Author's Addendum from Ballantine paperback edition of ASSAULT ON THE LIBERTY The True Story of the Israeli Attack on an American Intelligence Ship Copyright (c) James M. Ennes, Jr. Every author must wonder how his new book will be received, how it will be criticized and, indeed, whether it will be noticed at all. Those concerns and more faced me when Assault on the Liberty first appeared, for this book was in many ways more controversial and more vulnerable than most. Because I had criticized Israel, I could be attacked on political or even ethnic and racist grounds. Because I included personal experiences, the book could be dismissed as "merely a memoir." Because I had criticized some aspects of U.S. Navy performance, I could be called disloyal to the Navy I love. Because I was not a recognized author or an accredited historian, my work could be dismissed on those grounds. And because I was not the first to charge that the attack was deliberate, my new evidence could be dismissed as "nothing new." To no surprise, the book was attacked on all those grounds. Many stores refused to carry it, wholesalers and chain bookstores dropped it, distributors regularly lost or misplaced orders for it, and major reviewers such as the New York Times and all national news magazines refused to review it. Newsweek actually had a review set in type and ready to print before an order came to kill the story. Slowly, however, other reviewers discovered the book. Reviews that did appear were uniformly favorable, sometimes highly enthusiastic. "A balance between The Cruel Sea and Mr. Roberts...the most important book you'll read this year," said the Hartford Courant. "Reads like a thriller," said the Washington Post. "A superbly told account. A gripping yarn that can stand with any of the Hornblower tales,'" wrote James J. Kilpatrick. "I've never read a more graphic depiction of war and its effects at sea," said Seymour Hersh. People magazine devoted two pages to the story. The professional military organizations were even more positive. "The author develops a strong case to support his contention of a cover-up," said the Naval War College Review. "...A meticulous account, unemotional and detailed--not reckless or shrill. It will require answers," wrote Military Review. "Perhaps the most important naval book of the year," said the U.S. Naval Institute while honoring Assault as a "Notable Naval Book." Still my mailbox was jammed with letters from strangers who could find me but could not find the book. Few booksellers could identify it when customers asked for it, because it had vanished from most booklists even before it was distributed. Yet stores that did manage to order the book and displayed it prominently often found that it did quite well. Of the 10,000 copies in the first printing, for instance, 4,000 were sold by just four retailers. "We have had it on order for months," a Brentano's manager told me in the basement of the Pentagon. "It just doesn't come in," she said. Her experience was typical. Despite continuing distribution problems, demand for the book has persisted. More important, the story continues to unfold, evidence for it continues to mount, and Americans are increasingly coming forward with new information. For instance, soon after the book was published I heard from Captain Joseph M. Tully, Jr., who commanded the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga during the attack. During my original research, I had talked with several people aboard the carrier USS America, but had not met anyone from the Saratoga. Now Captain Tully and some of this top officers filled me in on what was happening aboard "Sara." The carrier task force comprising USS America, USS Saratoga, Sixth Fleet flagship USS Little Rock and support vessels was conducting maneuvering exercises north of Crete, Captain Tully reports, when his communications officer brought to him on the bridge a message from the USS Liberty. "Under attack by unidentified jet aircraft and require immediate assistance," said McGonagle's message. Tully personally relayed the message on a voice radio circuit to the Sixth Fleet Commander, Admiral William Martin, whom he knew to be present on the bridge of his flagship. "Unless otherwise directed, I will launch fighter aircraft immediately to defend the Liberty, he reported as he turned the big carrier into the wind. The Commander concurred and ordered the America to do the same. Saratoga launched within moments. Nothing happened on the America. "WTH?" Tully signaled America's skipper, but got no reply. Then one of Tully's officers returned from the America by helicopter to report that the America was not prepared to launch because, with the apparent cessation of the Arab-Israeli war, the America had been authorized to relax from the high alert status that Saratoga had continued to maintain. Thus, Saratoga had armed, piloted aircraft ready. Tully launched twelve aircraft and a pair of tankers to refuel them. Help was on the way within moments--in plenty of time, Tully believes, to have prevented the torpedo