Last week, on the 75th anniversary of the December 7, 1941 sneak attack on our naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawai’i, I witnessed endless remembrances and memorial ceremonies. On the History Channel FDR’s “a date that shall live in infamy” speech was played and replayed relentlessly. Documentary footage and interviews with those few living survivors were ubiquitous, and the local paper came weighted with a special insert—including a thick wad of advertising—memorializing the event.
But as the 50th anniversary of June 8, 1967 approaches, another sneak attack on the US military by enemy aircraft and naval vessels goes largely unremembered. On that day the USS Liberty was attacked without warning, leaving thirty-four men dead and another one hundred seventy-one injured. Those responsible for this heinous crime have never been held accountable. Survivors of the USS Liberty have waged a 50-year war for recognition of their courage and endurance under fire that has been deliberately ignored by US media, US lawmakers and the US military.
A spy ship operated by the NSA, the Liberty‘s sole purpose on June 8, 1967 was to gather signal intelligence on a conflict later called the Six Day War. She was operating just 15 miles off Sinai, in international waters, but should never have been so close inshore. Her controllers back in the US had determined such a location to be unduly hazardous and that she should steam 100 miles farther out to sea, but their…