30 years after Israeli assault on U.S. ship, families remember
January 2nd, 2009 From
>Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 10:19:10 -0700
>From: Mike Potter
>Reply-To: mike.potter@artecon.com
>Organization: Artecon, Inc.
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>Subject: 30 years after Israeli assault on U.S. ship, families remember
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>
>30 years after Israeli assault on U.S. ship, families remember
>
>Copyright (c) 1997 Nando.net
>Copyright (c) 1997 The Associated Press
>
>WASHINGTON (June 7, 1997 11:37 p.m. EDT) — Former crew members of the
>USS Liberty and their families are remembering with sorrow and lingering
>bitterness Israel’s assault on the American intelligence ship during the
>Six-Day Middle East War 30 years ago.
>
>Thirty-four Americans perished and 171 were wounded in the June 8, 1967,
>tragedy. The Israeli government expressed regret and eventually
>compensated the United States for the attack in international waters.
>
>It said the attack was unintentional and blamed it on faulty
>identification and inadequate markings.
>
>Survivors at a reunion vowed to press efforts for release of still-
>secret documents and a full airing of the controversy that they believe
>is the only such U.S. Navy incident in recent times not accorded a
>congressional hearing.
>
>Critics have written that the attack by Israeli planes and torpedo boats
>was deliberate, driven by suspicion that the U.S. intelligence-
>gathering ship either was relaying information to Egypt or would learn
>that Israeli forces planned to move into the Syrian-held Golan Heights
>the following day to annex strategic territory.
>
>Several people interviewed Saturday accused both governments of a
>cover-up. Some sounded angrier at U.S. officials for what they called
>extreme reluctance to embarrass Israel, America’s ally in the Middle
>East.
>
>Retired Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, a former Chief of Naval Operations and
>chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, voiced displeasure at a
>wreath-laying Friday that the Liberty’s skipper, then Commander William
>L. McGonagle, was decorated in 1968 with the Congressional Medal of
>Honor at the Washington Navy Yard instead of at the White House where
>the highest U.S. award for valor is ordinarily presented by the
>president.
>
>”I’d just like to hear the truth so our kids can finally rest in peace,”
>said “Rusty” Sturman, a Liberty radioman at the time of the attack who
>now works for the New York City Transit Authority.
>
>”We were there to find out if Russian nationals were flying Egyptian
>planes” in the conflict, Sturman recalled. “Shortly before the (Israeli)
>torpedo hit us, we intercepted Russian (language) conversation in those
>Egyptian planes.”
>
>There’s “a lot anger at our own government for downplaying the attack
>and sweeping it under the rug of government security,” in contrast to
>congressional hearings on the handful of other recent attacks against
>the U.S. Navy, said Joseph C. Lentini, a former Liberty communications
>technician.
>
>Lentini recalled that the skipper of the USS Davis, a destroyer which
>aided the crippled Liberty, cautioned survivors at the time against
>discussing the attack by telling them: “This never happened.” It might
>be understandable for Israelis to play down the incident, Lentini said,
>but “as an American I fault our president and secretary of state for not
>standing behind their men.”
>
>Nearly 100 reunion participants on Saturday visited the National
>Security Agency’s Cryptologic Museum which has a memorial wall honoring
>the Liberty and its crew. The exhibit at nearby Fort Meade, Md., says
>Israel by 1980 had paid the United States $12,889,907 compensation.
>
>–By GENE KRAMER, Associated Press