Statement of the Honorable Dean Rusk Secretary of State
All matters not directly related to the USS Liberty have been removed.
Assault on the Liberty
The Chairman. Here is a letter about it.
Senator Hickenlooper. I didn't know about this letter.
The Chairman. This man wrote a letter----
Senator Lausche. Are you two having a private conversation?
The Chairman. No, it is about a Liberty Ship. He started to ask and I thought maybe he would like to see it.
Senator Hickenlooper. He told me I had bad breath. [Laughter]
Secretary Rusk. I was just informed, Mr. Chairman, after my arrival back in Washington this morning, that the report of the Naval Court of Inquiry has now been received, and that the Department of Defense will make public this afternoon a summary of that report.
I have not had a chance, myself, to see it or to study it, but the two opening paragraphs of the summary are as follows:
A Navy Court of Inquiry has determined that USS Liberty was in international waters, properly marked as to her identity and nationality, and in calm, clear weather when she suffered an unprovoked attack by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats June 8, in the eastern Mediterranean. The court produced evidence that the Israeli armed forces had ample opportunity to identify Liberty correctly. The Court had insufficient information before it to make a judgment on the response for the decision by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats to attack.
Now, we have given the Israelis a very stiff note on this subject. When we get the results of the inquiry and some estimates of the damage and the compensation required, we expect to be filing for full compensation as is customary in such cases.
It is my understanding that it is considered to be an accidental attack insofar as the intent of the Israeli government is concerned.
The Chairman. The government, as distinguished from----
Israeli Investigation of the Incident
Senator Hickenlooper. How about the people who ran the attacking ships?
Secretary Rusk. They are themselves conducting a companion inquiry into it, and the Israeli military advocate general is holding a preliminary judicial inquiry by a legally qualified judge who is empowered by law to decide on the committal for trial of any person.
So it looks as though that indicates that they think there may be some culpability on the part of individuals who might have been involved in this attack.
Senator Hickenlooper. What does the investigation show? The rumor, and statements we have had thus far, indicate that Israeli planes made two or three passes over the ship as much as at least 30 minutes or more before the attack occurred at a low altitude apparently for the purpose of identification of the ship. Also that at least one torpedo boat of the Israelis came up very close to the ship before the attack was made, and then backed away, and then fired at the ship.
Secretary Rusk. Again, I don't consider myself a very expert witness on this point at the moment, Senator, but I do see here on the summary that I have in front of me: "The Court heard witnesses testify to significant surveillance of the Liberty on three separate occasions from the air at various times prior to the attack, five hours and 13 minutes before the attack, three hours and 7 minutes before the attack and two hours and 37 minutes before the attack. Inasmuch as this,'' that is the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry, ``was not an international investigation, no evidence was presented on whether any of these aircraft had identified Liberty or whether they had passed any information on Liberty to their own higher headquarters.''
You see, we do not have in front of our own Naval Court of Inquiry Israeli personnel or officers or anything of that sort so the Court of Inquiry under those circumstances could not, I suppose, properly make a finding on that point.
Surveillance of Ship Prior to Attack
Senator Hickenlooper. Anyway, they did establish from whatever testimony they had, they established the fact that the passes had been made over this ship?
Secretary Rusk. That there was significant surveillance of the Liberty on three separate occasions.
Senator Hickenlooper. Three separate occasions as much as two hours before?
Senator Williams. Five hours.
Senator Hickenlooper. Five hours; two hours.
Secretary Rusk. Five hours, three and two and a-half.
Senator Hickenlooper. Over this ship, five, three and two and a-half over this ship.
Incidentally, this lad who gave this interview in the New York Post is from my home country, Palo, Iowa.
The Chairman. Is he bound to be a straightforward, honest virtuous fellow?
Senator Hickenlooper. Yeoman Brownfield is his name.
This is the first I have seen of this story.
Senator Lausche. Was he a man on the ship?
Senator Hickenlooper. Yes, he is a yeoman on the ship.
Secretary Rusk. I think I should add here, I see also in this same paragraph this statement by the Court, our own Court:
“It was not the responsibility of the Court to rule on the culpability of the attackers and no evidence was heard from the attacking nation. Witnesses suggested that the flag,” that is the U.S. flag, “may have been difficult for the attackers to see, both because of the slow speed of the ship and because after five or six separate air attacks by at least two planes each, smoke and flames may have helped obscure the view from the motor torpedo boats.”
Senator Hickenlooper. Well, the time to identify the flag was before they shot.
Secretary Rusk. Yes. Whether the flag was out or limp on its mast, that is part of the point they were talking about here.
But I haven't had a chance to study it, Senator, and I wouldn't want to----
Senator Hickenlooper. Well, I hope we get a full report on this, because I can't help but draw the conclusion at this moment, subject to such evidence as may develop later, that all of the known facts, at least to me, indicate that they were either blind or utterly stupid, or they deliberately identified this ship and deliberately attacked it with the purpose of sinking it, and I think in any event, it is very bad.
Defining Indemnification
Senator Mundt. Will the Senator yield on that point?
Senator Hickenlooper. Yes.
Senator Mundt. When you say you sent them a stiff note to ask for indemnification, in international parlance is that just asking them to restore the ship or pay some kind of indemnity to the families of the people killed?
Secretary Rusk. My understanding is it is indemnity of personnel as well.
Senator Hickenlooper. You have not gone through that so I will not attempt to have you do it piecemeal on that.
Secretary Rusk. There will be a statement made by the Department of Defense today, and I have no doubt full information can be made available to this committee.
The Chairman. Senator Pell, do you have a question?
Senator Pell. Yes.
Taking the Incident to the World Court
Following up Senator Mundt's question there, you have no idea as to the amount of indemnity of people killed? I have a constituent killed there.
Secretary Rusk. No. I do not have any information on that at the present time. There is considerable practice on that point. I just do not know what it is. I am not sufficiently informed at the present moment.
Senator Pell. Another question in connection with the Israeli crisis: Would there be any possibility or any merit to the idea of advocating a position of referring these points of issue between Israel and the Arab nations to--some of them at least--to the World Court for an advisory opinion, to put it on ice for a little bit? It would give each side an opportunity to make its arguments and give each side a face-saving excuse to accept retrenching to a degree.
Secretary Rusk. The possibility of referring the Strait of Tiran to the World Court was considered and discussed internationally before the fighting started, and the great difficulty there was that we could not get an agreement on the status quo during the appeal to the World Court. Would the strait be open or not while the matter was before the Court?
There is a second aspect to it and that is from a purely legal point of view, if Egypt went to the Court and said, ``We are in a state of war with Israel, and the closing of the strait'' is an exercise of our rights of belligerence,'' that would have been a very strong position in the Court as a matter of law.
So I think that on that particular point we are better off today than we would have been in referring it to the Court because I think we are going to get the strait open.
Senator Pell. Right.
Actually, from a conversation with the Department of Justice, I understand even if it is not a state of belligerency we are on thin ice so far as the straits.
Secretary Rusk. Quite frankly, our own estimate on that, given the composition of the Court, our own estimate on that is that a decision either way might be an 8 to 7 decision and that is not a very encouraging prospect in order to resolve a problem that is a cassus belli to one side and a very inflammable issue to the other.
Senator Mundt. We have that every week.
The Chairman. Every Monday morning.
[Whereupon, at 11:55, the committee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Thursday, June 29, 1967.]