| Author | Message | | Alpha | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2004 10:57 am Post subject: USS Liberty Attack Definitely Deliberate by Israelis |
| Looks like Nowicki forgot to check with his bosses (supervisors) at the NSA as they very much know (and went on record after reviewing the tapes) that the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was indeed deliberate as conveyed in the following 'Friendless Fire' article by David Walsh for the prestigious 'Proceedings' publication (by the Naval Institute)
http://www.usni.org/proceedings/Articles03/PROwalsh06.htm
http://www.ussliberty.com
| Cowboy wrote: | Nowicki's letter to the Wall Street Journal
Letter from Marvin E. Nowicki, Ph.D., published in The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, May 16, 2001, page A-23:
Tragic "Gross Error" In a 1967 Attack
In regard to Timothy Naftali's review of James Bamford's book "Body of Secrets" (Leisure & Arts, May 9): Mr. Naftali doesn't quite have it right concerning the book portion dealing with the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967. I know because I am the person to whom Mr. Natfali [sic] refers as the "chief Hebrew-language analyst" aboard the U.S. Navy (not Air Force) EC121 aircraft. He says that I recall one of my teammates telling me of hearing references to "a U.S. flag" from Israeli pilots.
For the record, we (my teammate and I) both heard and recorded the references to the U.S. flag made by the pilots and captains of the motor torpedo boats. My personal recollection remains after 34 years that the aircraft and MTBs prosecuted the Liberty until their operators had an opportunity to get close-in and see the flag, hence the references to the flag.
My position, which is opposite of Mr. Bamford's, is that the attack, though terrible and tragic especially to the crew members and their families on that ill-fated day in June 1967, was a gross error. How can I prove it? I can't unless the transcripts/tapes are found and released to the public. I last saw them in a desk drawer at NSA in the late 1970s before I left the service.
MARVIN E. NOWICKI, PH.D.
Ashley, Ill.
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Dr. Marvin Nowicki was the US Navy supervisor on the EC-121 aircraft who heard the actual Israel Air Force radio transmissions, in Hebrew, on 8 June 1967 and thereafter listened to the tapes in Hebrew (Nowicki was an NSA/Navy trained Hebrew linguist). Nowicki sent an e-mail to James Bamford with five enclosures on 20 March 2000.
Bamford claims the Nowicki letter told him that the tapes establish that the Israelis knew they were attacking a US ship. Read the Nowicki e-mail and decide if you agree with Bamford's interpretation. Dr. Nowicki did not agree with Bamford's interpretation. He wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal, summarized below, in which he explicitly stated the tapes proved the attack was made in error.
Text of mail sent to James Bamford (3 March 2000)
Dear Jim,
As a followup to our e-mail and telephone exchanges, I am enclosing sensitive information about U.S. intelligence collection techniques that I engaged in during a career in the U.S. Navy spanning over 20 years. Like you, I am interested in preserving certain historical events surrounding SIGINT collection. I believe it is important that future generations understand and appreciate the efforts of the Cold War warriors.
In this correspondence, I am concentrating on a single event that involved the USS Liberty in June 1967. As you know, Jim Ennes and members of the Liberty crew are on record stating the ship was deliberately attacked by the Israelis. I think otherwise. I have first hand information, which I am sharing with you. I was present on that day, along with members of an aircrew in a COMFAIRAIRRECONRON TWO (VQ-2) EC-121M aircraft flying some 15,000 feet above the incident. As I recall, we recorded most, if not all, of the attack. Further, our intercepts, never before made public, showed the attack to be an accident on the part of the Israelis. [emphasis added]
To support my claim, I am forwarding four enclosures of information. My story is over 30 years old but there are certain events that are embedded in my memory, including a scary night flight into the battle zone and the attack on the Liberty. Enclosure 1 begins with a narrative entitled, "Assault on the Liberty: The untold story from SIGINT." Enclosure 2 provides a postscript to the attack in the years that followed. Enclosure 3 gives my views of additional evidence of a mistaken attack by the Israelis, contradicting Jim Ennes in his book. Enclosure 4 discusses Ennes' cover-up conundrum, asks who was ultimately responsible, and why the presence of our VQ mission was never revealed.
In addition, I am enclosing personal information about my 24-year career in the and Naval Security Group. I am doing this for the purpose of helping you see how I might assist you with other aspects of your historical account of SIGINT. You may, for example, be interested in stories how we hunted Soviet TU-95 Bears [Soviet turbo prop reconnaissance aircraft] in the Atlantic and searched for SA-2 [missile] sites in southern Algeria during flights into the Sahara. A chronology of my duty stations and professional experience is found in Enclosure 5.
Finally, on a cautionary note I would appreciate it if you would cull any information that crosses the bar of national security, in addition to the names of colleagues cited herein. I do not have permission to use their names. If you have any questions or need clarification, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you and good luck with your book.
Sincerely,
Marvin E. Nowicki, Ph.D.
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Nowicki Enclosure 1
Assault on the Liberty: The untold story from SIGINT
In June 1967, on the day of the Israeli surprise attack on its Arab neighbors, the USS Liberty was nearing her station in the waters off the coasts of Israel and Egypt in the Eastern Mediterranean. Five days before, the naval vessel had pulled into Port Rota, Spain, for technical support, replenishment, and embarkation of Arab linguists from NSA and NSG. During the port call, a number of CT personnel from NAVSECGRUDEPT Rota visited the ship. Some dependents including my six-year old son (years later to become a naval aviator) were given a tour of the ship. Little did I know, that a few days afterward I would fly over the ship in a VQ-2 EC121M aircraft as the Liberty was being attacked by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats on June 8.
On June 5, the Israelis began all-out attacks on her Arab neighbors in Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Early that morning, our aircrew from VQ-2 and NAVSECGRUDEPT Rota received emergency tasking orders to proceed to the scene of hostilities in the Middle East. Within several hours of the tasking message, our VQ-2 EC121M was airborne en route to Athens, Greece, where we would stage missions into the East Med. Our logistical and SIGINT support would come from a temporary US Air Force base set up at the Athens airport. Although only the day before I had returned from TAD aboard a VQ-2 EA3B aircraft from the Norwegian Sea, and much to chagrin of my wife, I and four other CTIs were ordered to Athens aboard the EC121M. Nobody in our crew knew anything about the disposition of the USS Liberty, which had begun conducting SIGINT operations off the coast of Israel.
The usual complement of VQ aircrew members was on board our lumbering "Willy Victor." Although slow, it was capable of sustained flight of 12 to 18 hours, depending on such factors as weather, fuel, altitude, intercept activity, and crew fatigue. We might, for example, hold orbit during a mission for an extra period of time if SIGINT activity proved particularly fruitful.
Our aircraft crew consisted of the front-end crew of pilot (mission commander), co-pilot, navigator, engineer, and radio-operator. In those days, VQ-2 had no secure air-ground communication capability (this would come later in the early 1970s with KY8 and KW6 communication equipment). The back-end crew was made up of the Evaluator (senior ELINT officer), a junior ELINT officer or two, three or four AT (avionics technician) ELINT operators, and three CTT ELINT operators. A couple of aircraft maintenance technicians flew with us; they would maintain the aircraft and remain on the ground in Athens. In addition, we five "spook" linguists were from NAVSECGRUDEPT Rota to intercept VHF/UHF radio-telephone signals. As I remember, our spook crew consisted of me (a CTIC dual-trained in Russian-Hebrew languages and senior CT), two junior CTI petty officers trained in Hebrew ([deleted] and [deleted]), and two junior CTI petty officers trained in Arabic (I don't remember their names). When we took-off from Rota, we had no idea how long the deployment would last, so we packed for a long trip--30 days.
The transit flight to Athens from Rota took about eight hours. Most of the crew rested in the bunk beds in the rear of the aircraft and ate chow cooked in the plane's galley. Usually, the junior VQ-2 enlisted personnel were responsible for in-flight cooking duties. On occasion, we enjoyed hot, delicious chow. Other times we ate cold "horse-cock" sandwiches. Crew members took turns resting in the relief bunks.
In my usual workaholic fashion, as soon as we cleared Rota with "wheels in the well" and heading east over the Mediterranean, I pulled the security curtains around the spook intercept positions and turned on my receiving equipment. The security curtains ostensibly shielded our work from uncleared VQ crewmembers, of which there were always a few on board. Of course, these people had a pretty good idea what we were doing but such were the security regulations of that day. My intercept position consisted of one VHF receiver, one UHF/VHF receiver with a spectrum analyzer, and a four-track voice recorder. The other four COMINT positions were similarly outfitted with voice recorders and twin receivers; they, however, lacked spectrum analyzers. The spectrum analyzer gave me at the "supervisor's position" a visual view of radio activity in the form of "spikes" between 100-150 MHz and 200 and 500 MHz. It was a handy tool to spot new signals.
It was my habit to search for Russian voice activity anytime I was airborne with VQ-2. On this such flights, our tracks to Athens took us within VHF intercept range of several Russian naval anchorages but well outside range of radio activity from the Middle East. I worked virtually the entire flight and did manage to record several VHF voice signals from Russian vessels emanating from the Soviet Fifth Eskadra in their anchorages.
