PART 2:THE ASSAULT ON THE LIBERTY:The True Story of the Israeli Attack on an American Intelligence Ship

JAMES M. ENNES JR.

 ASSAULT ON THE LIBERTY 

The True Story of the Israeli Attack 

on an American Intelligence Ship 

Chapter 3 

THE MEDITERRANEAN 

The captain, in the first place, is lord paramount. He stands no watch, comes and goes when he pleases, and is accountable to no one, and must be obeyed in everything. 

Richard Henry Dana, Jr., 

Two Years Before the Mast, iii (1840) 

Lloyd Painter, who had relieved me earlier as command duty officer, now made preparations for getting the ship underway. As he stood on the quarterdeck with Captain McGonagle, waiting for the harbor pilot to come aboard, an official-looking black limousine nosed onto the pier. 

"What's this?" asked McGonagle. 

"I don't know, Captain. It doesn't look like the pilot," Painter remarked as the car stopped by the gangway. A dignified-looking American got out of the back seat and climbed the gangway to the quarterdeck. 

"Take me to the captain," the man demanded. 

"I'm the captain," said McGonagle, offering his hand. "What can I do for you?" 

"I'm the senior agent here for the United States," announced the unsmiling visitor. If he identified himself or his agency any further, Painter didn't hear. "You're going to have to stay here, Captain. Two of your men beat up one of my agents last night, and I have ordered a full investigation. We know it was either officers or chiefs from this ship." 

Painter struggled to appear preoccupied with the details of getting the ship ready for sea. 

"I'll be happy to cooperate in any way I can," said the unflappable McGonagle, "but I'm afraid we can't hold an investigation today. I have orders to go to sea." 

The man seemed to lose some of his confidence as he looked around and saw that the pilot had arrived. Men stood ready to cast off the mooring lines and a crane was in position, ready to remove the gangway. 

"We are getting underway immediately," McGonagle continued. "I suggest you leave the ship at once unless you intend to hold your investigation at sea." 

"This is very serious, Captain. It must be taken care of. When will you be returning to Spain?" 

"I am not at liberty to discuss ship movements, sir," replied McGonagle. "If you have a charge to file against a member of my crew, you should send a written complaint through official channels. Meanwhile, please excuse me, as I intend to get this ship underway." 

McGonagle escorted the visitor to the gangway, saluted smartly, and turned to address Painter. 

"Raise the gangway, Mr. Painter. I'll show the pilot to the bridge." 

Painter felt the blood returning to his brain as the chief boatswain's mate signaled the crane operator to remove the gangway. The black limousine drove to the end of the pier and stopped. Painter watched the car until the ship was well past the sea wall that enclosed the harbor. He did not see the car move.

*************** 

The ship passed through the Strait of Gibraltar during the late afternoon, en route to a point thirteen miles off the Gaza Strip, 2,300 miles away on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Captain McGonagle ordered a speed of seventeen knots, which was about the top speed we could maintain, and Liberty plunged through the water with a bone in her teeth, thirty-five-knot winds over the decks much of the time. In the distance we could see three Soviet destroyers, which matched each course and speed change to maintain a constant distance of about 6,000 yards off our starboard quarter. 

Apprehension toward our mission increased as men in my division reminded me of their fears that we would get involved in a Middle East war. Nasser was clearly itching for a conflict with Israel. He had expelled the 3,400-man United Nations peacekeeping force. Next, he ordered a blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba to cut off Israel's oil from Iran, and he assembled an invasion force along the Israeli border. It seemed that war would explode at any moment, while USS Liberty -not built or trained for combat and armed only with four quite ineffective .50 caliber Browning machine guns-prepared to enter the scene. 

My yeoman, an experienced senior petty officer, developed bloodshot eyes, clammy skin and a hunted look. Reminding me of the now frequently discussed Dixon prophecy, he told me that he had not slept well for several days and had recurring nightmares of being trapped in a compartment of our sinking ship after a torpedo attack. I sent him to Dr. Kiepfer, who prescribed tranquilizers in the daytime and sleeping pills at night. He slept with this chemical help, but remained paralyzed by fear that he would drown in a water-filled compartment. 

******************

Philip McCutcheon Armstrong

As time passed, I became better acquainted with our executive officer, thirty-eight-year-old Lieutenant Commander Philip McCutcheon Armstrong, and I began to appreciate his remarkable personality· and the considerable influence he had upon the ship. I soon found Philip to be one of the most intelligent, articulate, iconoclastic and thoroughly likable individuals I have ever known. He was also troubled. 

Philip, as we have seen, was an exceptionally heavy drinker who imbibed almost constantly-about a quart of whiskey every day. Yet I never saw him drunk. Like everything else in his life, he paced his drinking carefully and kept his ethanol intake within carefully established limits. He maintained tight control and strict discipline wherever he considered it important, and simply ignored regulations such as the Navy's prohibition of shipboard alcohol-with which he disagreed. 

