Sic Semper Tyrannis

"What I know about the USS Liberty" re-published from October, 2007

 

Jim Ennes, who was a watch standing officer on the USS Liberty asked me for a statement as to what I knew of the transcripts of Israeil conversations and the ship.  This is what I sent him.  I was quoted about this in the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun on Monday.  pl 

(Wednesday, 19 July 2017)  I have re-published this because people have written to me saying that the transcripts were not prublished before the recent Haaretz article.  pl

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"Dear Jim

I was a student in the Military Intelligence Officer Advanced Course at Ft. Holabird, Maryland (Baltimore) in 1967-1968.  The course lasted about ten months.  We students were required to take several electives from a group offered and I took a course in Cryptology.  This was taught by people from the NSA School at nearby Ft. Meade.    This course was taught in the winter or early spring of 1967-1968.  There were several sub-courses, one of which had to do with voice intercepts.  In the course of this, the instructor introduced a booklet produced at Ft. Meade as material for the course.  It contained various course materials.  Among them were transcripts of the translated intercepts of radio conversations between the Israeli strike commander and his base before and during the attacks on USS Liberty.  The instructor, a retired cryptologic warrant officer or NCO identified the transcript as being of the Liberty incident.  It was also so marked in the booklet.

In the transcript, the flight leader spoke to his base to report that he had the ship in view, that it was the same ship that he had been briefed on and that it was clearly marked with the US flag.  I think he said that the ship was displaying the US flag on an upper deck, but my memory of that might be inexact.  He asked for confirmation of his orders to attack the ship and seemed reluctant (understandably) to attack the ship.  He asked more than once and was told to carry out his orders and attack the ship.

There was some further discussion of damage to the ship.

That is all I remember.

Regards

W. Patrick Lang
Colonel (Ret.)  US Army"

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/tuesday/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,1050179.story

 http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2007/10/what-i-know-abo.html   

 http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/07/httpwwwhaaretzcomus-news1800584.html                  

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"Dear Jim

I was a student in the Military Intelligence Officer Advanced Course at Ft. Holabird, Maryland (Baltimore) in 1967-1968.  The course lasted about ten months.  We students were required to take several electives from a group offered and I took a course in Cryptology.  This was taught by people from the NSA School at nearby Ft. Meade.    This course was taught in the winter or early spring of 1967-1968.  There were several sub-courses, one of which had to do with voice intercepts.  In the course of this, the instructor introduced a booklet produced at Ft. Meade as material for the course.  It contained various course materials.  Among them were transcripts of the translated intercepts of radio conversations between the Israeli strike commander and his base before and during the attacks on USS Liberty.  The instructor, a retired cryptologic warrant officer or NCO identified the transcript as being of the Liberty incident.  It was also so marked in the booklet.

In the transcript, the flight leader spoke to his base to report that he had the ship in view, that it was the same ship that he had been briefed on and that it was clearly marked with the US flag.  I think he said that the ship was displaying the US flag on an upper deck, but my memory of that might be inexact.  He asked for confirmation of his orders to attack the ship and seemed reluctant (understandably) to attack the ship.  He asked more than once and was told to carry out his orders and attack the ship.

There was some further discussion of damage to the ship.

That is all I remember.

Regards

W. Patrick Lang
Colonel (Ret.)  US Army"

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/tuesday/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,1050179.story

 http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/2007/10/what-i-know-abo.html   

 http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/07/httpwwwhaaretzcomus-news1800584.html                  

'But Sir, It’s an American Ship.' - Haaretz

 

"Israeli pilot to IDF war room: This is an American ship. Do you still want us to attack?

IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Yes, follow orders.

Israeli pilot to IDF war room: But sir, it’s an American ship - I can see the flag!

IDF war room to Israeli pilot: Never mind; hit it.

