On 8 June 1967, Israeli aircraft attacked the USS Liberty, a U.S. SIGINT vessel, resulting in the loss of 34 American lives and other injuries. The debate continues over whether that attack was "deliberate" or, as the Israelis maintain, "accidental."
Two survivors of the attack, Jim Ennes and Joe Meadors, maintain a memorial Web site on the USS Liberty: http://www.ussliberty.org/. Ennes is the author of Assault on the "Liberty" (1979), for which see below.
CAPT William L. McGonagle, commanding the USS Liberty when it was attacked, died on 3 March 1999. (Via nipmail@lists.xmission. com)
On 2 July 2003, NSA released previously classified materials relating to the attack on the Liberty. The releases are available at: http://www.nsa.gov/docs/efoia/released/liberty.html. The Index accompanying the releases describes the materials thusly: "This release includes three audio recordings, transcripts (in English), three follow-up reports, and a U.S. Cryptologic History Report entitled 'Attack on a Sigint Collector, the U.S.S. Liberty.' The recordings are in Hebrew and contain time counts in English that were added by the intercept operator. The follow-up reports are summaries of the three transcripts with non-substantive chatter omitted and a compiled report that summarizes the activity and contains the text of the transcripts. The U.S. Cryptologic History Report is a less redacted version of the same document originally released in 1999."
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