Publisher’s note: This article has been modified from it’s original content to exclude references to unsubstantiated claims of direct connections to political figures still alive or in office. If you’ d like to see the original post on Mr. Jeffries’ substack page, click his name below.
Background
What was the USS Liberty and what is it’s significance? It was an old “Victory” cargo ship purposed to carry munitions to supply a Japanese invasion effort during World II. After it served it’s life as a military ship, it was decommissioned several times and was eventually converted into a spy ship for the NSA to monitor communications between forces in the battle zone between Israel and their enemies at the time, Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The battle was called the “Six Day War“.
A key point is that Israel, at the time. claimed to be a U.S. friendly country and would have no justification for attacking the Liberty, unless… the Israeli government was attempting to cover up evidence of wrong-doing.
The Liberty was attacked by Israeli forces who intended to sink the ship and it is documented that U.S. president Lyndon Johnson gave the “stand down” order to nearby ships that could have rendered aid to the crew.
Israel later claimed the attack was a case of “mistaken identity” but very few who researched the event and heard the personal accounts of the ship’s crew believe gave any credibility to the Israeli government’s claim.
Another key point was that the USS Liberty story was buried, the survivors were ordered to stay silent and the investigations were “CLASSIFIED“.
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Original author: Donald Jeffries
On June 8, 1967, the U.S.S. Liberty was attacked in the eastern Mediterranean, by Israeli military forces. The ship was in international waters, her nationality clearly marked. And yet our “greatest ally” struck it with enough force to kill 34 Liberty crew members and wound 173. The incident didn’t have any effect on U.S.-Israeli relations.
In fact, the subject could not be openly discussed in this country for decades. Less than fours years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy- the only president who has ever challenged Zionism- the attack on the Liberty was quickly forgotten by the mainstream media and politicians of both parties.
In 2003, retired Navy Capt. Ward Boston, an attorney who helped lead the military investigation of the Liberty incident, made a shocking allegation. Boston charged that President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, had ordered that the inquiry conclude and that the incident was an accident. His sworn affidavit was released at a Capitol Hill news conference. Boston charged that Johnson and McNamara instructed those heading the inquiry to “conclude that the attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity’ despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.” Boston said he’d maintained his silence for 36 years because as an officer, “when orders come…I follow them.”
The attack on the Liberty was buried for a very long time. I only learned about it by reading stories in the Spotlight weekly newspaper, where survivors were also interviewed, which appeared in the 1980s and 1990s. The Spotlight, and it parent company Liberty Lobby were smeared as “anti-Semitic.” At some point, things opened up to where the topic could be discussed without fear of immediate “cancellation.” My late friend Joan Mellen, also a JFK assassination researcher and proudly Jewish, even wrote a critical book about it. As with JFK, 9/11 and other important issues, it is the citizen researcher/journalist who has stepped into the void created by the absence of a truly free press. These are the heroes we should recognize, for their dogged determination in filing endless FOIA requests, in talking to the witnesses professional “journalists” won’t. The ones who are still alive, that is. And haven’t been scared into hiding. I know firsthand how difficult it is to get some of them to talk.
Fortunately, the men who survived the attack on the Liberty are willing to talk. And we are the only ones listening to them. Thanks to the work of these unheralded citizen journalists, the subject is no longer forbidden in polite society. But there were voices from the beginning which boldly disagreed with the narrative that the attack had been accidental. In August 1967, after the conclusion of the Navy Court of Inquiry, the American Legion had adopted Resolution 508 (rescinded in 1984 without being first reviewed) charging that the published report of the Navy Court of Inquiry “fails to provide the American public with a satisfactory answer as to the reason for the attack” and stating that “The American Legion denounces and condemns Israel’s irresponsible attack” and demanding “a complete and thorough investigation of the incident.” Gurney Williams III would write in the July, 1997 issue of The American Legion Magazine (“Death Strikes the Liberty“, that Congress has never investigated the Israeli attack on the Liberty. By 1967, both U.S. political parties were already dominated by Zionists.
The American Legion went on to approve a resolution in 2017, which called upon “the 115th United States Congress to publicly, impartially, and thoroughly investigate the attack on the USS Liberty and its aftermath and to commence its investigation before the end of 2017, the 50th anniversary year of the attack.” The American Legion wasn’t alone. Former Director of the NSA (1965-1969) Lieutenant General Marshall S. Carter, in a 1988 NSA interview, recalled how he had stated at a Congressional hearing in 1967 that the attack on the Liberty “couldn’t be anything else but deliberate. There’s just no way you could have a series of circumstances that would justify it being an accident.” In 2013, the Veterans of Foreign Wars adopted Resolution 423 calling “upon Congress to immediately investigate the attack on the USS Liberty by the armed forces of Israel on June 8, 1967, in order to determine the truth behind the attack, and to bring closure to the families and crew.”