The usual operating procedure that we spooks adhered to included activating the recording system (four track tapes) with time dubs and frequency notations, while manually writing down gists of voice activity on logs, and notifying the Evaluator of what we were recording. The Evaluator in turn would direct his operators to conduct an ELINT search for corresponding radar activity. Reciprocally, ELINT might intercept a radar signal from an unfriendly target and tip us off to search for correlating voice activity. After a flight was over, the Evaluator and senior spook (others could be involved) would sit-down and compare notes for the fusion report, called the PMFR (post-mission flight report). The Evaluator was responsible for releasing this TOP SECRET Codeword message into the SPINTCOMM system after landing.
On this particular transit flight, our intercepts were sparse so that we decided not to issue a report. Also, on non-tasked transit flights such as this one, PMFRs were not required to be transmitted to our consumers: DIRNSA, COMSIXTHFLT, CINCUSNAVEUR, CIA, JCS, to name a few (the list of addresses was about one page long). PMFRs were sent by SPINTCOMM ordinarily at immediate precedence to action addressees and priority to information addressees.
Upon landing at the international airport in Athens late that afternoon and after servicing the aircraft for the next take-off, the majority of the crew boarded USAF transit buses to go to our "semi" contracted hotel, the Hotel Seville, in Iraklion, a suburb of Athens, not too far from the airport. We always stayed at the Hotel Seville; it was managed by a friendly Australian by the name of [deleted], along with a very friendly female, [deleted], a local Greek. The place was clean, fairly comfortable, with a kitchen and bar open virtually all the time. While the crew was getting settled in, we--the Evaluator, one or two VQ officers, and I--were still on the base, having made our way to the USA-512J compound to stow mission materials and receive an intelligence update from the US Air Force.
USA-512J was a US Air Force Security Service (AFSS) station set-up in 1966 in conjunction with DIRNSA on the Greek Air Force side of the Athens international airport to process, at least preliminarily, the SIGINT collected from USAF ACRP C130 and US Navy VQ-2 EC121M and EA3B aircraft operating in the East Med. The USA-512J site was a temporary facility consisting of a secure fenced-in compound patrolled by Security Police. Several special mobile vans were parked in the compound, including one for SPINTCOMM, one for maintenance, one for administration, and one or two for operations (voice transcription positions, an ELINT read-out position, and various research data banks and file cabinets). All vans were heated and air conditioned.
Our individual security clearances had been sent ahead of us via SPINTCOMM by our parent commands in Rota, giving SI cleared members of the aircrew immediate access to the compound and its facilities. The USA-512J briefers told us they did not know much about what was going on in the Middle East that day, except for what was being reported in the press. The ACRP platform had not returned yet from its Mideast mission that day. Later, we would find out that the ACRP brought back practically complete coverage of the Israelis attacks on June 5, although the Hebrew voice materials were not processed for another day or two. The ACRPs had no Hebrew linguists in those days, and a linguistic support team of NSA civilians would not to arrive for another 24 hours.
After completing business at the 512J compound, we too proceeded to the Hotel Seville, where we gathered our aircrew together, telling them in whispers what little we knew about the situation. We advised them to remain in the hotel in case we received emergency tasking. Actually, we expected to receive orders to fly the next day, but surprise, surprise! A phone tip to the Mission Commander told us we were to get airborne as soon as possible. We were in disbelief and mystified. Surely, our taskers did not expect us to fly into the combat zone in the dead of the night! Oh, but they did!
Within a few hours, we were airborne from Athens en route to the coasts of Egypt and Israel. The transit flight usually took about three hours to get to the track some 25-50 miles off the coasts. Egypt claimed territorial limits of 12 miles out to sea, while Israel claimed six miles, and we always remained well beyond those lines of demarcation. While in the past we had used several variations of a basic flight path over international waters, the normal track pattern consisted of a dogleg after we joined the track northeast of Alexandria, Egypt. We would then fly eastward off Port Said and the Sinai to a point north of El Arish, and then dogleg northeast along the Israeli coast to a point west of Beirut, Lebanon. The track was then reversed and repeated as needed for the duration of the 12 plus hour mission. Ordinarily we flew the tracks at altitudes ranging from 12,000 to 18,000 feet with the EC121M. The EA3B, which wasn't used too often on these East Med missions, flew considerably higher, above 30-35,000 feet. The track profile, paralleling the Egyptian and Israeli coasts although not terribly important for intercepting VHF/UHF voice activity, was very important to sorting out and locating Egyptian and Israeli radars in ELINT through ADF. In addition to regular ADF, the EC121M aircraft was equipped with a special piece of intercept equipment called "Big Look." With Big Look, it was possible to intercept, emulate, identify, and reverse-locate the source of radar signals. So a parallel track to the coasts was very advantageous.
En route to the track this night, our mission commander reassessed our situation in the dark as we headed toward the area of hostilities. I vividly recall this night being pitch black, no stars, no moon, no nothing. The mission commander considered the precariousness of our flight. He thought it more prudent to avoid the usual track. If we headed east off the coast of Egypt toward Israel, we would look on radar to the Israelis like an incoming attack aircraft from Egypt. Then assuming the Israelis did not attack us, when we reversed course, we would then appear on Egyptian radar like Israeli attack aircraft inbound. It, indeed, was a very dangerous and precarious situation.
But our mission commander had the good sense to adjust our flight into the combat zone. The new approach called for us to proceed between Crete and Cyprus and then fly diagonally toward El Arish in the Sinai along an established civilian air corridor. Upon reaching a point some 25 NM northeast of El Arish, we would reverse course and hold orbit wherever desired. This is the same southeasterly/northwesterly track that the ACRP C130s ordinarily flew, because the civilian air corridor at least partially masked the flights. While this diagonal track is not good for ELINT purposes and Big Look, it certainly appeared to be a lot safer than the dogleg along the coasts in the middle of the night. That was nuts!
When we arrived on station after midnight, needless to say the "pucker factor" was high; the crew was on high, nervous alert. Nobody slept in the relief bunks on that flight. The night remained pitch black. What in the devil were we doing out here in the middle of a war zone was a question I asked myself several times over and over during the flight. The adrenalin flowed.
As it turned out, though, the flight was uneventful, except for a few radio checks from the belligerents. The Israelis were home rearming and reloading for the next day's attacks, while the Arabs were bracing themselves for the next onslaught come daylight and contemplating some kind of counter-attack. Eerily, our COMINT AND ELINT positions were quiet.
As dawn broke, that changed; our receivers came alive with signals mostly from the Israelis as they began their second day of attacks. We spooks furiously gisted voice activity mostly from the Israeli pilots, while the Evaluator married up that activity with airborne radars intercepted from the ELINT positions. The Egyptians launched an abortive air attack on an advancing Israeli armored brigade in the northern Sinai but their aircraft were shot out of the sky by IAF Mirage aircraft. We monitored as much as we could but soon had to head for Athens because of low fuel. We were glad to get the heck out of there.
En route to Athens, the Evaluator and I wrote as much of the PMFR as we could, but some of our spook tapes required replaying at USA-512J. When we arrived in the compound, our tasking for next several days awaited us. Happily, the taskers realized we needed rest, and so our next flight would not be until the morning of June 7, followed by another morning flight on June 8. That was okay with us because the ACRP had already taken off to provide SIGINT coverage of June 6.
Other good news awaited us. We were informed that three civilian Hebrew linguists from DIRNSA were arriving to help process the Israeli intercept materials. USAFSS had many linguists for the ACRP flights at 512J, all qualified in Arabic and Russian languages, but not a single Hebrew linguist. As it turns out, the ACRPs were blindly copying any voice signal that sounded Hebrew. They were like vacuum cleaners, sucking every signal onto their recorders, with the intercept operators not having a clue as to what the activity represented. Much of the Israeli air activity always stood out like a sore thumb, though, compared to the Arabs. The Israeli aircraft used mostly UHF transceivers, while the Arabs only used VHF transceivers of Soviet origin.
Following a review of our tapes and confirming the shootdown of Egyptian Sukhoi-7 aircraft (this was the first time I ever heard a real, live shootdown), we released the PMFR and headed for the Hotel Seville and a well-deserved rest. We were all beat; it had been a long time since some of us last slept. I turned in right away but several of the VQ airedales, known for partying particularly after fate-tempting flights drank beer, rolled the dice for more beer, and pinched the hotel barmaids before finally collapsing for the night.
The next day, June 7, we launched about mid-morning so that we would have little overlap with the ACRP, which was on station at dawn. Our flight was filled with reams of intercept activity showing Israeli attacks on the Arabs all day long. In reality, I do not recall much of the nature of the attacks, except that we got reels and reels of tape showing Israeli tank attacks in the Sinai and air battles between Israeli Mirages and Egyptian Migs. I think we had intercepts of the Israelis doing battle with the Jordanians and Syrian as well. We returned to Athens after dusk.
