Liberty Incident: The 1967 Israeli Attack on the U. S. Navy Spy Ship by A. Jay Cristol

From the Publisher

"On June 9, 1967, at the height of the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats attacked a naval vessel steaming in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula. After the fog of war had lifted, the Israelis realized, with horror, that they had nearly sunk a ship of their closest ally. Thirty-four Americans died and 171 were wounded. Despite multiple official American and Israeli inquiries that determined the attack resulted from faulty communications and tragic error, conspiracy theorists have, for thirty-five years, tirelessly maintained vocal charges of conspiracy and cover-up." Achieving unprecedented access to inside sources involved in the attack on the Liberty, federal judge and former naval aviator A. Jay Cristol draws on recently declassified documents, Israeli Air Force audiotapes of the attack, and interviews with such high-ranking officials as Robert McNamara and Yitzhak Rabin and a National Security Agency linguist who heard radio transmissions of the assault. What results is the most comprehensive analysis of a tragedy that has been shrouded in suspicion for so many years. Meticulously researched and documented, The Liberty Incident effectively resolves the controversy that has persistently surrounded the question of Israel's motive in executing the deadly attack.

Foreign Affairs

This is the definitive book on the Israeli attack during the Six-Day War on an American spy ship, a horrible accident that killed 34 Americans and left many more wounded. For many years, the incident has been the subject of writings that range from the doggedly investigative to the frankly antisemitic. This meticulous work belongs to the former category, a superb account by a federal judge (with a doctorate to boot) who has served for many years as a U.S. naval aviator and a member of the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps. Documents, pictures, transcripts, and interviews all come under the microscope. The evidence, the author argues, overwhelmingly suggests that the incident was a wretched mistake brought about by a complex series of Israeli and American errors, not by any deliberate plan. To be sure, the fundamental implausibility of an Israeli decision to attack an American ship always made the contrary argument suspect. And there will be those who will cling to a fantasy of Israeli premeditation and malevolence, regardless of the evidence. But for those readers of a rational turn of mind, this book ends the debate.

Booknews

The Israeli Air Force and Navy attacked the without knowledge that it was a US ship; it was a case of mistaken identity caused by the convergence of a series of Israeli and American mistakes. So concludes Cristol, a US federal judge with a long history of service in the US Navy, after assembling official and unofficial records and accounts. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Product Details

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Table of Contents