The military itself recognized the heroic efforts of military personnel during and after the Israeli attack on the Liberty. Liberty crew members were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, 2 Navy Crosses, 12 Silver Stars, 20 Bronze Stars, more than 200 Purple Hearts, and the ship’s captain, Navy Commander William. L. McGonagle, was awarded the Medal of Honor. But the June 28, 1967 public summary of proceedings of the Navy Court of Inquiry would still report, “It was not the responsibility of the Court to rule on the culpability of the attackers and no evidence was heard from the attacking nation.”
Israel was just as uncooperative and belligerent then as they are now. CIA information reports from June and October, 1967 quoted sources in Tel Aviv as saying “Israel’s forces knew exactly what flag the LIBERTY was flying” and that Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan “personally ordered the attack” on the Liberty over the objections of senior uniformed military personnel, one of whom characterized the attack as “pure murder.” CIA Director Richard Helms stated, in a 1984 interview, that “everything possible was done to keep from the American public really the enormity of this attack on an American naval vessel” and “since this is for the Agency’s record, I don’t think there can be any doubt that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing.…any statement to the effect that they didn’t know that it was an American ship .…is nonsense.”
Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Nixon, stated, “Israel attempted to prevent the Liberty’s radio operators from sending a call for help by jamming American emergency radio channels. Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned lifeboats at close range that had been lowered to rescue the most-seriously wounded.” He went on to ask whether “our government put Israel’s interests ahead of our own? If so, Why?
Does our government continue to subordinate American interests to Israeli interests?” In a 1983 interview, Moorer said, “I’ve never seen a President – I don’t care who he is – stand up to them [the Israelis]. It just boggles your mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn’t writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens don’t have any idea what goes on.”
Moorer stated, in 1991, “To suggest that they couldn’t identify the ship is…ridiculous… Anybody who could not identify the Liberty could not tell the difference between the White House and the Washington Monument…I think Congress should investigate the incident, even now.” Moorer reiterated in 1997: “Israel knew perfectly well that the ship was American.” Moorer personally intervened to reverse a U.S. Naval Academy decision to not include the names of two Liberty crew members who were killed in action on a memorial wall at Bancroft Hall. “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.” Moorer said. President George W. Bush failed to attend a 1991 White House ceremony to celebrate Liberty survivors in a rare but unsurprising breach of protocol. Moorer would lead the 2003 Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on the USS Liberty.
This Monday, June 8, will mark the 20th anniversary of USS Liberty Remembrance Day, held annually in DeLand, Florida. We at Change Florida have been trying to bring awareness to Volusia County, and the rest of the country, about an event that has been covered up at the highest levels of the U.S. government. It is organized jointly by the USS Liberty Veterans Association and the Dr. Bob Bowman Memorial Chapter of We Are Change Central Florida. USS Liberty survivor Dr. Richard Kiepfer has noted, “Never before in the history of the United States Navy has a Navy Board of Inquiry ignored the testimony of American military eyewitnesses and taken, on faith, the word of their attackers.” They would like to make June 8 USS Liberty Remembrance Day. Sure, it’s no Juneteenth, but recognition is certainly warranted. U.S. military personnel don’t volunteer to wind up militarily attacked by a supposed friendly nation. One we give more U.S. taxpayer money to than any other.
A few brave souls have dared to state the truth about this. Sen. Adlai Stevenson III told UPI, in 1980, “Those sailors who were wounded, who were eyewitnesses, have not been heard from by the American public. . . [Their story] leaves no doubt but what this was a premeditated, carefully reconnoitered attack by Israeli aircraft against our ship.” In his 1985 book They Dare to Speak Out, Rep. Paul Findley stated, “Certain facts are clear. The attack was no accident. The Liberty was assaulted in broad daylight by Israeli forces who knew the ship’s identity. …The President of the United States led a cover-up so thorough that years after he left office, the episode was still largely unknown to the public — and the men who suffered and died have gone largely unhonored.”Findley was run out of Congress by the Israeli lobby. His book focused on the power of AIPAC, which just spent $32 million to unseat Rep. Thomas Massie. The Spotlight was bankrupted by the ADL, another foreign, unregistered arm of Israel.
Another U.S. representative whose career was cut short by Zionists was Sen. James Abourezk, who noted, “The shame of the U.S.S. Liberty incident is that our sailors were treated as though they were enemies, rather than the patriots and heroes that they were. There is no other incident–beyond Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty–that shows the power of the Israeli Lobby by being able to silence successive American governments. Allowing the lies told by the Israelis and their minions in the U.S. is disheartening to all of us who are proud of our servicemen.” The despicable Lyndon Johnson, on the other hand, said, “We saw no need to inform Israel or any other party to the hostilities of the Liberty’s location since the ship was on a peaceful mission and was in international waters. I have seen a report alleging that the Israeli Government has asked us about the presence of the ship prior to the attack, but that report is not true.” This was the man who created the Warren Commission.