The_Info_Web/40 - EVENTS/MAJOR_CONFLICTS/Six-Day War.md at 1907fe83dbf068f74790aa319212df157a5e7bb4 - disinfozone/The_Info_Web

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Raw Blame History

Pre-war assessments

On the morning of May 23, 1967, the day after Egypt closed the Gulf of Aqaba, Lyndon B. Johnson summoned Richard Helms from a congressional briefing and asked for an assessment. Four hours later Helms had two Central Intelligence Agency papers, "US Knowledge of Egyptian Alert" and "Overall Arab and Israeli Military Capabilities," the second of which stated that Israel could "defend successfully against simultaneous Arab attacks on all fronts . . . or hold on any three fronts while mounting successfully a major offensive on the fourth."²

On May 25 the White House received an Israeli intelligence estimate, headed "Israeli Intelligence Estimate of the Israeli-Arab Crisis," which stated the conclusion that the United Arab Republic was now actively seeking war and that the opportunity for Israel to take the initiative would soon be gone. Walt Rostow sent it to Johnson with a CIA appraisal attached that "throws a great deal of cold water on the Israeli estimate."³ The appraisal, prepared in the Office of National Estimates, stated: "We do not believe that the Israeli appreciation . . . was a serious estimate of the sort they would submit to their own high officials. We think it is probably a gambit intended to influence the US to do one or more of the following: (a) provide military supplies, (b) make more public commitments to Israel, (c) approve Israeli military initiatives, and (d) put more pressure on Nasser." It also stated: "We believe the Soviet aim is still to avoid military involvement and to give the US a black eye among the Arabs by identifying it with Israel."³ David S. Robarge, the CIA's chief historian, describes the Israeli paper as a Mossad estimate that claimed the Israeli military was badly outgunned by a Soviet-backed Arab force, and writes that the Israelis may have been trying to exploit the special relationship they had with James Jesus Angleton, the chief of CIA counterintelligence. Robarge writes that Angleton had for years run the Israeli account out of his Counterintelligence Staff without involving the Directorate of Plans's Near East Division, and that this arrangement may have given Tel Aviv a sense that Washington accorded its analyses special import.²

Robarge writes that the Soviet-aim judgment, which ran contrary to Tel Aviv's suspicions, caused Dean Rusk to remark to Helms, "if this is a mistake, it's a beaut."² On May 26 the Board of National Estimates issued the paper "Military Capabilities of Israel and the Arab States" and a second paper, "The Middle Eastern Crisis."² Robarge describes the Military Capabilities paper as a memorandum rather than a Special National Intelligence Estimate, and says that drafts which gave the Israelis seven to nine days to reach the Suez Canal lost that precision in coordination.² Johnson later recalled telling the Israeli foreign minister, Abba Eban, on May 26: "All of our intelligence people are unanimous that if the UAR attacks, you will whip hell out of them."²

Major General Meir Amit, the head of Mossad, visited Washington from May 31 to June 2. On the afternoon of June 1 he met Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. The memorandum of the conversation was written by Vice Admiral Rufus Taylor, the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, and carries the handling caption "Personal and Eyes Only for the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence."⁴ The memorandum records that Amit described the blockade of the Strait of Tiran as "window dressing" for a Soviet-backed grand design that he called the "Domino Effect," said that time was against Israel, that Israel had mobilized 100,000 people, and that a pre-emptive air attack by the United Arab Republic on the Israeli Air Force was a main worry, and estimated that with air superiority Israel could take the Sinai at the cost of somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 casualties. It records that he said "there were no differences between the U.S. and the Israelis on the military intelligence picture or its interpretation," that "the Russian story of a planned attack against Syria was a sheer fabrication," and that his remarks were informal and not an official representation of the Israeli government. McNamara told him he would be seeing the President shortly and would convey Amit's views.⁴ At a conference on the war in June 1992, Amit stated that his objectives included "to tell the Americans, I, Meir Amit, am going to recommend that our government strike," and recalled that McNamara answered "it was all right, the president knows that you are here and I have a direct line to the president."⁴

