Customer Reviews

The Liberty Incident: The 1967 Israeli Attack on the U.S. Navy Spy Ship

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Even if you want to believe it to be an accident, you can do better than this book. Cristol created this book based on his doctoral dissertation, which was manufactured after (and some estimate to obfuscate and diffuse) Dr. John Borne's initial doctoral dissertation on the Liberty assault which came to the conclusion Israel knew it was a US ship before they attacked.

You don't even need to open the book to know what's inside!...let's take a look at the front cover photo...
The photo, claimed in the book to be provided to Cristol by the Israeli Air Force, as a gun camera photo, shows the USS Liberty flying no flag as it is attacked, with even a large splash of munition next to it. This of course reinforces Israel's claim there was no flag flying during the attack, which would then debunk the survivors' claim they had an American flag flying(and put up an even larger US flag after the first was shot down!).
-It turns out, according to a photo analysis done for the Liberty survivors' website, this "is in fact a doctored view of the ship just as she tied up at the pier at Little Creek, Virginia, in July, 1967, upon her return from repairs in Malta." The photo evidence is too much to list but here is some of it: All the vectors and even people on the ship correspond to the Little Creek dock photo. The smoke was apparently falsified - there is no smoke or fire damage in corresponding areas of the ship, in photos taken immediately after the attack. The displacement(how deep in the water the ship sets due to weight) of the Liberty during the actual attack was much greater than the Cristol image depicted, but corresponded perfectly with the Little Creek photo (after the ship was offloaded). The munition splash apparently was added to cover a tug boat that occluded a small part of the front side of the Liberty. A photo of a real wake created by the Liberty does not correspond to what was apparently a post photo wake added to the photo of the stationary Liberty. Etcetera, etcetera. Of course, the fact that there is no flag in Cristol's cover picture corresponds to the fact it is customary to take down the flag once you get into port, as the real Little Creek photo shows. So there you have it, no need to even open this book. Sorry to say, the photo was presented as evidence in a Thames television presentation before a proper analysis and debunking was done.

This is the second book(the other is the unrelated "Hitler's Pope" by Cornwell) I've reviewed where a photo was presented as evidence, but was apparently otherwise.

If you are an Israeli apologist and want to give a better try than Cristol's book, it's not hard. But you should at least go to the survivors' website and get firsthand information so you don't look as foolish as Cristol. Now that Cristol is being dismissed, Michael Oren is the next big hope for Israeli apologists concerning Liberty. This assault is so dangerous to Israel's reputation that apologists consistently offer terminology that attempts to stop discussion on the subject rather than address concerns, such as the title of Michael Oren's writing's "USS Liberty: Case Closed". The process is consistent, first the apologist (Oren/Cristol/whoever) offers what they claim is a thorough discussion-ending report(in Oren's case even titling it as such), then the apologist goes on with a typical limited and contextually false account, then right on queue, the apologist is soon after applauded for such a "conclusive", "thorough", "definitive" account. Then eventually the apologist is dismissed by those on the other side as false after having his material reviewed, such as Cristol eventually was. Then another apologist takes over the reigns as 'lead USS Liberty reference' for the apologists, conveniently forgetting they were just supporting the last guy who who offered false claims. To some, it might seem strange Oren was given the top prize at the LA book fair for what was a rehashing the 1967 Israeli six day war in his book "Six Days of War". What Oren did conveniently offer in his newly awarded book, just as Crystol conveniently offered, was, once again, "new evidence" that the attack on the Liberty was accidental. Of course, "Body of Secrets" author James Bamford eventually took great exception to Oren's selective Liberty account, and offers insight into Oren's personal history and his close working connections to those who apparently were connected to Israeli war crimes that the Liberty would have monitored, and that, as Bamford suggests, would have been reason to snuff out the Liberty's surveillance.

The real story, and the amazing and intriguing evidence that is now coming out is mostly coming from NSA sources. The Anti-Defamation League primarily references Cristol and NSA transcripts released in 1999 of helicopter pilots sent to the Liberty after the attack. Of course, the ADL pointing to the helicopter transmissions is misleading, as the unreleased plane and boat transmissions(those taking part in the attacks) are the relevant ones. Of course the ADL doesn't address Cristol's basic problems, such as that silly cover photo passed off as an Israeli gun camera photo. Some amazing admissions have occured just recently(after 2000). There is still apparently a key NSA record of the attack, taken from a an NSA spyplane in the area of the attack, that is being withheld.

