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Both President Johnson and Secretary McNamara claimed that they believed, when they first learned that THE LIBERTY had been attacked, that the USSR was the attacker. The LIBERTY men doubt this and believe that they have evidence that both men knew from the first hour that Israel was the attacker. The final resolution of this question must await fuller investigation.
Most members of the National Security Council Special Committee did not believe that the attack could be accidental, given the renowned excellence of Israeli intelligence, but they were uncertain about the motive. However, the anger of the Special Committee members toward Israel was irrelevant; it was Johnson and McNamara who were controlling events and making policy. They ordered LIBERTY to sail to Malta for a Naval Court hearing, with RADM Isaac Kidd presiding. Kidd went on board the ship on June 10 while it was still en route and at once began to gather information from crew members. He also told them that if they were questioned by the press that they must refer to the attack as accidental. So, from the first days, before the hearing began, the assault was "an accident".
As Press Secretary George Christian wrote later, the matter of what caused Israel to attack was not pursued because it was dwarfed by other events. The major consideration for LBJ at this time was whether the war could be stopped before there was a confrontation with the USSR. In these circumstances, and with the sudden prospect of an alliance with a victorious Israel, the matter of the attack on the ship faded into insignificance, and the Administration set out to promote the idea that the attack was accidental.
Those critical of Israel kept their doubts to themselves and accepted the Administration view. The only brief rebellion against this consensus occurred when Dean Rusk spoke to NATO ministers in Luxembourg on June 17 and told them that the attack was deliberate. He was apparently reprimanded and silenced for this, and never spoke publicly on the issue again until 1980 when he was contacted by the LIBERTY crewmen.
LBJ also took steps to control the intelligence community for his own ends. COL Ralph Hoppe, then an army intelligence officer based in Florida, has told how in the aftermath of the attack dozens of messages came from Middle East sources, all describing the attack as deliberate. Orders came from the Pentagon to lock all this data away and keep it sealed. Contacts with other intelligence agencies revealed that they had received the same orders to close down their investigations.
In the Mediterranean, public affairs officers kept a close watch on the press and the crewmen. LIBERTY men were forbidden to talk to reporters without PA officers present. Crewmen later told Ennes how they were briefed and rehearsed for press conferences, to make sure that the attack was portrayed as an accident.
With the men so closely controlled, the Naval Court went ahead, producing a report which the crewmen considered rigged and false. The faults of this hearing were recognized by RADM Staring of the Judge Advocate General's office in London, as previously described, but the matter was taken out of his hands.
Meanwhile, what of Congress? Most members were outraged and angry toward Israel. Dean Rusk on June 8 found members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee "enraged". Rep. Thomas Abernathy (D, Miss) later told Ennes that members of both houses felt that facts about the attack were being hidden, and that there was intense and ceaseless private discussion of the issue. "There was constant talk in the cloak room, dining room, standing behind the rails". He also said that the State Department on June 9 had officials meeting with members in a committee room and assuring them that the attack was an accident. This was a completely political judgment; the Naval Court to determine the facts would not start for another week. (Since Rusk was at this time insisting that the attack was deliberate, it would seem that Rusk was not in control of his own department).
Despite the views of Congressmen, there were no attempts to have an investigation of the issue. Later, on July 22, when McNamara testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, there was still much anger among the Senators and McNamara was challenged by Sen. Bourke Hickenlooper (R, Iowa). However, the senator was ill prepared (for instance, he knew nothing about the recall of the rescue flights) and McNamara came through the hearing with no serious challenge. The sum total of Congressional questioning, then, was very little: the questions to the Department of State men on June 9, and the questions to McNamara.
The Administration paid attention to small details in this matter. Letters of condolence from the White House to relatives of dead seamen avoided any mention of Israel as the attacker; they simply said that the seamen died in the cause of freedom.
Similarly, when a Medal of Honor was given to Captain McGonagle in June 1968, it was presented in a manner which the crew considered grudging and demeaning. It was presented at the Navy Yard by the Secretary of the Navy, rather than in the White House by the President, as is customary. The citation accompanying the award referred not to Israel but to nameless and faceless foreign "adversaries" who attacked the ship.
The Administration was successful in its attempts to muffle and hide the questions surrounding the attack. The public was unaware of any issue, and the men were completely silenced. |