Robarge reports, citing published accounts, that Helms met on June 1 with a senior Israeli official who hinted that Israel could no longer avoid a decision, said its restraint was due to American pressure, and said that the delay had cost Israel the advantage of surprise. According to Robarge, the official abruptly left the United States on June 2 along with the Israeli ambassador, and that morning Helms wrote an "Eyes Only" letter to Johnson forewarning that Israel probably would start a war within a few days.²

Helms was awakened at 3:00 a.m. on June 5 by a call from the CIA Operations Center, after the Foreign Broadcast Information Service picked up reports that Israel had launched its attack. Robarge adds that the Office of Current Intelligence soon concluded that the Israelis, contrary to their claims, had fired first. Johnson was able to tell congressional leaders later that day that he had been expecting Israel's move.² The Israeli prime minister Levi Eshkol's message to Johnson of the same day listed bombardments of Kisufim, Nahal Oz and Tsur Maon by Egypt as among the acts of aggression. A telegram from Tel Aviv of June 5 reported a meeting among Amit, the American ambassador Walworth Barbour, and the presidential special counsel Harry C. McPherson, Jr.; Rostow's covering note to Johnson stated that Amit's argument was that there had been artillery fire on three Israeli villages and air incursions, and then the Israelis had "punched all the buttons," and added: "At least that's his story."⁵

During the war Helms went to the White House every day but one. He recalled that "in the midst of one meeting" Johnson asked him how accurate his intelligence was on the progress of the war, and that he answered: "It's accurate just as long as the Israelis are winning."²

Israel's nuclear program in the crisis

A Control Group paper, dated June 17, 1967 by the editors of the Foreign Relations of the United States volume, states that "The most significant feature of the role of nuclear capabilities during the Arab-Israeli hostilities was the absence of direct impact."⁶ Its annex states that the French-built reactor at Dimona has a capacity of 25 MW, is not under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards but has been inspected by the United States, and "is capable of producing enough plutonium for approximately one nuclear weapon per year." The annex states that the spent fuel rods "are still at Dimona and have not been subjected to chemical separation," and that prior to the crisis the Israelis "had probably not made a decision to develop nuclear weapons, but probably had decided to keep that option open." It says that if they made a decision then, it would probably be 18 months or longer before they could have a first weapon. The paper also records that Israel had a contract with the French firm Dassault Company for the MD-620 missile.⁶

On June 27, 1967, the American ambassador, Barbour, reported from Tel Aviv in telegram 4311, answering a State Department request of June 24 for an estimate of the impact of recent events on Israeli nuclear and missile policy. He wrote that the embassy had not discussed the subject with Israelis since the crisis began, that Israeli officials had not raised it in his many talks with them, and that there had been no press speculation. He wrote that Israelis "who have technical capability to build bomb, would, it may be argued, be foolish not to produce extra-conventional weapons against enemies whose total conventional military capabilities conceivably could outstrip Israel's within another decade." He wrote that the recent increase in popularity of Moshe Dayan, who had been associated with those favoring nuclear weapons development, and any rise in the standing of Dayan's associates Shimon Peres and David Ben-Gurion, "who made the decisions to build Dimona," could lead Israel closer to the nuclear route and the development of the necessary vehicles. He also wrote that if the French arms embargo continued and delivery of the Dassault missile were precluded, the "quite possible effect would be to stimulate Israeli missile production," and that he did not believe there was "any compelling reason at present time for change in" the Israeli government's policy of abstinence from nuclear weapons and missile production.⁷

Seymour Hersh writes that after the war the intelligence about Dimona became highly compartmentalized as the White House decided to side more openly with Israel, and quotes an unnamed American official: "We knew about the yellowcake, but we weren't allowed to keep a file on it."⁸ Hersh also writes that at the end of the war Barbour told his deputy, Bill Dale, that the embassy's military attachés were no longer to report on Dimona, and quotes Barbour as saying "Israel is going to be our main ally."⁹ Hersh, citing Israeli officials, writes that Dimona was ordered into full-scale production early in 1968 and began turning out four or five warheads a year, with more than twenty-five bombs in the arsenal by the 1973 war, and that Mossad arranged the March 1968 purchase of uranium ore through a German agent for transfer at sea from the vessel renamed the Scheersberg A. Hersh states that the sale was approved by Euratom in October 1968.¹⁰