"Of four former NSA/CIA seniors with inside knowledge, none was aware of any agency official who dissented from the position that the attack was deliberate." - Naval Institute Proceedings

"That the attack was deliberate "just wasn't a disputed issue" within the National Security Agency" - former NSA director William Odom, 3 March 2003 interview for Naval Institute Proceedings

"...the board of inquiry (concluded) that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing in attacking the Liberty."
-- CIA Director Richard Helms

"I can tell you for an absolute certainty (from intercepted communications) that the Israelis knew they were attacking an American ship."-- NSA Deputy Director Oliver Kirby

Write a letter to your Congressman and sign the Liberty petition, if you want the NSA record released!!

Judge Cristal's book is and has become just the continuing written resource of the "official version". He was a bankruptcy judge, a naval reserve officer who never saw combat, was never there, avoided the survivor's versions of events if it doesn't mesh with the "accident" thesis. He is held in deep disregard by the Liberty Veterans Organization, they are all wrong yet his version is correct. They were there, he was not.
What it doesn't say and what it avoids is as important as what he does says. He has avoided any debate whatsoever with any member of the Liberty Veterans Organization but now spends his time answering op-ed pieces proclaiming the "case is closed". His book is a part of the Liberty canon and it does demostrate the extremes that the Liberty opponents have taken over the last 40 years. The question still remains "why?". If it was a "friendly fire" so-called accident. Why oppose the Liberty crew the first open honest day in an open manner? Like Ennes say, if they are lying, they go to jail but they are willing to take the chance.


But a bankruptcy judge who was never there, never a part of the investigation and and who has been condemned by the very limited number of Liberty crew he sought information and who deny "his version" of he claims does not make this a reliable resource. You want the truth, read Jim Ennnes' book, "Assault on the Liberty". He was there and no one has ever called his book disingenuous or fabricated.

There are two sides to every story and the good Judge has no monopoly on the truth. Certainly not the "Liberty Incident". BTW an "Attack" is hardly an "Incident" when 34 crew members were killed and 174 wounded. What's next "The 9-11 Incident"? Decide for yourself. Buy it used .

I find it very telling Judge Cristol included so few photographs of the damage to the Liberty. They clearly show most of it, with the exception of the torpedo hit, was inflicted by rocket fire from the planes. The use of rockets in the attack is officially denied by Israel. Why? Because most of the superstructure and much of the hull took scores of hits from almost every conceivable angle. Many of them penetrating several bulkheads. The ship looked like an angry grizzly bear got to chewing on a steel bucket. Such extensive damage clearly refutes Israeli claims the air attack involved only 4 aircraft and a maximum of 6 strafing runs over 12-14 minutes. It does support survivor's statements that dozens of strafing runs were made over 25 or more minutes. These facts alone should cause any reasonable person to very seriously doubt the "accident" explanation for the attack. Consider also this. The aircraft flying at a typical cruising speed of 500mph would have burned about 10gal/min of fuel. In 25 minutes they would have each used 1,500-2,000lbs. The pilots wouldn't have consumed so much fuel over the target unless they had planned for it in advance.

Even without going outside the covers of The Liberty Incident, a conclusive case can be made for the proposition that this book was written in defense of the official Israeli position. If one goes outside the book to verify facts, the result is that the reader is unable to verify almost none of the facts.

Within the book, the author appears to make a conscious effort to obfuscate contrary facts by constantly digressing into wholly irrelevant subjects before returning to the subject under consideration.

For True Believers, this book is exactly what you are looking for. For everyone else, it is a complete waste of time.

The untruths of this book begin on the cover, which purports to show a very blurry Israeli aircraft gun camera shot of the Liberty (more complete views of the image are in the book). In reality the Liberty had big white identifiers on the bow, one quarter the height of the ship, clearly distinguishing it from Egyptian ships. These numbers have been photoshopped out of Cristol's gun camera images, apparently. Here is an experiment for skeptics: google for a similar high-angle frontal photo of the Liberty on the web, blur the photo in your favorite program until it looks like Cristol's gun camera photo, and see if you can still discern the numbers. You WILL still see the identifier, if only as a big white splotch, though it is completely blacked out in Cristol's photos. Why is this significant? Because any pilot would have seen the big white American numbers too. Don't believe me, don't believe Cristol, but try it yourself.

