TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles - Sacrificing Liberty: How Brave US Vets Prevented a Nuclear War By Refusing to Die

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

Today on TruNews, we take a look back at our first documentary, Sacrificing Liberty. On June 8, 1967, while patrolling in international waters in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, the USS Liberty was savagely attacked without warning or justification by air and naval forces of the state of Israel. TruNews presents a portion of the documentary that tells the story of the Liberty from the men who survived the attack. Airdate 9/23/22The coverup began immediately and has continued since 1967. Until now! Order your copy of this four part docuseries or begin streaming online now!   https://www.sacrificingliberty.com 

This is True News. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help us God. I'm Doc Burkhart. On June 8, 1967, while patrolling in international waters in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the USS Liberty was savagely attacked without warning or justification by air and naval forces of the State of Israel. Of a crew of 294 officers and men, the ship suffered 34 killed in action and 173 wounded in action. At 1,400 hours, while approximately about 17 nautical miles off the northern Sinai coast and about 25 nautical miles northwest of El Arish, the USS Liberty's crew observed three surface radar contacts closing with their position at high speed. A few moments later, the bridge radar crew observed high-speed aircraft passing over the surface returns on the same heading. Within a few short moments, and without any warning, Israeli fighter aircraft launched

a rocket attack on the USS Liberty. The aircraft made repeated firing passes, attacking the USS Liberty with rockets and their internal cannons. After the first flight of fighter aircraft had exhausted their ordnance, subsequent flights of Israeli fighter aircraft continued to prosecute an attack with rockets, cannon fire, and napalm. And during the attack, the USS Liberty's crew had difficulty contacting the Sixth Fleet to request assistance due to intense communications jamming. The

initial targets on the ship were the command bridge, communications antennas, and the four.50 caliber machine guns placed on the ship to repel boarders. After the Israeli fighter aircraft completed their attacks, three Israeli torpedo boats arrived and began a surface attack about 35 minutes after the start of the air attack. The torpedo boats launched a total of five torpedoes, one of which struck the side of the USS Liberty opposite the ship's research spaces. 25 Americans, in addition to the nine who had been killed in the earlier air attacks, were killed as a result of that explosion.

The true story of the USS Liberty is more shocking than any spy novel written by Tom Clancy. It was the most top-secret spy ship in the world. Its client was the NSA. The ship and its 294 U.S. Navy sailors were rushed to the Mediterranean Sea. Only the White House and the Pentagon knew that Israel was ready to attack Arab nations. The USS Liberty was deliberately sent into a kill zone. As we mentioned, the casualties were staggering, 34 killed and 174 wounded. The cover-up began immediately and has continued since 1967, until now. The aging survivors have finally told

their true story. Sacrificing liberty sets the record straight. The truth told for the first time about Israel's massacre of the USS Liberty crewmen. It includes lost video footage seen for the first time in decades. Shocking first time eyewitness testimony from

the men who survived on June 8, 1967, gut-wrenching descriptions of the carnage unleashed by Israeli gunboats, warplanes, and submarines, connecting the dots that Lyndon Baines Johnson, that linked him to a failed false flag operation to start a nuclear war with Egypt, and heartbreaking descriptions of human body recovery. Uncensored USS Liberty crewmen are telling their true stories for the first time in 53 years. The fuse that lit the fire of war in the Middle East that is still burning today. And Sacrificing Liberty also tells how brave American

men prevented a nuclear war simply by refusing to die on June 8, 1967. Well, today on True News, we'll feature a portion of this four-hour docuseries. The entire story can be watched on our website at sacrificingliberty.com. Now, at that site, you can register to watch the full digital version of the series. And you can also find out how you can own your very own copy of Sacrificing Liberty to share and watch in your own home on DVD. But without further ado, we proudly present this introduction to some of the bravest men the United States military has ever produced, the veterans of the USS Liberty. Here is a portion of their story. I'm sorry. When daylight pierced the vessel