attack. But none of this helped the Liberty. Moments later, as reported in chapter six, a message from the flagship ordered the recall of all aircraft. "The Israelis continued their attack on American sailors for almost an hour more," reports Tully's navigator, now-retired Admiral Max Morris, who was present on the bridge. "We were forbidden to help and could only listen to Liberty's calls for air cover," Admiral Morris writes. Captain Tully, too, recalls hearing frightened Liberty radiomen calling desperately for help long after all Sixth Fleet aircraft had been called back. Then came the torpedo boats, the torpedo explosion, and silence--while Tully's frustrated pilots headed toward bases ashore. Nothing more was heard from the USS Liberty for hours. Eventually a message from Washington authorized the second launch of aircraft, but they were not sent until long after the shooting had stopped. These aircraft, too, were recalled moments after they were launched--this time because Israel had admitted responsibility and the aircraft were presumed to be no longer needed. Although the America could not send conventionally armed jets, reports still come in that four jet bombers were catapulted from the carrier America with nuclear bombs aboard. Even today there is no official confirmation of that launch and much high-level denial. A nuclear launch has been strongly denied by Secretary McNamara, Admiral Martin, Admiral Geis (now deceased), Admiral Moorer, and America's skipper, now-retired Admiral David Engen and others. Yet eyewitness reports persist. Clearly no such launch could have been intended for offensive purposes. If nuclear weapons were launched, as I have been told they were, it was probably because the aircraft and their nuclear payloads would be safer in the air than on deck during an emergency of unknown proportions as the USS Liberty attack was. Surely, no nuclear weapons could have played any part in defense of the USS Liberty. The submarine story described in chapters 3-6 continues to evade official confirmation, although it came to me originally from a man who claims to have been a member of the submarine's crew and has been confirmed orally but confidentially by others. Now a Liberty survivor has confirmed the original story. The submarine, he says, was on an especially sensitive mission called "Project Cyanide." And the Lyndon Johnson Library has released a document showing that, just shortly before Liberty's arrival, a U.S. submarine was authorized to conduct a Top Secret mission within Egyptian territorial waters. Clarification of other aspects of the affair continues to unfold. How, I wondered in chapter ten, could the Navy have produced and approved a Court of Inquiry report with so many obvious errors and omissions? For instance, Captain McGonagle's testimony remains as puzzling today as it was in 1967. Yet in a letter to me, Captain McGonagle reaffirms his original testimony and insists that he would tell the same story today. Knowing his high character as I do, I am sure that is so. Admiral Kidd, too, defends his work. In several letters and long telephone conversations Admiral Kidd has insisted that the evidence I point to was not all available to him during the proceeding, and that in any case I have not had access to the "full picture." Asked if the "full picture" includes information withheld from the record, he denies that anything was excluded, yet he has been unable or unwilling to clarify the inconsistencies in the record or to explain why weather logs, pertinent deck logs, my sworn testimony and other vital records are missing. A report from Navy headquarters in London, however, does show that Kidd's Court of Inquiry report did not have smooth sailing between completion in London and official acceptance in Washington. The just-completed report, we have learned, was personally delivered by Kidd to Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., the Commander-in- Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, who had convened the Court. There it was assigned to the staff legal officer, then-Captain Merlin Staring, to review and to prepare a forwarding letter for McCain's signature. But Staring, who eventually became Judge Advocate General of the Navy and retired from the Navy as a rear admiral, was not impressed with the caliber of the record. Before he had even completed reading the 700-plus pages, he had compiled a long list of questions and apparent discrepancies. Admiral McCain, however, was under pressure from Washington to speed the report along. So rather than deal with Staring's questions, he had another officer prepare a "quickie" endorsement and forwarded the flawed report to Washington--warts and all. Since review of the Court of Inquiry was Staring's responsibility as staff legal officer, he feared that the hasty approval would reflect badly upon his professional reputation and integrity. He was so concerned, in fact, that he sent a personal letter to the Judge Advocate General of the Navy disassociating himself from the report. The Court of Inquiry report, however, even