The defense minister showed none of Eshkol’s ambivalence and continued to oppose warfare with Syria. He evinced the usual arguments—the threat of Soviet intervention, the difficulties of conquering the Heights before a cease-fire took effect—adding that Israel had already conquered enough Arab land and did not need any more.
Guided by Dayan, the committee determined to “postpone for one to two days further decision regarding operations on the Syrian Golan and to order the chief of staff to submit an operations plan for approval by the Defense Committee.” During these two days, the government added, nothing should be done to overtly provoke the Syrians.6
The news came as a bitter shock to David Elazar in the Northern Command. Having postponed his planned attack of the previous day because of bad weather, Dado now learned that the entire operation had been canceled. “Those hours were some of the worst I’d ever experienced,” he recounted, “To feel that an historic opportunity had been lost and all because of my own over-cautiousness.” At most, his troops were authorized to take Tel ‘Azzaziat, just over the border. Exasperated, he phoned Rabin. “The IDF has defeated our enemies and saved Israel from a nightmare in the south and the east while we’ll stay cannon fodder for the Syrian Heights?”
“Do you want to attack or not?” Rabin responded.
“I do not!” Elazar barked. “Attacking Tel ‘Azzaziat means paying the maximum price without getting anything at all in return. It’s the same price that the entire breakthrough would cost us, and what do I get for it?” He slammed down the receiver and canceled all preparations for combat. “Everyone is to return to the staging area. And get me a helicopter. I’m flying to Tel Aviv!”
Rabin agreed with Elazar’s assessment: Why climb the Golan escarpment, risking hundreds of lives, just to take a single bunker? He received his Northern Command chief in the Pit, and escorted him to a meeting with Allon and Eshkol.
“What can you do?” the prime minister asked. Elazar spread out a map and pointed to Za‘ura, noting that from there to Damascus the road was open. “I don’t need additional forces. I don’t need anything. I can get up there today, capture positions and advance. Of course we’ll have casualties, but it won’t be a slaughter. We can do it.”
“The government must authorize the conquest of the Golan,” urged Allon.
A call then came through from yet another spokesman of the settlers, Haim Ber. “We’re being shelled nonstop!” he shouted into Eshkol’s telephone. “We demand that the government free us from this nightmare!”
The prime minister was deeply perplexed. “Why, then, is the defense minister opposed?” he asked Elazar, but the general just shrugged: “I have no idea what his reasons are, but they can’t be operational or tactical.”
Exiting the office, Elazar ran into Eshkol’s wife, Miriam. “I have a birthday coming up and I want the Banias,” she told him.
“I’ll do everything I can to get it for you,” the general promised her, “but you have to do your part too.”7
Elazar was arguing his case in Tel Aviv while, up north, the army proceeded with its preparations for Operation Hammer. No sooner had the last of the Jordan bridges been destroyed when Elad Peled’s Ugdah swung out of the West Bank, heading north. Albert Mendler’s 8th Armored Brigade and the 80th Paratroopers of Dani Matt were also transferred from Sinai. The streets of Israel’s major cities were clogged with tanks, trucks, and troops; the highways were hopelessly jammed. On the Golan itself, the Israeli air force, unaware that Hammer had been canceled, leveled an intense barrage on Syrian bunkers and tank emplacements in what American sources characterized as “an apparent prelude to a large-scale attack in an effort to seize the Heights overlooking border kibbutzim.”