One cloud was in the sky I beheld the star of Ramphan With a million questions why star of Ramfam with a million questions why but if it helps you sleep you can picture me Picture me And the bottom Of the sea Of the sea Israel's port city of Eilat, one of the Middle East's hottest spots,

following a blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba by the United Arab Republic. Ten years ago, Israel went to war over the same blockade, which cut off oil pipelines to Haifa refineries. Oil tankers and vital shipping arrive at this important city. The provocative war of nerves causes Israel to call up army reservists, ordering them to active duty to augment the regular 70,000-man Israeli armed force. Premier Levi Eshkol says Israel has no intention of attacking its Arab neighbors, calling for a mutual reduction of Arab-Israeli forces massed along the border. But, taking no chances, tank units go through

battle maneuvers in the Negev desert. On the 2nd of June, Prime Minister Wilson of Great Britain was welcomed to the White House. The visit had been arranged some weeks earlier to discuss the urgent problems common to both governments. However, a crisis, one that developed with dramatic and startling suddenness, would be given priority. The recent impasse in the historically explosive Middle East situation.

We come here today in another time of trouble when peace and justice are again in the balance. And it is on occasions like this that the counsel of an old and trusted friend is most welcome. Israel, facing yet another climactic point in her 19-year struggle for survival, saw not only the threat of maritime blockade, but to some dire profits, the threat of extinction. With the United Nations peacekeeping force withdrawn, with all attempts at private negotiations failing, solutions through diplomacy and United Nations intervention seemed increasingly remote. The time for talk was over. My name is Commander David Lewis.

In 1967, I was the research officer of the research ship Liberty, HETR-5 and there was also the OIC of USN-855 that had its own direct link to National Security Agency and Naval Security Group Command. My name is Robert Scarborough. I was a communications technician seaman aboard the USS Liberty. My name is Harold Eugene Six. I was a communications technician, third class, worked in cryptology. I was 21 years old and was born and raised in Wyoming

and joined the Navy in California. My name is Donald Wayne Pogler. I grew up in Wamego, Kansas. I live in Westminster, California. I was 21 when I was on the Liberty. My name is Terry L. McFarland. My rank on the USS Liberty was an E-4. My rating was a CTR-3 at the time. Well, my name is Ronald Cukol. I was 28 years old when I was aboard the ship. I was in charge of the T branches.

My name is Bryce Lockwood. I am from the southern tier of New York. I was in the United States Marine Corps, signed on temporary duty aboard the USS Liberty. My name is Ernest Gallo. I was a communication technician, maintenance, second class petty officer. My name is Larry Thorne. I'm 21 years old. On board the USS Liberty, I'm from Staples, Minnesota. My name is Phillip F. Turney. I was a thirdR2, that's communications technician, radio in second class.

My name is Mo Schaefer. I was 20 years old when I was on the USS Liberty, and I'm from Buchanan, West Virginia. William LeMay, electrician's mate, second class. I boarded this ship in 1966 until the attack in 1967. My name is Jack Beattie. I'm from Frazier, Michigan. I was 18 years old when I showed up for the Liberty, USS Liberty. Before the Liberty, I was at Naval Security Group headquarters, 3801 Nebraska Avenue, Washington. I was a lieutenant, and I was told that I'd have to have my card punched by sea duty if I ever expected to get promoted. The billet on the Liberty was open and I requested it and I got it.

I thought it was a beautiful new ship. I didn't realize at the time that it was taken out of mothballs and completely rebuilt, but it looked brand new to me. I was the head of the research department in the ship's hierarchy. The XO and the CO are a senior to me. I got transferred to the USS Liberty. I went aboard it in 1965 and I thought it was a, when I first saw the ship, I said wow. Everybody told me we mapped the bottom of the ocean. I said well all the antennas are going straight up, how could we be mapping the bottom of the ocean? But I said, that's a stupid, dumb kid.

And then it took me about a month or two, and I found out. Jesus, why did I believe that? Because it was so secret. Well, virtually everything that we did was either secret or top secret. We were reading other people's mail, basically, and we didn't want them to know that their mail was being read. I'd had no idea what the mission of that ship was. I knew the ship was involved.

It was an intelligence collection ship. It looked to me like a cargo ship rather than a major combatant. But I soon learned that at one time it was a Victory Hall class cargo ship that had been converted into a Navy intelligence collection ship. When I joined the Navy, I was told I'd never go to sea, that the CTMs never went to sea. Unbeknownst to the person giving me that advice in 1964, the Navy commissioned five ships for CTs.