The XO's philosophy-his single-minded devotion to the job at hand coupled with contempt for convention and disregard for awkward regulations---quietly spread among the officers and crew, and seemed almost to become the philosophy of the ship. In port, for example, Philip virtually abolished regular working hours although he demanded peak performance; men were free to come and go as they chose, provided that their responsibilities had been met. The result was that Liberty sailors never felt compelled to remain aboard in port just because it was a workday, yet they seldom hesitated to work late when the job called for it, often working all night or all weekend on their own initiative when that seemed necessary. Also, like Philip, the men rarely hesitated to violate a regulation when they thought they could get away with it. 

The freewheeling habits of Philip Armstrong and the Liberty crew were more than just a shipboard secret. A few days before I reported to the ship for duty I was cornered by a staff officer in the cruiser Newport News. "Be careful, Jim," he warned. "There's a lot of drinking in that ship, and if you're not careful you'll get burned." 

"Come on," I coaxed. "Tell me what's going on." 

The story came out slowly. "I know an officer who did Liberty's I.G inspection," he said, "and he just couldn't ignore all the drinking he saw. Not excessive so much as open and widespread. Would you believe the X.O offered a drink to the inspecting officer? My God!" 

I was already well aware of Philip's shipboard drinking. I had shared a drink with him on my first visit to the ship. "Did the I.G put it in his report?" I asked. 

"No, he wrote a good report-then he reported privately to Admiral Renken. 1 Liberty has such a good record and Armstrong is such a crackerjack X.O that no one wants to move quickly. Admiral Renken plans to put a spy aboard and get a firsthand report before he decides what to do." 

When I told my friends Jim O'Connor and Dave Lewis about the likelihood of a spy being placed aboard, they were not surprised. Illicit shipboard drinking is so common, they admitted, that the chiefs use a crushed-ice machine to keep their beer cold. A drunken sailor once offered a drink to the conning officer on the bridge. And on a recent trip dozens of sailors were caught smoking marijuana in their sleeping quarters. Finally there was a crackdown. Drugs had been eliminated, my friends believed, and shipboard drinking was at least discreet and under control. 

"What was the captain's part in all this?" I asked. 

"McGonagle was never told," Jim said. "The X.O decided not to tell him. And if he found out on his own, he kept it to himself." 

Lewis explained that it would be almost impossible for the captain not to know that the X.O, at least, was drinking. While others might succeed in hiding an occasional drink from the captain, the X.O drank too much and saw him too often to keep such a secret. However, if the captain knew, he carefully avoided a confrontation. McGonagle's habit of whistling when he walked through officers' territory-and always the same tune-helped assure that drinking would be kept out of his sight. My friends suspected that McGonagle was just feigning ignorance until he had enough evidence to justify a court-martial or an unsatisfactory fitness report. 

In addition to the large amount of liquor he drank, Philip was a chain smoker who admitted to smoking five packs of non filtered Philip Morris cigarettes daily, or about one cigarette every ten minutes while awake. Once I watched him consume forty cigarettes during an evening of conversation. He sucked cigarettes with such enthusiasm that they barely had time to form an ash before he crushed them out-the last cigarette still a long red cinder as he reached for the next one. 

And although his vices implied a certain tension, the overall impression he made was one of relaxed self-control. Only his hands seemed to reveal the inner tension: they trembled, and they displayed fingernails that had been restlessly chewed to tiny crescents set well back from the end of knobby fingers. 

Someone asked Philip once if he didn't worry about his health. Wasn't he afraid the heavy drinking, insatiable appetite for nicotine, insufficient sleep and other bad habits would shorten his life? "Of course," he answered. "I have often told Weetie not to expect me around after forty. I'll bum out before then, but I'll have one helluva time first." And Philip was serious. Back in Norfolk, a carefully drawn Philip Armstrong Death Book outlined in precise steps everything his new widow should do. 

More than most executive officers, Philip was trusted and welcome everywhere in the ship. Men felt comfortable with him. He had particularly friendly relations with the chiefs-a fact that clearly irritated McGonagle, who did his best to discourage' social contact between officers and enlisted men. And Philip openly defied the captain's non fraternization policy: he lunched regularly in the chiefs' private mess, competed in the chiefs' English darts matches, and included a chief petty officer and a black enlisted steward among his closest friends. 

While Liberty men were largely aware of Philip's weaknesses, at the same time they felt his warmth, they respected him and they were anxious to please him. Although McGonagle was definitely and firmly in command, it was Armstrong who made things move-who executed McGonagle's orders and made them work. When McGonagle wanted Liberty to be the cleanest, sharpest ship in Norfolk, Philip saw that the ship became marvelously clean and sharp. When McGonagle wanted men to train for an exercise, Philip generated enthusiasm for the drills. To a large extent, Liberty was what Armstrong wanted her to be. If the Liberty crew was tough, impudent, irreverent, well-trained and capable of surviving a sudden assault by vastly superior forces, Armstrong's influence helped make it so. 

And Liberty was certainly an exceptional ship. During an operational readiness inspection held some weeks before I came aboard, the Liberty crew earned the highest marks of any of the ships of her type, an accomplishment for which she eventually would be awarded the coveted Battle Efficiency Award. Philip wanted his ship to have that award, and he saw that his men learned to plug holes and repair damage faster than any ship in the squadron. Philip swore that the case of whiskey he gave an inspecting officer had nothing to do with the high grades the ship won.