Diplomatically, too, the Israelis appeared to be laying the groundwork for the offensive. “There still remains the Syrian problem, and perhaps it will be necessary to give Syria a blow as well,” Yariv confided to McPherson. Though no action had taken place on the Golan yet—“unfortunately,” Yariv said—Israel was likely to undertake it “to get more elbow room.” In a conversation with Eban, McGeorge Bundy intimated that it seemed strange that Syria, having started the war and caused much Arab suffering, had gone unpunished and was free to start the “whole deadly sequence again.” Though Rusk warned Barbour against any further Israeli initiative—“such a development, following on the heels of Israeli acceptance of the cease-fire resolution, would cast on Israeli intentions and create gravest problems for U.S. representatives in Arab countries”—Eban concluded that the White House would welcome Syria’s defeat.8
Anatomy of an Accident
Washington spent the morning of June 8 much as it had the previous day, monitoring the war from a safe distance. Close track was kept on the fate of beleaguered U.S. embassies and consulates in the region and on evacuating endangered American citizens. The Middle East Control Group at the White House gave special consideration to Israel’s appeal for forty-eight A-4 jets, noting Russia’s resupply of Egypt’s military through Algeria. The question was whether the administration could respond to Israel’s requests but ignore others that might arrive from Saudi Arabia or Jordan. “If we don’t suspend aid to all of them, we’re going to have another McCloskey,” recommended Bundy, recalling the State Department’s ‘neutral in thought, word, and deed’ gaff. Most attention, however, remained focused on the Big Lie and American efforts to refute it. To verify that no U.S. forces were participating in the war, Libyan officials were invited to visit the Wheelus base. Rusk sent the Saudis’ King Faisal his “own solemn assurances” that Nasser’s allegations were false, and further pledged to “steer an even-handed course” in opposing “efforts to change frontiers or to resolve problems by force of arms.”9
Virtually removed from Johnson’s concerns was the possibility of direct American involvement in the fighting. Communications with the Kremlin had been frank and constructive, while at the UN, Federenko refused to cooperate with Goldberg. Though the war had spun off in unanticipated directions, there was little reason to fear that it would reach 6th Fleet vessels stationed at least 240 miles away.
But one boat was significantly closer. Just before dawn, the USS Liberty came within thirteen nautical miles of the Sinai coast, just outside Egypt’s territorial waters. The ship began plying between al-‘Arish and Port Said, in a lane rarely used by commercial traffic and which had been declared off-limits to neutral shipping by Egypt. The vestiges of fighting were clearly visible on the shore. Anxious about these factors, Commander McGonagle, the ship’s skipper, asked the 6th Fleet for a destroyer escort. His request was denied. The Liberty, wrote Vice Admiral William Martin, “is a clearly marked United States ship in international waters and not a reasonable subject for attack by any nation.”
But neither Martin nor McGonagle had received the five cables sent by the Joint Chiefs of Staff the previous night ordering the Liberty to withdraw as far as 100 miles from the front. The navy’s overloaded, overly complex communication system had routed the orders as far east as the Philippines before relaying them back to the Liberty.10 The cables would arrive the following day, by which time they would no longer be relevant.
That same morning, at 5:55 A.M., Israeli naval observer Major Uri Meretz was flying a reconnaissance run seventy miles west of the Gaza coast. Below, he noted what he believed to be an American supply vessel, designated GRT-5. At Israeli naval headquarters in Haifa, staff officers fixed the location of the ship with a red marker, indicating “unidentified,” on their control board. Research in Jane’s Fighting Ships, however, established the vessel’s identity as “the electromagnetic audio-surveillance ship of the United States, the Liberty.” The marker was changed to green, for “neutral.” Another sighting of the ship—“gray, bulky, with its bridge amidships”—was made by an Israeli fighter aircraft at 9:00 A.M., twenty miles north of al-‘Arish. Neither of these reports made mention of the five-by-eight-foot American flag which, according to the testimony of the Liberty’s crewmen, was
streaming from its starboard halyard. The crew also claimed that Israeli aircraft continued to fly over the ship, giving them ample opportunity to identify it. But Israeli pilots were not looking for the Liberty, but rather for Egyptian submarines, which had just been spotted off the coast.11
That coast, home to 90 percent of Israel’s population and industry, was woefully vulnerable. Egypt’s fleet alone outnumbered Israel’s by more than four to one in warships, including the new Osa and Komar-class guided missile boats, and could call on support from some seventy Soviet vessels in the area. In stark contrast to its air and ground forces, Israel’s navy had performed desultorily in the war. Combined naval and commando attacks on Syrian and Egyptian ports failed to inflict serious damage—six Israeli frogmen fell captive in Alexandria—while IAF jets nearly shot at Israeli torpedo boats off the coast of Tel Aviv. Though the U.S. 6th Fleet remained in the eastern Mediterranean as a counterweight to the Soviets, the Israelis had no way of contacting it directly. Their repeated requests for a naval liaison with the Americans went ignored.