So when I talked to the dispatcher, all I could think of was Vietnam. So I said, I'll take anything on the Atlantic. And I'm thinking of all these shore stations that I could possibly go to. And I was married. My jaw hit the ground when I cut orders to go on board a ship. That was a shock. Believe me, it was a total shock.

I went on board the liberty um greenhorn i mean i i didn't know a darn thing about serving on a ship uh so i had a lot of learning to do real quick orders came down for all the mr guys and everybody on the ship they were going to go to sea so i had a friend on up in the personnel office he said hey, hey Larry, I got orders for you and it's on a submarine rescue ship. Well, I kinda looked at that and I went over and looked at it. It was just the one that had a hand grinder on there. That was all they had for anything for a machinist to do.

And I said, well, isn't there anything else besides this piece of crap? He said, I don't know know I'll take a look. Well I got one ship over in Little Creek Virginia it's called the USS Liberty. It's a GTR5 whatever that is. I said okay we'll take a look at it. So a buddy of mine took a truck and went over to Little Creek and boy I said look at that, look at that ship. Boy, that's a Liberty, man. It's got a lot of stuff on it.

Look at all this antenna sticking everywhere and clean. Wow, look at that baby. So we walk up and the guy says, permission to come on board? And he said, granted. He said, are you a Poliwog? I said, excuse me? He says, never mind.

I said, ain't no big deal. Poliwog, what's that? I assumed it was to find out. When you get on that ship and you go across the equator, everybody has a good time. Except for the Poliwag, you had it. You were done. The shell back was going to kick your butt.

The crew had changed completely. They were dressed like pirates and beat us up like pirates. And they kept notes of what they didn't like about you for the last two months. So they could get you in front of somebody to kick your butt again, for all these things you didn't like about you. And when you crossed the equator they were beating your ass. Then you were given a little certificate, well thank you, you know. I mean it's like getting beat up for a piece of paper. I pulled a.45 at our initiation. They were determined they were going to kill this one

chief champion. Yeah, they put him in the slop chute and lifted both ends up. So he was under 50 gallons of swine slop garbage. And they were going to let them drown. They hated themselves. And this was their opportunity to get back. I ruined their plans. They shaved your head. They put you in rot gut crap. I mean, they kicked your butt.

And boy, you stood up and you got your ass beat right back down to the deck it was a Navy ship until they started talking about the spy part of it and all that. We'd start eating and all that, and they'd talk about, oh, look at the CTs over there, the nice treatment they're getting compared to us and all of that stuff. That was always a problem. The ship's company always felt that the CTs were prima donnas

and were treated better. I tried to make sure that anything that I was involved in, I had some of both. I know it never disappeared. Phil Turney is always pulling my leg about CTs and the treatment they got, but I didn't treat them any differently. It was an occasional brawl breakout, but nothing major. They were just, they'd go into the rooms that had combination locks on the doors,

and we never, I never was in one of the rooms, and I hardly knew what they did, you know. It was kind of abusive then with kids because we'd tell them that we have pool tables down in that room you can't get into, and we have a bowling alley down there you know we had all these things down there so you know that that's going to cause a little dissension i think we were very jealous of what we thought their life was like compared to the life we had and we thought they were snotty because they wouldn't talk to us during lunch and me you know usually on a ship like the vulcan i spoke to everybody on the ship, no matter what department they were in.

These people didn't socialize with us. Many old seafaring traditions still survive in the modern neighborhood. And that's nowhere more true than in the ward room. Who eats at which sitting? Who eats where? The CTs, I didn't, we weren't allowed to talk to each other. We didn't talk to them, they didn't talk to us. That's just the way it was.

I wish it would have been different. It was a strange, strange deal. Two different crews on one ship. Our job was to take care of them. That's our only job was to make sure the CTs could spy. And we were the most sophisticated spy ship in the world at that time. The ship's company people knew that any time the ship moved it was because of the communications technicians because what what we did was was why the ship was being positioned any place that that we went. And I think that's why there was a certain amount of animosity

between the communications technicians and ship's company. It shouldn't have been that way, but it was. NSA, to me, is the one that really funded our ship, and they did the things. I mean, I wore a Navy uniform, but we were actually working for NSA there to be intercept operators for them. Another interesting point, too, is the captain did not have a need to know on our ship. He didn't have a clearance to come in past their front little room and know what Dave Lewis knew. I'm positive there's no one that had higher clearance than I had. Some of them may have had different clearances.

