**Previous Episode: [[BDE328]]** **Next Episode: [[BDE330]]** %%Post image thumbnail below.%% ![wmed center](https://i.postimg.cc/wqCLVRmg/BDE-Capture-20.png) > [!abstract|no-i] **Episode Overview** **Date Aired:** [[06-08-2024]] **Title:** Mixed Metaphors **Episode:** 329 **Description:** Sometimes things get complicated. **Link:** https://rumble.com/v50h0v0-big-dig-energy-329-mixed-metaphors.html %%<https://historydraft.com/happened/what-happened/1-January/world>%% ## Replay %% Get embed URL then highlight and hit ALT + I%% <iframe src="https://rumble.com/embed/v4y4rnl/?pub=6eeyh" allow="fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" style="height:100%;width:100%; aspect-ratio: 16 / 9; "></iframe> <br> ## Greetings & Announcements 1. I will be on Simpcast tomorrow. ## Segments ### USS Liberty ![center](https://archive.ph/2PVfT/9e74d4b594fda45bdca38d4f2c38ad90c8491a70.webp) **Theories:** Israel intended to sink the ship and blame Egypt because it might have brought the United States into the 1967 war. Because of the [then-classified nature](https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-007/h-007-1.html) of Liberty's intelligence-collection mission, the initial Department of Defense press release deliberately contained false information (a definite "don't do that" lesson learned), that the press and others quickly determined to be false, adversely affecting the U.S. government's credibility in the matter. > **Wikipedia:** > > The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship (spy ship), [[USS Liberty]], by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats, on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War[^1]. The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two marines, and one civilian NSA employee), wounded 171 crew members, and severely damaged the ship. At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, about 25.5 nautical miles (47.2 km; 29.3 mi) northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish. > > Israel apologized for the attack, saying that the USS Liberty had been attacked in error after being mistaken for an Egyptian ship. Both the Israeli and U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the ship's identity. Others, including survivors of the attack, have rejected these conclusions and maintain that the attack was deliberate. > > In May 1968, the Israeli government paid US$3.32 million (equivalent to US$29.1 million in 2023) to the U.S. government in compensation for the families of the 34 men killed in the attack. In March 1969, Israel paid a further $3.57 million ($29.6 million in 2023) to the men who had been wounded. In December 1980, it agreed to pay $6 million ($22.2 million in 2023) as the final settlement for material damage to the ship plus 13 years of interest.[^2] #### The Attack According to Israeli sources, at the start of the war on June 5th, General Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Air Force (IAF) chief of staff informed Commander Ernest Carl Castle, the American naval attaché in Tel Aviv, that Israel would defend its coast with every means at its disposal, including sinking unidentified ships. He asked the U.S. to keep its ships away from Israel's shore, or at least inform Israel of their exact positions. This comes from a [report](http://thelibertyincident.com/docs/israeli/IDF-history-report-en.pdf) from the IDF: <div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 60%;"><iframe src="https://docs.google.com/viewer?embedded=true&url=http://thelibertyincident.com/docs/israeli/IDF-history-report-en.pdf" style="top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; border: 0;" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> Page 2: ![center](https://i.postimg.cc/cHpqbBNR/BDE-Capture-20.png) American sources said that no inquiry about ships in the area was made until after the attack on Liberty. In a message sent from U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk to U.S. Ambassador Walworth Barbour in Tel Aviv, Israel, Rusk asked for "urgent confirmation" of Israel's statement. Barbour responded: "No request for info on U.S. ships operating off Sinai was made until after Liberty incident." Further, Barbour stated: "Had Israelis made such an inquiry it would have been forwarded immediately to the chief of naval operations and other high naval commands and repeated to Department of State." #### Conference 2004 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/77828789 ![center](https://i.postimg.cc/90P741m1/BDE-Capture-20.png) https://www.c-span.org/video/?179892-1/1967-arab-israeli-war-uss-liberty #### Links [CIA Reading Room](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001359216.pdf) <div style="left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 