The Atomic Energy Commission had by then recorded unexplained losses of highly enriched uranium at the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation plant at Apollo, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, owned by Zalman Mordecai Shapiro. A General Accounting Office report to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy of June 20, 1967, stated that cumulative losses of U-235 through December 31, 1966 totaled about 260 kilograms, or about 1.2 percent of receipts.¹¹ On April 2, 1968, Helms wrote to Attorney General Ramsey Clark asking that the FBI "initiate a discreet intelligence investigation of an all source nature of Dr. Shapiro in order to establish the nature and extent of his relationship with the Government of Israel," and asked that the letter be returned to him once the Attorney General had acted.¹¹ On September 10, 1968, NUMEC received a visit by four Israelis, among them Avraham Hermoni, scientific counselor at the Israeli embassy, and Rafael Eitan of the Israeli Ministry of Defense; the National Security Archive identifies Hermoni as the LAKAM station chief in Washington and Eitan as deputy chief of operations of the Mossad and organizer of the 1968 Plumbat uranium operation.¹¹ Hersh writes that Carl E. Duckett and Helms shared the view of the CIA station chief John L. Hadden that Shapiro had to be the source of Israeli progress in nuclear weaponry, and states his own conclusion that Shapiro did not divert uranium to Israel.¹²

Avner Cohen, whose account rests on interviews with the late Yitzhak Ya'akov, describes an assembly in May 1967 of two or three rudimentary nuclear explosives, and a plan, called Operation Shimshon, to detonate them in the Egyptian desert as a last resort.¹³ The Wilson Center, which released Cohen's collection in June 2017, described Ya'akov's testimony as revealing "for the first time the existence of a crash effort to assemble Israel's first nuclear device."¹⁴

Soviet role

Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez argue in Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets' Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War that Soviet MiG-25 "Foxbat" aircraft overflew the Dimona reactor in May 1967. The authors argue that the flights were meant to encourage Israel to launch a war, and to ensure that the site could be destroyed during a planned joint Arab-Soviet counterattack.¹⁵ In August 2007 the Russian Air Force spokesman Colonel Aleksandr Drobyshevsky confirmed in writing that Soviet pilots had flown MiG-25 aircraft over Dimona in May 1967, according to the authors, who called this official confirmation of the central exhibit of their book.¹⁶ Hersh writes that after the war the Soviet Union severed relations with Israel, that Soviet arms shipments to Egypt began within weeks, and that the Soviet fleet deployed in greater force in the Mediterranean.¹⁷

USS Liberty

A National Security Agency review of the Technical Research Ship Program, declassified in 2017 after a mandatory declassification review, states that on May 23 the NSA asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to authorize diverting the USS Liberty Incident from Abidjan to an operating area off Port Said for SIGINT coverage of the crisis; that on June 7 the Joint Chiefs initiated a message increasing the ship's closest point of approach to the United Arab Republic to 100 nautical miles after Arab allegations that the United States had participated in Israeli air strikes; and that, as later proven, the Liberty did not receive the order to move.¹⁸

On June 8, 1967, the Liberty, a Navy signals intelligence ship, was attacked in the waters off the Sinai Peninsula. A CIA intelligence memorandum of June 13, 1967, compiled from the reports then available, states that unidentified jet aircraft made six strafing runs beginning at 3:05 p.m. local time, that three torpedo boats approached about twenty minutes later, and that one torpedo struck the starboard side in the spaces occupied by the SIGINT collectors. The memorandum records the hull number 206-T on one of the boats, and says that some fifty minutes later two Israeli helicopters arrived.¹⁹ The memorandum states that intercepted conversations between the helicopter pilots and the control tower at Hatzor Air Base "leave little doubt that the Israelis failed to identify" the ship as American before or during the attack. The control tower told helicopter 815 that "there is a warship there which we attacked. The men jumped into the water from it. You will try to rescue them." The memorandum records that the tower later identified the ship as Egyptian, that the weather was clear, that the hull number GTR 5 was prominently displayed, and that an American flag was flying. It gives the casualties as 10 killed, 90 wounded, and 22 missing.¹⁹

A report of the National Security Agency to the White House of June 22, 1967, based on Israeli plain-language radio traffic intercepted on June 8 between 1229Z and 1328Z, states that it deals solely with the aftermath of the attack and that there are no COMINT reflections of the actual attack itself. It records the control tower telling the helicopters at about 1235Z, "Pay attention: the ship is now identified as Egyptian, you can return home now," helicopter 815 reporting at 1312Z that it had sighted an American flag on the ship, and the tower asking the helicopter to make another pass to check "if this is really an American flag."²⁰