I went down to my quarters, and pretty soon there was a knock on the door. I mean, Captain McGonagall wanted in. He hadn't gotten his clearance, and I told him he couldn't get in. He said, well, he'll bring some Marines then. We got him his clearance pretty fast. We set out in May, early May 1967. We started out on our African cruise, and our first port of call was Abidjan Ivory Coast.

Typically, our cruises were about three months to four months in length. And then we'd come back in port for a month. Our normal complement of intelligence personnel or communications technicians was somewhere in the neighborhood of 185 to 200. And then the rest of the ship's company was roughly 100 personnel. Well, our assignment was basically find out what is happening politically on the west coast of Africa. We were supposed to look and see if there had been any governments overthrown, any Russians involved, Cubans involved, anything of that nature. No Israeli or British Commonwealth link was ever assigned as a target. And if on the search position you identified something as Israeli or British Commonwealth, you were to drop it immediately.

We had a huge basket on the back of the ship called Trescom. And Trescom is a very sophisticated piece of equipment. Based on the moon's position, we could beam information, obviously high intelligence information, back to NSA. Yeah, the system operated at 3 gigahertz at 10 kW. obviously high intelligence information back to NSA. Yeah, the system operated at 3 gigahertz at 10 kW. It was like Buck Rogers, I'm going to tell you. It was very exciting to be a part of that.

Satellites in orbit, a ground network consisting of four tracking stations, two injection stations, and communications, operations, and computer centers, and navigation sets aboard units of the fleet. We were a very slow ship. We cruised up and down the coast of Africa to copy anything we could get. So you went slow so that something became interesting to copy that you'd stay in the area and copy it. Well, I was in charge of the T-branches.

The T-branches actually stands for teletype back there. We handled a lot of the teletype communications, not the Morse code stuff, but the teletype. You're intercepting everything you're instructed. In other words, you have a specific agenda. When you go to work, you're told exactly what channel to go to, what you're going to do. Now as a code copier, I can't read what I'm copying. Yeah, we had senior guys on the ship that would take their crack at trying to decipher what it was. And then we had guys who then sent our data directly to NSA,

and the NSA guys would try to decode it. Other teletypes on the encrypted Orestes net flatter out messages between ships in the task force. We were in a port in Africa. All of a sudden, all hell was breaking loose aboard the ship. Our orders were to the Eastern Med, post haste. There was a gal by the name of Jean Dixon who made a prediction that we had all heard that there was a ship that was going to get in a lot of trouble in the Mediterranean.

And everybody was skeptical about it. Everybody was nervous. And when we got emergency orders out of Abidjan, everybody said, this is it. They got everybody back aboard. In fact, there was one they were going to leave, but he got there just in time. He caught the ship.

We were underway, full speed, top speed top speed fast as we could go into the road to Spain we didn't know what was going on we had no clue what was going on he didn't tell us we had left Abidjan quite quickly which was unusual for the ship to take off as fast as we did we we did not cruise the Mediterranean at all, so it was highly unusual. It was very unusual for us to be diverted to, you know, a road to Spain to pick up additional supplies and personnel. We didn't know we were going into a thing called the Six-Day War because we didn't have news channels or any of those things to let us know, so we didn't even realize the six-day war

was going on. Reveille, Reveille. All hands heave to and trice up. The smoking lamp is lit in all authorized spaces. Now Reveille. The tenseness was immense because nobody knew what was going on. We can't tell you where we're going. Tell your families. We don't know. We don't know when you'll hear from us or whatever.

So think about that for kids on there of not knowing, even the officers on the ship not knowing. So you go to them and ask what's going on and they can't tell you. So then we picked up, I I think five or six people there and from NSA. We picked up a couple of Marines, we picked up a couple civilians there to that were linguists so we knew something very interesting was going on to bring them on board. If you get a reassignment in the middle of, you know, a transit, you'll also have to pick up new collection information when you get to a place like Rota. So I suspect when we got over there, we probably brought in new classified information that gave us target information as well.

