LETTER TO THE HONORABLE GEORGE BUSH FROM CARL MARCY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79M00467A001300010014-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 3, 2005
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: October 19, 1976
• Content Type: LETTER

Approver Release 2005/06/08: CIA-RDP7967A001300010014 M,,,
AT
CARL MARCY
ATTORNEY AT LAW
LEGISLATIVE CONSULTANT
The Honorable George Bush, Director
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505
October 19, 1976
Attention: Freedom of Information Officer
Dear Mr. Director:
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act, as amended,
(5 U.S.C. Sec. 552) on behalf of my client the American Palestine
Committee.
I request a copy of each communication, document, memorandum, memorandum
of conversation, or other material in the files of the Central Intelligence
Agency relating directly or indirectly to the attack on the USS LIBERTY on
June 8, 1967. The period of time covered in this request would begin in
May 1967 when the LIBERTY was ordered to leave its post off the coast of
West Africa and proceed to the Eastern Mediterranean. Documents,
memoranda, and communications which relate to the LIBERTY incident which
may be dated prior to May are also covered in this request, however.
To enable the Agency in its search for the full documentation of this
incident, I enclose copies of two articles by Anthony Pearson concerning
the attack on the LIBERTY which appeared in Penthouse magazine. There are
frequent references in these articles to the activities of the CIA and to
conversations in which CIA personnel participated.
The amended Freedom Of Information Act provides that if some parts
of the material requested are exempt from release, reasonably segregable
portions shall be provided. If for some reason portions of the material
which is now ten years old are determined to be exempt under provisions
of the Act, please inform me which material you believe is so exempt, and
why.
I am prepared to pay reasonable costs for locating the material requested
and reproducing it. The amended Act permits the waiver of fees if found
in the public interest. I hope the agency will make that finding as I
believe the public has a right to know the full facts relating to the
attack on the American naval vessel, the LIBERTY, which resulted in a
heavy loss of life.
As provided in the amended Act, I will expect to receive a reply within
ten working days. Should you have any questions regarding this request,
please phone me at my office.
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The Department of the Navy has provided me with most of the
proceedings of the Naval Board of Inquiry in this case, but it is
clear that those proceedings did not consider the foreign policy
implications of'the incident, which I now seek.
Enc. Articles by Anthony Pearson
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 During the Six-Day War of 1967 a U.S. spy ship was
attacked-in international waters and with devastat-
ing effect by Israeli planes and torpedo boats. Al-
though Israel claimed the attack was a mistake and
the United States publicly-accepted this explanation,
both parties knew it was lie. Here is the true story of
what happened on that day-and why it happened.
BYANTHONY PEARSON
Daybreak of June 8, 1967, was one of those mornings when the
sunrise came vivid and warm, when there was little wind, and the
sounds of battle had faded during the very last hours of darkness
into an almost silent dawn. This was the third morning of the third ' I"
Arab-Israeli war, which had begun at 7:45 AM. on June 5 with the _
destruction of the Egyptian it Force by Israeli planes.
By June 8, the war correspondents who had witnessed the dra-
matic capture of the Old City of Jerusalem and who had followed
the Israeli paratroopers against the Jordanian Legion were all
beginning to-appreciate the efficient tactical and destructive pow-
erof Moshe Dayan'swarmachine. The battleshad been landfought.
The Egyptians had concentrated their warships in the Red Sea
to support the blockade of the Straits of Tiran. The Russian Navy
had a strong presence in the Mediterranean, but Soviet interfer-
ence was blocked by the .American' Sixth Fleet, which had moved
closer to the theater of war some two days before the fighting ac-
tually began.
Probably the heaviest close-order battles had been fought in
the previous two days as the Israelis threw their crack paratroop-
ers against the Jordanian Legion. On June 7, Jerusalem fell and
by ten o'clock that night, the conquest of Jordan was complete. It
was an amazing achievement of arms. We correspondents who
had followed the Israeli soldiers through it could only marvel.
There were questions, of course. On June 8, as the Israeli push
consolidated the conquest of the West Bank. I wondered, as did
many other correspondents, why the Jordanian Legion had con-
tinued to fight in what was so clearly a lost cause. At the time, the
answer was known only to officials at the highest levels of the
Israeli and American governments. The Israelis, of course, were on
the scene. The Americans received their information from a com-
munications ship, the U.S.S. Liberty-whose fantastic intelligence-
gathering capability was soon to be her undoing.
On the morning of June 8; the Liberty was steaming slowly off the
Sinai Peninsula in a calm blue sea. The Liberty was no fighting ship.
She was a converted civilian freighter, built in the late 1940's, but
faster than most ships of her class (her top capability being eighteen
knots), and armed with a complicated system of radio antennae
including a "Big Ear" sonar-radio listening device with a clear capa-
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Approved For Release 2005/06/08 : CIA-RDP79M00467AO01300010014-2