The Liberty Incident


Book Description

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.".




Assault on the Liberty


Book Description




The Attack on the Liberty


Book Description

The definitive account of the infamous 1967 attack on the USS Liberty by Israeli forces and the continuing controversy over what really happened. • Notorious incident: In 1967, Israeli fighter jets and torpedo boats attacked the spy ship uSS Liberty in international waters during the Six-Day War. Thirty-four sailors were killed and more than 170 wounded, many critically injured. Israel claimed mistaken identity, which a U.S. naval court of inquiry confirmed, but that explanation is contradicted by the facts of the case. • Based on new revelations: James Scott has interviewed Liberty survivors, senior u.S. political and intelligence officials, and examined newly declassified documents in Israel and the united States to write this comprehensive, dramatic account. He reveals that officers in Israel’s chain of command were aware of the Liberty’s identity and shows how events in Vietnam prompted the American government to deemphasize the attack despite widespread disbelief of Israel’s story. • Journalist and son of an attack survivor: Scott’s father, John, was an officer and engineer aboard the Liberty who was awarded the Silver Star for helping to save the ship from sinking.




The Liberty Incident Revealed


Book Description

The Liberty Incident Revealed is the complete and final story about the Israeli Air Force and Navy attack on the USS Liberty during the Six Day War in June 1967. Cutting through all of the controversy and conspiracy theories about Israel’s deadly attack, Cristol revises his well-regarded book about the event with an expanded and in-depth analysis of all of the sources, including the released tapes of the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepts. When Cristol’s first book on the subject, The Liberty Incident, was published in 2002, there remained many unanswered questions about Israeli Air Force audio tapes. The NSA intercepts tapes had not yet been released in 2002. Some conspiracy theorists alleged the NSA tapes would prove that the Israeli attack was premeditated. Cristol’s successful Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the NSA, while resulting in the release of those tapes, has been greeted by anti-Israel sources insisting that the NSA tapes are fraudulent and are part of a larger conspiracy to deceive the American public. After a quarter of a century of intensive research in both Israel and the U.S., researching all relevant archives from NSA, CIA and the State Department, reviewing both formerly classified and open source documents, and interviewing all then-living individuals directly involved in the incident, the factual and documentary record is clear. Cristol maintains that despite the fact that all of the official records and transcripts are now available for review, the truth has proven to be of no interest to those individuals and organizations who are motivated by hidden agendas, wish to keep conspiracy theories alive, or are trying to feed sensational stories to the media. Documenting his findings in six new chapters, Cristol establishes definitively that the Israeli attack was a tragic mistake and presents a convincing argument that will be regarded as the final chapter in the long-simmering debate about this incident.







Body of Secrets


Book Description

The National Security Agency is the world’s most powerful, most far-reaching espionage. Now with a new afterword describing the security lapses that preceded the attacks of September 11, 2001, Body of Secrets takes us to the inner sanctum of America’s spy world. In the follow-up to his bestselling Puzzle Palace, James Banford reveals the NSA’s hidden role in the most volatile world events of the past, and its desperate scramble to meet the frightening challenges of today and tomorrow. Here is a scrupulously documented account—much of which is based on unprecedented access to previously undisclosed documents—of the agency’s tireless hunt for intelligence on enemies and allies alike. Body of secrets is a riveting analysis of this most clandestine of agencies, a major work of history and investigative journalism. A New York Times Notable Book




Remember the Liberty!


Book Description

One of the most explosive and hidden secrets in U.S. history – one that has never been previously told, Remember the Liberty explores how a sitting U.S. president collaborated with Israeli leaders in the fomentation of a war between them and their Arab neighbors. A war that would ensure a victory for Israel, and include the acquisition of additional land. This book will finally identify the real cause of the vicious attack on a U.S. Naval ship. After the botched plan was executed, the ship refused to sink even after being hit by a torpedo, leading the attack to be cancelled and a massive cover-up invoked. Including severe threats for the crewmembers to "keep their lips sealed." That cover-up is barely still in place, and completely exposed. Written largely by the survivors themselves, the truth is finally being told with the real story revealed.