Both the CIA document and the quote have already been published in the past. The book revives them as part of its attempt to prove its thesis."  Haaretz

-------------

This conversation was intercepted by NSA assets with the 6th Fleet during the event.  USS Liberty was a SIGINT collector engaged in monitoring Egyptian communications during the 6 day War.  She was off the Egyptian coast when attacked repeatedly by Israeli aircraft and patrol boats.  She was a converted freighter and virtually defenseless.  The USS America aircraft carrier battle group was in the general area and launched a strike against the Israelis but on the order of the WH the aircraft were recalled.  That is a puzzling thing.  LBJ quickly had the matter buried under the snowdrift of a suppressed naval investigation. 

In the course of my duties at the time I read the NSA transcripts quoted above.

Six months after the attack I was a student as a captain in the Military Intelligence Advanced Couse at Ft. Holabird, Maryland. This was a year long course for mid-career intelligence officers. We had a separate building for a classroom. The whole building was a SCIF. An MP checked you in and out of the building. All the students and instructors had TS/SCI clearances at the COMINT category III level. During the course I was required to take several electives off a menu, like a Chinese restaurant. One that I took was a survey course for senior officers in cryptology. This course was normally taught to colonels and generals at the NSA school at nearby Ft. Meade. There were several sub-courses; cryptanalysis, traffic analysis, direction finding and voice intercept operations. In the last of these, the instructor was a retired army cryptologic warrant officer. He brought his teaching materials from FT. Meade. Among them was a booklet illustrating voice intercept operations. Among the examples contained therein was the English translation transcript of the chatter between the Israeli air strike crews and their higher command. The quotation from this transcript as quoted in the Haaretz story is correct. New subject: to what extant was LBJ guilty in any way in the matter of these sailors deaths and wounding? pl

http://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.800584

 

"The Day Israel Attacked America" Al-Jazeera.com

"Earlier this year, I acquired a copy of the audiotape of the attack as it had unfolded, the real time conversations between Israeli Air Force pilots and their controllers back at base. It had never been broadcast before." Richard Belfield speaking of his Al-Jazeera production.

----------------

I quote below from my Athenaeum post written in 2010 and entitled "What I know About the USS Liberty.

It appears that Belfield, an Englishman,  (chapeau) has obtained through FOIA the tapes of the in flight conversations among the Israelis concerning the strikes on USS Liberty.  I wrote in my post quoted below of having read transcripts in the Spring 0f 1968 that were of exactly the same material.  It seems likely that this is the same material now released by NSA.   My wife has a contemporary memory of me mentioning the existence of this material. 

pl

 "Dear Jim

I was a student in the Military Intelligence Officer Advanced Course at Ft. Holabird, Maryland (Baltimore) in 1967-1968.  The course lasted about ten months.  We students were required to take several electives from a group offered and I took a course in Cryptology.  This was taught by people from the NSA School at nearby Ft. Meade.    This course was taught in the winter or early spring of 1967-1968.  There were several sub-courses, one of which had to do with voice intercepts.  In the course of this, the instructor introduced a booklet produced at Ft. Meade as material for the course.  It contained various course materials.  Among them were transcripts of the translated intercepts of radio conversations between the Israeli strike commander and his base before and during the attacks on USS Liberty.  The instructor, a retired cryptologic warrant officer or NCO identified the transcript as being of the Liberty incident.  It was also so marked in the booklet.

In the transcript, the flight leader spoke to his base to report that he had the ship in view, that it was the same ship that he had been briefed on and that it was clearly marked with the US flag.  I think he said that the ship was displaying the US flag on an upper deck, but my memory of that might be inexact.  He asked for confirmation of his orders to attack the ship and seemed reluctant (understandably) to attack the ship.  He asked more than once and was told to carry out his orders and attack the ship.

There was some further discussion of damage to the ship.