without Staring's endorsement, had been officially approved by Admiral McCain. It sailed quickly through the approval process without a single question being asked. Perhaps because he was alerted by Captain Staring, however, the Judge Advocate General did have some obvious problems with the report. Usually JAG's endorsements are pro forma forwarding letters, particularly when the convening authority is a four star admiral who has given the report his full approval. Not this one. Here the Judge Advocate General prepared an unprecedented 23-page summary of evidence in the record, while almost entirely ignoring the "findings." JAG, in other words, took his summary from the testimony and evidence in the record, not from the "findings" of the court. And, unlike the "findings," which would have us believe that reconnaissance was almost nonexistent, the air still and the attack brief, the JAG endorsement describes eight reconnaissance flights, a flag that fluttered in a good breeze and an extended attack-- exactly as described in Assault on the Liberty. This exceptional endorsement, while not acknowledging any errors in the report itself, did serve to correct the most obvious errors and contradictions. It spared JAG any embarrassment for having forwarded a flawed report, and it presented the Chief of Naval Operations with a summary that could be approved in good conscience--for certainly no senior officer would take time to read the full report. And none of this would come to light for many years, since it was all classified Top Secret and locked away. The final stamp of approval and acceptance was given by a Deputy Chief of Naval Operations subordinate to Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, who approved the report for the Navy. And citizens who question the report's defects--for there are many defects and they are obvious--receive boiler-plate replies that ignore the questions. The Navy's acceptance makes the report "legal and final," inquisitive citizens are told. No further review is possible. The matter is closed. Reports continue that the United States learned on June 7 that Israel intended to attack the Liberty a day later. Perhaps the best work on that subject was done by author Stephen Green in Taking Sides (Morrow, 1984). Green learned through interviews with members of the intelligence working group of the 1967 Defense Subcommittee on Appropriations that the subcommittee had investigated the Liberty affair in September of that year. The committee concluded, Green tells us, that the attack was deliberate and that the United States knew in advance of Israeli plans to attack. Senior CIA and NSA officials testified before that committee, we have been told. Both reported that they considered the attack deliberate--although neither has admitted publicly to foreknowledge of Israeli plans. The report itself, unfortunately, is considered Top Secret, apparently because the truth would embarrass Israel. Even today, the report's contents are staunchly protected by several pro-Israel congressmen who still refuse to release it. To verify Green's report even further, we had a long interview with a former CIA analyst who confirms the essential details. According to the analyst, the CIA was asked three questions by the White House immediately after the attack. The CIA reply: Yes, the attack was deliberate. Yes, they knew in advance it was an American naval vessel. We do not yet know who in Israel ordered the attack. (Not long after, as we know, the CIA received a report from Israel that Moshe Dayan ordered the attack.) Further evidence of deliberate intent came from a career U.S. Navy intelligence officer known personally to me, but who must remain anonymous. The officer attended a senior cryptologic manager's course at the National Security Agency in 1979 when the USS Liberty was discussed. The instructor, my friend reports, was a senior NSA official during the attack who informed the class that Israeli plans to attack were known to NSA twenty-four hours beforehand and that they were the reason for the frantic attempts to move the ship. Yet another confirming report came from a senior military officer, now retired, who had access in 1967 to an intelligence analysis of the Liberty attack. According to this officer, a report by the Defense Intelligence Agency reported the consensus of the entire U.S. intelligence community that the attack was deliberately conducted against a ship known to the Israelis to be American. The incriminating report, however, proved too dangerous to stay in print. Almost immediately, it was ordered canceled. All copies were collected and destroyed, along with all supporting documents. The source of that story is willing to testify before Congress or publicly. So far, no important media or government official is interested. Many Liberty survivors have come forward to add vital details to the story. For instance, the Israelis claim that their decision to attack was based partly upon Liberty's failure to fly a flag and her refusal to identify herself when asked. Kidd's report