Joan Mellen's book "Blood in the Water" argues that the US itself was complicit in Israel's attack on the American ship the USS Liberty in June 1967.
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If you are able read just one book in 2019, I urge it to be Joan Mellen’s Blood in the Water: How the U.S. and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty.
The author on the basis of meticulous research probes every detail to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that the sinking of USS Liberty in the midst of the 1967 War is the greatest moral and political scandal in all of American history. In what was long described as a ‘mistake’ or ‘accident’ Israeli planes and submarines attacked the Liberty, killing 34, wounding 174 American naval personnel. Subsequent critical writing had established convincingly that the United States Government refused to authorize an inquiry that would have established that Israel deliberately attacked the ship of its ally. Those who took the trouble to read the critical literature or were among the surviving crew members were shocked by a coverup that was willing to overlook what amounts to the murder of American servicemen. Mellen addresses these allegations in a definitive manner that includes evidence that Lyndon Johnson, as president, called off a rescue operation, which seems confirmed, and if properly pursued would seem to indicate an offense both impeachable and indictable as treason.
This alone would make Joan Mellen’s book well worth reading, but her contribution goes far beyond what prior research and scholarly writing had established and alleged. She demonstrates that the real story of the Liberty attack was far worse than a coverup of Israeli criminality, it was ‘collusion,’ that is, a deliberated collaborative attack by Israel and the United States. The purpose of this operation was to provide a satisfactory pretext for launching retaliatory strikes against Egypt with the primary objective of destabilizing the Egyptian Government and removing Gamel Abdul Nasser from power. At the time, Nasser was a thorn in the back of both Israel and the United States. The American and Israeli national security establishments, including some identified sinister figures in the CIA and Mossad, regarded Nasser as a major threat to American regional objectives in the Middle East, Israeli security and expansionist ambitions, as well as to the prevailing grand strategy of the Cold War.
Such shocking revelations, even long after the events, comes at a time when the momentous events surrounding the 9/11 attacks remain shrouded in suspicion and mystery. It is notable that the Liberty incident occurred under a Democratic president. It would seem that political liberalism is always subordinate to the security imperatives of the militarized American state. What happened in 1967 could easily occur in 2019. None of the pieces have been removed from the great geopolitical board game of the deep state. What Mellen demonstrates so clearly is that democratic elections and public trust are cast aside to satisfy the demonic greed of those within the government bureaucracy who are in the secretive business of slaying monsters in distant settings while pacifying their own citizens with lies and evasions.
We need to read and upon reflect upon Blood in the Water, asking ourselves two familiar political question: ‘what needs to be done? How can it be done?” It is little wonder that although published in 2018 this crucial book has so far flown far under mainstream radars.
Blood in the Water published by Prometheus Books can be obtained from all booksellers, including Amazon.
This article was originally published at RichardFalk.WordPress.com on March 29, 2019.
Thank you Mr. Falk and I add Joan Mellen’s important book begins at the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, on the top floor presided over by the CIA chief of station John Hadden. Despite this American’s over eleven years of research regarding the USS Liberty cover-up, I had NOT been aware of the deep CIA connections Mellon ‘discovered’ when she uncovered a memorandum of a meeting between Hadden and Meir Amit, chief of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence services.
One of Hadden’s mantras was “never trust anyone” and the chapter introducing the then chief of CIA counterintelligence, James Jesus Angelton titled “Treason At The Top” exemplifies WHY Hadden’s mantra is also a warning for today. By 1954, James Jesus Angelton was the only person authorized to talk to Israeli intelligence and he began helping Israel build its atomic bomb soon thereafter. Mellen writes that during the 1960’s “Angleton handled the Israeli desk always within the Cold War anti-Soviet ideology that was his stock in trade. It was Angleton who would view Israel’s instigation of the Six Day War as necessary to protect Israel’s nuclear reactor at Dimona from a ‘grand Soviet design’ that included a nuclear attack on the United States.”
Mellen uncovered the fact that it was Angelton who “sabotaged John F. Kennedy’s policy to send international inspectors to Dimona, where false walls were erected, elevators hidden, and dummy installations built to conceal evidence of the nuclear weapons program” just as nuclear whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu informed me a few weeks after his under-reported freedom of speech trial began in 2006 when we taped “30 Minutes with Vanunu” that did NOT go through Israeli censors as is required of corporate media.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwdz6dLbfok&t=12s
The crew of the USS Liberty is the most decorated crew since World War II and among the most decorated for a single engagement in the entire history of the United States Navy. Virtually unarmed, the American navy ship was attacked by Israeli planes and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967 leaving 34 US Sailors and Marines dead and 174 more wounded. Yet, the attack has never received a full investigation, as required by law.