That is all I remember."   pl

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2014/10/day-israel-attacked-america-20141028144946266462.html

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/uss-liberty/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JRgXie2teo 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40111.htm 

 

USS Liberty "Hearing" between Itai L and Ken Halliwell

I
Itai L and Ken Halliwell have been discussing the tragedy of USS Liberty on line for several hours.  It is suggested that we provide them an opportunity to debate this matter here.  Go to it.  pl

Joe Meadors to Governor Perry

 
Open letter to Gov. Rick Perry on the flotilla from a survivor of the USS Liberty attack

by Joe Meadors on July 3, 2011

"Governor Perry,
I am one of the Americans waiting in Athens for the Freedom Flotilla
to get underway in our effort to deliver humanitarian supplies to the
people of Gaza. I was also on the Flotilla last year and was aboard
the USS Liberty when the ship was attacked by Israel on June 8, 1967.
A few years ago at my request you issued a proclamation honoring the
crew of the USS Liberty.

#Webb and the USS Liberty

 
As Sidney O. Smith has mentioned several times there has been an echoing, stony silence on the part of Senator Jim Webb on the subject of the deliberate Israeli attack on USS Liberty in 1967.  He surely knows the truth.  Now that he is leaving public life we should expect hear from him on this subject.  pl

http://www.amconmag.com/blog/the-uss-libertys-final-chapter/

"Maiming the Liberty" Richard Sale

By Richard Sale, author of Clinton’s Secret Wars 

The USS Liberty was a former merchant ship stationed at Norfolk, Virginia. Its sister ship, soon to become another infamous tragedy, was the USS Pueblo.  Israel had begun to plan for war against a truculent Egypt and bellicose Syria early in 1967. On May 14, Soviet intelligence warned Cairo and Damascus that Israel was planning to invade them on May 17 using 13 brigades. 

This report was a Russian fabrication given to Egyptian leader Nasser by the KGB in Cairo as a means of making him more dependent on Moscow. Egypt had signed defense pacts with Jordan and Baghdad. Jordan was a “friend” of America, its leader King Hussein was being paid $7 million per year by the CIA for “security,” according to a former CIA official. America wanted to keep that “friend” in the region. 

"The Attack on the USS Liberty: Lessons for U.S. National Security" Ebinger

"It is ironic that the Israeli Defense forces attacked a flotilla of relief ships bound from Europe to Gaza in international waters in a manner all too similar to its assault against the USS Liberty also in international waters on June 8 forty-three years ago. It is even more tragic and a national disgrace that in the immediate aftermath of Memorial Day there is scant remembrance of the 34 crew members comprising naval officers, seamen, two marines and a civilian who were killed in the attack along with the 171 crew members who were wounded. While the official inquiries by both nations found the attack to be a case of mistaken identity of the Liberty, to this day there is a long record of distinguished officers and journalists who take strong exception to this view believing that the attack was deliberate. Indeed the attack on the Liberty is the only maritime incident in U.S. history where our military forces were killed that was never investigated by the Congress."  Ebinger

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Brookings?  Will wonders never cease?  pl

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0608_uss_liberty_ebinger.aspx

Ernie Gallo's Letter

Download Ernie Gallo Letter 6.7.10

To believe the attack on USS Liberty was an accident you must be wilfully uncomprehending.  pl 

The USS Liberty Incident -- Truly a National Disgrace By Sidney O. Smith III

  America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace. Its irregularities and inequities cut against the notion that we are a society founded on fundamental fairness.

 

I believe that it is time to bring together the best minds in America to confer, report, and make concrete recommendations about how we can reform the process.  Senator Jim Webb,  The National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009

 

Excellent words from the good senator.  And if Senator Webb from Virginia truly wants to expose “irregularities and inequities” that cut against our notion of “fundamental fairness”,  then he need go no further than the Record of Proceedings of the Navy Court of Inquiry (NCOI) into the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967.  

 

Two days after the attack, on June 10, Admiral John S. McCain, Jr, then the Commander-in-Chief,  US Naval Forces, Europe, headquartered in London, England appointed this Navy Court of Inquiry, with Admiral Isaac Kidd presiding and Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, USN, as the senior legal counsel.  And at the initial convening of the Court in London, Admiral McCain then ordered that it conduct and complete the proceedings in one week -- an abbreviated time that Rear Admiral Merlin Staring later described as  “patently unusual and unreasonable”.