discounted that claim. Now, former signalman Russell David provides further confirmation. According to David, he and signalman Joe Meadors together hauled up the oversize American flag well before the torpedo boats came within visual range. Also, unknown to McGonagle, David repeatedly signaled "USS LIBERTY, US NAVY SHIP" to the boats in English as they approached. The ship's 36" signal light on the starboard side of the bridge had been disabled by rocket fire; however, David had a clear view of the approaching boats from the 12" signal lamp on the port side of the signal bridge, and used that light to signal repeatedly to the approaching boats until he was struck by gunfire and the lamp was shot out. The Israeli claim that the ship refused to identify herself was also investigated by Admiral Kidd separately from the Court of Inquiry proceedings, and his findings were reported to Washington by message on July 6, 1967, almost a month after the attack. According to the Israelis, McGonagle sent a signal "AA" supposedly meaning "identify yourself first." Kidd determined, however, that no such signal was sent. Even if "AA" had been sent, however, the signal should not have caused the attack. According to the Navy Historian and other experts, "AA" is merely an invitation to communicate. It has never meant "identify yourself" as the Israelis claim. Chief Radioman Wayne Smith has describes in more detail the scene in the ship's radio room during the attack. The room was filled with smoke, Smith reports, due to napalm and gasoline fires that raged just outside, causing paint inside the room to blister and smoke on the overheated steel bulkhead. Radiomen worked on their hands and knees to try to stay below the smoke, reaching up to tune transmitters and receivers. The work was especially difficult, Smith reports, because the frequencies needed were being blocked by Israeli radio jamming equipment--thus confirming findings of the Court of Inquiry that Liberty's radio were jammed. Of the six frequencies needed to call for help, Smith reports, five were blocked by a buzz saw sound apparently broadcast from the jets. Smith reached the carrier Saratoga with his call for help only because the Israelis overlooked a sixth frequency, which he was able to use. The Israeli Government has now produced at least seven official and semi-official accounts of what "really" happened to the USS Liberty. Many of those accounts are specific attacks on the story told here. Unfortunately, rather than address the facts as documented in U.S. government records, the Israeli accounts generally attribute the story exclusively to Jim Ennes and then attempt to discredit Ennes as a bigot, a racist, a pro-Arab propagandist, or an emotional hot- head whose perceptions have become distorted by battle and the sight of blood. Also overlooked by the Israelis is the fact that the same story is told by scores of Liberty survivors. Then the Israelis simply retell their original stories, often with variations to rebut new details as they are revealed. None of these accounts examine the readily available evidence in U.S. government records or attempt to resolve the difference between U.S. and Israeli versions. A striking example is a 55-page study of the Liberty attack created by the Israeli Defense Force History department specifically as a rebuttal to Assault on the Liberty and sent personally to the American Chief of Naval Operations in 1982. While earlier accounts have asserted that the Israeli torpedo boats left their base at Ashdod during the noon hour to investigate reported shelling at El Arish, the new account claims that the boats were already at sea when they received those orders--thus did not have as far to travel. According to the new version, the boats were 22 miles from the Liberty at 1341 (not 27 miles as earlier reports would have it) when they made the fatal radar plotting error that supposedly brought the order to call in aircraft. Even detection at 22 miles, the Israelis acknowledge, was "highly unusual." Due to the size of the vessels and the curvature of the earth, we believe any detection beyond 12 or 15 miles was impossible. The IDF report also goes on to describe, in somewhat more detail than most other accounts, the careful steps the Israelis claim to have taken in their efforts to identify the ship before attacking. The lead pilot dropped to low level and circled the ship twice, they claim, looking for a flag or other marking but could find none. His second-in-command also circled, but could see no identifying marks. Both men concluded that the ship was Egyptian. As we know, however, dozens of Liberty crewmen saw those aircraft commence their attack without any attempt to examine her closely. The IDF account also mentions reports in the book that the ship was circled 13 times during eight daylight reconnaissance visits. "Ennes's claim regarding reconnaissance can be dismissed as exaggerated," the Israeli report claims. Any aircraft seen from the Liberty were transport planes high in the sky whose pilots probably failed to notice the ship