James M. Ennes, Jr. May 28, 1988 James A. Fromstein 1st Vice President Milwaukee Jewish Council 1360 North Prospect Avenue Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202 Dear Mr. Fromstein: Thank you for your thoughtful reply to the clipping I sent. There are some points which require comment. First, you say that our association "declines to accept the explanation of events which is acceptable to both our government and the Israelis." Please believe that 250 survivors don't reject the Israeli account easily and without good reason. I enclose an article I did for Americans for Middle East Understanding which addresses the issue in some detail, complete with footnotes and references, more thoroughly than I could reasonably do here. Since you are systematically maligning the character and intentions of everyone involved on this side of this issue, I do hope you will take time to read the article. The matter is really not as one-sided as you think. It is not correct to say that the Israeli explanation was acceptable to the United States. Virtually every top official of every U.S. Government Department involved with the Liberty from Dean Rusk on has gone on record calling the attack deliberate and rejecting the Israeli version of events. An official study of the Israeli excuse conducted by the Department of State in 1967 rejected every key point in the Israeli excuse as untrue, unlikely, impossible, or contrary to more compelling American evidence. Even that staunch defender of Israel Clark Clifford is now on record having advised Lyndon Johnson that the attack was deliberate. CIA and NSA reports drew the same conclusions. Yet, because of complaints such as yours, and especially because of the ever-present, discussion-stopping complaint that airing this subject would "cater to anti-Semites," the facts remain hidden. It is because of those complaints that the circumstances of the attack were not fully investigated in 1967. If the event had been investigated at the time, it would not be the open sore it is today. But it remains an unresolved scandal and probably will remain so because it is still being covered up. Nor is it true, as you imply, that our government vindicated Israel. The truth is that the Court was forbidden to take testimony from Israel, to visit Israel, or to ask questions of Israel. As a result, the inquiry was restricted almost entirely to probing the adequacy of the ship's training, communications and readiness, and the performance of the crew while under fire. Naturally, the court found "no evidence that the attack was deliberate," because it was not permitted to look for any. Israel's excuse was accepted at face value despite strong indications that they were lying. Contrast that four day shipboard "investigation" with the eight months that our congress spent investigating the Stark attack, including huge delegations sent for extended periods to Iraq! The Court even refused to take testimony from several key witnesses including important lookouts and ship's officers, and ignored vital records that would ordinarily have been entered into the record. The Court's behavior was so outrageous that the ship's Acting Commanding Officer, George Golden, who happens to be Jewish, leaked to the press while the Court was still in session in Malta a report that the attack was deliberate and that the Court of Inquiry was a sham. That opinion was and remains shared by the entire crew. I was officer of the deck on the day of the attack. In that capacity, I was the only officer on the bridge during almost the entire daylight period preceding the start of the attack. I was on the bridge during much of the air attack. I was the only officer who personally witnessed most of the pre- attack reconnaissance and the events leading up to the attack. Yet my testimony, along with that of other key officers, lookouts, and vital witnesses whose testimony pointed toward a deliberate attack, was kept out of the official record. These are among the reasons we consider the inquiry a sham and a vehicle for cover-up. You cannot accept our unanimous view, based on our personal experiences and expert knowledge, that the attack was planned and deliberate? At least you should try to understand why we feel so strongly. As an American, you owe it to yourself to listen carefully to what your fellow Americans have to say instead of relying exclusively, as you clearly do, on the material published by ADL and AIPAC. One way to understand is to read my book, especially the expanded and updated 1987 Ballantine (Ivy) edition. Won't you do that? If you could have seen the attack from the ship, I'm sure you would view it differently. We are the ones who watched thirteen very close reconnaissance orbits during eight hours of daylight before the attack in which the Israeli pilots examined us from as low as about 200 feet, so low that they waved to us as they passed and our men waved back! We heard the pilots informing their headquarters by radio that we were an American ship. Our intercept station in Germany heard the same transmissions. Yet now the Israelis claim in their "official reports" that no reconnaissance aircraft came under 7,000 feet! If the attack were an accident as they claim, there is no need for them to lie. And if they are not lying, there is no need for both governments to block our testimony. If you can provide any sound reason except to cover up a deliberate attack to explain why for 21 years our testimony has been refused by our government, we would all be glad