{"id":198478,"date":"2019-11-27T06:49:42","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T06:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=198478"},"modified":"2019-11-30T07:11:08","modified_gmt":"2019-11-30T07:11:08","slug":"the-truth-of-why-lbj-wanted-the-uss-liberty-to-sink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=198478","title":{"rendered":"The Truth of Why LBJ Wanted the USS Liberty to Sink"},"content":{"rendered":"

Getting Israel to Help Ensure His Reelection \u2014 A Thumbnail Version<\/span><\/a><\/h2>\n

Phillip F. Nelson \u2013 Lew Rockwell.com Nov 26, 2019<\/h1>\n
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USS Liberty receives assistance from units in the 6th Fleet after being attacked by Israeli forces off the Sinai Peninsula on June 8, 1967. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

A Look Behind the Scenes, showing how LBJ Moved his Pawns \u2013 including the men aboard the\u00a0<\/strong>USS Liberty<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u2013 on a Global Chessboard as he Schemed to Win Reelection in 1968<\/strong>. And the Four Faces of Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas \u2013 Simultaneously counseling LBJ, liaising with Israel, and member pro tempore of the National Security Council.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Excerpted \/ reedited for context, from\u00a0Remember the Liberty<\/span><\/em>!<\/a>)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

LBJ Proclaims Himself \u201cKing of the World\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One instance of how Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s delusions surfaced occurred in 1965, while flying high on Air Force One, when he proclaimed to several reporters on board that he had become the most powerful man in the world, as he announced to them that he was basically now the \u201cKing of the World.\u201d Johnson had invited four reporters from the press pool into his suite to share cocktails with him in his quarters. They were flying high above his domain, which was now the entire world. He was in an ebullient mood, and this phase of his mania was strengthened with each drink from his glass of Cutty Sark scotch.<\/span><\/p>\n

As he sat in his huge, elevated, custom-designed leather chair (the crew called it \u201cThe Throne,\u201d) with the reporters arrayed around him in their smaller cloth seats, he decided to remind this select group of reporters about how fortune had smiled on them that day, to be in the presence of the single most important person in the world. Suddenly, Johnson declared, \u201cLook around the world: Khrushchev\u2019s gone. Macmillan\u2019s gone. Adenauer\u2019s gone. Segni\u2019s gone. Nehru\u2019s gone. Who\u2019s left \u2013 de Gaulle?\u2019\u2019 AP reporter Frank Cormier said that Johnson sneered as he uttered the French president\u2019s name:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThen, leaning back in his massive \u2018throne chair,\u2019 LBJ thumped his chest in Tarzan fashion and loudly bellowed, \u2018I am the King!\u201d[1<\/span>]<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Lyndon Johnson was known, arguably more so than any other president, as one who moved his subordinates \u2014 like a King moved pawns \u2014 into other positions as it suited his future needs. This was illustrated by\u00a0such examples as Arthur Goldberg<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, who in 1965 had been happy to have a safe and secure position on the Supreme Court, until LBJ decided he needed to have him become the ambassador to the U.N. That was because of Johnson\u2019s awareness of Goldberg\u2019s strong attachment to Israel, and its Zionist leadership, which would become a great need when an operation \u2014 that would become known as the 1967 \u201cSix Day War\u201d \u2014 was then being planned, and would suddenly materialize two years later.<\/span><\/p>\n

Questions Posed by Nicholas deB. Katzenbach 40 Years After-the-Fact<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Nicholas Katzenbach, who was moved by President Johnson from the Justice Department and appointed as an assistant secretary of state a few months before the\u00a0Liberty\u00a0<\/em>attack, may have inadvertently exposed revealing clues as to what was really going on behind the scenes during the Six Day War and the USS\u00a0Liberty\u00a0<\/em>attack on June 8, 1967.\u00a0 Within his 2008 memoir,\u00a0Some of It Was Fun: Working with RFK and LBJ<\/em>, he cited a number of points that still concerned him, over forty years later, which had never made sense to him.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no indication that Katzenbach had any foreknowledge of the attack, in fact, there are numerous indications that he was nowhere near being \u201cin the loop.\u201d \u00a0He stated that most administration officials, including Navy personnel, did not believe the Israeli explanation that it was \u201ca case of mistaken identity.\u201d And he acknowledged that Johnson accepted the apology for political reasons, but felt that Israel should have offered the families \u201cgenerous compensation,\u201d with an implicit understanding that they would be reimbursed. Moreover, Katzenbach admitted that the State Department had angered many in the Jewish community through its issuance of a statement of neutrality, which was considered in retrospect as unwise.[2<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