The Liberty picked up a total of six linguists at Rota, Spain on the morning of June the 1st of 1967. There were three Arabic linguists from the National Security Agency. They were civilians. There were two Arabic linguists from Second Radio Company in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. And I was the sixth. I was a Russian language specialist. And it was a part of the mission of the USS Liberty is the impending six days of war of 1967 to make sure that whatever foreign powers were involved, that there was a record of what they were doing.

And that was the purpose of myself. And there were two other Russian linguists also assigned to the Liberty. We were given orders to go to an area off the coast of the Sinai. And as soon as we got added to the mystery of what was going on, as soon as we got into the Mediterranean, we picked up a Soviet destroyer that shadowed us. And they just were always there. Every day, every night, we looked back and there was a Soviet destroyer following us. He was our shadow. You know, I thought, boy, this is not a good place to be going.

And Captain McGonigal had been running general quarters drills every other day. Once he realized we were going into the men, Captain McGonigal had asked Admiral Martin for a destroyer escort, and he was denied. He said, Martin came back and said, you're not a warship, you're not a likely target, you don't need an escort. I can't imagine, unless it was because of malice or forethought, that comms 6th fleet

didn't automatically provide us an escort. Since they hadn't provided an escort, I requested one and was turned down. Four 40 millimeter machine guns and our six M1s, we couldn't do anything to defend ourselves if anyone wanted to attack. Well it's rather disconcerting to go in the middle of a war with no ability to protect yourself. We were going where no one had ever gone before. We were dealing with volatile military on both sides, and we were going in the middle of it.

War in the Middle East. Israeli forces drive spearheads across the Sinai Peninsula, west to the Suez Canal, south to the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba, breaking the blockade, Israel's new defense minister, General Moshe Dayan, hero of the 1956 Sinai campaign, was instrumental in mapping his nation's battle plan. The sudden swiftness of the Israeli army crushed UAR forces with a combined air and ground one-two punch. Egypt's charges that U.S. and British air units aided Israel are vigorously denied.

Flash message at this point. I suggest we read as follows. Dismayed by preliminary reports of heavy fighting between Israeli and Egyptian forces. As you know, we've been making the maximum effort to prevent this situation. We're expecting a very high-level Egyptian delegation on Wednesday.

And we had assurances from the Israelis that they would not initiate hostilities pending for the diplomatic efforts. We've been talking about it in these terms. It is probably better for us to get some sort of a message of this sort before the question of who really was responsible is completely clarified. To let them know that we were not a party to any of this business at this stage. But I wanted to get your own way. Yes, I would. All right. Yes.

What does it appear to you? Does it appear to you reasonably sure that these tanks kicked it? Well, the fact that the fighting has been occurring initially over Egypt is a little hard to sort out. Do they say to us that the Egyptians kicked it off? Well, they're both publicly. We have no message yet from the Israeli government except that they've asked for a meeting with the Security Council. We've had no direct message from Eshkol or Iban or anybody. from the Israeli government except that they've asked for a meeting with the Security Council. We've had no direct message from Eshkol or Iban or anybody.

Both publicly are claiming that the other started it, but the Israeli claim that a big tank column is moving toward Israel and that they went out to meet it, again, looks just a little thin on the surface. My guess is the Israelis kicked this off. Sure. All right. Thank you. Welcome back, and thank you for watching this brief introduction to the True News production of Sacrificing Liberty. Now, there's no doubt in my mind that you were impacted, challenged, and at times maybe just a little bit angered at what transpired that fateful day in June 1967 about the USS Liberty. You need to know the whole

story, and we would like to remind you that the entire story can be watched on our website, sacrificingliberty.com. At that site, you can register to watch the full digital version of the series. And you can also find out how you can own your very own copy of Sacrificing Liberty to watch and share in your own home on DVD. Once again, you can watch the full four-hour digital version of the docuseries and order personal DVDs at our website at sacrificingliberty.com. On behalf of Rick Wiles, the entire True News team, and the friends and partners who support this ministry, I'm Doc Burkhart, and we'll see you on the next edition of True News.