Helms's notes of the June 12 meeting of the National Security Council Special Committee record that the President requested a special study on the strafing and torpedoing of the ship, covering pilot conversations and "everything we can get" from the NSA. Rostow sent a preliminary version of the report to Johnson on June 13, calling it the "CIA's first cut at the problem" and noting: "They do not find evidence of U.S. identification before the attack."¹⁹ Notes of the NSC Special Committee meeting of June 9, 1967 record Clark Clifford saying: "My concern is that we're not tough enough. Handle as if Arabs or USSR had done it. Manner egregious. Inconceivable that it was accident. 3 strafing passes, 3 torpedo boats. Set forth facts. Punish Israelis responsible." A marginal notation by the note-taker, Harold H. Saunders, next to Clifford's remarks reads: "President subscribed 100%." The notes record under the initials "DR": "Do what is normal. 1) Reparation. 2) Punish. 3) No repetition."²¹ Hersh writes that a declassified cable in the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library shows that hours after the attack Barbour reported that Israel did not intend to admit to the incident and added: "Urge strongly that we too avoid publicity," and that Barbour wrote that the ship's "proximity to scene could feed Arab suspicions of U.S.-Israel collusion."²²

A CIA memorandum of June 21, 1967, on the Israeli statement, states: "It is now known, however, that the IDF Headquarters had identified the Liberty, probably more than four hours before the attack."²³ The United States Navy Court of Inquiry, convened by Admiral John S. McCain, Jr. and presided over by Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Jr., conducted classified hearings in London and aboard the ship in Malta from June 10 to 16.²⁴ A memorandum from Rostow to Johnson of June 26 forwarding the proposed public summary states that it was the judgment, "not flatly stated in the Report," that the attack was an accident, quotes the report's statement that "It was not the responsibility of the Court to rule on the culpability of the attackers, and no evidence was heard from the attacking nation," and reports that Cyrus Vance told Rostow that the members of the court, on the evidence available to them, believed the attack resulted from a failure within the Israeli communications system and not from premeditation, but that in his view, on the evidence the government had, it should not so state.²⁵ The New York Times reported in 1980 that the court had said the Liberty was in international waters, "properly marked as to identify and nationality," that the attack had been unprovoked, and that the court had insufficient information to make a judgment about the reasons for it.²⁶ The Judge Advocate General's endorsement on the record states that the record discloses beyond any doubt that the Liberty was engaged in peaceful operations in international waters and that the attack was entirely unprovoked and unexpected; it also states that the Israeli government had admitted a tragic accident and agreed to make amends, and that 34 deaths and 171 injuries resulted.²⁷

In an affidavit released on October 22, 2003, and printed in the Congressional Record on October 11, 2004, Captain Ward Boston, the senior legal counsel to the Court of Inquiry, stated: "Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack, which killed 34 American sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew." He stated that he knew "from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary."²⁸ The Israeli Embassy spokesman, Mark Regev, responded in October 2003: "I can say unequivocally that the Liberty tragedy was a terrible accident, that the Israeli pilots involved believed they were attacking an enemy ship."²⁹

The NSA's oral history interviews with personnel aboard the ship, conducted in 1980 and posted with the agency's USS Liberty release, contain divergent recollections. Terry McFarland, asked about the helicopter, answered "It was an Israeli helicopter," and said that he learned from others on the bridge, sometime after the helicopter left, that the attackers were Israeli.³⁰ James O'Connor, asked whether the helicopter was well marked as Israeli, answered "Yes, I think it was." He also recounted a story, which he said he could not confirm, that "supposedly only a couple of us on the ship knew that there was an Israeli submarine out there."³¹ Richard Harvey, asked whether there was a feeling at the time that the attack might have been deliberate, answered "There was speculation but, I don't know that anybody had really any substance to base it on." The interviewer, Henry Millington, said in the same exchange that among the documentation collected was a report the Israelis turned over to the State Department in which, in his words, they "frankly admit that their reconnaissance forces did know, before the attack, that that was a U.S. ship," and that "the word never got down to the operating forces." Harvey replied that he had heard the claim, and that the speculation he had heard rested on the view that Israeli intelligence was too good not to know what the ship was.³²