In October of 2003, an Independent Commission of Inquiry convened including Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, United States Navy, (Ret.), Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Raymond G. Davis, United States Marine Corps, (MOH), Former Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps; Rear Admiral Merlin Staring, United States Navy, (Ret.), Former Judge Advocate General of the Navy; and Ambassador James Akins, (Ret.), Former United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. They wrote:
The Independent Commission of Inquiry, having undertaken an independent investigation of Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty, including eyewitness testimony from surviving crewmembers a review of naval and other official records, an examination of official statements by the Israeli and American governments, a study of the conclusions of all previous official inquiries, and a consideration of important new evidence and recent statements from individuals having direct knowledge of the attack or the cover up, concluded that there was compelling evidence that Israel’s attack was deliberate and’Israel committed acts of murder against American servicemen and an act of war against the United States.’
WHEREUPON, we, the undersigned, in order to fulfill our duty to the brave crew of the USS Liberty and to all Americans who are asked to serve in our Armed Forces, hereby call upon the Department of the Navy, the Congress of the United States and the American people to immediately take the following actions:
FIRST: That a new Court of Inquiry be convened by the Department of the Navy, operating with Congressional oversight, to take public testimony from surviving crewmembers; and to thoroughly investigate the circumstances of the attack on the USS Liberty, with full cooperation from the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the military intelligence services, and to determine Israel’s possible motive in launching said attack on a U.S. naval vessel;
SECOND: That every appropriate committee of the Congress of the United States investigate the actions of the White House and Defense Department that prevented the rescue of the USS Liberty, thereafter threatened her surviving officers and men if they exposed the truth, and covered up the true circumstances of the attack from the American people; and
THIRD: That the eighth day of June of every year be proclaimed to be hereafter known as “USS LIBERTY REMEMBRANCE DAY, in order to commemorate the Liberty’s heroic crew and to educate the American people of the danger to our national security inherent in any passionate attachment of our elected officials for any foreign nation.”
For more reasons why the crew of the USS Liberty matter today please view “We Americans and the USS Liberty”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mahZ2IOXAeo
You’re lucky your comment was posted. My response to Ira Youdovin (see below) was rejected as “spam” three times. I guess the truth hurts too much to read.
:)
Thank you for your important and insightful comments Eileen.
Thursday, June 8, 1967.
Some of us who are U.S. Navy Vietnam veterans will never forget the treachery and treason of President Johnson and the Congress of the United States. Seven months later on January 23, 1968, Johnson betrayed the crew of the U.S.S. Pueblo by denying them sea and air rescue which resulted in the death of one crewman and imprisonment of the rest of the ship’s company for 11 months in Pyongyang, North Korea.
This information in the attached link makes the most sense in determining how tiny Israel won that 6 day war with supposedly no outside “help”. Impossible unless the U-2 and the USS Liberty did most of the advance work which let Israel simply fight a one sided war while their opponents were defenseless without communication and being unable to see their enemy radar. The LSD information is somewhat skeptical but that is not to say it wasn’t done. http://israelect.com/ChildrenOfYahweh/Other%20Reading/lsd.htm
When a distinguished professor emeritus of
international law, like Richard Falk, touts a book as being a must read even if
you read only one book this year; attention must be paid. But Joan Mellen’s Blood in the
Water: How the US and Israel Conspired to Ambush the USS Liberty is nothing more than an over-the-top
conspiracy theory alleging that the US and Israel colluded in sinking a warship
of the US Navy, killing or wounding more than two hundred of its crew.
That Israel sank the Liberty on June 8, 1967 has never been in doubt. The Israeli government acknowledged responsibility on the day it happened. It has paid more that $20 million to compensate for those killed or wounded, and for damage done to the
ship. But at the same time, there’s been fifty years of on-and-off debate over the validity of Israel’s claim that the incident was a tragic consequence of mistaken identification. Israel’s defenders point out that mistakes do happen in battle, especially when a young nation’s armed forces are in serious naval combat for the first time. Its accusers ask how anybody could
mistakenly identify a vessel five times larger than any in the Egyptian navy
with clear American markings. Both sides make valid points.