**************** 

When Liberty entered the Mediterranean, I had been aboard for more than a month and had seen no drinking by anyone except the X.O. I asked my roommate about this. 

Jim laughed. "You don't see it," he said, "because the word has gotten around about the spy who may be aboard. Most of the men and some of the officers think you are the spy." 

 ****************

While Liberty was in the Atlantic, she was officially under the operational control of the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. After entering the Mediterranean, her operational control passed to the senior naval officer there, Commander U.S. Sixth Fleet, Vice Admiral William Inman Martin. 2 

Military records do not agree as to just when responsibility shifted to COMSIXTHFLT or who was responsible for the ship while she crossed the Mediterranean.3 However, regardless who was Liberty's designated commander during that period, her movements were really being directed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon, and any intermediate commander-such as Admiral Martin-served only as a conduit for JCS orders. 

Nevertheless, Admiral Martin was curious about this new maverick to enter his domain, and quickly drafted a message welcoming Liberty to the Sixth Fleet and announcing his intention to visit. He would come aboard on June 7, his message told us, for a tour of the ship, a briefing on her mission and capabilities, and a conference with the commanding officer. 

Liberty was in an uproar for hours. Although the ship routinely entertained senior officers in Norfolk, due to her years of isolated duty she was inexperienced in the dangerous work of transferring live cargo between ships at sea. 

Reluctantly, we sent a message explaining that the customary "high line transfer" (hauling the admiral over on lines rigged between the ships) was inadvisable due to our lack of experience, that a helicopter transfer was very dangerous because of the small landing area, and that small-boat transfer presented a severe danger of swamping in the heavy seas. While we all hoped that Admiral Martin would change his mind and stay in the flagship, his next message confirmed the rendezvous times and outlined details of his visit. We set to work preparing a briefing for the admiral and doing some extra work to spruce up the ship.

Chapter 4 

APPROACH TO GAZA 

Get the message through. 

Motto of the U.S. Army Signal Corps 

We awoke the morning of June 3 to find continued high winds and cloudy skies. The three Soviet destroyers that had accompanied us through the Strait of Gibraltar were now nowhere to be seen. Senior Chief Stanley W. "Stan" White, a lean young genius of an electronics maintenance technician, greeted me with the sad news that a new and major leak had developed in TRSSCOMM. By now we had nearly exhausted our once ample supply of hydraulic fluid. The new leak had to be corrected quickly and positively or the system would be out of service due to fluid shortage. Together we examined the leaky fitting: a wild Medusa of pipes around a distribution box bled purple goop from several joints. This could not easily be repaired, and if our efforts failed we would be out of business anyway without hydraulic fluid. In desperation we agreed to drastic measures. The ship fitters would weld the baby octopus firmly together at all seams and connections. Later removal would be a problem, but meanwhile the system shouldn't leak.

Liberty stepped up her training. The executive officer scheduled frequent exercises at General Quarters. Fire parties were called away, hoses hauled out and run to imaginary fires, damage control teams drilled and thoroughly refreshed in the techniques of plugging holes and using giant timbers to support bulkheads around supposedly flooded compartments. These men, led by Ensign John Scott, could locate and "repair" imaginary flooding and weakened bulkheads in minutes. The drills helped satisfy the ship's regular training requirements and, more important now, they helped to occupy and reassure the increasingly apprehensive crew. 

****************

Sunday, June 4, brought "holiday routine" along with continued wind and rain. In the coordination center on the third deck, someone posted a large chart of the Mediterranean Sea with the Liberty track plotted. Ahead of Liberty and approaching her was the track of another ship. This was USNS Private Jose F. Valdez, 1 a much older and smaller ship on "special project duty" (a euphemism assigned to civilian-manned intelligence-collection ships), and she was on her way home. Valdez was identified on the chart as Contact A. To our right was an X drawn lightly on the chart in pencil. The X mark was not otherwise identified, and no one seemed to know what it meant. 

Co-ord, as the room was known, was the very heart and soul of the Research Operations Department. This large office just below the waterline housed the analysts and report writers; it was a busy place, with desks and plotting tables along the walls and more desks and filing cabinets in the center. In Norfolk the walls were barren, a requirement of Captain McGonagle in consideration of occasional female visitors. During the first night at sea, however, the men literally covered the walls and cabinets and much of the overhead with hundreds of cutouts from Playboy and competing magazines. The previously drab room suddenly took on a splash of color and an aura of eroticism not inappropriate for the gaudiest whorehouse. 

Yet, despite the frivolous appearance of the room, serious men spent long hours here performing important work. 