On returning to the 512J compound to refine and release the PMFR, I recall the presence of the NSA civilians toiling away on the many backlogged tapes from our and ACRP flights. I recognized two of three civilians from earlier NSG and NSA duty assignments at Ft. Meade, Maryland. With the NSA civilians in place and the USAF Arab/Russian linguists and traffic analysts providing technical support, we would be able to take the guess work out of our work in the sky. They gave us callsigns, frequencies, unit identities, and other technical data to better cover the war with our intercept equipment.
On June 8, the day of the attack on the Liberty, our track profile was almost the same as our first flight in the night. We were "wheels in the well" from Athens about mid-morning, arriving on the track at noontime, flying from Crete/Cyprus diagonally to El Arish and reverse. When we arrived within intercept range of the battles already in progress, it was apparent that the Israelis were pounding the Syrians on the Golan Heights. Soon all our recorders were going full blast, with each position intercepting signals on both receivers. The Evaluator called out many airborne intercepts from Arab and Israeli aircraft. We were going crazy trying to cope with the heavy activity.
After a couple of hours of hard work, I received a heated call on the secure intercom from Hebrew linguist [deleted]. [deleted] excitedly proclaimed something to the effect, "Hey, Chief, I've got really odd activity on UHF. They mentioned an American flag. I don't know what's going on." I asked him for the frequency and rolled up to it. Sure, as the devil, Israeli aircraft were completing an attack on some object. I alerted the Eval, giving him sparse details, adding that we had no idea what was taking place. The activity subsided. After some time passed, Petty Officer [deleted] called me again. He told me about new activity and that the American flag is being mentioned again. I had the frequency but for some strange reason, despite seeing it on my spectrum analyzer, couldn't hear it on my receiver, so I left my position to join him to listen at his position. I heard a couple of references to the flag during an apparent attack. The attackers weren't aircraft; they had to be surface units (we later found out at USA-512J it was the Israeli motor torpedo boats attacking the Liberty). Neither [deleted] nor I had ever heard MTB attacks in voice before, so we had no idea what was occurring below us. I advised the Eval; he was as mystified as we were.
We continued recording voice activity for another two hours. All the while, the Israelis sustained their attacks on the Arab targets. Finally, it was time to return to Athens. We recorded voice activity en route home until the intercepts finally faded. On the way home, the Eval and I got together to try to figure out what we copied. Despite replaying portions of the tapes, we still did not have a complete understanding of what transpired except for the likelihood that a ship flying the American flag was being attacked by Israeli air and surface forces.
By the time we arrived at the USA-512J compound, collateral reports were coming in to the station about the attack on the USS Liberty. The first question we were asked us, did we get any of the activity? Yes, we dared to say we did. The NSA civilians took our tapes and began transcribing. It was pretty clear that Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats attacked a ship in the East Med. Although the attackers never gave a name or a hull number, the ship was identified as flying an American flag. We logically concluded that the ship was the USS Liberty, although we had no idea she was even in the area and could become the object of such an attack. Our intercepts further showed that perhaps the attack was a mistake.
We next deliberated on what to do with our information. Should we issue a CRITIC or simply put the information in our PMFR? After much deliberation, we decided against the CRITIC because our information was already hours old (to meet CRITIC criteria, information should be within 15 minutes of the event). Beside there was the question of VQ-2 properly introducing such a report into the CRITICOMM system, since there was neither national authority nor any precedent to do so. Instead, we finally issued the PMFR with appropriate highlighted information to all our addresses at either flash or immediate precedence. I don't recall.
It had been quite a day and other days remained before us. We returned to the Hotel Seville for rest and relaxation, feeling a sense of exhilaration but not comprehending the chaos and calamity taking place on the Liberty at that very moment as she struggled to leave the attack area.
The next morning, on June 9th, when we arrived at USA-512J for the pre-mission briefing we found out the NSA civilians had transcribed most of our intercept and were sending the raw information back to DIRNSA via SPINTCOMM. Later that day, the civilians were informed to pack up the tapes to be couriered to Ft. Meade as soon as possible. (This would be the last I would see the tapes and transcripts until I received orders to NSA over a year later, discussed below.)
The next East Med missions are now a blur in mind. I know we covered the remainder of the Six Day War, which ended on June 10, 1967. The Syrians retreated from the Golan Heights area; their military if not destroyed was seriously degraded. The Egyptians lost the Sinai while suffering severe losses of personnel and equipment. Perhaps the Jordanians lost the most to the Israelis. In addition to losing a significant amount of personnel and military gear, they had to cede Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Probably about two weeks after the Six Day War we were relieved by another aircrew from Rota. The NSA civilians remained in Athens for a couple of more weeks and then returned home to Ft. Meade.
While the Six Day War was by far the most memorable and exciting time of my tour of duty in Rota, I had other unforgettable flights aboard VQ-2 aircraft on numerous missions. On average VQ-2 would fly six to twelve missions per month against Israel and Arab Mid East targets, unless higher priority Soviet targets were the order of the day (e.g., Soviet Fleet Exercises in the Mediterranean or Norwegian Sea). There were many of those. By the time I left Rota in July 1968, I had accumulated over 2,000 hours in the air in VQ-2 aircraft.
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Nowicki Enclosure 2
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Postscript to the attack on the Liberty
As mentioned in Enclosure 1, the next time I saw those voice tapes collected by our VQ-2 platform revealing the attack on the Liberty was over a year later when I was ordered to NSA for duty in 1968. I was assigned to G643, which was the organization responsible for the Israeli military problem. By this time, the tapes had been completely re-transcribed by a senior Hebrew linguist in the section. One of my first orders of business on reporting to G643 was to reread the complete transcripts. Up to this point, I always felt the evidence we collected showed the Israelis attacked the Liberty by mistake in the heat of battle. All my conversations with colleagues in G643 and reading of the voice transcript confirmed as much to me. Further, I assumed that NSA had shared this evidence with senior government officials who inquired into the attack on the ship. I certainly assumed that the Liberty's CO, her cleared officers, and CT personnel knew about the tapes and the fact they were collected by an airborne platform. I continued to make this assumption, but by the time I arrived at NSA a year later it was no longer a burning issue with anyone. The tapes and transcripts were simply filed away in the bottom of a desk drawer in G643. Nobody seemed to be interested in hearing about the USS Liberty any longer.
And so for the next dozen years, not much was said about the USS Liberty incident. The American public was told the attack was an accident. Only the Liberty crew was making rumblings about the attack being intentional while floating the idea of a grand conspiracy by the US government in collusion with the Israelis. I started thinking about that VQ flight again, feeling it should be made public. None of the senior officers with whom I was associated, however, was interested or concerned. Several months before I retired in 1979, I even wrote a personal letter to the Commander of the Naval Security Group, Rear Admiral Eugene Ince, saying I thought it was time to make the information public. Admiral Ince surely knew about the VQ-2 tapes because he was the senior NSG officer on the staff of CINCUSNAVEUR in 1967 during the attack on the Liberty. I received no reply from him.
I retired on July 1, 1979 with nothing further said about the tapes, which incidentally I last sighted during a TAD trip to NSA in the late 1970s. The tapes and transcripts were still in the bottom of a desk drawer in the Israeli military section in G643.
Forward 20 years, during which time Jim Ennes writes his book and the crew from the USS Liberty gets organized, subsequently going on record with strong words that the Israelis intentionally attacked the ship and that senior US authorities helped cover up the fact.
As we know, the world-wide-web and computers are wonderful technologies. It was through this medium that an old friend of mine from service in Kami Seya, Japan in the 1950s accidentally surfaced. After communicating with each other by e-mail for almost a year, a reference to the USS Liberty cropped up between [deleted] and me. [deleted] mentioned that he was on the Liberty and was wounded. My response, with sorrow and regrets, was that indeed it was a small world because I was above him that terrible day. I could tell by the tone in his reply that he was still upset (and rightfully so). He was really troubled when I told him my view of events. He wasn't buying the accident-pitch at all.
In a period of a week or two we exchanged e-mails at a furious pace, trying to gauge what each other knew about the attack. First assuring him I am not an Israeli hawk, only a former CTI who was trained in Hebrew and who worked the Israeli military problem for several years, I told him the attack was a mistake. Did he know a VQ-2 EC121M aircraft was there that day? No, he didn't know that, and didn't think anyone else knew of it either. He ostensibly contacted Jim Ennes, who likewise said he did not know of our presence. I asked [deleted] how did the Liberty crew know the Israelis attacked them intentionally. His reply: "the Israelis saw our flag." How did you know that, [deleted]? Well, someone in the CT crew heard the Israelis talking on their radios about the American flag. But [deleted], I reminded him, the Liberty had no Hebrew linguists aboard (she embarked only NSG and NSA Arabic linguists in Rota), so how did you know the Israeli aircraft and boats were discussing the American flag? He didn't know, so again he asked Ennes. Ennes responded that it was his understanding the Israelis used English during their attacks. My rejoinder to [deleted] was: this could not be the case; in all my years of working the Israeli air problem, their military personnel spoke only Hebrew. The only time the Israelis ever (repeat ever) used English was after they started receiving American F4 and A4 aircraft in 1969/70 (well after the Six Day War), and those conversations were limited to maintenance check-flights probably when American advisors were nearby. English was never used in combat situations involving those aircraft or any others to my knowledge. Besides, our VQ tapes and voice transcripts showed only Hebrew spoken that day during the attack.
