Israel's attack on a relief flotilla calls to mind another bloody incident
By Philip Weiss, Salon.com
" This originally appeared at Mondoweiss:
The attack on the USS Liberty is one of the great enigmas of US-Israel relations. On June 8, 1967, in the middle of the Six-Day War, Israeli planes attacked an American spy ship, the Liberty, that was in international waters off the coast of Egypt, listening in on secret communications. The attacks appeared to be deliberate, involving numerous passes on a clearly-marked American boat, strafing and napalming. The attack killed 34 Americans and produced very little by way of investigation. It was deemed an accident from the start, although many American officials doubted this conclusion.
The following quotes are from the book, "The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship" (2009, Simon & Schuster), by James Scott, a longtime journalist living in South Carolina, whose father was an officer on the Liberty:
[With the Liberty] the United States had the capability to intercept and decipher VHF and UHF radio frequencies, common frequencies used for government and military communications...
In the case of the Liberty, the White House, afraid of offending Israel's domestic backers at a time when it needed support for its Vietnam policy, looked the other way.... "
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"Now, 42 years after the event, and with the benefit of stacks of newly declassified documents, author James Scott is able to reveal the shocking truth. While the most senior U.S. intelligence officials were convinced that the attack was deliberate, they agreed to keep quiet as part of a massive White House cover-up to protect U.S.-Israeli relations...The country should be grateful to James Scott for this very courageous book." -- James Bamford, author of The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA, From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America and two other books on the NSA
"My book on this subject is often considered the definitive work. Yet I must now proudly yield that spot to author James Scott's meticulously documented and persuasive study. Anyone who can read The Attack on the Liberty and not agree that this was a deliberate attack on a ship known to be American, and that the facts were then criminally covered up by both countries, is willfully blind or hopelessly biased." -- James Ennes, Jr., author of Assault on the Liberty
"John Scott, the author's father, received the Silver Star for his valor during the assault and the critical role he played in the ship's survival. His son has now performed a great service to Liberty victims, students of history, and the nation as a whole in casting a new, penetrating light on one of the most disgraceful chapters in modern U.S. naval history. The Attack on the Liberty is a vivid account worthy of a careful reading by anyone interested in ensuring that painful past experience properly illuminates the U.S. government's current and future policy choices and standards of public candor." -- Proceedings
"Scott's book is a densely documented, suspenseful narrative that uses declassified U.S. and Israeli documents to give fresh insights into the attack and the aftermath." -- The Seattle Times
"This book is both a tribute and a belated memorial to the officers and men of that ill-fated spy ship...By raising carefully researched questions about the entire process, Scott's fine book has put the Liberty center stage and perhaps given the surviving crewmen an account that truly binds up their wounds." -- Naval History Magazine
"[Scott] didn't simply rely on tales told around the family dining table. He conducted prodigious research to document every aspect of the story...As a former newspaper reporter, Scott knew how to dig for facts, and his book resonates with the results of his relentless search for the truth...It is high time someone drew our attention to this tragedy, and Scott has done it in magnificent fashion." -- The Tampa Tribune
"Carefully researched, extensively annotated and refreshingly non-polemical... It fully merits a careful reading." -- Foreign Service Journal
"Engrossing....Scott's book will be the definitive account of the attack." -- The Virginian-Pilot