60%;"><iframe src="https://docs.google.com/viewer?embedded=true&url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0001359216.pdf" style="top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; border: 0;" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> June 1967 — [Intelligence Memorandum Prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency](https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d284) October 2003 — [Ex-Navy Official: 1967 Israeli Attack on U.S. Ship Was Deliberate](https://web.archive.org/web/20080415215706/http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100960,00.html) > A former Navy attorney who helped lead the military investigation of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American servicemen says former President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, ordered that the inquiry conclude the incident was an accident. > > The USS Liberty was an electronic intelligence-gathering ship that was cruising international waters off the Egyptian coast on June 8, 1967. Israeli planes and torpedo boats opened fire on the Liberty in the midst of what became known as the Israeli-Arab Six-Day War. > > In addition to the 34 Americans killed, more than 170 were wounded. > > Israel has long maintained that the attack was a case of mistaken identity, an explanation that the Johnson administration did not formally challenge. Israel claimed its forces thought the ship was an Egyptian vessel and apologized to the United States. > > After the attack, a Navy court of inquiry concluded there was insufficient information to make a judgment about why Israel attacked the ship, stopping short of assigning blame or determining whether it was an accident. > > It was "one of the classic all-American cover-ups," said Ret. Adm. Thomas Moorer, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who spent a year investigating the attack as part of an independent panel he formed with other former military officials. The panel also included a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins. > > "Why in the world would our government put Israel's interest ahead of our own?" Moorer asked from his wheelchair at the news conference. He was chief of naval operations at the time of the attack. > > Moorer, who has long held that the attack was a deliberate act, wants Congress to investigate. > > Israeli Embassy spokesman Mark Regev disputed any notion that Israel knowingly went after American sailors. > > "I can say unequivocally that the Liberty tragedy was a terrible accident, that the Israeli pilots involved believed they were attacking an enemy ship," Regev said. "This was in the middle of a war. This is something that we are not proud of." > > Calls to the Navy seeking comment were not immediately returned. > > David Lewis of Lemington, Vt., was on the Liberty when it was attacked. In an interview, he said Israel had to know it was targeting an American ship. He said a U.S. flag was flying that day and Israel shot it full of holes. The sailors on the ship, he said, quickly hoisted another American flag, a much bigger one, to show Israel it was a U.S. vessel. > > "No trained individual could be that inept," said Lewis of the Israeli forces. > > In Capt. Boston's statement, he does not say why Johnson would have ordered a cover-up. Later in a phone interview from his home in Coronado, Calif., Boston said Johnson may have worried the inquiry would hurt him politically with Jewish voters. > > Moorer's panel suggested several possible reasons Israel might have wanted to attack a U.S. ship. Among them: Israel intended to sink the ship and blame Egypt because it might have brought the United States into the 1967 war. June 2017 — [FIFTY YEARS LATER, NSA KEEPS DETAILS OF ISRAEL’S USS LIBERTY ATTACK SECRET](https://archive.ph/2PVfT) [NSA’s USS Liberty Incident Classification Guide](https://web.archive.org/web/20230524003819/https://legacy.theintercept.com/document/2017/06/05/nsas-uss-liberty-incident-classification-guide/) [Pages From Denial and Deception Except Redacted](https://web.archive.org/web/20230524003401/https://legacy.theintercept.com/document/2017/06/05/pages-from-denial-and-deception-except-redacted/) %%Footer Starts Here%% --- <center><img src="https://archive.is/do5ay/df25cfff93575f174c387ac9f4c64744da0fadb9.png" alt="Keep digging!" height="100px"></center> --- ## Tags ### Linked Pages & Footnotes [^1]: The [Six-Day War](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Six-Day_War) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states from 5 to 10 June 1967. [^2]: Overview of USS Liberty incident pulled from **[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident)** on [[06-08-2024]].