The author fails to interview more than 1/4 of the survivors of the actual incident. That's a very L.B. Johnsonesque manuever: Obfuscate with "facts" from impartial sources (not the actual victims of the incident of course, they're too "emotional and biased" hence their thoughts are meaningless). Non-partial sources such as Israeli military personnel and top brass will give a non-political, no bs, view of course. It's not like they're worried about promotion or anything! Isn't odd though that LBJ didn't pin Commander McGonagle's Medal of Honor on the White House lawn? It's not like it's an important event, but at least give the guy a break!

Recent American military history is replete with accidents, each of which cost dozens of lives. In May 1987, an Iraqi Entendard jet fired Exocet missiles into the destroyer Stark, killing 37 U.S. Navy men. Other disasters included the 1968 Pueblo, 1969 U.S. Navy EC-131 and 1975 Mayaguez incidents--and of course the Black Hawk in 1994. In each case, the U.S. was at peace. These incidents were mostly soon forgotten.

But for 35 years, the USS Liberty has been a festering wound. More than 100 books were written about the incident, which still routinely figures in news and magazine articles.

In 1986, a professor suggested to A. Jay Cristol that his U.S. Navy, international law and judicial backgrounds uniquely qualified him to examine the facts of the case. He then began an investigation that spanned 14 years.

A retired U.S. Navy Captain A. Jay Cristol, accessed every living and written source he could locate, including more than 500 witnesses he interviewed in four nations. He reviewed five television productions, more than 100 books, hundreds of articles, and more than 3,087 documents--including all those from at least ten official U.S. investigations and three official Israeli ones.

Throughout, Cristol focused on the one (right) question--whether the attacking Israelis knew that their target was an U.S. ship. In 1986, Cristol did not know the answer. Nor did he, like many discredited conspiracy theorists, assume that Israel maliciously premeditated the attack against a vessel they knew to be American.

Every official investigation had concluded that while intentional, the attack was also clearly a case of mistaken identity. After conducting the most extensive research ever on this topic--Cristol agreed. Several Israeli and American mistakes caused Israeli forces to mistake the USS Liberty for an Egyptian vessel.

Cristol admirably establishes the peak Cold War context in which the incident occurred. Only five years earlier, the U.S. had humiliated the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis, forcing it with the threat of superior nuclear and naval power to back down. Nikita Khrushchev, who was deposed in 1964, consequently had accelerated warship construction to try to gain Soviet command of the high seas.

Superpower naval confrontations naturally followed. Soviet vessels would follow U.S. warships and intentionally interfere with their operations, particularly in the Mediterranean. Often, Soviet or U.S. destroyers would steer on a collision course for their adversaries in high-stakes naval games of "chicken." Ships bumped in many instances. The escalation eventually led to the 1972 Incidents at Sea Agreement, but in 1967, incidents still occurred regularly.

The Vietnam conflict was also in full swing. In fact on June 2, 1967, U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers accidentally attacked the Soviet merchant ship Turkestan in Cam Pha Harbor in North Vietnam--just when Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin's was set to arrive to deliver a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The rapidly deteriorating situation described at length in Michael Oren's, [...], became full-scale war on June 5, 1967 when Israel sent its entire airforce to destroy Egypt's Air Force in less than 80 minutes. Many Arab leaders vocally (and falsely) charged the U.S. and Britain with supplying the attack aircraft to Israel, even when they knew otherwise.

Within the Israeli forces there were frictions as well. When the war broke out, Israel's Air Force had 76 state-of-the-art Mirage fighter jets, plus Super Mystere B-2s, Mystere IV's and a cadre of well-trained pilots. By contrast, the Israeli Navy had only three obsolete destroyers, nine motor torpedo boats (three then deployed in the Red Sea) and some miscellaneous small craft. Israeli inter-service rivalries were palpable.

On May 23, the Liberty, an U.S. National Security Agency intelligence vessel, was ordered to take a position 13 miles off Port Said, Egypt. Such ships often sailed off various coasts to listen, record signal emissions, chart their sources' locations, and gather any data of political or military use in the Cold War. NSA civilian employee Frank Raven protested sending the Liberty into a potential war zone. But his lone voice of dissension was overruled.

On May 24, when the Liberty began steaming 3,000 nautical miles from the Ivory Coast to the Straits of Gibraltar, the Cairo newspapers reported that Egypt had mined the Straits of Tiran.