The Independent Commission of Inquiry chaired by Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, whose findings were introduced into the Congressional Record by John Conyers, issued findings in October 2003. Its fourth finding is that "there is compelling evidence that Israel's attack was a deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew." Its sixth finding is that the White House "deliberately prevented the U.S. Navy from coming to the defense of the Liberty by recalling Sixth Fleet military rescue support while the ship was under attack." The commission's published biographies describe Moorer as chairman of the Liberty Alliance, an organization dedicated to obtaining an investigation of the attack.²⁸

On June 14, Commodore Shlomo Erell, commander of the Israeli Navy, presented apologies to the American naval attaché and said the incident was a "great mistake."³³ On June 17 an aide to the Israeli chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin, gave the American naval attaché the synopsis of the findings of the Israeli court of inquiry, read from a Hebrew document. The synopsis stated that "the attack on USS Liberty was not in malice; there was no criminal negligence and the attack was made by innocent mistake," attributed the attack to a chain of three mistakes, and stated that "the officers who knew of the identification of Liberty early the same morning did not connect Liberty with the unidentified ships said to be shelling El-Arish." It also stated, in the words of the inquiry officer, that "a grave additional mistake not less decisive than the three above mistakes made by IDF was made by the Liberty itself." The aide mentioned that the Israeli government had received a statement from the United States saying that the Liberty had been identified six hours before the attack rather than one hour as stated in an earlier American communication. The attaché's own evaluation, in the same telegram, called the Israeli standing order to attack any ship moving at more than 20 knots "incomprehensible" and described two of the Israeli justifications as mutually contradictory.³⁴ A CIA memorandum of June 21 reported the preliminary findings of the Israeli court as "not in malice" and "innocent mistake."²³

On December 18, 1980, the United States and Israel announced the settlement of American claims for the damage to the ship. The New York Times reported that Israel would pay $6 million over three years, in addition to nearly $7 million already paid ($3,323,500 in 1968 for the families of those killed and $3,452,275 in 1969 for wounds sustained by 75 crew members), and that Israel had maintained the attack was an accident. The paper also reported that James M. Ennes Jr., a retired Navy officer wounded in the attack, had charged in his book Assault on the Liberty that the court of inquiry and public statements by the government amounted to a cover-up, and that messages ordering the Liberty out of the area were not received by the vessel in time.²⁶

Military and arms context

Charles de Gaulle responded to the war by accusing Israel of being the aggressor and canceling all of France's arms sales to Israel, abrogating twelve years of close French support. He also delayed the pending shipment of fifty previously purchased Mirage III jet fighters, and claimed to newsmen that he had not known of Dassault's contract with Israel until the first field test in 1967 of the Jericho I.³⁵ A footnote to a Central Intelligence Agency estimate of August 10, 1967, states that France imposed an embargo on shipments of military items to the Middle East on June 2, 1967, but that the embargo did not apply to spare parts previously contracted for, and that there probably had been some evasion of the ban.³⁶

Hersh reports that after the war, according to James H. Critchfield, then chief of the CIA's Near East Division, Dayan and Zvi Zamir joined him and Angleton in an attempt to reach a quick accord with Jordan's King King Hussein before Israeli settlement began, and that they were told at a White House meeting with McGeorge Bundy to "knock it off."³⁷