****************

On June 5 we received the inevitable news that war had commenced in earnest. Israel finally reacted to Nasser's provocations with devastating surprise attacks launched simultaneously throughout the Arab countries. Arab airplanes and Russian-built Tupolev bombers burned and exploded everywhere. Superb intelligence allowed the Israeli pilots to leave untouched the many dummy airplanes intended to draw their fire while they destroyed literally hundreds of airplanes on the ground in Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. Having secured control of the air, Israel attacked the now helpless Arab desert forces. Success seemed assured as Israel pressed her advantage. 2 

In Co-ord an excited sailor used felt marker pens to draw a small Egyptian flag; then he burned the edges with a cigarette lighter to show the ravages of war and displayed the battle-scarred banner at his desk. At another desk an Israeli partisan built a small cannon out of cardboard, painted a Star of David on the gun barrel, and aimed it at the Egyptian flag. This was all in fun, produced from a need to react to the great drama unfolding nearby. Soon national flags of all the combatants were displayed throughout the room, mostly tattered and smoke-damaged as though in fierce battle. War slogans appeared in several languages. PALESTINE LIBERATION read a banner posted as a backdrop to the scene. A few men argued heatedly for the Arabs, posting Arab slogans on their desks and promising to push Israel into the sea, but for the most part the men were strongly pro-Israel and proud of the lesson that "science and technology" was teaching to "ignorance and superstition." 

 Seaman James Lenau

Drills resumed, interfering more than ever with routine work. Stan White's battle station was a fourth-deck repair shop just above the bilges. He was spending several hours daily in this room with one other man, Seaman James Lenau, idly waiting out the completion of drills elsewhere in the ship while his own work fell behind. 

Lenau's duty was to report by telephone any fire, flooding, leaking or other damage to the compartments within his area. He wore a telephone headset and, over the headset, a huge battle helmet specially designed to permit the comfortable use of the telephone. 

Although White's duty was to supervise the repair shops, the shops were not manned, as nothing was being repaired. I changed his battle station to his second-deck office, where he could be in direct telephone contact with all repair shops and still do his necessary office work during the drills that did not require his direct participation. 

Officers and men continued to worry openly about the safety of our ship and the wisdom of our mission. It was widely expected that the onset of war would cause our seniors to reexamine our assignment. When no change of orders arrived, Liberty drafted an appeal to Vice Admiral Martin requesting that a destroyer be sent to remain within five miles of Liberty to serve as both an armed escort and an auxiliary communication center. And to make the best use of our own limited ability to protect ourselves, McGonagle established a "Modified Condition of Readiness Three," which he defined in a memorandum to key bridge personnel: "Effective immediately, two men will be stationed on the forecastle as additional lookouts/gun crews ... Lookouts and forecastle gun mount personnel are to man mounts and defend the ship in the event of surprise air/surface attack while regular General Quarters teams are being assembled . . . Any unidentified surface contact approaching the ship on a collision or near collision course at a speed of 25 knots or more is to be considered acting in a hostile manner and Condition ,of Readiness One is to be set immediately .... Any unidentified air contact approaching the ship on an apparent strafing/bombing/torpedo attack is to be considered hostile . . . It is better to set general quarters in doubtful cases than to be taken by surprise and be unable to fight the ship. Take immediate action as may be required by the situation, then advise me of what steps have been taken." 

USNS Private Jose F. Valdez, Contact A on the Co-ord chart, had passed us during the night and was proceeding slowly toward Norfolk. The mysterious Contact X, meanwhile, was now on an intercept course with Liberty. Still, no one seemed to know who was plotting Contact X, where the plotting information was coming from or just what sort of vessel was being plotted. Now that Valdez was on her way out of the area, we were alone in the eastern Mediterranean with Contact X. 

On June 6 we received Admiral Martin's reply to our request for an armed escort: LIBERTY IS A CLEARLY MARKED UNITED STATES SHIP IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS, NOT A PARTICIPANT IN THE CONFLICT AND NOT A REASONABLE SUBJECT FOR ATTACK BY ANY NATION, Admiral Martin reminded us. In the unlikely event of an inadvertent attack, he promised, jet fighters from the Sixth Fleet carrier force could be overhead in less than ten minutes. Besides, he concluded, every commanding officer has authority to withdraw from danger. Request for escort denied.3 

But even as COMSIXTHFLT saw no danger, CINCUSNAVEUR in London took a careful look and prepared a sobering message to COMSIXTHFLT and Liberty: 

TO FACILITATE AREA COMMAND AND CONTROL AND ANY POSSIBLE REQUIREMENT FOR PROTECTION DURING MIDEAST HOSTILITIES, USS LIBERTY WILL BE CHOPPED TO COMSIXTHFLT AT 07000lZ JUN 67. OPERATE LIBERTY IN ACCORDANCE WITH JCS DIRECTIVES TO DERIVE MAXIMUM BENEFIT FROM SPECIAL CAPABILITIES. SHIP'S OPERATING AREA MAYBE MODIFIED FOR SAFETY REASONS AS DICTATED BY LOCAL SITUATION. 

Then, in an ominous reference to an undependable communication system, CINCUSNAVEUR advised McGonagle that none of Liberty's daily position reports had been received for the past four days.4 

None of this did anything to calm the increasingly agitated Liberty crew. On the one hand, COMSIXTHFLT minimized the danger, declined our request for an armed escort and made an apparently offhanded promise of help "in the unlikely event" help would be needed; on the other hand, CINCUSNAVEUR warned of the possible need for protection, instructed us cryptically to use the Research Operations Department's "special capabilities" for early warning of possible danger, and advised that we could move to safer water if conditions became hazardous. 