Ms. Melllen’s allegation of collusion is nothing new. A 2018 book, Remember the Liberty!: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas, alleges that US President Lyndon Johnson, himself, positioned the boat in a place whereit would be attacked, secretly informed the Israelis Israel of the location and gave them permission to sink it. His purpose was to use that event – by blaming Egyptian President Gamal Nasser for the attack – as a pretext for joining Israel in the war, even at the risk of igniting World War III with the Soviet Union.
There are several fatal flaws in this thesis. Were Johnson looking for an excuse to attack Nasser, he didn’t need to sink his own warship and kill its crew. During the weeks prior to war breaking out on June 6, 1967, as Nasser demonstrated
bellicose intentions by ordering the removal of UNIFIL peacekeeping troops that had maintained order since the end of the Suez conflict, and blockaded the Straits of Tiran, cutting off access to Israel’s southern port of Eilat, Israel literally begged Johnson for American intercession to halt the Egyptian president. Johnson refused,offering only an attempt at organizing an international flotilla to sail through the blockaded waterway, which never happened. Johnson had an excuse for weakening Nasser, and he rejected it.It’s impossible to reconcile Johnson’s passivity with what Mellen accuses him of doing less than a week later.
Additionally, it’s highly unlikely that Israel would have agreed to enter a conspiracy. In the mid-1950’s, it had conducted two botched false flag operations against Egypt, one in partnership with England and France. Both ended in catastrophe. A decade later and entering the final stagesof a brief and exceedingly successful war, it’s unthinkable that Israel would
risk a third.
Ms. Mellen tells essentially the same story (little of her research is original), which is undermined by the same flaws. However, she shifts blame on the American side to James Jesus Angleton, chief of CIA Counter Intelligence from
1954 to 1975, a cold warrior whose ruthless and secretive ways makes him a natural heavy for conspiracy theorists.
(More on this in a moment).
When asked why the Americans didn’t proceed with an attackon Cairo, Ms. Mellen explained (via Prof. Falk), that the plan called for nosurvivors who would reveal the true identity of the attacking planes. These are clearly the words of someone
who knows little about air-to-sea combat. A ship, especially a sizable one, doesn’t simply disintegrate like the
Twin Towers on 911. Sailors ondeck can see and identify the attacking planes as they approach, giving them
time to radio an alarm to other stations.Absolute secrecy was never a possibility. Survivors could not have revealed anything about the attacking planes that was not already known to American officials. If the plan required secrecy, it would have been a bad plan, one that no rational government would pursue.
It’s interesting to note who wrote these books.
Phillip F. Nelson, the lead author of Remember the Liberty!”, which lays blame on President Johnson, had
previously written four books accusing Johnson of masterminding the assassination of President Kennedy and involvement in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Joan Mellen, who blames the CIA, previously wrote a book accusing the Agency of planning and covering up the JFK assassination. Other of her books accuse the CIA of serious wrongdoing in Cuba, Haiti and elsewhere.
In other words, these are the work of authors who traffic in conspiracy theories. (Nelson’s book has an introduction by Roger Stone.Yes, THE Roger Stone. Remember, LBJ was a Democrat.) The books drew little attention and much
criticism, except from those pursuing a seemingly endless campaign to discredit Israel and the United States.
Remember the Liberty and Blood in the Water are nothing more than conspiracy theories written to demean and defame their authors’ favorite bad guys by exploiting holes that inevitably exist in analyses of complex situations, “connecting dots” where consideration of additional information clearly illustrates that no connection exists. But conspiracy theories are
self-contained. They deliberately block out information that challenges their conclusions, often by denouncing it
as coming from “deep state”.
For example, Prof. Falk makes much of the established fact that President Johnson called back a squadron of F-4 fighters from the USS Saratoga. But detailed studies reveal that Johnson’s recall came after the attack had ended, when the American planes were still hundreds of miles away. And the fact that the US government locked away materials on the incident can be explained by reasons far less fantastical than hiding a massive conspiracy. Prior to the Six Day War, the US had been cool toward Israel, responding to fears, especially in the State Department, that warmer relations would annoy the oil-rich Arab states. But after the war, Washington came to regard Israel as a strategic ally, as it remains today. Sealing the records to avoid
embarrassing a new ally—which would have been the case whether the attack was unintentional or deliberate—may be a questionable approach. But it proves nothing about the attack, itself.
As Prof. Falk writes, had the United States and Israel conspired to sink the USS Liberty in the midst of the 1967 War, it would have been the greatest moral and political scandal in all of American history. Yes, but it didn’t happen.
Ira Youdovi
I’m certain your handlers at Hasbara are proud of you. Good enough to fool some, just not all.