire, an antenna that
had never worked before, but was made usable by their
efforts and by a partial rocket hit that somehow "fixed"
whatever the initial problem was. Without that "word"
getting out, they would have sunk us with all hands and,
I suppose, planted some evidence that the deed was
done by Arab state vessels/planes.

4) Israeli-documented slaughter of Arab prisoners
at El Arish that day could have contributed to the
"justification" for the attack.  Maybe not, but the fact that
this slaughter occurred is documented by statements
from Israeli soldiers, so, who knows.  There may be
other related possibilities, but the point is that reasons
exist and there is much more than reasonable doubt
that the attack was a pre-planned, coordinated air and
sea attack which took 34 American lives.

By the way, if you wish to have any credibility in
discussions about this subject, I suggest that you do
not refer to sworn testimony of survivors who were
there that day as "hearsay"!  As for Jim Ennes being
wounded so everything he said must have been
second hand, simply not so, and to suggest that does
him and other survivors a great disservice and indicates
that you have not researched this very well.  Remember,
the Captain was also wounded, and I can personally
promise you, his story was not "hearsay" but was very
accurate.

Oh yes, there are many men who were present that
day who saw for themselves the Israeli torpedo boats
deliberately machine gun the life rafts, and we have
pictures taken just after the attack ended (about the
same time as it became known we got word out to the
fleet about the attack) which clearly show all life raft
positions empty or with destroyed rafts clearly visible.

One other fact you might find interesting, which
relates back to the jets--their speed that day allowed
them to target fire hoses in use by damage control
personnel, and the men using them, during the attack. 
Again, multiple eyewitness accounts are documented
concerning this and the use of "burning jelly" canisters
dropped on our decks.

If you truly care about the truth, take the time to look
into this more deeply.  Consider the growing number
of senior military and political people who publicly
denounce this attack as deliberate. 

Consider the document facts, many of which are
agreed to by both sides.  Consider the contradictions
in the "official" story over these many years, and
consider Israel's history, short though it may be,
which is full of examples of drastic military actions
against friend and foe alike, military and civilian,
in the name of Israel's security.

Finally, although it has nothing to do directly with
the attack on the USS Liberty, I mention the Pollard
case.  Strange that you seem to be defending him
when it is documented fact that Israel paid him to spy
against this country.  Let me put it another way:
Israel, our "friend," paid him to spy against their
claimed ally, the US.  Is it really so hard to believe that
this same "ally" found it to be in their best interests to
attempt to sink a US intelligence ship with all hands
back in 1967?

Cristol's book, and several others by Israeli writers
or friends of Israel, reaches the wrong conclusions. 
It does not take much more that a quick look at the
documented facts of this case to realize that the
Israeli claim of an "accident" fails to hold up.  I hope
you will take the time to dig deeper and, keeping
an open mind about this subject, consider all
possibilities.

Again, thank you for your interest in this historical
event.

Joseph C. Lentini
CTOC USN-ret
USS Liberty Survivor

http://www.ussliberty.org/lentini2.txt

[END]

*For USS Liberty Captain James M. Ennes Jr.'s 1993 summary account

of this criminal act of international terrorism by the Jewish state go to:

http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0693/9306019.htm