Press conference, USS America Liberty Questions About the Liberty Two Accounts The Israeli Account Contradictions The Rescue Flights Recall of the Flights The Naval Hearing Washington View Press Control Press Reactions The Crew Organizes

The administration moved at once to isolate the men and to control news stories about the attack through CHINFO (Chief Information Office) and its PAs (public affairs officers). 1. News was coordinated and centralized in the Pentagon. 2. The LIBERTY crewmen were forbidden to talk to reporters except under conditions arranged by the PA officers. Control of the men came in two phases. From June 8 to 28, when the summary of the Naval Court was completed, the men were told that they could not speak at all. After June 2l they were told that they could speak only by repeating the exact words of the Summary. 3. The crewmen were forbidden to speak of the matter even to members of their families. There were threats of demotion, dishonorable discharge loss of pensions and even possible imprisonment for those who might disobey. 4. The crewmen were kept from the press by every possible means. Armed guards were stationed near the wounded men in the hospitals on the carriers, in Naples, and in Landshut, Germany. The crewmen on shore in Malta were under constant watch and were given daily orders to avoid the press. 5. Only one newsman, Irving R. Levine of NBC News, tried to break through this wall of isolation. He came from Rome to interview Captain McGonagle but instead was given an interview with Admiral Kidd. 6. The men were not allowed to merely remain silent. On the carrier AMERICA, in Malta, and later in Norfolk, they were ordered to take part in press conferences and told what to say. PA officers rehearsed the men and were present during the interviews. 7. The Departments of State and Defense kept a close watch to see how "favorable" and "unfavorable" stories were reported. 8. The crewmen were desperate to break out of their isolation and tell their story to the world. In the single case where a crewman managed to speak to a reporter (Lt. Golden's interview with APs Colin Frost, which will be described) the PA apparatus immediately put out a "counter story" through Reuters. 9. The Naval Court and its Summary were themselves exercises in press control. The Summary presented the LIBERTY attack as the Pentagon wished it to be seen, leaving out all dissenting evidence from the crewmen. The press was blithely unaware of the wall of censorship which the administration had built around the men and the incident, and made no attempt to break through. Instead the papers and journals contented themselves with comments upon the press releases from the US and Israeli governments, while awaiting the Naval Court summary. In general, the Israelis, in official statements and in unofficial press releases, told three different stories of the attack. (1) They said that the ship had no flag or identification mark. (2) They said that the ship seemed to be an Egyptian ship disguised as American. In this version, the flag and identification were visible, part of the "disguise". (3) They presented the story of Micha Limor, identified as witness and participant, who told of a mysterious silent ship with no one on deck, which would not respond to signals or gunfire or pause for identification. The press emphasized now one and now another of these inconsistent stories. No paper tried to analyze or summarize the stories, but instead one story was added to another. The press was mildly critical of Israel in the weeks after the attack, but there was no serious analysis. If there had been serious consideration, there would have been a question of the absurdity of the claim that the ship had no flag or identification. What possible purpose could be served by such insane behavior? Furthermore the ID number could be clearly seen on photos of the ship immediately after the attack, thus giving the lie to Israeli claims. The complete lack of curiosity on the part of the press was illustrated on June 18, when the Naval Court was still in session. On that date two stories appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES, side by side on the same page, given opposite accounts of the attack and of the hearings. One dispatch was from Colin Frost of AP. He got his story from Lt. George Golden in a Malta bar. Golden denied regulations to speak to him. The story said in part: A responsible source said today that senior crewmen of the LIBERTY were convinced that Israel's air and boat attack....was deliberate....They have testified to that effect before the navy inquiry court now in closed session...."We were flying the stars and stripes, and its absolutely impossible that they didn't know who we were", a survivor said. "This was a deliberate and planned attack." The other story was an unsigned dispatch from Reuters: Officers from the LIBERTY today rejected the idea that the attack was deliberate. One of the officers said that anybody who said the attack was deliberate was "out of his mind." The Reuters story is a false and planted story, hastily rranged for the administration to counter the Frost story.No officer of crewmen of the LIBERTY, including Captain McGonagle, EVER said that the attack was accidental, and no crewmen on Malta spoke to a Reuters reporter or to any other reporter except Frost. These two contrasting stories should have signaled to any interested observer that a public relations war was underway. However, there was no resonance to this event. No US paper picked up the Frost story (except for the Rome Daily News) and CHINFO noted with satisfaction that the story produced no echoes and no curiosity. In the next section I will show the strange behavior of THE NEW YORK TIMES in investigating this matter, and the unusual twists and turns of some journalists and columnists faced with this story.