On May 27, U.S. Admiral John S. McCain, Jr. ordered U.S. Sixth Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Martin not to operate aircraft within 100 nautical miles of Egypt's coast. When the Liberty arrived in Rota, Spain, linguists trained in Arabic and Russian reported aboard. None assigned to the ship spoke Hebrew.

On June 6, Israel destroyed more than 150 Egyptian tanks in the Sinai and captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan. Nasser broke diplomatic relations with the U.S. and closed the Suez Canal. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously for a cease-fire. Among the warring nations of Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Israel, Jordan alone accepted it. Six Israeli demolition team divers were captured in Port Alexandria. Syria shelled a number of communities on Israel's northern border.

Into this active war zone sailed the Liberty, not knowing that on June 7, the NSA and Joint Chiefs of Staff had ordered the ship to withdraw 100 miles off the Sinai coast. The orders had been cabled--but all five messages were sent via the Philippines and arrived the day after the attack.

Cristol spells out precisely how and why the Liberty was mistaken. The attack was not pre-planned or covered up. None of the seamen aboard the USS Liberty could have known all the facts surrounding the case.

He also shows that, had Israel and the U.S. played up their extensive investigations, they could have long since silenced false charges of a conspiracy and cover-up.

For all reasonable human beings, this superb piece of investigative reportage and scholarship should resolve the myriad mysteries of this sad event once and for all.

---Alyssa A. Lappen

Even if you want to believe it to be an accident, you can do better than this book. Cristol created this book based on his doctoral dissertation, which was manufactured after (and some estimate to obfuscate and diffuse) Dr. John Borne's initial doctoral dissertation on the Liberty assault which came to the conclusion Israel knew it was a US ship before they attacked.

You don't even need to open the book to know what's inside!...let's take a look at the front cover photo...
The photo, claimed in the book to be provided to Cristol by the Israeli Air Force, as a gun camera photo, shows the USS Liberty flying no flag as it is attacked, with even a large splash of munition next to it. This of course reinforces Israel's claim there was no flag flying during the attack, which would then debunk the survivors' claim they had an American flag flying(and put up an even larger US flag after the first was shot down!).
-It turns out, according to a photo analysis done for the Liberty survivors' website, this "is in fact a doctored view of the ship just as she tied up at the pier at Little Creek, Virginia, in July, 1967, upon her return from repairs in Malta." The photo evidence is too much to list but here is some of it: All the vectors and even people on the ship correspond to the Little Creek dock photo. The smoke was apparently falsified - there is no smoke or fire damage in corresponding areas of the ship, in photos taken immediately after the attack. The displacement(how deep in the water the ship sets due to weight) of the Liberty during the actual attack was much greater than the Cristol image depicted, but corresponded perfectly with the Little Creek photo (after the ship was offloaded). The munition splash apparently was added to cover a tug boat that occluded a small part of the front side of the Liberty. A photo of a real wake created by the Liberty does not correspond to what was apparently a post photo wake added to the photo of the stationary Liberty. Etcetera, etcetera. Of course, the fact that there is no flag in Cristol's cover picture corresponds to the fact it is customary to take down the flag once you get into port, as the real Little Creek photo shows. So there you have it, no need to even open this book. Sorry to say, the photo was presented as evidence in a Thames television presentation before a proper analysis and debunking was done.

This is the second book(the other is the unrelated "Hitler's Pope" by Cornwell) I've reviewed where a photo was presented as evidence, but was apparently otherwise.

If you are an Israeli apologist and want to give a better try than Cristol's book, it's not hard. But you should at least go to the survivors' website and get firsthand information so you don't look as foolish as Cristol. Now that Cristol is being dismissed, Michael Oren is the next big hope for Israeli apologists concerning Liberty. This assault is so dangerous to Israel's reputation that apologists consistently offer terminology that attempts to stop discussion on the subject rather than address concerns, such as the title of Michael Oren's writing's "USS Liberty: Case Closed". The process is consistent, first the apologist (Oren/Cristol/whoever) offers what they claim is a thorough discussion-ending report(in Oren's case even titling it as such), then the apologist goes on with a typical limited and contextually false account, then right on queue, the apologist is soon after applauded for such a "conclusive", "thorough", "definitive" account. Then eventually the apologist is dismissed by those on the other side as false after having his material reviewed, such as Cristol eventually was. Then another apologist takes over the reigns as 'lead USS Liberty reference' for the apologists, conveniently forgetting they were just supporting the last guy who who offered false claims. To some, it might seem strange Oren was given the top prize at the LA book fair for what was a rehashing of the 1967 Israeli six day war in his book "Six Days of War". What Oren did conveniently offer in his newly awarded book, just as Crystol conveniently offered, was, once again, "new evidence" that the attack on the Liberty was accidental. Of course, "Body of Secrets" author James Bamford eventually took great exception to Oren's selective Liberty account, and offers insight into Oren's personal history and his close working connections to those who apparently were connected to Israeli war crimes that the Liberty would have monitored, and that, as Bamford suggests, would have been reason to snuff out the Liberty's surveillance.