COMSIXTHFLT reacted to the CINCUSNAVEUR warning by drafting one of his own: 

IN VIEW ARAB/ISRAELI SITUATION AND UNPREDICTABILITY OF UAR ACTIONS, MAINTAIN A HIGH STATE OF VIGILANCE AGAINST ATTACK OR THREAT OF ATTACK. REPORT BY FLASH PRECEDENCE ANY THREATENING OR SUSPICIOUS ACTIONS DIRECTED AGAINST YOU OR ANY DIVERSION FROM SCHEDULE NECESSITATED BY EXTERNAL THREAT.' 

COMSIXTHFLT could have saved himself the trouble. In a command, control and communications environment in which Liberty's last four position reports had disappeared, no one should have been surprised that COMSIXTHFLT'S message went undelivered. Like so many other messages addressed to USS Liberty, it vanished in the great quagmire that served as a communication system, never to be received by the ship. 

Vice Admiral Martin, meanwhile, canceled his plan to visit. The rapidly moving war, he explained, made it impossible for him to be far from the flagship. 

O'Connor took to working around the clock, taking time out only for brief, fully clothed catnaps. His constant greeting of "Oh, so much work! So much work!" grew irritating. 

And TRSSCOMM was on the fritz again. Although the hydraulic system had held up since the "big weld" tactic, now the electronics were causing trouble for the first time. The trouble was in the Klystron, a high-frequency signal generator that weighed several hundred pounds. With block and tackle the men removed the defective part and installed the single spare that we carried. I reported to Captain McGonagle that TRSSCOMM should be back in service after forty eight hours of "baking in," or essentially warming up the new part, and that we should be able to talk with Cheltenham, Maryland, at about two o'clock Thursday afternoon, June 8.

**************** 

June 7 was sunny and clear, with a calm sea and light following breezes. We were almost alone in the eastern Mediterranean. The few ships we saw were all going in the opposite direction, away from the war, and reminded me somehow of frightened animals fleeing a forest fire. We passed a huge Texaco tanker, her captain on the bridge examining us curiously through binoculars. He must have wondered what business we had in that area. 

Probably to provide a break in the routine and to get everyone's mind off the war, a materiel inspection of the ship was ordered. Materiel inspections are conducted frequently in the Navy, their purpose being to uncover and correct rust, leaks, fire hazards, defective equipment and other deficiencies. The ship is divided into zones for inspection, each zone assigned to an officer who conducts as thorough an inspection as his experience will allow. My zone this day included the ship's forecastle and numerous compartments in and around the bow of the ship. Normally, all spaces are opened for inspection, with the man in charge of the space standing by to answer questions or to receive comments. As I approached each compartment, a man would step forward to introduce himself and to present the space for which he was responsible: "Seaman Jones, forward repair locker ready for inspection, sir." When I reached the second deck I found a heavily padlocked compartment on the port side. No one stepped forward to accept responsibility for this space, and no one admitted knowing who it was assigned to or why it remained locked; yet I sensed that some of these men did know and were unwilling to tell me. 

Men hedged and shuffled as they evaded my questions. Finally, a chief quietly told me that here languished Philip Armstrong's personal liquor supply. Nearly everyone on the ship knew what was in that room. How did the captain remain ignorant of it? Inspection assignments were the responsibility of the executive officer. Philip simply arranged for the captain never to be assigned to inspect the area of the ship that housed his liquor cache. 

During the afternoon a radio broadcast of news and commentary was directed through the ship's entertainment system. Men gathered around speakers, listening to reports of Israel's stunning successes against the Arab nations and digesting the heated United Nations debates over the issues and the righteousness of the participants. Israeli armor and infantry swept westward across the Sinai as forces encircled the Jordanian section of the divided city of Jerusalem. A unit secured an abandoned airfield at Sharm el-Sheik on the Red Sea overlooking the Strait of Tiran to easily end the Gulf of Aqaba blockade. Arab forces were being killed and captured by the thousands as we steamed toward the battle. 

We chuckled as the newscaster quoted an American official assuring newsmen and the world that "no American ship is within three hundred miles of the fighting." Perhaps not at this moment, we thought, but by morning we'll be smelling the smoke.

**************** 

U.S.N.S Private Jose F. Valdez, according to the Co-ord chart, was still moving away from Liberty and toward Norfolk. Many of us wished we were going with her. The only other mark on the chart, the unidentified Contact X, was now erased. The unidentified object had been tracked for days until it merged with Liberty's track, when suddenly the plot was discontinued. I asked Jim O'Connor what X represented, and received the somewhat embarrassed and unconvincing "I don't know" that told me he really did know. Apparently, I lacked the security clearance required to become privy to the activities of Contact X. Clearly, something had been charted right across the Mediterranean until it came alongside or under or over Liberty. I guessed that we had rendezvoused with a submarine. If we had, perhaps it was still with us; no one was talking about it, at least not in my presence.

