The Liberty Incident: The 1967 Israeli Attack on the U.S. Navy Spy Ship

by A. Jay Cristol, Ernest C. Castle (Epilogue by)

"On June 9, 1967, at the height of the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats attacked a naval vessel steaming in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula. After the fog of war had lifted, the Israelis realized, with horror, that they had nearly sunk a ship of their closest ally. Thirty-four Americans died and 171 were wounded. Despite multiple official American and Israeli inquiries that determined the attack resulted from faulty communications and tragic error, conspiracy theorists have, for thirty-five years, tirelessly maintained vocal charges of conspiracy and cover-up." Achieving unprecedented access to inside sources involved in the attack on the Liberty, federal judge and former naval aviator A. Jay Cristol draws on recently declassified documents, Israeli Air Force audiotapes of the attack, and interviews with such high-ranking officials as Robert McNamara and Yitzhak Rabin and a National Security Agency linguist who heard radio transmissions of the assault. What results is the most comprehensive analysis of a tragedy that has been shrouded in suspicion for so many years. Meticulously researched and documented, The Liberty Incident effectively resolves the controversy that has persistently surrounded the question of Israel's motive in executing the deadly attack.

Genres: History, Military Fiction

296 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2002

About the author

Judge A. Jay Cristol, JD, Ph.D. (University of Miami Graduate School of International Studies), was Chief Judge Emeritus of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida—where he was noted for several humorous opinions, including one written almost entirely in verse as a pastiche of Poe's The Raven—and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Law. He served as Special Assistant Attorney General of Florida during the 1959, 1961, 1963, and 1965 sessions of the Florida Legislature.

Having enlisted in the U.S. Navy during the Korean conflict, he served 18 years as a Naval aviator, then joined the Judge Advocate General's Corps, graduating with distinction from Naval Justice School. In the 1980s, the Department of Defense sent him to the International Institute of Humanitarian Law at Sanremo, Italy, to lecture senior foreign military officers on the law of naval warfare. He retired from the Navy with the rank of Captain in 1988.

Remaining an avid aviator, he was a founding member of the National Museum of Naval Aviation at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, and of the Wings Over Miami Military and Classic Aircraft Museum, and served as an Angel Flight volunteer pilot, flying people in need of transportation to and from regional medical centers for treatment.