Beset by these factors, Rabin summoned Comdr. Ernest Carl Castle, the U.S. naval attaché in Tel Aviv, and told him that Israel would defend its coast with every means at its disposal. The United States should either acknowledge its ships in the area or remove them, Rabin advised. All unidentified vessels sailing at over twenty knots—a speed attainable only by gunboats—would be sunk.12
At 11:00 A.M., while Israeli warships hunted for Egyptian submarines, the duty officer at IDF Naval Headquarters, Capt. Avraham Lunz, concluded his shift. In accordance with procedures, he removed the green “neutral” marker from the control board on the grounds that it was already five hours old and no longer accurate. As far as the Israeli navy was concerned, the Liberty had sailed away.
Twenty-four minutes later, a terrific explosion rocked the beaches of al ‘Arish. Though the blast was caused by an ammunition dump igniting, Israeli observers noted two naval vessels offshore and concluded that the Egyptians were shelling them from the sea. Such a bombardment had indeed taken place the previous day, according to both Israeli and Egyptian reports.13
Shortly after the explosion at al-‘Arish, the Liberty reached the eastern limit of its patrol and turned 238 degrees back in the direction of Port Said. In the Pit, meanwhile, news of the purported shelling unsettled Rabin, who had been warned of a possible Egyptian amphibious landing near Gaza. He reiterated the standing order to sink any unidentified ships in the war area, but also advised caution: Soviet vessels were reportedly operating nearby. Since no fighter planes were available, the navy was asked to intercede, with the assumption that air cover would be provided later. More than half an hour passed without any response from naval headquarters in Haifa. The general staff finally issued a rebuke: “The coast is being shelled and you—the navy—have done nothing.”
Capt. Izzy Rahav, who had replaced Lunz in the operations room, needed no more prodding. He dispatched three torpedo boats of the 914th squadron, code-named Pagoda, to find the enemy vessel responsible for the bombardment and destroy it. The time was 12:05 P.M.
At 1:41 P.M., Ensign Aharon Yifrah, combat information officer aboard the flagship of these torpedo boats, T-204, informed its captain, Comdr. Moshe Oren, that an unidentified ship had been sighted northeast of al-‘Arish at a range of twenty-two miles. Yifrah twice measured the ship’s speed and estimated it to be thirty knots. This information, added to the fact that the ship was streaming in the direction of Egypt, led Oren to conclude that this was an enemy vessel fleeing to its home port after shelling Israeli positions.
The torpedo boats gave chase, but even at their maximum speed of thirty-six knots, they did not expect to overtake their target before it reached Egypt. Rahav therefore alerted the air force, and two Mirages were diverted from a routine patrol over Sinai. The squadron’s commander, Capt. Yiftah Spector, was warned of the presence of Israeli torpedo boats in the area, and instructed to ascertain whether the suspect ship was Israeli. If not, the planes were cleared to attack.
At this point—1:54—one of the IAF controllers, Lazar Karni, whose function was to listen to ground-to-air communications and make occasional suggestions, blurted out, “What’s this? Americans?” He later told Israeli investigators that his question arose from a gut feeling, his sense that the Egyptians were unlikely to send a lone boat to shell al-‘Arish. Yet, when another controller on the line retorted, “Americans, where?” Karni did not respond. “An attack was underway on an enemy vessel,” he testified, “and I didn’t think it was my place to press what was merely a hunch.”
Spector, meanwhile, located the ship and made an identification pass at 3,000 feet. He saw “a military vessel, battleship gray with four gun mounts, with its bow pointed toward Port Said…[and] one mast and one smokestack.” Apart from some “black letters” on the hull, the ship had no other markings. Its deck had not been painted with the blue-and-white cross that distinguished all Israeli vessels. The pilot concluded that this was a “Z,” or Hunt-class destroyer, and since his plane was armed only with cannons, he requested additional jets loaded with iron bombs.
The Liberty sailors would later deny that the Israelis made any reconnaisance runs, but immediately dove. The Americans would also reject Israel’s claim that inquiries about the Liberty’s whereabouts were submitted to Comdr. Castle, though Castle, in fact, knew nothing about the ship. On one point, however, both versions dovetail: At 1:57 P.M., the Mirages began their attack.14
The first salvos caught the Liberty’s crew in “stand-down” mode, helmets and life vests removed. McGonagle and several officers had been sunning themselves on the deck. Suddenly, 30-mm cannon shells stitched the ship from bow to stern, severing the antennas and setting oil drums on fire. Nine men were killed instantly and several times that number wounded, among them McGonagle, seriously injured in both legs. He refused to be evacuated, though—he would later be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor—but ordered the ship to turn full right, out to sea. Urgently he cabled the 6th Fleet, “Under attack by unidentified jet aircraft, require immediate assistance.”