At one point in our conversation, [deleted] urged that if I felt so strongly about this I should go public with my information. My riposte was that, while I would be willing to do so, I would want to be certain those voice tapes and transcripts were still existed at NSA. I doubted they were but who knows; they still could be in the desk drawer in G6. I, however, do not have the wherewithal to check for them.
On a final note, I can identify several NSG and NSA personnel who could vouch for my version of the attack. Besides I believe there is other evidence to support a case of a mistaken attack, discussed in the next Enclosure 3.
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Nowicki Enclosure 3
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Exculpatory evidence supporting a mistaken attack
In addition to the VQ2 voice materials that I contend support a case for a mistaken attack on the USS Liberty by Israeli forces on June 8, 1967, the following discussion is germane to my argument that the erroneous attack was carried out by the Israelis in the heat of battle. Much of my counter-argument is based on the Jim Ennes' narrative in his book, Assault on the Liberty (Random House, NY, 1979), and my experience that includes 20 years of naval service. Ennes says he and the Liberty crew are convinced the Israelis deliberately attacked the ship. He further argues that certain high-level US Government officials colluded with the Israelis to hide the intentional attack. His argument does not hold up to scrutiny.
First, to defend my hypothesis of an accidental attack one must consider the psychological frame of mind of the Israeli warriors. For most of them this was their first real test in war. Their fathers before them craved out the State of Israel under constant wartime pressure from the Arab states before and after 1948. Now the sons were being challenged to defend the nation. Apparently, they could expect no help from the United States, if Israel initiated the attacks. President Johnson said as much (see Ennes, p. 210).
For weeks and months before June 1967, the leaders of the Arab states in Cairo, Damascus, and Amman publicly threatened coordinated annihilation of Israel. By May 1967, taking the threats seriously, the Israeli leaders devised a battle plan that incorporated a preemptive attack to wipe out the Arab military forces in Egypt in one felt swoop, with subsequent follow-on attacks on the Syrians and Jordanians. Everything depended on this new generation, "sabra," the youth of Israel. The sabras must defend their nation, they were told. This was a war of survival. Their very lives and the lives of their families and the future of Israel depended on them!
Add to the above picture, the Israelis now being in their third day of war when the hapless Liberty arrives in the East Med. The sabras were attacking every Arab military target in their gunsights, and were doing a complete job. Along comes a slow moving ship toward the Israeli coast from the direction of Port Said, Egypt. An early morning Israeli airborne reconnaissance mission (Noratlas aircraft discussed below) is flown over the ship. As it turns out, the Liberty is not identified by the Israelis as she continues to steam toward Israel (see reasons discussed below).
Nobody knew the identity and function of this mystery ship, and that includes some US naval authorities in the Mediterranean. For example, senior officials on the USS Saratoga, operating near Crete, referred to the Liberty as the USNS Liberty, a civilian-manned contract ship (see Ennes, p. 75, footnote 4). Further, those authorities who knew did not know the precise location of the Liberty in the war zone off the coast of El Arish, Egypt. Additionally, our VQ crew had no idea of the Liberty's presence that fateful day.
The track of the USS Liberty in the battle zone had to look ominous to the planners in the Israeli war room and the "pumped up" Israeli sabras. Just as our VQ2 mission commander was concerned about our safety on an ominous track on the June 5/6 night flight, the approach of the Liberty to El Arish must have appeared ominous to the Israelis as the vessel came toward them from Egypt. Moreover, as the Liberty passed Port Said close-in shore during the night of June 7/8 heading easterly, the crew reported seeing the sky around the city filled with smoke and fire. The Liberty was very close to the shore that morning, so close that a "little prop plane" could be seen every few moments skimming the sand dunes on the beach (see Ennes, p. 50).
Following the first Israeli reconnaissance morning flight by the flying boxcar (a Noratlas) at 080600 (local), the Liberty crew notices its flag is fouled. Besides, the flag was "dark with soot and badly tattered." It was replaced sometime after 080720 (local), well after this Noratlas reconnoitered the Liberty. The ship was barely in international waters (see Ennes, pp. 50-51).
One or more Israeli Noratlas aircraft overfly the Liberty at least six times between 081030 and 11245 (local) (see Ennes' narrative and sequence of events inside the cover of his book). After the overflight at 0600, the next overflight occurs at 1030. It was made at near masthead level, reminiscent of our VQ2 low level flights (explained below).
While I will concede it is likely this Noratlas crew observed the American flag, we have no way of actually knowing that fact, nor if identified, when the information reached the war room in Tel Aviv. We on the VQ2 EC121M did not hear any such reporting by radio; only later in the afternoon did we hear references to flag during the attacks.
Therefore, I must conclude that the report to Tel Aviv authorities was probably passed to the war room post facto. We have no idea what time any of the Noratlases recovered at home nor the time the intelligence information about the American flag was made available in the war room. I think it was probably during the MTB attack because the torpedo boats halted their attacks when they could have finished off the Liberty.
According to Ennes, the three MTBs left the port of Ashdod at 1200 local, some 125 miles away, heading for the Liberty at 35 plus knots. They commenced a machine gun attack and launched torpedos at 1435 local. Three minutes later, the sabras mysteriously broke off the engagement. If the boat commanders had wanted to sink the Liberty, they could have done so at this time. Instead, they ceased fire and retreated, returning later to offer assistance to the stricken Liberty. I contend it was during the attack the identification of the American ship became known to the Israeli war planners. I also believe our VQ-2 voice intercepts showed this identification causing the cease-fire.
In reconstruction of the attack, the Liberty crew makes much of flying the American flag, as if it would somehow protect them in harm's way (see Ennes, p. 152). Little does the crew appreciate the difficulty of identifying a ship from an aircraft merely on the basis of a flag or even a hull number (GTR 5 displayed by the Liberty). Based on my experience of flying many "low and slow" reconnaissance flights over ships in the Med and Atlantic with VQ2, unless the flights are almost overhead, target identification is virtually impossible. High-powered binoculars are not much good in a bouncing low-level aircraft. Even post facto photos do not always reveal identification. See, for example, Ennes' photo of the ship on page 146. This crisp overhead photo does not clearly show the identity of the American ship. So how could the attacking Israeli forces conclude this was a friendly ship?
Additionally, in an interesting commentary Mr. Ennes takes Captain McGonagle to task about identifying flags. The MTBs were flying the Israeli flag prior to the torpedo attack (pp. 148-148). Ennes says his captain must have erred (Ennes' emphasis) during the Naval Court of Inquiry; because "it would have been practically impossible to identify a tiny and wildly fluttering Star of David [flag] a mile away..." Mr. Ennes also doesn't understand why the Israeli MTB's did not recognize the hull number, GTR 5, in their July 6, 1967 account (pp. 171-173). He claims the Israeli sailors had to understand the significance of GTR 5. I would challenge him; I believe I know American sailors who could not decipher such a hull number.
I point out the above in the interest of showing the difficulty of identifying vessels by flags and hull numbers in the heat of battle. Further, identification of a ship's flag by high-performance jet fighters would be even more difficult. Consider that the Israeli pilots are engaged in a war situation, flying combat air patrols (CAPs) and flying to and from the front. They could hardly be expected to identify a small fluttering flag on a ship far below them. My son, an ex-Navy F18 pilot, confirms my contention. While the Liberty crew thinks these pilots were intent on identifying them, in fact the pilots were probably engaged in more pressing activity to protect their country.
At 1400, when the Israeli aircraft commenced their attack, the Liberty crew had no idea who the attackers were, even mis-identifying them as Arab MIGs (pp. 69, 75, 97).
At 1430 or so, as the Israeli MTBs approached the Liberty, the senior boat commander may have tried to ascertain the true identity of the ship. Captain McGonagle of the Liberty reported seeing a flashing light from the middle boat. He told his gunners to hold their fire while he attempted to communicate with the MTBs by a hand-held Aldis lamp. One Liberty gunner evidently did hear the captain and opened up with a burst of machine-gun fire. Near simultaneously, the rear gun mount opened fire, "blanketing the center boat." The captain called for all gunners to cease fire but by this time the MTBs returned fire and shortly thereafter launched torpedoes (p. 81). The attack was abbreviated, lasting only three minutes from 1435 to 1438 local. It was during this attack that the Israelis finally identified the American ship. Without such identification, the MTBs would surely have sunk the Liberty.
Less than two hours later, at 1614 local, the American Embassy in Tel Aviv announced in a Flash precedence message to all concerned American authorities that the Israelis erroneously attacked a "may be Navy" ship and apologized for their misdeed (p. 99).
Even the Liberty did not know who her attackers were. According to Liberty log, approximately 15 minutes later, at 1632 local, the crew finally identified the nationality as Israeli as the MTBs returned again, this time to offer assistance to the listing Liberty.