**************** 

As evening approached, we knew we would see the Gaza Strip within a few hours. The war was still hot, although now it was largely a mopping-up operation. Egypt had charged the United States with participating in the war on the side of Israel, and had broken diplomatic relations. She was soon followed by Algeria, Syria, Iraq, the Sudan and Yemen. But we relaxed, knowing that the Arab countries, as angry as they pretended to be toward the United States, probably were merely making noise to cover their humiliating defeat. The Arab countries were now barely capable of pressing a serious attack, anyway. They certainly had their hands full with the rampaging Jews. 

Late that evening I stepped into Lloyd Painter's stateroom to find Lloyd, Jim Pierce, Philip Armstrong, Joe Benkert, Maury Bennett, Dick Kiepfer and Steward Troy Green, along with some others, quietly gathered around a three-gallon stainless-steel pot. Several looked uncomfortable as they held paper cups behind them or under hats. Someone invited me to sit down. Finally Lloyd broke the heavy silence: "Oh, for Christ's sake, Jim's no spy." Everyone seemed to agree that of course I was not a spy. Someone scooped a paper cup into the pot for me. In the pot floated large blocks of ice and chunks of pineapple in grapefruit juice, rum and some kind of whiskey. 

"So we come six thousand miles to watch the war, and we finally arrive just as it's grinding to a close," Lloyd said as conversation resumed. 

"You can be glad we're late," said Philip. "Out here all alone, we're an easy target. I hate to think where we would be now if we had been sitting off the Gaza Strip when the war broke out." 

"We'd be on the bottom," someone volunteered. 

"Yeah," the group agreed. 

"Well, you can bet those Sixth Fleet jets wouldn't be much help anyway," said the X.O. "Victory ships were made to carry freight, not to survive a serious attack. When these ships went down in World War Two, usually all it took was one well-placed bomb or a single torpedo. We probably wouldn't even last long enough for our jets to make the trip." 

"And then woe is the attacker!" a voice added. 

"No chance," replied the X.O, his fingers dark olive from the cigarettes as he poured part of his drink into an ashtray to extinguish a great smoking residue. "We would be damned lucky to get a written apology. Meanwhile, the government would carefully paint the entire affair with subdued colors so that the great American public would not become too upset. This would be called 'keeping everything in perspective.' Public relations is the big thing, baby, and don't ever forget it." 

Abruptly changing the subject, Philip said softly, "I think I finally got Shep figured out. I've always wondered what he thinks of me, and today I solved the puzzle." From his tone, it seemed that the long expected confrontation had occurred. We waited for him to continue, but Philip was not yet ready to tell us more. "It will all come out in time," he said after a long silence. 

Shep was the nickname for Captain McGonagle. Most commanding officers have nicknames. Command, particularly Navy command at sea, places stresses and peculiar conditions upon men, and the commanding officer becomes aloof, powerful, godlike, a father figure, the supreme visible being, the granter of pain and privilege. Captain McGonagle was all of these things, though less visible than some, more aloof than others, absolutely proper and courteous, independent, proud. I asked Philip how the captain became "Shep." 

He brightened at the question. The alcoholic concoction had no effect on him; his speech and eyes were clear. The dozens of cigarettes he had smoked clouded the room, but the ship's air conditioning kept the air breathable. 

" 'When I was a lad and Old Shep was a pup, 

Over hills and the valleys we roamed. 

Just a boy and his dog, we were O! full of fun, 

And we grew up together that way.' 

"You know that? You must know it. Probably learned it in school. 

" 'I remember one time at the old swimming hole 

When 1 would have drowned beyond doubt, 

But Old Shep was right there, to the rescue he came. 

He jumped in and helped pull me out.' 

"I'm sure you know that. Well, months ago all the Liberty officers attended an embassy reception at Luanda, Angola. It was a full-dress affair: whites; stiff, high collars in all that African heat; large medals clanking; swords at our sides like John Paul Jones. We all had our gentlemanly limit of drinks, behaved like little ambassadors, and left on time. No car. Long walk. All of us feeling ridiculous in public in ceremonial dress. Damp and uncomfortable in all that humidity. And then someone composed a limerick. Well, not to be outdone, Shep dredged up the old poem and recited it from memory as we walked along. All of it-there are several verses. And he did it with such flair and dramatic effect that none of us has ever forgotten. We were impressed. We really were. We just didn't know until then that deep down in his fitting and proper old hide is the very reincarnation of Old Shep. To us, he will always be Old Shep." 

And the name stuck. Behind his back, when he wasn't "Magoo," he was "Shep" to the officers. The name was never used around the crew, and it was never used in disrespect. Captain McGonagle was deeply respected. He was not feared, as some commanding officers are, but he was held in awe. The nickname helped to narrow the distance, permitting him to be dealt with reasonably. 

I retreated to my stateroom to rest. I was scheduled for the forenoon officer of the deck watch on our first transit of the Gaza Strip.

**************** 

While we were talking, Captain McGonagle summoned Lieutenant Commander Dave Lewis to his cabin. McGonagle, too, was uncomfortable with the order to operate within sight of the war. He was prepared to exercise his prerogative to move away from possible danger, but before doing so he consulted with Lewis. 

"How would it affect our mission if we stayed farther out at sea, say, fifty miles from Gaza?" he asked. 

