RECOGNIZING LIVES LOST AND SURVIVORS OF 1967 ISRAELI ATTACK ON U.S. OBSERVATION SHIP

On 2026-06-08, Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY-4) delivered a floor speech titled "RECOGNIZING LIVES LOST AND SURVIVORS OF 1967 ISRAELI ATTACK ON U.S. OBSERVATION SHIP" in the House.

RECOGNIZING LIVES LOST AND SURVIVORS OF 1967 ISRAELI ATTACK ON U.S. OBSERVATION SHIP

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 96 (Monday, June 8, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 96 (Monday, June 8, 2026)] [House] [Pages H3916-H3918] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] RECOGNIZING LIVES LOST AND SURVIVORS OF 1967 ISRAELI ATTACK ON U.S. OBSERVATION SHIP (Mr. Massie of Kentucky was recognized to address the House for 5 minutes.) Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, it is my great honor, maybe one of the biggest honors of my lifetime, to stand here on the floor and do something that is 59 years overdue, to recognize the survivors and those who gave their lives on the USS Liberty 59 years ago today, when they were viciously attacked by IDF jets and also after that by torpedo boats. I am going to tell you a little bit of their story. By the way, there are at least a dozen of them here today with us. I just met with them in my office, and they related this story to me. It was a clear day. The USS Liberty was one of the most technologically sophisticated ships in the Navy, but it was virtually unarmed. It was sent to observe the Six-Day War going on in the Middle East between Israel and its neighbors. It arrived on June 7, and the weather was clear. Planes came out to meet them, to investigate. Then on the next day, on June 8, when they started the day, the visibility was unlimited and the American flag was flying proudly on the USS Liberty. More planes came from Israel to surveil the ship. They thought they were in good shape, but what happened next surprised them all. French Mirage jets showed up, and for 25 minutes, strafed and attacked [[Page H3917]] the USS Liberty. They shot rockets. They shot 30-millimeter cannons into the hull and into the ship. They even dropped napalm on the bridge of the ship. This was an effort to kill everybody on board. There was no intention of taking prisoners. After the 25 grueling minutes of attack on this virtually unarmed ship, when they thought things were over and they could recover, the torpedo boats showed up, three torpedo boats. They launched four torpedoes. One of them hit the hull of the USS Liberty and killed 25 people instantly. It blew a 40-by-40-foot hole in the side of this ship. They were intent on sinking it. They were intent on not having a single survivor. According to eyewitness accounts, the Israelis machine-gunned the lifeboats that they put down. They machine-gunned the firefighters who were on the deck. They were bringing the wounded and the dead to the mess hall to triage them. They had one doctor who was trying to help them all, put a few stitches in. It was harrowing. It was amazing that if not for that crew, that boat would have sunk that day. But it still wasn't over. Helicopters showed up, combat helicopters. The USS Liberty, even though their signals were being jammed by the Israelis, got a signal out. There were ships that tried to respond. The USS Saratoga and the USS America sent planes. Both of them sent planes to help the USS Liberty. And something happened that has never happened before to a ship under attack: The planes were recalled. This has never happened before. They sat there for 17 hours with 34 dead and 174 wounded out of 294 crewmembers. That is over a 70 percent casualty rate, which is unheard of. The Israelis were intent on leaving no survivors. What about our own military? Why did they not send anybody for 17 hours to help these men? So what really happened? The official reports say that it was a case of mistaken identity. But if you listen to Dean Rusk, former Secretary of State; Richard Helms, CIA Director; Bobby Ray Inman, head of the NSA; Captain Ward Boston, who was the chief council of the court of inquiry; and if you listen to Admiral Moore, who served in Pearl Harbor, Midway, commanded both the Atlantic and Pacific fleet, and was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, none of these distinguished men think this was an accident. They think it was intentional murder by the country of Israel, either as a false flag operation or because they simply didn't want anybody observing what they were doing that day. Well, I have got a call to action for everybody here. Honor these individuals. Quit ignoring that they exist. Go to their website, ussliberty.org. Support them while they are still alive. They need closure. Let's give them closure. Let's have an investigation. Let's pass a resolution honoring them. It is long overdue. Then they can have their justice. Mr. Speaker, I insert into the Record the declaration of Ward Boston declaring that the only official court of inquiry was invalid. affidavit of captain ward boston, usn. jag (ret.), senior counsel to the u.s. navy court of inquiry For more than 30 years, I have remained silent on the topic of the USS Liberty. I