Footnotes

Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991. Chapter 12, "The Ambassador," pp. 166-167. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎
Robarge, David S. "Getting it Right: CIA Analysis of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War." Studies in Intelligence 49, no. 1 (March 2005), reprinted in Studies in Intelligence 62, no. 2 (June 2018). https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/CIA-Analysis-1967-War.pdf. The Robarge account cites Freshwater, "Policy and Intelligence: The Arab-Israeli War," Studies in Intelligence 13, no. 1 (1969); Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder; Oren, Six Days of War (2002), p. 146, citing Meir Amit; Johnson, The Vantage Point, p. 293; Mangold, Cold Warrior (1989), pp. 49, 362, for the Angleton arrangement. Helms's quoted recollection and the Eban quotation are Robarge's quotations of those books. Robarge's source for the June 1 to 2 passage is the work of Michael B. Oren, who cites an interview with and writings of Meir Amit. ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 61, Memorandum from Rostow to President Johnson, May 25, 1967, with attached CIA appraisal. The text of the Israeli estimate is not printed; the editors' note summarizes it. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d61 ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 124, Memorandum for the Record, June 1, 1967 (prepared June 2), Conversation between Major General Meir Amit and Secretary McNamara, by Vice Admiral Rufus Taylor, with editors' note quoting Amit's remarks at the conference of June 3-5, 1992, published in Richard B. Parker, ed., The Six-Day War: A Retrospective (University Press of Florida, 1996), pp. 139-140. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d124 ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 158, Telegram 3935 from the Embassy in Israel, June 5, 1967 (Eshkol's message), editors' note describing telegram 3937 and Rostow's covering memorandum. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d158 ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 305, Paper Submitted by the Control Group, undated (dated June 17, 1967 by the editors). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d305 ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 326, Telegram 4311 from the Embassy in Israel (Barbour) to the Department of State, June 27, 1967. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d326 ↩︎
Hersh, The Samson Option, chapter 11, p. 156. Sole source for the passages so cited; the official is unnamed. ↩︎
Hersh, The Samson Option, chapter 12, p. 168, relying on an interview with Bill Dale. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎
Hersh, The Samson Option, chapter 13, "An Israeli Decision," pp. 179-181, relying on unnamed Israeli officials and published accounts. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎
National Security Archive, "The NUMEC Affair: Did Highly Enriched Uranium from the U.S. Aid Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program?" (November 2, 2016), Documents 7, 8 and 10 (AEC New York Security Office report of September 6, 1968 on the September 10 visit, with the posting's identifications of the visitors): Comptroller General of the United States, "Review of Accountability Controls Over Special Nuclear Materials, Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation," June 20, 1967 (University of Arizona Special Collections, Morris Udall Papers, MS 325, Box 364, Folder 7); Letter from Richard Helms to Ramsey Clark, April 2, 1968 (ISCAP Appeal No. 2013-062). https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2016-11-02/numec-affair-did-highly-enriched-uranium-us-aid-israels-nuclear-weapons-program ↩︎
Hersh, The Samson Option, chapter 18, "Injustice," pp. 240-248. The passage on Duckett, Helms and Hadden is Hersh's account; the conclusion on diversion is Hersh's own. ↩︎
Cohen, Avner. "Israel's Secret Plan to Nuke the Egyptian Desert." Politico Magazine, June 5, 2017, republished by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Middlebury Institute of International Studies. https://nonproliferation.org/israels-secret-plan-to-nuke-the-egyptian-desert/. Sole source for the passages so cited; Cohen relays the testimony of Ya'akov. ↩︎
Wilson Center, "Wilson Center Archive Sheds New Light on 1967 Six-Day War," June 5, 2017. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/wilson-center-archive-sheds-new-light-1967-six-day-war ↩︎
Ginor, Isabella, and Gideon Remez. Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets' Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War. Yale University Press, 2007. Sole source for the overflight claim. https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/42140 summarizes the authors' argument. ↩︎
Ginor and Remez, as reported in the Russian Air Force confirmation of August 2007. Sole source for the confirmation, attributed to the authors. https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/42140 ↩︎
Hersh, The Samson Option, chapter 13, pp. 175-176. ↩︎
National Security Agency, "A Review of the Technical Research Ship Program, 1961-1969," released under MDR-85456, February 22, 2017, section on USN-855 (USS Liberty). https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/terrorism/AReviewoftheTechnicalResearchShipProgram-postMDR.pdf ↩︎