Lewis was concerned about our proximity to the war, but he was more concerned about our mission. "It would hurt us, Captain," he said. "We want to work in the UHF [ultra-high-frequency] range. That's mostly line-of-sight stuff. If we're over the horizon we might as well be back in Abidjan. It would degrade our mission by about eighty percent." 

McGonagle sat quietly for a few minutes as though deep in thought. "Okay," he said. "We'll go all the way in." 

After dismissing Lewis, he carefully reread his night orders to the officer of the deck. Captain's night orders are usually quite routine; they advise the conning officer of course and speed changes, landmarks expected and so forth. Tonight, McGonagle added this note: "Keep gun crews/lookouts alert. Call me for all challenges received, or in the event air or surface contacts approach in a suspicious manner."

**************** 

In Washington, meanwhile, staff officers concluded that Liberty's position near Gaza was no longer necessary nor wise. That decision, I have been told, grew from a routine staff study of risks and rewards -not from any clear sense of danger. Perhaps Frank Raven played a part; he had objected to the mission from the start. In any case, the final decision was made at a senior staff level within the Department of Defense, and resulted in a high-precedence late-afternoon message to the Joint Chiefs of Staff requesting that Liberty be moved farther out to sea. Like the original order to leave Abidjan, this message was drafted by Lieutenant McTighe; like the earlier message, it was assigned "Flash" precedence. 

Shortly before midnight by Liberty's clocks (around the commuting hour in Washington), officers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reacted to the Defense Department request by preparing a message that directed the ship to remain at least twenty miles from the United Arab Republic (for us, Gaza). At forty-one minutes past midnight, ship's time, that message was delivered to the Army communication center that serves the Joint Chiefs in the Pentagon.6 It was addressed to the ship through three echelons of command, and was given a conservative "Priority" precedence. 

For the order to be executed, it would be necessary for the United States Commander-in-Chief Europe (USCINCEUR) to direct the Commander-in-Chief, United States Naval Forces, Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR), to direct Commander Sixth Fleet (COMSIXTHFLT) to direct Liberty to remain twenty miles from the U .A.R. coast. Copies were sent to all concerned commanders, and a copy was addressed to USS Liberty for information. 

The message would not leave the JCS communication center for more than fourteen hours. When it was finally transmitted, it was sent in error to the Naval Communication Station in the Philippines. It was never received by any commander until much too late to take action, and it was not received by Liberty at all.7 

Admiral John S. McCain, Jr

The Joint Chiefs of Staff remained concerned about Liberty. Shortly before 0200 ship's time, a JCS duty officer placed an overseas telephone call to the office of Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., at his headquarters in London. 8 There he reached Lieutenant Edward Galavotti, a duty officer on the CINCUSNAVEUR staff, and directed Galavotti to recall the ship. Twenty miles was no longer sufficient: Liberty was to be moved at least one hundred miles from the coast. 

Unfortunately, McCain's staff suffered from an incurable bureaucrats disease: messagitis. 

"Show me a message," McCain's deputy chief of staff demanded. "We can't revise a ship's operating orders without a confirming message." The deputy was perfectly willing to relay the order, he explained later, but first he wanted assurance that the JCS order had been properly "staffed" at JCS and did not, in fact, originate with the relatively junior officer who had relayed it-one Major Breelove in the JCS Joint Reconnaissance Center at the Pentagon. Thus, Galavotti took no action to have the ship moved; instead, as directed by the deputy, he waited nearly four hours for the JCS message that would confirm Breelove's telephone call-a delay that proved to be crucial. 

It took JCS a little more than an hour to draft a message telling USCINCEUR to tell CINCUSNAVEUR to tell COMSIXTHFLT to tell Liberty to remain at least one hundred miles from the coast.9 Again, a copy was addressed to everyone concerned, including a copy addressed to USS Liberty for information. 

Liberty would never receive her copy of this message either. Both messages were processed by the same civilian clerk, and Liberty's copy (like the earlier drafted but not yet transmitted stay-twenty miles-from-the-U.A.R. message) was misdirected to the Philippines Naval Communication Station. There it was correctly rerouted to the Pentagon for further relay to the Naval Communication Station in Morocco for delivery to Liberty. But the Pentagon, upon receiving the message for relay, again routed it to the wrong place, this time sending it to the National Security Agency communication center at Fort Meade, Maryland, where it was filed in error without action, never to be delivered. 

The Joint Chiefs of Staff seem to have had less than complete faith in the ability of the communication system to convey their orders; they inserted in the second message a requirement that each addressee acknowledge receipt by message to JCS. At 0412 USCINCEUR acknowledged receipt of the order to move Liberty. At 0512 CINCUSNAVEUR received the message and he, too, advised JCS of the fact. At 0830 COMSIXTHFLT received and acknowledged the JCS message (for him it was old stuff: the order to move Liberty had been given to COMSIXTHFLT at 0645 via a direct Teletype hookup with CINCUSNAVEUR). Apparently, no one at JCS was monitoring the acknowledgments. Had anyone been paying attention, they would have realized that something was wrong-USS Liberty failed to acknowledge receipt. 10 

No matter. Not content to rely entirely upon the clumsy chain of command, JCS prepared still another message. This one-according to an officer who handled it during the night-was addressed to Liberty for action and to the plodding commanders for information only. Like the others, this unusual, almost unprecedented message ordered McGonagle to move far out to sea. To assure expeditious handling, it was given "Immediate" precedence; like the earlier JCS message to USCINCEUR, it was classified "Top Secret" in spite of an innocuous text. 