at all, the report claims. Yet, had the Israelis bothered to check, they would have found all eight reconnaissance visits fully documented in the Court of Inquiry and other official American records including sworn testimony of survivors. Soon after that report was published, Liberty's Master Chief Petty Officer, Stan White, wrote directly to the President of Israel and to the head of the IDF History Department asking them to reconsider their conclusions in view of documented contrary evidence in U.S. government files. Replies from both men informed Master Chief White that the Israeli government was quite content with the report as it now stands and did not wish to consider any additional evidence. Like the other ever-changing Israeli accounts, we believe the IDF History Department report is an elaborate fabrication. Nor has the American government been entirely silent about the Liberty. Soon after the book first appeared in 1980, I was invited to discuss the attack with then-Senator Adlai Stevenson III in his office in Washington. The senator quizzed me privately for two hours, then had me return on another day for two more hours of heavy questioning by several congressional staff members. When it was over, Senator Stevenson called me at home to say that he thought the attack was deliberate and that the American people deserved to know the truth. Then he called a news conference to announce his intention to look into the charges. The story was widely reported on September 28, 1980, in a UPI story by William J. Small. Unfortunately, Senator Stevenson had not run for reelection and his term was about to expire. Nevertheless, he set about working with Senator Barry Goldwater and other members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to start the machinery needed for an official inquiry. Suddenly, just before Christmas, an aide to Senator Stevenson called to say that President Carter had just agreed to an Israeli offer to pay $6-million in three annual $2-million installments for damage to the ship. This was a dramatic reversal, since Israel for thirteen years had steadfastly refused to pay for the ship. Negotiations had continued and the America side had never stopped demanding payment, but the Israelis remained intransigent. Payments for the dead and wounded were made for "humanitarian" reasons, the Israelis said; damage to the ship was caused by American blunders and would not be paid for. Now suddenly the Israelis had reversed themselves, and I wondered why. The next day a State Department press release announced, "The book is closed on the USS Liberty." News reports around the world including a New York Times front page story announced the agreement, usually repeating the "book is closed" caption. And the book was indeed slammed shut. From that day on, Adlai Stevenson could not find a single senator willing to support or even to consider an investigation of the USS Liberty. Could there possibly be a connection, I wondered, between the September announcement of an investigation and the December agreement? Recently released State Department files show that the two events were inextricably linked. Notes from meetings at the Department of State reveal that Assault on the Liberty and Adlai Stevenson's interest in the subject were discussed. More revealing, State Department spokesmen who announced the settlement agreement were specifically briefed on how to respond to press questions about the book. "Those charges are not new," they were told to say. "Allegations that the attack was deliberate have been made for years. The Department, however, has no information to substantiate those allegations." Despite continued obstruction by both the Israeli and American governments, information about the Liberty continues to trickle out. For instance, the Israeli report by IDF Colonel Ram Ron in chapter 10 has never been released except in the hastily transcribed form copied by the U.S. Naval Attach‚. We have learned, however, that Colonel Ron's report led to a recommendation within Israel that certain Israeli military offices be considered for possible trial by court martial. A "preliminary inquiry" was then conducted by Israeli Military Judge Lieutenant Colonel Yeshayahu Yerushalmi to determine whether a court martial should be conducted. That report, exonerating everyone in Israel and putting most of the blame on Liberty's captain, was signed in Israel on July 13, 1967. It was subsequently delivered by hand on August 15 by Israeli Foreign Minister Ephraim "Eppy" Evron to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Eugene V. Rostow with an urgent request that it be withheld from the American public. The request has been honored, even though the document is unclassified. In the Department of the Navy, for instance, its distribution was restricted to four admirals: the Chief of Naval Operations, Chief of Naval Information, Chief of Naval Intelligence and the Naval Security Group Commander. By mistake, however, a copy of the unmarked document was filed in the public information file of the Office of Naval