USS Liberty incident

Two subsequent Israeli inquiry reports and a historical report concluded the attack was conducted because Liberty was confused with an Egyptian vessel and because of failures in communications between Israel and the U.S. The three Israeli reports were:

• Preliminary Inquiry (Hearing) by Examining Judge Yeshayahu Yerushalmi ("Yerushalmi Report"—July 1967) (Adjudication of IDF negligence complaints.)
• Historical Report "The Liberty Incident"—IDF History Department report (1982)

In the historical report, it was acknowledged that IDF naval headquarters knew at least three hours before the attack that the ship was "an electromagnetic audio-surveillance ship of the U.S. Navy" but concluded that this information had simply "gotten lost, never passed along to the ground controllers who directed the air attack nor to the crews of the three Israeli torpedo boats". In 1991, Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State at the time of the incident, wrote:

Retired naval Lieutenant Commander James Ennes, a junior officer (and off-going Officer of the Deck) on Libertys bridge at the time of the attack, authored a book titled Assault on the Liberty describing the incident and saying, among other things, that the attack was deliberate. Ennes and Joe Meadors, also a survivor of the attack, run a website about the incident. Meadors states that the classification of the attack as deliberate is the official policy of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, to which survivors and other former crew members belong. Other survivors run several additional websites. Citing Ennes's book, Lenczowski notes: Libertys personnel received firm orders not to say anything to anybody about the attack, and the naval inquiry was conducted in such a way as to earn it the name of "coverup".

In 2002, Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, U.S. Navy, senior counsel for the Court of Inquiry, told the Navy Times that the naval court was a politicized sham with conclusions preordained to exonerate Israel. In 2004, in response to the publication of A. Jay Cristol's book The Liberty Incident, which Boston said was an "insidious attempt to whitewash the facts", Boston prepared and signed an affidavit in which he stated that President Johnson and secretary of defense Robert McNamara had ordered Admiral Kidd, that the assault be ruled an accident, and to reach the conclusion "that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite 'overwhelming evidence to the contrary.'" In 2004, Boston repeated his assertion before a State Department conference about the Six-Day War. Cristol wrote about Boston's professional qualifications and integrity, on page 149 of his book:

In his 2004 affidavit Boston stated:

Cristol said he believes that Boston is not telling the truth about Kidd's views and any pressure from the U.S. government. Cristol, who also served as an officer of the U.S. Navy's Judge Advocate General, suggests that Boston was responsible in part for the original conclusions of the Court of Inquiry and, that by later declaring that they were false, Boston has admitted to "lying under oath". Cristol also notes that Boston's statements about pressure on Kidd were hearsay, and that Kidd was not alive to confirm or deny them and that Boston did not maintain, prior to his affidavit and comments related to it, that Kidd spoke of such instructions to Boston or to others. Cristol also provides a handwritten 1991 letter from Admiral Kidd that, according to Cristol, "suggest that Ward Boston has either a faulty memory or a vivid imagination". According to James Ennes, however, Admiral Kidd urged Ennes and his group to keep pressing for an open congressional probe.

The following arguments, found in official reports or other sources, were published to support the hypothesis that the attack was due to mistaken identity:

• Accidents and mistakes do occur in wartime. Journalist Ze'ev Schiff gave an example of a friendly fire incident where Israeli aircraft had bombed an Israeli armored column south of the West Bank town of Jenin the day before the attack on the Liberty. Also given as an example was a similar incident that took place during the Suez Crisis in 1956, when Israeli aircraft attacked and damaged the British frigate HMS Crane after mistaking it for an Egyptian warship, at a time when Britain and Israel were fighting together.
• The incident took place during the Six-Day War when Israel was engaged in battles with two Arab countries and preparing to attack a third, creating an environment where mistakes and confusion were prevalent. For example, at 11:45, a few hours before the attack, there was a large explosion on the shores of El-Arish followed by black smoke, probably caused by the destruction of an ammunition dump by retreating Egyptian forces. The Israeli army thought the area was being bombarded, and that an unidentified ship offshore was responsible.
• As the torpedo boats approached, Liberty opened fire on them. McGonagle said that he felt sure the torpedo boat captains believed they were under fire from the Liberty. Ensign Lucas, testified that he gave permission for the firing of the 03 level machine gun after the torpedo boats began firing at Liberty. Later, when the gun was unmanned, heat from a nearby fire apparently caused machine gun rounds at the gun to explode.

thumb|[[Amidships starboard hull and superstructure attack damage]]

Several books and the BBC documentary USS Liberty: Dead in the Water argued that Liberty was attacked in order to prevent the U.S. from knowing about the forthcoming attack in the Golan Heights, which would violate a cease-fire to which Israel's government had agreed. However, Syria did not accept the cease fire until 9 June, after the attack on Liberty. Russian author Joseph Daichman, in his book History of the Mossad, states Israel was justified in attacking the Liberty. Israel knew that American radio signals were intercepted by the Soviet Union and that the Soviets would certainly inform Egypt of the fact that, by moving troops to the Golan Heights, Israel had left the Egyptian border undefended.