That \u201cneutrality statement\u201d began during a State Department briefing when some of the officials became giddy over Israel\u2019s successes. As described by Grace Halsell in her article, \u201cHow LBJ\u2019s Vietnam War Paralyzed His Mideast Policymakers\u201d: \u201cWith a wide smile, Eugene Rostow said, \u2018Gentlemen, gentlemen, do not forget that we are neutral in word, thought and deed\u2019.\u201d[3<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Shortly thereafter, press spokesman Robert J. McCloskey repeated those words for reporters. This statement caused much consternation among the Israeli leadership and within the White House. According to the memoirs of Joseph Califano, the reason it was such a \u201cpolitical problem [that] reached white heat\u201d was because it could be interpreted as an invocation of the Neutrality Act, which meant that Israelis would be constrained from raising money in the United States and that might prevent the United States from shipping supplies to Israel. Califano said that Abe Fortas was among those who expressed concern to him about that issue, however it was in the context of his having \u201cdeep reservations\u201d that it applied.[4<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Behind the Scenes at the \u201c303 Committee\u201d \u2013 April, 1967<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Abe Fortas, a sitting Supreme Court justice, was also simultaneously serving in three other unofficial positions: as one of Johnson\u2019s primary advisers, as a liaison between Johnson and Israeli leaders, and attending meetings of the National Security Council, thereby becoming directly involved in the planning of the Six-Day War. The paradox created by Justice Fortas, in facilitating President Johnson\u2019s efforts to subvert constitutional, legal, moral and ethical rules of conduct, and assisting the president to commit U.S. military might to support a war of aggression by a U.S. ally on its neighbors, should not go unnoticed, as it has inherently proven to have been the case for some five decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even as he played these multiple roles, he seemed oblivious to the innate conflict of interests they invoked. Fortas had previously been Johnson\u2019s personal lawyer for over twenty years, including having played a primary role in Johnson\u2019s theft of the 1948 senatorial election and being his chief collaborator in the months after JFK\u2019s assassination \u2013 to squelch the multiple Senate investigations into Johnson\u2019s criminal past. Throughout all of it, he was a personal witness to Johnson\u2019s long history of criminal activity, clearly becoming one of Johnson\u2019s primary enablers\/sycophants.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Nascent Plot to Sink the USS Liberty<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Damaged USS Liberty in port<\/p><\/div>\n

As detailed in my book\u00a0Remember the Liberty<\/em>, preparations for the attack on the USS Liberty were delegated by Johnson to the \u201c303 Committee,\u201d \u2013 a sub-group of the National Security Council named for the elegant corner office of the Executive Office Building where it met. It was located physically next door to the White House, but figuratively an extension of it, reserved as a second office assigned to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [JCS]. According to Richard Helms, that committee was \u201c\u2026 simply a device for examining covert operations of any kind, and making a judgment on behalf of the president, so he wouldn\u2019t be \u2018nailed\u2019 with the thing if it failed.\u201d[5]<\/strong>\u00a0 But under Johnson, the function of the group was much more proactive in creating plans than merely reviewing the products of others.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1967, the \u201c303 committee\u201d was composed of the under secretary of state for political affairs (Foy D. Kohler, formerly the ambassador to the Soviet Union), the deputy secretary of defense (Cyrus Vance), the CIA director (Richard Helms), the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (General Earle Wheeler) and the President\u2019s national security adviser (Walt Rostow). This committee controlled all covert CIA operations.[6]<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless of its name, or the president, the committee was always directly under the control of the president to whom it served, and was, therefore, as James Reston, the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>columnist observed, \u201cabove even the Joint Chiefs of Staff \u2026 charged with approving intelligence missions all over the world.\u201d[7]<\/strong>\u00a0Clearly, and implicitly it should be noted as well, it was also above the CIA and its director, who also served on it as merely one of its members.<\/span><\/p>\n

The preponderance of the evidence indicates that the 303 Committee\u2019s planning, in collaboration with Israeli leadership, for Israel\u2019s war with her neighbors (beginning shortly after the 1964 election[8<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a>), included a sub-plot to have Israel attack the USS\u00a0Liberty<\/em>\u00a0which was added at Johnson\u2019s direction, for purposes that only a deluded and psychotic mind could conjure: By sacrificing his own ship and all the men aboard, through an attack by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) \u2014 but putting the blame on Egypt \u2014 he could join Israel in its war, kill his hated enemy Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, and win the approbation of voters who had come to dislike him for his handling of Vietnam, thereby ensuring another landslide election in 1968.<\/span><\/p>\n

And LBJ\u2019s psychosis is well documented \u2014 though not openly discussed in \u201cpolite social settings\u201d or anywhere within the \u201cmainstream media\u201d \u2014 through statements from people who observed him in meltdowns: During much of his presidency, including especially the run-up to the\u00a0Liberty<\/em>\u00a0incident, President Johnson suffered many instances of such a tortured mind-set \u2014 including numerous instances of psychotic behavior \u2014 as described by several of his former aides, military officers or others who had the misfortune of serving him as detailed below.\u00a0[9<\/strong><\/span>]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Together with Israeli representatives, the men on the \u201c303 Committee\u201d created a plan called \u201cFrontlet 615\u201d [i.e. staged for June 15] that included a number of subparts, one of which establishes that these plans began their development no later than the last quarter of 1964 or the earliest months of 1965, since elements of the larger plan were already operational in the latter part of 1965.[10]<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Proof of the involvement of the 303 Committee in planning the operation was inexplicably exposed by the LBJ Library in what appeared to be a series of inadvertent errors. As described by Wikipedia (though they missed the significance of their finding):\u00a0[11]<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n