Central Intelligence Agency, Intelligence Memorandum, "The Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty," June 13, 1967 (SC No. 01415/67), in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 284, with source note reporting Helms's notes of the June 12 NSC Special Committee meeting and Rostow's covering memorandum of June 13. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d284 ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 319, Telegram from the Director of the National Security Agency (Carter) to the White House, June 22, 1967, SIGINT Readiness Bravo "Crayon" Report Nr. 2149. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d319 ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 236, Notes of a Meeting of the Special Committee of the National Security Council, June 9, 1967, 6:30 p.m. (Saunders' handwritten notes). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d236 ↩︎
Hersh, The Samson Option, chapter 12, pp. 167-168, quoting a declassified cable in the LBJ Library. Sole source for the cable text. ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 317, Intelligence Memorandum, June 21, 1967 (SC 08384-67). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d317 ↩︎
United States Navy, Record of Proceedings, Court of Inquiry into the armed attack on USS Liberty (AGTR-5), 1967, scan posted at https://libertyincident.com/docs/CourtOfInquiry.pdf, scan pages 106, 117, 243, 244, 265. ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 324, Memorandum from Rostow to President Johnson, June 26, 1967. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d324 ↩︎
Gwertzman, Bernard. "Israeli Payment to Close the Book On '67 Attack on U.S. Navy Vessel." New York Times, December 19, 1980. CIA Reading Room, CREST document CIA-RDP90-00965R000302640098-3, copy at https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302640098-3. The article spells the name Ennis. ↩︎
Judge Advocate General of the Navy, Third Endorsement and Enclosure (1), Summary of Events, on the Record of Proceedings, Court of Inquiry into the armed attack on USS Liberty (AGTR-5), 1967, pp. 1-2 of the endorsement (Navy JAG file 131). Scanned copy of the record at https://libertyincident.com/USNcourt.html (a website maintained by A. Jay Cristol). ↩︎
Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, Findings of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty and Affidavit of Captain Ward Boston, USN, JAG (Ret.), introduced by Representative John Conyers, Jr., dated October 7, 2004, in the issue of October 11, 2004 (Volume 150, Number 130, pp. E1886-E1889). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2004-10-11/html/CREC-2004-10-11-pt1-PgE1886-3.htm. Sole source for the finding texts and the affidavit text; the findings are the commission's and the affidavit is Boston's. The Record printing carries no date; the affidavit was released at a Capitol Hill news conference on October 22, 2003 (Associated Press, October 23, 2003). A longer declaration signed by Boston is dated January 8, 2004. ↩︎
Associated Press, "Ex-Navy Official: 1967 Israeli Attack on U.S. Ship Was Deliberate," Fox News, October 23, 2003. https://www.foxnews.com/story/ex-navy-official-1967-israeli-attack-on-u-s-ship-was-deliberate.amp ↩︎
National Security Agency, Oral History Interview with Terry L. McFarland, June 23, 1980 (OH-1980-26). https://media.defense.gov/2021/Jul/18/2002804900/-1/-1/0/INTERVIEW_T_MCFARLAND.PDF. Copy of the NSA USS Liberty gallery, captured by the Wayback Machine, at https://web.archive.org/web/20210928195052/https://www.nsa.gov/Helpful-Links/NSA-FOIA/Declassification-Transparency-Initiatives/Historical-Releases/USS-Liberty/ ↩︎
National Security Agency, Oral History Interview NSA-OH-21-80 with CDR James G. O'Connor, May 22, 1980. https://media.defense.gov/2021/Jul/18/2002804901/-1/-1/0/INTERVIEW_J_OCONNER.PDF. Sole source for the submarine story, which O'Connor recounts as a story passed among the crew. ↩︎
National Security Agency, Oral History Interview with Richard Harvey, July 16, 1980 (OH-1980-29). https://media.defense.gov/2021/Jul/18/2002804909/-1/-1/0/INTERVIEW_R_HARVEY.PDF. The Millington statement appears in the interviewer's question in the same transcript. ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 289, Telegram from the Defense Attache Office, Tel Aviv, June 15, 1967, reporting Erell's June 14 presentation of apologies. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d289 ↩︎
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 307, Telegram from the Defense Attache Office in Israel to the White House, June 18, 1967, "Israeli Court of Inquiry in USS Liberty incident." https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d307 ↩︎
Hersh, The Samson Option, chapter 13, p. 175. Sole source for the de Gaulle statements and the fifty Mirage III aircraft. ↩︎
Central Intelligence Agency, Special National Intelligence Estimate, August 10, 1967, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 414, footnote 3. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d414 ↩︎
Hersh, The Samson Option, chapter 14, "A Presidential Gift," p. 185, footnote, quoting Critchfield. Hersh's footnote calls Zamir the head of Mossad at the time; Katzenbach, Hersh writes, had no recollection of the meeting. Sole source for the passages so cited. ↩︎

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