USS Liberty Incident
1967 attack on the U.S. Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty by Israeli forces during the Six-Day War, killing 34 crew members and sparking enduring controversy.
The USS Liberty Incident refers to the attack on the U.S. Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty by Israeli forces on June 8, 1967, the third day of the Six-Day War. The Liberty, flying the American flag, had been monitoring Middle East communications traffic in international waters off the coast of Israel and had been identified as an American ship before the attack. The incident resulted in the deaths of thirty-four American servicemen and wounded 171 others.1
Walworth Barbour, the American ambassador to Israel, urged Washington, D.C. to downplay the incident, reporting that Israel did not intend to admit to it and suggesting that publicity could feed Arab suspicions of U.S.-Israel collusion. He noted that the Israelis were "obviously shocked by error and tender sincere apologies."1
Sources
- Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991. Chapter 12. ↩
Local network
USS Liberty Incident's direct connections. Click any node to navigate, drag to pan, scroll (or pinch) to zoom. + 2‑hop expands the neighborhood one level further.