Lenczowski notes that while the Israeli decision to "attack and destroy" the ship "may appear puzzling", the explanation seems to be found in Libertys nature and its task to monitor communications from both sides in the war zone. He writes that timely knowledge of their decision to invade Syria and preparatory moves toward it "might have frustrated Israeli designs for the conquest of Syria's Golan Heights" and, in the sense of Ennes's accusations, provides "a plausible thesis that Israel deliberately decided to incapacitate the signals-collecting American ship and leave no one alive to tell the story of the attack".

The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Barbour, had reported on the day of the Liberty attack that he "would not be surprised" by an Israeli attack on Syria, and the IDF Intelligence chief told a White House aide then in Israel that "there still remained the Syria problem and perhaps it would be necessary to give Syria a blow".

The 1981 book Weapons by Russell Warren Howe says that Liberty was accompanied by the Polaris ballistic missile-armed Lafayette-class submarine , which filmed the entire episode through its periscope but was unable to provide assistance.

James Bamford, a former ABC News producer, says in his 2001 book Body of Secrets, that Israel deliberately attacked Liberty to prevent the discovery of what he described as war crimes, including the killing of Egyptian prisoners of war by the IDF that he alleges was taking place around the same time in the nearby town of El-Arish. According to CAMERA, his claim that 400 Egyptians were executed has been cast into doubt since reporters present in the town claimed that there had been a large battle and this was the main cause of casualties. Bamford also stated that eyewitness Gabi Bron had said he saw 150 people executed by Israeli troops at El-Arish.

The press release for the BBC documentary film Dead in the Water states that new recorded and other evidence suggests the attack was a "daring ploy by Israel to fake an Egyptian attack" to give America a reason to enter the war against Egypt. It stated that President Lyndon B. Johnson launched allegedly nuclear-armed aircraft targeted against Cairo from a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. The aircraft were recalled only just in time, when it was clear the Liberty had not been sunk and that Israel had carried out the attack. An information source for the aircraft being nuclear-armed, James Ennes later stated:

The video also reports hearsay of a covert alliance of U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies.

Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a critic of the official U.S. government version of events, chaired a non-governmental investigation into the attack on the Liberty in 2003. The committee, which included former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia James E. Akins, found Israel to be culpable and suggested several reasons for Israel's actions, including that Israel meant to sink the ship and blame Egypt in order to bring the U.S. into the Six-Day War.

According to John Loftus and Mark Aarons in their book, The Secret War Against the Jews, Liberty was attacked because the Israelis knew that the ship's mission was to monitor radio signals from Israeli troops and pass troop movement information to the Egyptians.

The USS Liberty incident is frequently referenced in antisemitic conspiracy theories, which Cristol said are spread to damage Israel–United States relations. He said that conspiracy theorists "don't care what the facts are; they just want to present the idea that Israel did a dirty deed against the US". A Southern Poverty Law Center extremism monitor, Heidi Beirich, described the incident as a "rallying cry" for antisemites, and the scholar Spencer Sunshine called it a "perennial favorite" target of neo-Nazis.

NSA tapes and subsequent developments

The NSA reported that there had been no radio intercepts of the attack made by the Liberty herself, nor had there been any radio intercepts made by the U.S. submarine . Within an hour of learning that the Liberty had been torpedoed, the director of the NSA, LTG Marshall S. Carter, sent a message to all intercept sites requesting a search of communications that might be connected to the attack or any reaction to it. The only such communication reported was intercepted by a U.S. Navy EC-121 aircraft that flew near the attacks from 14:30 to 15:27, Sinai time (12:30 to 13:27 Z); it had collected voice conversations between two Israeli helicopter pilots and the control tower at Hatzor Airfield following the attack on the Liberty.

On 2 July 2003, the NSA released copies of these recordings and their translations and summaries. These revelations were elicited as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Florida bankruptcy judge and retired naval aviator Jay Cristol. Two linguists who were aboard the EC-121 when the recordings were made said separately that at least two additional tapes were made that had been withheld. The rescue helicopters relayed urgent requests that the rescuers ask the first survivor pulled out of the water what his nationality is; there was discussion as to whether the survivors would speak Arabic.