In conclusion, even without taking into account the VQ intercepts, I think Jim Ennes's book makes a strong case the Israelis mistakenly attacked the USS Liberty. The main reason is because they mistook her for an enemy ship. Consequently, I agree with Ennes's citation on page 154. He says the Naval Attachè in Tel Aviv evaluated the attack as "...erroneous attack from trigger happy eagerness to glean some portion of the great victory being shared by IDF Army and Air Force and which the Navy was not sharing." The sabras carried out their duty. Other evidence of a mistaken attack follows in the next enclosure.
_________________
Nowicki Enclosure 4
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cover-up conundrum, Who was responsible, Why VQ flight never divulged
In his book, Ennes discusses the initial struggle US government officials faced trying to rationalize the presence of the USS Liberty off the coasts of Israel and Egypt following the attack (pp. 125-126). Should the US admit that the Liberty was an intelligence-gathering ship sent to eavesdrop on radio conversations? Surely, the countries would be offended. So to stall for time until there was forthcoming clarification about the attacks, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the Pentagon issued a press release confirming Liberty was in the East Med and the target of an erroneous attack admitted by the Israelis. The press release informed (falsely) that the mission of the Liberty was to "assure communications between U.S. Government posts in the Middle East and to assist in relaying information concerning the evacuation of American dependents and other American citizens from the countries in the Middle East."
US Navy commands subsequently issued their own conflicting versions of the Liberty's presence, some true, some false. One officer on board the USS America stated (accurately), "...[the Liberty] was there to spy for us. Russia does the same thing. We moved in close to monitor the communications of both Egypt and Israel. We have to. We must be informed of what's going on in a matter of seconds." Vice Admiral Martin, COMSIXTHFLT, said (falsely), "I emphatically deny she was a spy ship" (p. 130).
Two days after the attack on June 10, US military officials in the Pentagon, quoted in a UPI wire-service story, said they were satisfied the Israeli attack on the Liberty was a tragic mistake of warfare. Due to security constraints, the story did not divulge the source of the confirmation. By this time, NSA (and others) would have received our PMFR and the field reports from the NSA civilians in Athens. NSA was also trying to rationalize why the Liberty was there in the first place. In their report, Walter Deeley, Frank Raven, Jane Brewer, and two Navy officers gave the technical reasons for sending the Liberty to the East Med. One reason was to provide VHF and UHF communication coverage (p. 132).
Mr. Ennes appears to bask in the (inaccurate) report of the Shreveport Times editorial some weeks after the incident, that the Liberty was attacked to stop her from exposing Israeli preparations for the Syrian invasion (pp. 142-143). Mr. Ennes, of course, knew the Liberty had no such capability; she had no Hebrew linguists. In addition, Mr. Ennes places credence in a report that the Naval Court of Inquiry received during the time the court was in session (p. 152). Admiral Kidd, the senior Court Officer, stated he received a Top Secret report that showed Israeli aircraft identifying a ship displaying an American flag. I will believe that the source was possibly our VQ-2 platform.
About a submarine in the area Mr. Ennes and other members of the crew believe that a US sub was in the area, recording and photographing all events (pp. 64, 206, 218). While I cannot discount this possibility, I can eliminate the mystery submarine being the USS Amberjack, operating in the East Med at that time. A colleague of mine on TAD from Rota, [deleted] was aboard the Amberjack. He stated to me on several occasions the sub was not his unit, as they operated in the Alexandria area during the Liberty attack. (Note: On a USS Liberty's webpage (www.halcyon.com/jim/ussliberty/cyanide.htm) a suggestion is made that the submarine was possibly the Amberjack.)
In several passages of his book Mr. Ennes says the Israelis must have known of the identity and presence of the intelligence-gathering Liberty. He credits the Israelis with having one of the best intelligence services in the world (p. 211). If that is correct, why didn't the Israelis know that the Liberty had no capability against Israeli targets? With no linguistic capability, the ship could not possibly discredit an Israeli concocted story of self-defense or a scheduled surprise attack on Syria on June 8 (delayed 24 hours because of the Liberty's presence, according to Mr. Ennes' supposition). Moreover, as we know, NSG and NSA linguists were embarked in Rota. According to Mr. Ennes' logic, the Israeli intelligence service surely knew of the identity of these linguists who were only Arabic-qualified. I think Mr. Ennes gives too much credit to Israeli intelligence and has little understanding of the complexity of intelligence systems supporting tactical forces.
On another Liberty webpage (www.halcyon.com/jim/uissliberty/summary.txt), Mr. Ennes boldly proclaims in "Assault on the Liberty: A summary" that "The [Israeli] reconnaissance pilots were heard by intercept operators in Germany and in Lebanon reporting to their headquarters that they could see an American flag and men sunbathing on deck." I challenge this statement. VHF and UHF communications are normally limited to short range. It is rare these communications can be intercepted by ground stations more than 100 miles from the source. My personal experience, for instance, aboard the USS Little Rock in 1966, when [deleted], [deleted] and I conducted hearability tests from the Little Rock during a voyage from Beirut, Lebanon across the East Med (close to Cyprus) suggests the improbability of VHF/UHF intercept from Lebanon, much less Germany. From Beirut to the location of the Liberty, it is over 200 miles, about the limit of airborne (e.g., VQ, ACRP) intercepts (and this was before the days of satellite intercepts).
So finally remains the real question: who was at fault for the Liberty incident? At the risk of sounding pretentious and arrogant, I want to offer my views about where to put the onus. I consider several key players: NSA, Pentagon, Naval Commanders, Liberty's CO, NSG officers, the Israelis, all with some manner of culpability.
But who was most responsible? At the risk of being despised by the Liberty crew, I can overlook the Israelis for their part. The young sabras were determined to save a fragile nation in a time of war. Complicating matters for them, they possessed imperfect intelligence information on this mystery ship in their waters.
Second, NSA, Pentagon, and U.S. Navy and Theater Commanders (including LANFLT, NAVEUR, and SIXTHFLT) all shared much responsibility. After all, it was they who put the ship in harm's way. But, after sending the ship's tasking and attempting to move the ship away from the battle zone, their ability to control the ship was limited by an inefficient communication system that plagued this era of the Cold War. These were the days before the advent of efficient communications systems with computers and satellites. Anyone who had spent any time in a Comm Center (General Service or SPINTCOMM) was aware of gigantic problems in these facilities, especially the relay centers on which the Liberty relied for the bulk of her communications support. The problems of sending key messages to the Liberty by naval authorities (see Appendix A, pp. 225-233 and Appendix N, pp. 269-275) were also compound by an inoperative Liberty TRSSCOMM system (which seemed to be down much of the time).
Third, Mr. Ennes and his CT crew must bear some responsibility. Had they spent some time in Division 333 (NAVSECGRUDEPT Rota) with division head, [deleted], during the Rota port call, they might have been aware of the VQ and ACRP missions in the East Med. While their Rota indoctrination may not have done any good in the end, Mr. Ennes and crew might have better advised the CO on the unfolding dangerous events.
Finally, having said the above, it leaves only one real responsible person: the CO, Captain McGonagle. In the Navy, every CO and commander of a naval unit understands responsibility for the safety of personnel and equipment entrusted to him. If not explicit, it is implicitly understood. Captain McGonagle failed in this responsibility. If, for example, he had acted like our VQ-2 mission commander who instinctively changed our track on that June 5/6 night flight, Captain McGonagle might have averted the tragedy by altering the ship's track on his own initiative. Moreover, the captain failed to take into account a key failing of human behavior in dealing with seniors, which simply goes like this: "out of sight, out of mind." Translated, this axiom means when the task begins military commanders are invariably on their own. Indeed, Captain McGonagle alone was ultimately responsible for the safety of his ship and crew.
Now, returning to the last issue at hand: why for 33 years--until now did the VQ-2 flight remain unknown to the American public? I have no idea. I suppose it was due to a myriad of circumstances including national security considerations. It could be because of the reluctance of government officials to acknowledge US airborne platforms eavesdropping on comrades, especially a friend like Israel. Or, it could be due to an incomplete inquiry. Jim Ennes talks about the post facto investigation on pages 163 and 215. The investigators did not enjoy all the facts. He states the Department of Defense, under Walter Deeley, conducted a full-blown investigation into the incident, with the DOD and JCS even sending a Major General to head-up a fact-finding team in the Mediterranean. Their job was for an on-the-spot inquiry, including a review of the mishandled of communications. Why didn't the investigative team pursue me and my colleagues at NAVSECGRUDEPT Rota and VQ2? Ennes also stated the Liberty's Lieutenant Bennett was subsequently assigned to NSA, where he tried to gain access to CIA files (there is no mention of NSA files or the tapes). Why didn't LT Bennett contact G6, especially [deleted] and his Hebrew linguists in the Israeli military section in G643?