Here was the ultimate fail-safe device. If all else failed, McGonagle could still be expected to get the word. But Liberty was not a subscriber to the "Top Secret" message-delivery system that the JCS communication center selected, and the message could not be delivered. The fail-safe system failed.

**************** 

As we drew closer to the war, a warning to mariners was broadcast on the international distress frequency: Warning: The attention of mariners is drawn to the possibility that lights along the Israeli coasts may be extinguished without prior notice. This was soon followed by an even more ominous message: Warning: All vessels are required to keep away from the coasts of Israel during darkness. Undaunted and unaware that her orders had been changed, Liberty steamed on. 

Chapter 3 footnotes

1. Rear Admiral Henry Algernon Renken: born 1908; U.S. Naval Academy, class of 1931. As Commander, Service Forces, U.S. Atlantic Fleet (COMSERVLANT), Rear Admiral Renken was COMSERVRON EIGHT'S operational commander and thus one step removed from Liberty in the command hierarchy.

2. Vice Admiral William Inman Martin: naval aviator; born 1910; U.S. Naval Academy, class of 1934; promoted to rear admiral July I, 1959, vice admiral, April 10, 1967. His is a dual command: Commander Sixth Fleet, and Commander, Naval Striking and Support Forces, Southern Europe.

3. While most military records indicate that Liberty "chopped" (changed operational commander) to COMSIXTHFLT on June 7 (a date that has been verified by McGonagle and seems to be borne out by military messages), Liberty officers considered that the ship came under COMSIXTHFLT'S operational control on June 2, 1967. USS Liberty letter AGTR5/03 5750, Serial 145, dated March II, 1968, and addressed to CNO OP-09B9, informs the Navy Historian that, among other things, USS Liberty chopped to COMSIXTHPLT on June 2, 1967-thus confirming the author's own recollections. The date of chop is significant, because the Navy explains COMSIXTHPLT'S failure to keep Liberty away from the war zone by telling us that the ship was under control of USCINCEUR (United States Commander-in-Chief Europe, an Army officer) until June 7, and that Admiral Martin, therefore, lacked authority to move her before that date. 

Chapter 4 footnotes

1. Jane ~ Fighting Ships lists two "Special Project" or "Special Mission" ships: USNS Private Jose F. Valdez (T-AG 169) and USNS Sergeant Joseph P. Muller (T-AG 171), and reports that a third such ship, USNS Lieutenant James E. Robinson (T-AG 170), was in operation in 1963 and 1964. Each ship was operated by a civilian crew, but carried a military department consisting of about fifteen naval officers and 150 Navy enlisted men. Valdez usually operated off the east coast of Africa; Muller operated off the coast of Cuba. Jane~ describes the mission of the ships as the collection of "magnetic radiation information and meteorological observations in support of marine environmental programs." No further description of the ship's mission has ever been released by the Department of Defense. 

2. See The Six Day War by Randolph S. Churchill and Winston S. Churchill (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967) for a detailed account of the war. 

3. This message exchange comes from the recollections of the author and several ship's officers. Like so many others, the messages cannot be found in message files preserved by the Court of Inquiry or by various Washington agencies. 

4. CINCUSNAVEUR message 0613S7Z June 1967. Interestingly, the phrase "and any possible requirement for protection" was added to the message in ink at the last moment by CINCUSNAVEUR'S deputy chief of staff. This is the very same officer who, two days later, would delay the execution of a JCS order to move the ship to a less dangerous area.

5. COMSIXTHFLT message 062349Z June 1967.
6. JeS message 072230Z June 1967. See Appendix A, page 226. 
7. See Review of Department of Defense Worldwide Communications (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1971), reproduced here in Appendix N, pages 269-75. This report by a subcommittee of F. Edward Hebert's House Committee on Armed Services discusses in minute detail the handling and mishandling of five critical messages intended for USS Liberty and is the source of most of the message-handling information reported here. 
8. Admiral John Sidney McCain, Jr.: born 1911; U.S. Naval Academy, class of 1931; promoted to rear admiral April I, 1959, vice admiral, September I, 1963, admiral, May I, 1967. A World War Two submariner, he later spent several years in the amphibious forces. From 1965 to 1967 he was vice-chairman, U.S. delegation, United Nations Military Staff Committee, New York. In 1972 Admiral McCain retired from the Navy with forty-one years' service. 
9. JCS message 080110Z June 1967. See Appendix A, page 228. 
10. All times are local time aboard USS Liberty unless otherwise indicated or obvious in context. "Z," which indicates Greenwich mean time, is the time customarily used in military messages. Washington, D.C., on daylight-saving time, was four hours behind Greenwich mean time and six hours behind the ship's time. Therefore, for example, the attack began at 0800 Washington time, 1200Z (Greenwich) time and 1400 USS Liberty time.