The real story, and the amazing and intriguing evidence that is now coming out is mostly coming from NSA sources. The Anti-Defamation League primarily references Cristol and NSA transcripts released in 1999(published online in 2003) of helicopter pilots sent to the Liberty after the attack. Of course, the ADL pointing to the helicopter transmissions is misleading, as the unreleased plane and boat transmissions(those taking part in the attacks) are the relevant ones. Of course the ADL doesn't address Cristol's basic problems, such as that silly cover photo passed off as an Israeli gun camera photo. Some amazing admissions have occured just recently(after 2000). There is still apparently a key NSA record of the attack, taken from a an NSA spyplane in the area of the attack, that is being withheld.

"Of four former NSA/CIA seniors with inside knowledge, none was aware of any agency official who dissented from the position that the attack was deliberate." - Naval Institute Proceedings

"That the attack was deliberate "just wasn't a disputed issue" within the National Security Agency" - former NSA director William Odom, 3 March 2003 interview for Naval Institute Proceedings

"...the board of inquiry (concluded) that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing in attacking the Liberty."
-- CIA Director Richard Helms

"I can tell you for an absolute certainty (from intercepted communications) that the Israelis knew they were attacking an American ship."-- NSA Deputy Director Oliver Kirby

Write a letter to your Congressman and sign the Liberty petition, if you want the NSA record released!!

If the reader wants to learn the TRUTH concerning the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, an unarmed intelligence gathering Navy ship, 42 years ago, they would be wise TO SKIP "The Liberty Incident". Cristol makes the argument that it was an "ACCIDENT" and has been thoroughly investigated numerous times. NOT true. The only investigation was a hastily conducted Naval Court of Inquiry in 1967 that, for political reasons, was falsified to support Israel's claim of mistaken identity, signed off by the Johnson Administration, and the case closed. Cristol's "research" and numerous trips to Israel to "investigate" were funded, of course, by Israel or their lobby. What would YOU expect the writings to reflect?

As a survivor of that attack, you can say that I AM biased and discount my opinions. I have sought the truth for 22 years about what happened that day, and afterward, the Court of Inquiry, my government's cover up to this day and members of Congress refusal to properly investigate the attack. Israel's influence over this country's foreign and domestic policy through groups like AIPAC and the ADL have effectively blocked any attempt to get to the truth. You can whine about conspiracy theory and anti Semitism all you want. I AM a supporter of Israel, but the deliberate attack on the Liberty IS a black mark on the history of this great nation.

Any sixth grader doing research can easily debunk nearly every point Cristol makes. Were this a novel, it still wouldn't be a good read. Truthful, it is NOT.

J.T. Halbardier
Electronics Technician
USS Liberty Survivor

I was in Naval Intelligence during that period. I was assigned to a naval land base in the Mediterranean area. I was standing next to a radioman while he was in contact with the Liberty during the attack. I could just as easily have been assigned to the Liberty, and if I had been, I would have been on the ship when the attack came. I could have been one of the dead or the wounded. Even if I was not hurt, I would have been an eyewitness to the death and wounding of my friends. I leave you to imagine my feelings about this book, about Israel, about AIPAC, about the congressmen who stand up and cheer Netanyahu when he speaks, etc. Some years ago, I wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper about the attack on the Liberty. It was published on the 4th of July with a black border around it and a photo of the ship. I soon received a letter forwarded to me by the editor, a letter from an "Irish sailor" who lived in a nearby city mostly inhabited by Jews. He invited me to come up and have a beer. Yeah, sure. I would have been found dead by the side of the road.