to hear about it. Instead of a through investigation, however, Congress was persuaded by the Israeli Lobby and Jake Javits that questions about the Liberty would "incite anti-Semitism." So, except for some questions asked in relatively unrelated congressional hearings, no real congressional inquiry was ever held. I did talk personally, however, with a senior CIA official who told me he prepared a report for the White House which concluded that the attack was indeed conducted deliberately against a ship known to the Israelis to be American. To us, among the most persuasive arguments is the fact that the Israeli government is telling a story that is directly contrary to what we saw clearly with our own eyes. If it was an accident, as they claim, why can't they tell the truth? For instance, the Israeli government has long insisted that they circled the ship three times looking for a flag before firing, but that we did not display a flag. Not so. We had a very large, clean flag displayed in a good breeze, and the attacking Israeli pilots did not circle looking for it-- and didn't need to anyway because barely an hour earlier their reconnaissance aircraft had reported to their headquarters that the American flag was there. So why are they lying? Israel claims that the torpedo boats asked for identification and that we "arrogantly" responded with a signal meaning "identify yourself first." The truth is that our signalman flashed over and over in English, "U S NAVY SHIP, USS LIBERTY, U S NAVY SHIP" until he was wounded and his lamp was shot out. They saw the signal but chose to ignore it. So why are they lying? They claim the attack occurred because they detected us from about 26 miles away and misjudged our speed at 32 knots when actually we were moving only 5 knots. No one familiar with the sea or with radar equipment can believe that they made this 500% error. The excuse is contrived and untrue. They invented it to explain away what happened next. The fact is, it is absolutely impossible for them to have detected us beyond their maximum radar range of about 15 miles, and if they had detected us, we (with a higher radar mast and a more stable platform) would have detected the boats at the same time. They claim that they stopped firing immediately when they drew close enough to see our flag. Any man on that ship will tell you they continued to fire for another 40 minutes after examining the flag at close range, and that during this time they drew close and methodically machine-gunned our liferafts waiting in the water for survivors. Firefighters and litter carriers recall bitterly and clearly being fired upon time after time by the torpedo boats long after the torpedo explosion--while Israel continues to maintain even today that the torpedo was the last shot of the day! In addition, I have been in personal touch with two Israeli military men who observed the attack from the Israeli side. Both men tell me that the Israelis knew at the time that they were attacking an American ship. Congress, because of AIPAC/ADL pressure, has refused to take their statements. If by some peculiar circumstances all those things could have happened in a sequence of accidents, at least the Israelis would be able to tell a story that would square with what we saw happen. But they cannot. On the contrary, we have scores and scores of eyewitnesses all eager to testify that the Israeli version of events is untrue, but because of the constant pressure and Congressional fear of AIPAC (and constant cry of "anti-Semitism"), no member of Congress has ever been willing to listen (except Adlai Stevenson, who was duly punished for his misbehavior, as you know). Next, you tell us that our "cause is inextricably entwined with the Liberty Lobby" and that you must always stand in opposition to such an organization. Here you are especially misinformed. It is true that the Liberty Lobby has written sympathetically about this subject for years. But so has the Washington Post, People, The Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, The San Diego Union, Retired Officer Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek, Naval Institute Proceedings, VFW Magazine, The Congressional Record, Drew Pearson, Jack Anderson, Evans & Novak, George Wilson, Bill Small, Brad Knickerbacker, Philip Geyelin, Georgie Anne Geyer, Joseph Harsch, James Jackson Kilpatrick, Mary McGrory, Admiral Thomas Moorer and many others. To smear us as anti-Semites just because one of the many to write favorably about us happens to be considered anti-Semitic is outrageous and unfair. The fact is, the USS Liberty Veterans Association decided early in our existence that the Liberty Lobby has a very different agenda from ours and not one we want to be identified with. Others we avoid are the Christian Defense League, Instauration, America First, Institute for Historical Review, Truth Missions, The Order, and many others that pop up like broken sewer lines. We steadfastly avoid all such organizations and any outfit that displays any hint of anti-Semitism. Not only do we not share their view of the world, but we are offended by racism and bias of all kinds. We also have a number of Jewish members including one Jew on our board of directors and another who is currently running for election. We have, in fact, asked both Liberty Lobby and America First to quit pretending that there is an alliance between us--and at one point we asked our attorney to demand that they do so. The constant effort of these organizations, especially