Blood in the Water


Book Description

Presents evidence suggesting collusion between US and Israeli intelligence in the attack on a US naval surveillance vessel during the Six-Day War and the more than fifty-year long cover-up. On June 8, 1967, the USS Liberty, an unarmed intelligence ship reporting to the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the auspices of the National Security Agency, was positioned in international waters off the coast of Egypt when it was attacked with deadly violence by unmarked jet planes firing rockets and machine guns and throwing napalm onto its deck. This ambush was followed by a torpedo strike that blew a forty-foot hole in the starboard side of the ship. Lacking the capacity to defend themselves, thirty-four sailors were killed and 174 wounded, many for life. By the end of the day, Israel had confessed to having been the aggressor, simultaneously arguing that the attack had been an "accident" and a "mistake." The facts said otherwise. So intense and sustained was the attack - it lasted for nearly an hour and a half - so specific was the aiming for the antennae and satellite dish on deck, that it was scarcely credible that Israel's aggression was not deliberate; such was the view of Marshall Carter, the director of the National Security Agency, his deputy director Louis Tordella, and Richard Helms, the Director of Central Intelligence. Based on interviews with more than forty survivors, knowledgeable political insiders, and Soviet archives of the period, investigative writer Joan Mellen presents evidence suggesting complicity between US and Israeli intelligence in the attack on Liberty and the more than fifty-year long cover-up. What were the underlying motives? Was this a false flag operation conducted in the midst of the Six-Day War? Was it conceivable that Israel would have initiated such an operation without a green light from the United States? For the sake of justice, truth and the murdered and surviving sailors, this is a story demanding to be told.




Choosing War


Book Description

Throughout US history, presidents have had vastly different reactions to naval incidents. Though some incidents have been resolved diplomatically, others have escalated to outright war. What factors influence the outcome of a naval incident, especially when calls for retribution mingle with recommendations for restraint? Given the rise of long range anti-ship and anti-air missile systems, coupled with tensions in East Asia, the Persian Gulf, and the Black and Baltic Seas, the question is more relevant than ever for US naval diplomacy. In Choosing War, Douglas Carl Peifer compares the ways in which different presidential administrations have responded when American lives were lost at sea. He examines in depth three cases: the Maine incident (1898), which led to war in the short term; the Lusitania crisis (1915), which set the trajectory for intervention; and the Panay incident (1937), which was settled diplomatically. While evaluating Presidents William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's responses to these incidents, Peifer lucidly reflects on the options they had available and the policies they ultimately selected. The case studies illuminate how leadership, memory, and shifting domestic policy shape presidential decisions, providing significant insights into the connections between naval incidents, war, and their historical contexts. Rich in dramatic narrative and historical perspective, Choosing War offers an essential tool for confronting future naval crises.




Six Days of War


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The first comprehensive account of the epoch-making Six-Day War, from the author of Ally—now featuring a fiftieth-anniversary retrospective Though it lasted for only six tense days in June, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war never really ended. Every crisis that has ripped through this region in the ensuing decades, from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the ongoing intifada, is a direct consequence of those six days of fighting. Writing with a novelist’s command of narrative and a historian’s grasp of fact and motive, Michael B. Oren reconstructs both the lightning-fast action on the battlefields and the political shocks that electrified the world. Extraordinary personalities—Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin—rose and toppled from power as a result of this war; borders were redrawn; daring strategies brilliantly succeeded or disastrously failed in a matter of hours. And the balance of power changed—in the Middle East and in the world. A towering work of history and an enthralling human narrative, Six Days of War is the most important book on the Middle East conflict to appear in a generation. Praise for Six Days of War “Powerful . . . A highly readable, even gripping account of the 1967 conflict . . . [Oren] has woven a seamless narrative out of a staggering variety of diplomatic and military strands.”—The New York Times “With a remarkably assured style, Oren elucidates nearly every aspect of the conflict. . . . Oren’s [book] will remain the authoritative chronicle of the war. His achievement as a writer and a historian is awesome.”—The Atlantic Monthly “This is not only the best book so far written on the six-day war, it is likely to remain the best.”—The Washington Post Book World “Phenomenal . . . breathtaking history . . . a profoundly talented writer. . . . This book is not only one of the best books on this critical episode in Middle East history; it’s one of the best-written books I’ve read this year, in any genre.”—The Jerusalem Post “[In] Michael Oren’s richly detailed and lucid account, the familiar story is thrilling once again. . . . What makes this book important is the breadth and depth of the research.”—The New York Times Book Review “A first-rate new account of the conflict.”—The Washington Post “The definitive history of the Six-Day War . . . [Oren’s] narrative is precise but written with great literary flair. In no one else’s study is there more understanding or more surprise.”—Martin Peretz, Publisher, The New Republic “Compelling, perhaps even vital, reading.”—San Jose Mercury News