 

Yes, one week.  As anyone familiar with our criminal justice system can tell you -- and certainly Senator Webb would agree -- you cannot adequately investigate a barroom brawl in Mobile, Alabama in one week, much less a repeated and coordinated  military attack that took place at sea and left 34 men slaughtered, at least 171 wounded, and an essentially unarmed spy ship dead in the (international) water.

 

Representative Elijah Cummings Stands Tall for the USS Liberty Vets

By Sidney O. Smith III

 

First an admission.  “Elijah” has always ranked very, very high on my list of favorite names.  Unlike Freud and according to tradition, Elijah reconciles father with son and mother with daughter.  And as some unique Americans, the Satmar Rabbis, will tell you, the appearance of Elijah portends very good things to come, much like watching the sun breaking through and then rising above the ocean on a beautiful early morning.  

 

So Elijah comes across as the anti-Freud and let’s face it, at least a few of the intelligentsia, among others, tend to view as a guru Sigmund and his (perhaps misunderstood) mantra of you too can think like an angry 4 year-old all your life. And while I am not graced with either theological virtues or insights, much less the life that such would entail, I am inclined to prefer Elijah and his approach to that of Freud. 

 

"The Touro Covenant must survive the attack on the USS Liberty" Sidney O. Smith III

Sidney O. Smith III has sent us this essay on the principle of religious liberty in the United States.  pl

Download TouroCovenant-USS Liberty SST.wps

Born Fighting for the USS Liberty? - Sidney O. Smith III

"One day something will happen. You will take a side."  Graham Greene, The Quiet American

The Vietnam War again.  Can we ever get over those times?  But when it comes to Senator James Webb of Virginia, the Vietnam War is the only place to start.  Putting aside beliefs about whether or not the war was justified, absolutely no one on this planet can deny that Senator Webb, like few others, displayed genuine heroism while serving in Vietnam.  As a platoon leader in the United States Marine Corps,  Jim Webb earned so many medals that, taken collectively,  they speak volumes about the two words he later used to sum up his life and title his book,  Born Fighting.  A Navy Cross, a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts.  

For those of us in the civilian world, the following words from the citation for his Navy Cross give us a glimpse into his sacrifice on the battlefield.   Just visualize the following in slow motion:

“Observing the grenade land dangerously close to his companion, First Lieutenant Webb simultaneously fired his weapon at the enemy, pushed the Marine away from the grenade, and shielded him from the explosion with his own body. Although sustaining painful fragmentation wounds from the explosion, he managed to throw a grenade into the aperture and completely destroy the remaining bunker. By his courage, aggressive leadership, and selfless devotion to duty, First Lieutenant Webb upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.”

And uphold such traditions, he has continued to do. To put in civilian words, when things get tough, Senator Webb will not sell out but will stand tall, even for the little guy.  Simply to illustrate the point: as an attorney after his military service, he represented veterans pro bono.  And nothing he has done to date as a US Senator, at least one so hopes, indicates he is the type who would walk out on you simply because you are not on the A-list with the Georgetown martini circuit or even dare I say, Castlerock Productions.

 

Hazardous Duty Afloat

Sailors do not get enough credit for accepting their share of danger in the Republic's service.

The recent discussion on the site of the USS Liberty Incident broght to mind the sinking of PR-5, USS Panay on 12 December, 1937 near Nanking, China.

I have always been interested in the fate of this 19 knot gunboat because my uncle was in the ship's company as Chief Quartermaster.

I discussed "The Sand Pebbles" with him in 1969.  He said it rang true except for the political "load" that Hollywood had imparted to the film.  He said that, in fact, the US had been openly supportive of the Kuomintang throughout this period.

Pat Lang

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panay_incident

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Lang