Liberty Lobby and America First, is to invite survivors to their functions, then to advertise widely the presence of our member in such a way as to suggest that there is an alliance. The fact is, we have asked all survivors to ignore all their invitations, interview requests, letters and other overtures. Just last year our members resolved unanimously that as a matter of policy we will steadfastly avoid any alliance, association, involvement, participation, interviews, or any other cooperation with Liberty Lobby or the other groups. This is, however, a free country, and last year when one of our members was invited to speak at the Liberty Lobby Convention, he defied the direct orders of our president and addressed the convention. We were powerless to prevent his appearance and we have been embarrassed by it ever since. It is as if Liberty Lobby decided against your wishes to support some project of the Milwaukee Jewish Council, and then you were systematically slandered in the press because of your perceived "alliance" with Liberty Lobby. I can well imagine your reaction. That is exactly the position we are in today. We are especially pained when our honorable and patriotic effort to remember our dead shipmates is deprecated and even clearly slandered because of a claimed alliance with an unrelated organization, when in fact we share fully your abhorrence for the same organization. Do you know that, because of Jewish fears of "fanning the flames of anti- Semitism," our brave skipper was handed his Medal of Honor by a minor official in a small private ceremony instead of in the White House as is customary? Admiral Moorer tells us that this is the only such case during this century. When the Stark was attacked, the President of the United States personally attended the memorial ceremony at Mayport. For fear of "fanning the flames of anti-Semitism," there was no ceremony at all for our dead. Even the funerals were played down and ignored by the press. Unlike the Stark, no one met our wounded when they returned to the United States. No delegation met our caskets. TV news ignored the arrivals. No newsmen interviewed our survivors or filmed the stricken wives and mothers. The award ceremonies for our heroes were not reported. Because of protests from Israel and fear of "igniting the flames of anti-Semitism," the memorial ceremonies we organized at Arlington were ignored. For fear of AIPAC, no congressman attended. Every legitimate and customary move to honor and preserve the memory of our lost shipmates is blocked, belittled, deprecated and criticized either by those who killed them or by those who claim to fear anti-Semitism. Can you blame people who believe "anti-Semitism" is more a weapon than a real concern? Because of this unfair treatment our dead, however, mothers of those men have told us that they have been made to feel as if their sons died in disgrace. That is all a direct result of campaigns such as yours which seem designed to degrade and dishonor their service and which deny these mothers the honors customarily given men who die in the service of our country. The USS Maine has a huge memorial built by the Congress of the United States and located at Arlington National Cemetery. No Spaniard has been known to complain. No Japanese complains about the USS Arizona memorial in Hawaii and the annual ceremonies held in honor of the men entombed there. No Arab complains about the ceremonies held for the men of the Stark. No German complains about remembrances for the Lusitania. We think we have a duty to remember our shipmates who died for their country. We think that the constant crescendo of objections is unwarranted, out of line, and offensive. If anything is likely to "fan the flame of anti- Semitism," it is your hysterical over-reaction to these well deserved honors for Americans killed by Israel. And we don't want to see that either. We believe we are as entitled as any other Americans to preserve the memory of our lost friends without constantly having our intentions and our moral values questioned. Mr. Fromstein, I submit that we are not your enemy. Neither are the Grobs or the good citizens of Grafton. We are fellow Americans. Some of us are Jewish. None of us harbors the sort of hateful feelings that you and your editorial writers persist in attributing to us. We and our dead comrades and their families are entitled to the same consideration and respect as men from the Stark, Maine, Arizona, Lusitania, and a hundred other ships that happened to be attacked by other nations? None of us deserve the hysterical name-calling you have focused upon us. I realize that your personal commitment to Israel may never permit you to see the events of June 8 as clearly as the men who witnessed the attack. I do hope, however, that you will try to understand that our differences have been arrived at honestly, that we are not monsters, that we are not in league with the devil, that we are not anti-Semites or allied with bigots, and that like any other Americans we are entitled to preserve the memory of our lost comrades without interference from those who may prefer to forget that it was Israel that killed them. While we will probably never agree on the circumstances surrounding the attack, we do share your revulsion toward ethnic bias of all kinds. In a spirit of patriotism and fairness on this Memorial Day, won't you join with us to stop the mud-slinging and help give these brave, dead Americans the honors they have been deprived of for so long? Sincerely,