A summary of the NSA-translated tapes indicates that at 12:34Z Hatzor air control began directing two Israeli Air Force helicopters to an Egyptian warship, to rescue its crew: "This ship has now been identified as Egyptian." The helicopters arrived near the ship at about 13:03Z: "I see a big vessel, near it are three small vessels ..." At 13:08Z, Hatzor air control indicated concern about the nationality of the ship's crew: "The first matter to clarify is to find out what their nationality is." At 13:10Z, one of the helicopter pilots asked the nearby torpedo boats' Division Commander about the meaning of the ship's hull number: "GTR5 is written on it. Does this mean something?" The response was: "Negative, it doesn't mean anything." At 13:12Z, one of the helicopter pilots was asked by air control: "Did you clearly identify an American flag?" No answer appears in the transcript, but the air controller then says: "We request that you make another pass and check once more if this is really an American flag." Again, no response appears in the transcript. At about 13:14Z, the helicopters were directed to return home.

On 10 October 2003, The Jerusalem Post ran an interview with Yiftah Spector, one of the pilots who participated in the attack. Spector said the ship was assumed to be Egyptian, stating that: "there was positively no flag". The interview also contains the transcripts of the Israeli communications about the Liberty. However, the journalist who transcribed the tapes for that article, Arieh O'Sullivan, later confirmed that "the Israeli Air Force tapes he listened to contained blank spaces". requires the Department of Defense to conduct a thorough investigation of the allegations contained in their report. DoD has responded that a new investigation would not be conducted since a Navy Court of Inquiry had already investigated the facts and circumstances surrounding the attack.

As of 2006, the NSA had yet to declassify "boxes and boxes" of Liberty documents. Numerous requests under both declassification directives and the Freedom of Information Act are pending with various agencies including the NSA, Central Intelligence Agency, and Defense Intelligence Agency. "On 8 June 2007, the National Security Agency released hundreds of additional declassified documents on the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, a communications interception vessel, on 8 June 1967."

On 30 October 2014, Al Jazeera broadcast a documentary film containing recent first-hand accounts by several survivors of the incident. The documentary argues that Israel knew the ship was American, and planned to blame its sinking on Egypt in order to draw the United States into the war on the Israeli side.

Details in dispute

thumb|upright|The "Second Ensign" flown during the attack. Israel Defense Forces' investigative reports say their pilots and torpedo boat commander saw no flags during the attack.

thumb|Damaged USS Liberty one day after attack (9 June 1967)

thumb|An [[auxiliary ship of the Egyptian Navy]]

thumb|Commander W.L. McGonagle in his damaged cabin after the attack

Various details regarding the attack are the subject of controversy:

• Visibility of American flag: The official Israeli reports say that the reconnaissance and fighter aircraft pilots, and the torpedo boat captains did not see any flag on the Liberty. Official American reports say that the Liberty was flying her American flag before, during and after the attack; the only exception being a brief period in which one flag had been shot down and was replaced with a larger flag. The helicopters sent to the attack site to provide assistance after the air attack noticed an American flag flying from the ship almost immediately upon their arrival at the attack site.
• Identification markings: Liberty bore an eight-foot-high "5" and a four-foot-high "GTR" along either bow, clearly displaying her hull (or "pennant") number (AGTR-5) to indicate she was a technical research ship. She also had -high letters spelling the vessel's name across her stern. These markings were not cursive Arabic script but in the Latin alphabet. Israeli pilots initially said they were primarily concerned with ensuring the ship was not an Israeli warship and that they ended the air attack when they noticed the Latin alphabet markings.
• Ship's identification known during attack: A James Bamford book published in 2001 said that secret NSA intercepts indicate that Israeli pilots had full knowledge they were attacking a U.S. vessel. In a study of the incident concluding that there was insufficient evidence to support either accidental or deliberate attack, Colonel Peyton E. Smith wrote: "The attack was most likely deliberate for reasons far too sensitive to be disclosed by the U.S. (or) Israeli government and that the truth may never be known". Author and former crew member James M. Ennes theorized, in the epilogue of his book Assault on the Liberty, that the motive was to prevent the ship's crew from monitoring radio traffic that might reveal Israel as the aggressor in its impending invasion of Syria, which the White House opposed.
• Israeli aircraft markings: The USS Liberty Veterans Association says that the attacking Israeli aircraft were not marked,
• Israeli ships' actions after the torpedo hit: Officers and men of Liberty say that after the torpedo attack and the abandon ship order, motor torpedo boats strafed the ship's topside with automatic gunfire preventing men from escaping from below, and either machine-gunned or confiscated the empty life rafts that had been set afloat. The IDF says that Liberty was not fired upon after the torpedo attack and that a rescue raft was fished from the water while searching for survivors.
• Israeli offers of help: The Libertys captain, several of the Libertys crewmen and the Israelis stated that help was offered, but at different times. The Libertys Deck Log, signed by the captain, has an entry at 15:03 stating: "One MTB returned to the ship and signaled, 'Do you need help.'" The Israel Defense Forces's History Report and the Ram Ron report both say that help was offered at 16:40 and the offer was rejected.