Information, where it was found, legally copied, and sent to us. Yerushalmi's report shows, as Ram Ron's had earlier, that the Israelis did identify the ship as American during the morning. Like Ron, Yerushalmi claims that the ship was attacked anyway because its identification marking was removed from a war room chart shortly before the ship was "rediscovered" and thought to be Egyptian. Although the Yerushalmi report can probably still be legally copied today from the unclassified public file, the official custodians of that document still refuse to release it under the Freedom of Information Act claiming that it is exempt from the law. Ironically, however, a detailed analysis of the still-withheld report has been released--though not willingly--in a $25,000 Freedom of Information law suit by a reader of this book. That five-page analysis by State Department legal adviser Carl Salans examines each point of the Israeli excuse and weights its credibility. Salans had only Kidd's Court of Inquiry report and Clifford's now-missing report for the President to work from. Yet, despite the handicap, he found enough to discredit completely each point in the Israeli excuse. The Salans report is the most stinging indictment of the Israeli position ever found in official U.S. files. It shows clearly that the Israeli excuse is untrue. Worse, it shows that key American officials have been aware from the beginning that the Israelis are lying and have chosen to look the other way. Instead of demanding answers from Israel, the Department of State classified the report "Top Secret" and locked it away until it was forced out through the federal courts in 1983. One of the most frustrating aspects of the Liberty affair and cover- up has been the stolid refusal of American government officials to admit that anything is wrong or even to address the subject seriously. Members of Congress usually forward questions about the Liberty to the Navy or the Department of State for a reply. There, clerks ignore the questions and instead pull boiler-plate paragraphs from computers to make the following points: 1. Allegations that the attack was deliberate have been made for years. The Department, however, has no information to substantiate those allegations. 2. The circumstances of the attack were "thoroughly investigated" in 1967 during a hearing in which survivors testified freely and messages to and from the ship were reviewed. 3. The court had insufficient evidence to determine the reasons for the Israeli decision to attack, but found no evidence that the attack was deliberate. 4. The Israeli government apologized and paid approximately $7-million in damages to surviving crewmen and families of men who died. In 1980 another $6-million was paid for damage to the ship. 5. The matter is closed. There are no plans to reopen the investigation. Any further inquiries should be directed to the Judge Advocate General of the Navy. Most Congressmen simply forward State's reply with a brief statement saying something like, "As you can see, Israel apologized and paid compensation for the attack. If I can be of any further help...." Many Congressional replies are evasive. "I will remember your views if this matter comes to the floor for a vote," says Senator Daniel Moynihan, ignoring the questions. "Anti-Semitism is a terrible scourge," writes Senator Carl Levin, sidestepping the issue while impugning the writer's motives. Some replies are creative. "The USS Liberty was in Port Said, Egyptian waters of a declared war zone," writes a badly misinformed Senator Paul Simon. "She and her crew were relaying intelligence information. The obvious concern of the Israelis was that the USS Liberty was relaying to the Egyptians intelligence information concerning Israeli military logistics." But despite the evasions, follow-up letters do sometimes bring offers to support an inquiry and some of the aroused Members have been willing to demand better answers from the agencies involved. So far, the voices have been small and the replies from State and Navy have been consistently unresponsive. That will only change, we believe, when Members of Congress hear from enough of their constituents to realize that Americans do want their government to tell the truth about the USS Liberty. Despite the passage of time and the documented certainty that the attack was deliberate and that the Israelis (and their American apologists) are lying about it, the story will not go away. Survivors have gathered together under Liberty's Master Chief Petty Officer Stan White and Signalman Joe Meadors, who served, respectively, as Chairman and President of the USS Liberty veterans Association. Through the association, Liberty survivors stay in touch, hold periodic reunions, publish a newsletter, and work to tell their story. Many of the men speak regularly before local civic and veterans groups, write letters and articles, and give press and radio interviews when asked. Until the U.S. government tells the truth about the Liberty, many of the ship's survivors are determined to do it themselves.