am a military man and when orders come in from the Secretary of Defense and President of the United States, I follow them. However, recent attempts to rewrite history compel me to share the truth. In June of 1967, while serving as a Captain in the Judge Advocates General Department of the Navy, I was assigned as senior legal counsel for the Navy's Court of Inquiry into the brutal attack on the USS Liberty, which had occurred on June 8th. The late Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, president of the Court, and I were given only one week to gather evidence for the Navy's official investigation into the attack, despite the fact that we both has estimated that a proper Court of Inquiry into an attack of this magnitude would take at least six months to conduct. Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., then Commander-in-chief, Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR), at his headquarters in London, had charged Admiral Kidd (in a letter dated June 10, 1967) to: ``inquire into all the pertinent facts and circumstances leading to and connected with the armed attack: damage resulting therefrom; and deaths of and injuries to Naval personnel.'' Despite the short amount of time we were given, we gathered a vast amount of evidence including hours of heartbreaking testimony from the young survivors. The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack which killed 34 American sailors and injured 172 others, was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. Each evening, after hearing testimony all day, we often spoke our private thoughts concerning what we had seen and heard. I recall Admiral Kidd repeatedly referring to the Israeli Forces responsible for the attack as ``murderous bastards.'' It was our shared belief, based on the documentary evidence and testimony we received first hand, that the Israeli attack was planned and deliberate, and could not possibly have been an accident. I am certain that the Israeli pilots that undertook the attack, as well as their superiors who had ordered the attack, were aware that the ship was American. I saw the flag, which had visibly identified the ship as American, riddled with bullet holes and heard testimony that made it clear that the Israelis intended there be no survivors. Not only did the Israelis attack the ship with napalm, gunfire, and missiles, Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned three lifeboats that had been launched in an attempt by the crew to save the most seriously wounded--a war crime. Admiral Kidd and I both felt it necessary to travel to Israel to interview the Israelis who took part in the attack. Admiral Kidd telephoned Admiral McCain to discuss making arrangements. Admiral Kidd later told me that Admiral McCain was adamant that we were not to travel to Israel or contact the Israelis concerning this matter. Regrettably, we did not receive into evidence, and the court did not consider any of the more than sixty witness declarations from men who had been hospitalized and were unable to testify in person. I am outraged at the efforts of the apologists for Israel in this country to claim that this attack was a case of ``mistaken identity.'' In particular, the recent publication of Jay Cristol's book, The Liberty Incident, twists the facts and misrepresents the views of those of us who investigated the attack. It is Cristol's insidiuous attempt to whitewash the facts that has pushed me to speak out. I know from personal conversations I had with Admiral Kidd that President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of ``mistaken identity'' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Admiral Kidd told me, after returning from Washington, D.C. that he had been ordered to sit down with two civilians from either the White House or the Defense Department, and rewrite portions of the court's findings. Admiral Kidd also told me that he had been ordered to ``put the lid'' on everything having to do with the attack on the USS Liberty. We were never to speak of it and we were to caution everyone else involved that they could never speak of it again. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of that statement as I know that the Court of Inquiry transcript that has been released to the public is not the same one that I certified and sent off to Washington. I know this because it was necessary, due to the exigencies of time, to hand correct and initial a substantial number of pages. I have examined the released version of the transcript and I did not see any pages that bore my hand corrections and initials. Also, the original did not have any deliberately blank pages, as the released version does. Finally, the testimony of Lt. Painter concerning the deliberate machine gunning of the life rafts by the Israeli torpedo boat crews, which I distinctly recall being given at the Court of Inquiry and included in the original transcript, is now missing and has been excised. Following the conclusion of the Court of Inquiry, Admiral Kidd and I remained in contact. Though we never spoke of the attack in public, we did discuss it between ourselves, on occasion. Every time we discussed the