The Mirages made three strafing runs from the Liberty’s stern to bow; over 800 holes would later be counted in its hull. “We’ve hit her a lot,” Spector reported, “I think she’s putting out smoke on purpose, it’s coming out of the smokestack.” The chief IAF controller, Shmuel Kislev, twice asked whether the ship was responding with anti-aircraft fire, but the pilots seemed too engaged to answer. Three and half minutes into the attack, with their ammunition expended, the Mirages flew off and were replaced by a squadron of Mystères. These had just returned from bombing Egyptian infantry, and for the task were armed with napalm. While this, too, was an ordnance ill suited for naval warfare, the Mystères managed to swoop in low and deliver their payloads. Seconds later, much of the bridge and the deck were aflame, and the entire ship was enshrouded by smoke.
The Mystères were readying to strike again when the navy, alerted by the absence of return fire from the ship, warned Kislev that the target might in fact be Israeli. “If there is a doubt [about identification], don’t attack,” Kislev told the pilots. The navy quickly contacted its vessels in the area—none were under fire—and signaled the air force to continue. “You may attack,” said Kislev. “You can sink it.”
Yet Kislev was still disturbed by the lack of any response from the vessel—“This is easier than [shooting down] MiG’s,” another controller commented—but also concerned lest the navy get the credit for the kill. “If you had a two-plane formation with [500-pound iron] bombs…it would be a blessing,” Capt. Yossi Zuk, the Mystères’ commander, said. “Otherwise the navy will be here in ten minutes.” Then, in the thick of these countervailing pressures, Kislev requested one last attempt to identify the ship. “Look for a flag if they [the pilots] can see one. See if they can identify it [the ship] with a flag.”
Still flying at a low altitude, still strafing, Zuk responded that “there’s no flag on her,” but
noticed what he thought was the letter “P.” He then corrected himself: “Pay attention, the ship’s markings are Charlie-Tango-Romeo-five.”
“Leave her!” Kislev cried, aware that Egyptian warships were almost invariably marked in Arabic, rather than Latin, letters. His own guess was that the assaulted ship was American.
The news terrified Israeli officers in the Pit. Rabin feared that the ship was Soviet, not American, and that Israel had just given Moscow pretext to intervene. With Dayan away visiting Hebron, and Motti Hod en route from a briefing, the chief of staff took personal command of the situation. He sent two IAF helicopters to look for the survivors whom the jet pilots thought they had seen jumping overboard. Rabin also ordered that the torpedo boats, still in pursuit, remain at a safe distance from the ship.
The scene on the Liberty meanwhile was hellish. Men with ghastly napalm burns, their bodies torn by shrapnel, streamed into the petty officers’ lounge that had been converted into an emergency hospital. In the communications room, radiomen sent out uncoded distress signals. Other able-bodied sailors frantically burned classified papers and flew up a large holiday American flag, to replace the original naval ensign that had been shot away. None of them had a clue as to who, exactly, their assailants were. Most thought they were Egyptian MiG’s.
The same smoke that obscured the Israeli jets from the Liberty’s view now hid the Liberty from Capt. Oren. The Pagoda squadron arrived on the scene at 2:44, twenty-four minutes after Rabin ordered to it to hold back. But while that order appeared in T-204’s logbook, Oren later claimed that he never received it. He paused, nevertheless, at 6,000 meters and scrutinized the ship. In spite of the smoke, he could see that the vessel was not the destroyer that had presumably shelled al-‘Arish, but most likely a freighter that had either serviced that destroyer or evacuated enemy soldiers from the beach. He consulted his intelligence manual, and found that the ship’s silhouette resembled that of the Egyptian supply ship El Quseir; the captains of the other two torpedo boats reached the same conclusion independently. Moreover, when he tried to signal the ship, asking for its identity, he received no explicit response. Oren ordered his squadron into battle formation.
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