On a last note, like Mr. Ennes, who writes his book because the story "cries out to be told" and because he feels he is uniquely qualified to tell all, I too feel qualified with a story to be told. Unfortunately our stories contradict. While Mr. Ennes and the Liberty crew had the misfortune of enduring the consequences of the attack, they did not know their attackers. I did.
_________________
Nowicki Enclosure 5
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Naval Career of Marvin E. Nowicki (1955-1979)
Jan 1955 Fresh off the farm and out of high school in southern Illinois, joined the US Navy. Attended boot camp at Great Lakes, IL
Jun 1955 Graduated from Class A Teleman School in San Diego, CA
Aug 1955 Graduated from Class A CTO-branch school in Imperial Beach, CA
Dec 1955 Completed on-the-job training in traffic analysis in GENS-2 at NSA, Ft. Meade, MD
Advanced to CTSN
Jul 1957 Completed two years and half of duty working in Process and Reporting (P&R) on RU naval problem at Kami Seya, Japan
Advanced to CT3 and then CT2
Jul 1958 Finished one-year of duty in P&R on CHICOM naval problem on the mountain top at the US Army (ASA) base, Linkou, Taiwan. The battle over Quemoy and Matsu was the hot topic during latter part of my tour. Worked extensively with CIA operatives in Taipei who collected and shared HF comms intercepts with us.
Advanced to CT1
Dec 1961 Completed three-year tour of duty at NSA working in P&R in A24 division analyzing the Soviet navy communications in the Far East. My assignment was on the in-area submarine problem.
During NSA tour, spend six months in 1960 on TAD in Key West, FL, intercepting, reporting, and developing a database on Cuban military targets. This was the time when the USS Sea Poacher was shot-up by the Cuban navy as Castro was consolidating his hold on the country.
Changed CT branches, from CTO to CTR
Jul 1962 Finished 24 weeks of Russian language training at Anacostia Naval Station in DC. Couple items of interest: Two Norwegians were in my class, and in the class following mine was Fred Randall. Fred was aboard the VQ-1 EC121M that was shotdown by the North Koreans in 1969.
Oct 1962 Completed 12 weeks of advanced Russian R/T training at NSA, Ft. Meade, MD. Advanced to CTRC but soon was automatically converted to CTIC.
Feb 1965 Completed three-year tour of duty at NAVCOMMSTA, Sidi Yahia, Morocco in NAVSECGRUDEPT, working Soviet Merchant Shipping problem. We monitored the Merships communicating on HF comms with Moscow and their home fleet headquarters in the Black Sea. Within a year or two after completion of my tour of duty, the responsibility for monitoring the Merships was transferred to NAVSECGRUACT Edzell, Scotland.
Highlights of Sidi Yahia tour: (a) tracked and reported numerous RU MerShip arms carriers transiting into the Mediterranean from the Black and occasionally the Baltic Seas. Our information allowed the US Navy to locate and photograph these arms carrying ships entering the Med on voyages to Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Somalia, Iraq, and other third world countries aligned with the Soviet Union. (b) Got in on the tail-end of the Cuban Missile Crisis. NAVSECGRUDEPT Sidi Yahia provided the majority of heads-up and tracking data on Soviet arms carriers heading to Cuba in fall of 1962; (c) Helped work out bugs in NSA's "machine formatted" RU world-wide MerShip reporting system. Also drafted RU MerShip handbook.
Mar 1966 Finished 52 weeks of "special Arabic" (code name for Hebrew language) training at the NSA National Cryptologic School.
Apr 1966 While still attached to NSA, along with four NSA-assigned CTI Hebrew linguists, spent 30-day TAD to VQ-2 in Rota, Spain, conducting airborne surveys (hearability tests) of Israeli military tactical communications. A series of very long 18-hour VQ-2 airborne collection flights were flown off the coast of Israel from Wheelus AFB, Tripoli, Libya. At this stage of embryonic collection efforts of tactical comms from Mid East targets, Wheelus Air Force base was the nearest air facility with secure SI storage facilities. USA512J (discussed above) in Athens, Greece was not yet operational.
Jul 1968 Completed two plus years of duty in NAVSECGRUDEPT Rota, assigned to the new Division 333 (the linguistic TAD pool) as a dual linguist (RU/HE) to support VQ-2 airborne missions and other direct support (DirSup) missions; was plank-owner in Division 333; was one of the first two CTIs to qualify as aircrewmen by VQ-2. The other qualifier was [deleted], a classmate in the Hebrew language course at NSA. [deleted] was our division officer, and [deleted] was a fellow TAD'er who spent many days away from Rota aboard airplanes, ships, and submarines. He was aboard the USS Amberjack during the Six Day War.
Much of my time in Rota was spent on TAD with VQ-2. The VQ-2 mission was to conduct airborne electronic reconnaissance to collect information on areas and targets of naval and national importance. We flew EA3B and EC121M missions in the eastern and central Med, Baltic, and North Atlantic against Russian, Arab, and Israeli targets. Occasionally, we made flights into the Adriatic to cover Serbo-Croatian and Albanian targets.
Also, early in my Rota tour, spent 30 days TAD aboard the USS Little Rock during its East Med operations in 1966. The purpose of the TAD was to conduct VHF/UHF hearability tests of Israeli and Egyptian tactical communications from the Little Rock track between Beirut and Crete. The NSG station on Cyprus was unable to hear VHF/UHF targets (but was in a good location to collect HF communications). The Little Rock hearability tests yielded very little intercept; targets were mostly confined to northern Israel and Syria.
Highlights of Rota tour: (a) collected tactical comms of Israeli attacks on USS Liberty and Six Day War; (b) searched for RU SAM-2 sites in Algeria's part of the Sahara Desert from Wheelus AFB; (c) hunted RU TU95 Bears flying reconnaissance of US Atlantic Fleet carrier groups. Our VQ hunts were flown from Bodo, Norway, Keflavik, Iceland, Scotland, Lajes, Azores; and Rota; (d) supported COMSIXTHFLT units with information collected by numerous VQ high/low level missions against Russian naval units of the Fifth Eskadra operating in the Med; (e) collected and transcribed hundreds of hours of RU/HE tactical comms in support National and DirSup tasking.
Advanced to Warrant Officer (WO-1).
Dec 1971 Finished three-year tour of duty at NSA in G group (Frank Raven, Chief). Initially assigned as traffic analyst in G6 ([deleted]), actually working in G643 ([deleted]) on the Israeli military problem. With approximately one year left on my tour, became chief of G643 and later the chief of G64, responsible for all Mid East targets. At end of tour was relieved by USAF Lt. Colonel. Finally, prior to the completion of the NSA tour, attended the Senior Military Cryptologic Supervisors Course sponsored by the National Cryptologic School.
Highlights of NSA tour: (a) helped institute the first computerized program handling and processing voice transcript in G64; (b) assisted with development of database on Israeli military, particularly its Air Force; (c) was member of A/G task force cobbled together by Frank Raven (G group) and Walter Deeley (A group) to track and report on immense Soviet military build-up of Arab military forces in the wake of destruction in the Six Day War.
Advanced to Chief Warrant Officer (CWO-2) and then Lieutenant Junior Grade in the Limited Duty Officer (LDO) program.
August 1975 Completed four-year assignment in the Cryptologic Support Group (CSG) in Rota, Spain. The CSG was a new concept providing SIGINT support to the collocated Fleet Ocean Surveillance Information Facility (FOSIF) in Rota. FOSIF's mission was also a new concept to furnish all-source intelligence to COMSIXTHFLT on any targets affecting the fleet commander and subordinate units, especially from Russian Navy units operating in the Med. Together the FOSIF and CSG were an entirely new approach in all-source intelligence support. Before, there was no place in the navy or national community where information could be brought together, analyzed, and collated with other information tactically.
Our FOSIF/CSG operation was sponsored by NIC, CINCUSNAVEUR, and DIRNSA. First located in the Fleet Weather Center on the Rota Naval Station, it was later moved to NAVSECGRUDEPT Rota spaces at the Bullseye site. NAVSECGRUACT Rota offered completely secure spaces and improved point-to-point communications with SixthFlt, other customers, and suppliers of intelligence. NAVSECGRUACT Rota offered access to the overall SIGINT community (e.g., overhead, airborne, BULLSEYE, land-based, DIRNSA) so that all-source information could be furnished to SixthFlt by FOSIF/CSG on a real-time basis.
Highlights of this plank-owning FOSIF/CSG assignment: (a) assembled and fused myriad SIGINT and other intelligence data for the afloat commander, a task never before accomplished in the USN; (b) provided continuous 24/7 intelligence support to the fleet on the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, and the follow-on Soviet military resupply of its Arab friends by air and sea; and (c) spent much time on the road closing the philosophical gap that had developed over the years between the "ocean blue" navy and the national SIGINT community, with the help of local imaginative and progressive leaders and thinkers. Here I refer to my boss, Commander [deleted], eventually to make Admiral and become Commander of Naval Security Group, and Commander [deleted], OIC of FOSIF Rota, eventually to make Rear Admiral.
