- The June 8, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty - "The Attack On The Liberty: The Untold Story On Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault On A US Spyship" -

Capitol Hill - October 2003 - It's an historic occasion. An independent blue-ribbon commission is to release its findings from an investigation into the internationally explosive 36-year old attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967 that left more than 200 US Naval personnel killed or wounded. The commission consists of a former ambassador of the US to Israel; a US Naval Rear Admiral and former head of the US Navy Legal Division; a Marine General, America's highest ranking recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and a former asst. commandant of the US Marines; a US Navy Four Star Admiral, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former chief of Naval Operations in World War II, a hero, and the only Naval Admiral to have commanded both the Pacific and Atlantic Fleets. Interestingly, this naval admiral was John Sidney McCain II.


Findings - That the attack on the USS Liberty carried out by Israeli forces was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American naval vessel and kill her entire crew; that Israel committed acts of murder against American citizens in an act of war against the United States; that the attack included the machine-gunning of stretcher bearers and life rafts; and that the Lyndon Johnson White House deliberately prevented the United States Navy from coming to the defense of the Navy ship. Never before, in American naval history, has a rescue mission been canceled when an American ship was under attack. In addition, surviving crew members were later threatened with Courts Martial, imprisonment or worse if they talked with anyone about what had happened to them, and they were abandoned by their own government.

- James Scott - author of "Attack On The Liberty" -

- Synopsis -

"On June 8, 1967, as war raged between Israel and its neighbors, an American spy ship, the U.S.S. Liberty, eavesdropped on communications off the coast of Egypt. When Israeli fighter jets and reconnaissance planes flew overhead, the Liberty’s crew assumed that the ship’s identifying markings and American flag would be visible to the pilots in the clear skies above. After as many as eight passes over a period of nearly nine hours, fighters suddenly opened fire and began strafing and napalming the Liberty, which had only four machine guns for defense. When the air attack ended, Israeli torpedo boats appeared and scored a direct hit. By the time the assault was over, 34 crewmen had been killed and 171 wounded, two-thirds of the crew. Only heroic efforts by the officers and crew saved the ship from sinking.

Back in Washington, news of the attack on the Liberty was received with a mixture of shock and outrage. Many in the Pentagon, State Department and in Congress demanded that Israel be held accountable for the unprovoked assault in international waters. The Johnson Administration initially responded by threatening Israel but soon softened its attitude. Israel’s stunning victory in the Six-Day War, as it became known, was a source of pride to many American Jews, whose support was crucial to an administration mired in an increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam. With the death toll mounting daily in Vietnam, the attack on the Liberty was pushed to the back pages of the nation’s newspapers, and ultimately all but forgotten.

James Scott is a journalist and the son of a surviving Liberty officer. In this riveting book, he recounts the story of the horrifying attack and the tremendous impact it had on the lives of the crew. He puts the attack in context, showing how political considerations trumped the demands for justice from the survivors and their supporters in the military and in Congress. Drawing on new interviews and recently declassified documents in both the United States and Israel, he demonstrates that Israel’s initial insistence that the attack was a mistake caused by misidentification of the ship is implausible. He documents, for the first time, the fact that at least one Israeli pilot correctly identified the Liberty during the attack and that others inside Israel’s chain of command were aware of the ship’s identity as the assault unfolded. His descriptions of the crew under fire and their frantic work to save the ship are dramatic and unforgettable. Scott takes readers into the conference rooms at the White House where the most senior officials in the government debated how to respond to the attack and then eventually devised a plan to protect Israel from public outrage. He shows the debate inside the Israeli government over whether to punish the attackers, and reveals the widespread disbelief many American leaders had with Israel’s explanation.

The Attack on the Liberty is the finest account yet of this tragedy, and a remarkable tale of men under fire in an incident that remains bitterly disputed after more than forty years." -

- James Bamford - author of "A Pretext For War: 9/11, Iraq, and the abuse of America's intelligence agencies:

“The country should be grateful to James Scott for this very courageous book.”