Finally, it is noteworthy that shortly after activation of FOSIF/CSG in Rota, a second FOSIF/CSG was activated in PacFlt at Kami Seya. Later FOSICs (Fleet Ocean Surveillance Intelligence Centers) were launched at CINCUSNAVEUR, London, CINCLANTFLT, Norfolk, and CINCPACFLT Hawaii. All were colocated with NSG units or commands.
Advanced to Lieutenant (LDO).
June 1979 Completed a four year tour of duty as the first Officer in Charge of NAVSECGRUDET Brunswick, ME. A subunit of NAVSECGRUACT, Winter Harbor, ME (for logistical purposes), my new unit for launched by CINCLANTFLT and DIRNSA to provide RU linguistic and cryptologic support to a new type of airborne intelligence collector home-based at the Naval Air Station, Brunswick, ME. This new airborne collector was known as Special Projects (also variously known as [deleted], [deleted], etc.). It was attached to the Patrol Squadron VP-26 for logistics and cover purposes. With specially configured EP3 aircraft, Special Projects was able to col | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | qwpxz | | Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 4:19 am Post subject: |
| over a 1000 of our youngster and over 20,000 of Iraqis have died
WHY?
Blood for oil? Blood for zionism? Blood for Halliburton?
Pick your conspiracy theory, because there is no logical reason for these people to be dying.
They are definitely not dying because of WMDs.
They are definitely not dying because of the "war on terror".
They are definitely not dying because dubya suddenly wanted to export democracy.
Pick your conspiracy theory.
There's a dirtball in the White House. It's our job to clean it up.
When you do right, you come out right. ~ Wolfman Jack | | | | qwpxz | | Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 4:24 am Post subject: |
| over a 1000 of our youngster and over 20,000 of Iraqis have died
WHY?
Blood for oil? Blood for zionism? Blood for Halliburton?
Pick your conspiracy theory, because there is no logical reason for these people to be dying.
They are definitely not dying because of WMDs.
They are definitely not dying because of the "war on terror".
They are definitely not dying because dubya suddenly wanted to export democracy.
Pick your conspiracy theory.
There's a dirtball in the White House. It's our job to clean it up.
When you do right, you come out right. ~ Wolfman Jack | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Jul 24, 2004 11:26 am Post subject: Imperial Hubris |
| From: TOOL
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 06:24:20 EDT
You should really read Imperial Hubris. Anonymous is excellent. He writes about America being guilty about Israel, for no good reason and at too high a cost.
He was also interviewed by Wolfe Blitzer yesterday about Osama Bin Laden (OBL) and Israel.
He blew the myths out of the water when Wolfie asked him about OBL only recently grabbing Israel as for being hated. He told Wolfie that OBL has been speaking on that issue since 1979.
He also said that reforming the CIA etc was ridiculous! | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:23 pm Post subject: Neo-cons have begun to rally for another war for Israel.. |
| Will the UK be dragged into this one as well (especially if Blair gets re-elected)?:
reporternotebook wrote:
Neo-cons have begun to rally for another war for Israel..Our lies led us into war...French Jews caught up in a war of words
To:
New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/214698p-184881c.html
Charles Krauthammer: Strike before Iran's nukes get hot
RePortersNoteBook Memo: The neo-cons have begun to rally for another
war for
Israel. A mistake was apparently made with Iraq...Iran is the real
culprit.
I would like to think people in this country would not stomach another
war,
but logic doesn't always prevail. Now, it seems that a multi-lateral
approach
may be used with Europe to get them riled up enough to join in.
The latest from Charles Krauthammer -- a commentator who understands
the
mentality of Neo-Cons and has proven to be one of their best
cheerleaders. This
commentary gives you a taste of what we'll be hearing from the
government soon.
All this war mongering to support a Zionist State.
====
Strike before Iran's nukes get hot
Charles Krauthammer
krauthammerra@hotmail.com
Friday, July 23rd, 2004
Did we invade the wrong country? One of the lessons now being drawn
from the
9/11 report is that Iran was the real threat. The Iraq War critics have
a new
line of attack: We should have done Iran instead.
Well, of course Iran is a threat. But how exactly would the critics
have
"done" Iran? Iran is a serious country with a serious army. Can you
imagine the
Iraq War critics actually supporting war with Iran?
If not war, what then? The Bush administration, having decided that
invading
one axis-of-evil country was about as much as the country can bear, has
gone
multilateral on Iran. Washington delegated the issue to a committee of
three -
the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany - that has been
meeting
with the Iranians to get them to shut down their nuclear program.
The result? They have been led by the nose. Time is of the essence, and
the
runaround that the Tehran Three have gotten from the mullahs has meant
that we
have lost at least nine months in doing anything to stop the Iranian
nuclear
program.
Iran instead of Iraq? The Iraq critics would have done nothing about
either
country. There would today be two major Islamic countries sitting on an
ocean
of oil, supporting terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction -
instead
of one.
Two years ago, there were five countries supporting terror and pursuing
WMDs
- two junior-leaguers, Libya and Syria, and the axis-of-evil varsity:
Iraq,
Iran and North Korea. The Bush administration has just eliminated two:
Iraq, by
direct military means, and Libya, by example and intimidation.
Syria is weak and deterred by Israel. North Korea, having gone nuclear,
is
untouchable. That leaves Iran. There are only two things that will stop
the
Iranian nuclear program: revolution from below or an attack on its
nuclear
facilities.
The country should be ripe for revolution. But the mullahs are very
good at
police-state tactics. The long-awaited revolution is not happening.
Which makes
the question of preemptive attack all the more urgent. Iran will go
nuclear
during the next presidential term. If nothing is done, a fanatical
terrorist
regime openly dedicated to the destruction of the "Great Satan" will
have both
nuclear weapons and the terrorists and missiles to deliver them. All
that
stands between us and that is either revolution or preemptive strike.
Both of which, by the way, are far more likely to succeed with 146,000
American troops and highly sophisticated aircraft standing by just a
few miles away
- in Iraq.
===============
Comment
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our lies led us into war
The press must also be held to account for falsehoods we reproduced
before
the invasion
George Monbiot
Tuesday July 20, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1264968,00.html
The Guardian
So Andrew Gilligan, the BBC reporter who claimed that the government
had
sexed up the intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, was
mostly
right. Much of the rest of the media, which took the doctored
intelligence at
face value, was wrong. The reward for getting it right was public
immolation and
the sack. The punishment for getting it wrong was the usual annual
bonus. No
government commissions inquiries to discover why reporters reproduce
the
government's lies.
All journalists make mistakes. When deadlines are short and subjects
are
complicated, we are bound to get some things wrong. But the falsehoods
reproduced
by the media before the invasion of Iraq were massive and
consequential: it is
hard to see how Britain could have gone to war if the press had done
its job.
If the newspapers have any interest in putting the record straight,
they
should surely each be commissioning an inquiry of their own. Unlike the
government's, it should be independent, consisting perhaps of a lawyer,
a media analyst
and an intelligence analyst. Its task would be to assess the paper's
coverage
of Iraq, decide what it got right and what it got wrong, discover why
the
mistakes were made and what should be done to prevent their repetition.
Its report
should be published in full by the paper.
No British newspaper is likely to emerge unharmed from such an inquiry.
The
Independent, the Independent on Sunday and the Guardian, which were the
most
sceptical about the claims made by the government and intelligence
agencies,
still got some important things wrong. Much of the problem here is that
certain
falsehoods have slipped into the political language. The Guardian, for
example,
has claimed on nine occasions that the weapons inspectors were expelled
from
Iraq in 1998. Embarrassingly, one of these claims was contained in an
article
called Iraq: the myth and the reality. Even John Pilger, who could
scarcely be
accused of dancing to the government's tune, made this mistake when
writing
for the paper in 2000. It's not that the Guardian believes this to be
the case:
it has published plenty of reports showing that the inspectors were
withdrawn
by the UN, after the US insisted that they should leave Iraq for their
own
safety. But the lie is repeated so often by the government that it
seems almost
impossible to kill.
The Observer, I think, would do less well. It commissioned some
brilliant
investigative reporting, which exposed many of the falsehoods
reproduced
elsewhere in the media. But it also carried several reports that were
simply wrong. It
published five articles claiming that there were "direct Iraqi links
with the
US hijackers" who destroyed the World Trade Centre in 2001. One
suggested
that "Iraqi training, intelligence and logistics were hidden behind an
Islamist
facade". Iraq, it claimed, "ran a terrorist camp for foreign Islamists,
where
it taught them how to hijack planes with boxcutters".
Three reports suggested that the anthrax attacks in the United States
in
October 2001 had "an ultimate Iraqi origin". Other articles maintained
that "Iraq
is developing a long-range ballistic missile system that could carry
weapons
of mass destruction up to 700 miles"; that it had developed "mobile
factories
of mass destruction"; and that it "has tried to buy thousands of ...
aluminium
tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of
centrifuges to enrich uranium". All these stories turn out to have been
based on
false information supplied by the Iraqi National Congress and US or
British
intelligence agencies.
Its editorials also appear to have been too willing to give George Bush
and
Tony Blair the benefit of the doubt. In November 2002, for example, the
paper
maintained that Saddam Hussein "expelled UN weapons inspectors in 1998;
he
subsequently built up an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction ... the
real
responsibility [for averting war] lies with Saddam himself". The paper
consistently
argued that we should not go to war without an international mandate,
but
supported the invasion when that mandate didn't materialise.
The Observer published plenty of stories that contradicted these
reports. But
a balance between true and false still averages out as partly false,
and its
readers were left not knowing what to believe. In May this year, the
paper
published an article by David Rose retracting some of the incorrect
material. I
don't think I'm alone in believing that it provided insufficient
redress. It
failed to deal with the allegations of links between Iraq and al-Qaida,
or of
Iraq's responsibility for the anthrax attacks. And it seems wrong that
one
journalist should take responsibility for decisions that must have been
approved
elsewhere. This partial retraction contrasts uncomfortably with the
comprehensive apology published by the New York Times four days before.
"Editors at
several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing
for more
scepticism were, perhaps, too intent on rushing scoops into the paper,"
the NYT
confessed. "Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get
prominent
display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into
question
were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all."
But the Observer's sins are minor compared with those of the Times, the
Sunday Times and the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs. They all appear to
have been
willing accomplices in the Pentagon's campaign of disinformation. By
far the worst
of these offenders is the Sunday Telegraph. In September 2001, it
claimed
that "the Iraqi leader had been providing al-Qaida ... with funding,
logistical
back-up and advanced weapons training. His operations reached a
'frantic pace'
in the past few months". In October 2001, it reported that "Saddam
Hussein has
relocated his chemical weapons factories after the first case of
anthrax
poisoning in America ... A senior western intelligence official said
that ... 'The
entire contents of their chemical weapons factories around Baghdad have
been
moving through the nights to specially built bunkers'."
In September 2002, it reported that "Saddam Hussein is developing
frightening
new ways to deliver his arsenal of chemical and biological weapons,
including
smallpox and the deadly VX nerve agent". Another report on the same day
claimed that "Saddam is on the verge of possessing crude nuclear
devices that could
be 'delivered' using 'unorthodox' means such as on lorries or ships ...
Saddam has the capability to assemble all the components required to
make nuclear
weapons." In February 2003, it claimed that "Iraq's air force has
advanced
poison bombs".
All of these stories - and many others - appear to be false. But far
from
retracting them, it keeps publishing new allegations which look as
dodgy as its
pre-war claims. Like the Observer, it appears to have been used by
black
propagandists in the intelligence services and Iraqi defectors seeking
to boost
their credentials. Unlike the Observer, it seems happy to be duped.
So who will hold the newspapers to account? It seems that the only
possible
answer is you. You, the readers, must take us to task if we mislead
you.
Pressure groups should be bombarding us with calls and emails - you'd
be amazed by
the difference it makes. And if we don't respond with openness and
honesty, you
should cancel your subscriptions and look elsewhere for your news.
www.monbiot.com
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
====
French Jews caught up in a war of words
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1265023,00.html
Fears of attacks and controversial appeal by Israeli prime minister
thrust
issue of anti-semitism into spotlight
Amelia Gentleman in Paris
Tuesday July 20, 2004
The Guardian
Preparations for a welcome party are under way in Tel Aviv for the
arrival
next week of a specially chartered El Al flight carrying 200 French
Jews who
have abandoned their homes, jobs and families in France to start afresh
in
Israel.
Awaiting them is the promise of help finding work, financial assistance
with
accommodation for the difficult transition period, language tuition and
what
they hope will be a release from a growing climate of tension in their
home
country.
These departures are an uncomfortable subject in France, a nation
sensitive
to accusations of anti-semitism. This week these migrants have become
pawns in
a debate raging over France's relationship with its Jewish population,
triggered by the call from the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon,
for French Jews
to emigrate immediately to escape what he described as "the wildest
anti-semitism".
His appeal unleashed fury across the political spectrum yesterday,
heightening unease among politicians and Jewish community leaders alike
at the way
Israeli government-funded groups have been using reports of the
mounting
anti-semitic climate in France to fuel an energetic programme to
persuade French Jews to
leave.
Although official figures show that attacks and threats of attacks are
growing in frequency, there is no consensus among the Jewish community
over whether
the country has become a worse place for Jews to live. The reason why
more
Jews are leaving for Israel is hotly contested.
Almost all anti-semitic attacks are the work of disaffected youths from
the
large, disadvantaged Muslim communities, rather than the result of any
historic
anti-Jewish sentiment. Many observers fear that while the government
focuses
on the rise in attacks, it is failing to address the more fundamental
issue of
Muslim integration.
And there is growing anxiety that the significance of the relatively
small
exodus of French Jews is being exaggerated by Israel, as part of
worsening
diplomatic ties between the two nations.
"France is not an anti-semitic nation and Mr Sharon is simply settling
scores
with France through this question of anti-semitism," Patrick Klugman,
deputy
president of SOS-Racisme and a former head of the Jewish students'
union, said
yesterday.
Nevertheless, there has been an undeniable rise in French Jews ready to
perform move to Israel. For the past two years more than 2,000 people
have made the
journey, double the number who have left each year since the early
1970s.
Provisional figures suggest that this year the numbers will rise a
further 25%.
Sandrine Cohen, 29, will be on the flight next Wednesday with her
husband and
her four young daughters aged between seven and 18 months. Pregnant
with her
fifth child, the optician decided in January that it was time to leave.
"Our family has been attacked several times in the past five years.
We've
been called dirty Jews in the street and we've been sent hate mail, and
the
police have failed to help us," she said yesterday. "I'm well aware of
the violence
in Israel, but I'm scared for my daughters' future in France. On
balance, I
think we'll be safer there."
Menahem Gourary, the Jewish Agency's European director, has been
working on a
new drive to promote emigration to Israel. Named the Sarcelles project,
after
a rough Parisian suburb which is home to large Jewish and Arab
communities,
the campaign is targeted at residents of under-privileged parts of
France - in
Paris, Lyon and Marseille - where racial tensions are high.
Israel paid for dozens of representatives to travel to France, allowing
the
agency to set up permanent offshoots in some of these cities, so that
information on emigration is readily available.
"France has failed to integrate its Muslim population, and these groups
have
focused much of their anti-French hatred against the Jews who live
alongside
them in some of France's poorest suburbs," Mr Gourary said.
With Europe's largest Muslim population, at some 5 million, and its
largest
Jewish population (600,000), France has seen an escalation of religious
conflict - often directly linked to violence in Israel.
Mr Gourary said: "We believe 95% of the attacks against Jews are
committed by
Muslims of North African origin; this is the problem which France has
never
addressed."
The agency's latest campaign is partly motivated by the need to stem an
overall decline in migration to Israel, which has slowed now that the
wave of
immigration from the former Soviet Union is over; last year there were
fewer than
25,000 newarrivals, a 15-year low.
Neither Mr Sharon nor the Jewish Agency has accused the French
government of
state-sponsored anti-semitism, only of failing to address the problems
which
have triggered this rash of attacks.
"No one is making any comparison between the situation now and the Nazi
period. But we are very upset by the growing number of attacks against
children in
schools and universities," Mr Gourary said. "This isn't a military
campaign.
There's no door to door recruitment. We're simply trying to respond to
a
growing demand."
The agency is at pains to address the programme's central paradox -
that it
is trying to help citizens leave a peaceful European nation to live in
a
conflict-torn, recession-mired region, where anti-Jewish attacks are
much more
bloody.
"Attacks in Israel are attacks against the state of Israel, not
personal
assaults. In Paris you are singled out as someone who is wearing a
skullcap,
singled out as a Jew, and this individual assault is harder to cope
with,"
explained Michael Jankelowitz, the Jewish Agency spokesman in
Jerusalem.
Agency officials add that migration should not simply be viewed as a
way of
escaping anti-semitism at home, but as a positive decision to devote
one's
energy to building the state of Israel.
Not everyone is happy once they arrive and some return after a few
years,
distressed by the violence or unable to find work, but the figure is
put at below
10%.
Senior figures in the Jewish community have been angry at the way the
rise in
emigration figures has been trumpeted by the Israeli media as a clear
indication of the worsening situation in France, pointing out that
although the
exodus has doubled, the figure remains small. Other European nations
have seen a
similar rise.
"France is xenophobic, not anti-semitic. People are suspicious of
anyone
foreign," said Michael Grinberg, the proprietor of Goldenberg's, a
Jewish
restaurant in the Marais quarter of Paris, which was bombed in 1982.
"If Jews are
emigrating it's because they're running away from other problems in
France."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
=============================
"Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing for
the
Jews - reminds us who we are." --Jay Lefkowitz (NYT Magazine. Feb.12,
1995. Page
65). Jay Lefkowitz is now Deputy assistant to the President for
Domestic
Policy. A sick man! Don't you think?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peace is patriotic!
Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
253 West 72nd street #1711
New York, NY 10023
http://www.RePortersNoteBook.com
Available for Talk-Radio interviews 24hours 212-787-7891
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